The murders in Newtown have aroused a nation to reflection and action. In the short term, measures to ban assault weapons are of the highest priority. Whether such a ban would have prevented the mass shooting in Newtown or others, I do not know. However, the conversation and effort seems to be justified by prudent common sense.

Beyond issues related to gun control, broader questions are being raised concering mental health, violent video games, violent movies and a general cultural brutishness that may create the conditions for increased violent outbursts in our society.

There may be some justification for rising …

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The Republicans are in a feeding frenzy over who to blame for the losses of the Nov. 6 election. Some Republicans are targeting Hispanics and want to “change their message to them.”

These Republicans need to view “illegal immigrants” as decent, hard-working human beings who deserve respect. They need to care about their needs instead of looking at them as “numbers” for the next election.

Republicans don’t understand what most Americans care about: jobs, education for their children, health care and women’s right to control their own bodies. Until Republicans decide to work on solutions to our real problems, instead …

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Tuesday night’s debate between 30th Legislative District candidates Roger Flygare and Linda Kochmar demonstrated clear differences between the two.

Kochmar, despite claiming that she would make tough choices, repeatedly said she would abide by the will of the voters on a wide range of issues. Apparently, she is unwilling to take principled positions on thorny issues, so one must ask why she wishes to represent us.

Flygare did not equivocate. His positions were clearly laid out.

Kochmar’s willingness to defer issues of rights to a popular vote is particularly troubling. Had the electorate been asked, we might not have ended …

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After watching most of the Republican and all of the Democratic speeches from both conventions, I am amazed that everyone seems to be overly concerned about the economy and little else.

I’m retired, low-income (read poor) and I’m not worried about the economy nearly as much as what we may lose if the Republicans are elected in 2012. From their speeches it seems that the GOP wants women to be transported back to the 1950s, gays to just shut up and get back into the closet, and all minorities to quit being uppity and remember their place.

If the GOP …

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The 2012 Republican platform includes language regarding statutory rape: “We seek to protect young girls from exploitation through a parental consent requirement.” The policy is to ensure that underage girls cannot receive birth control, get prenatal care or end a pregnancy without the permission of a parent.

The reality is that the relationships in dysfunctional families provide little or no protection for abused children. These are horrible situations, and young persons cannot safely find counsel within the family if they are being abused within the home.

Conservative Republicans refuse to acknowledge the terrifying reality that women and girls get pregnant …

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Michael Smerconish urges Mitt Romney to challenge the Republican Party’s rigid plank on abortion and insist that there should be an exception for rape (TNT, 8-29). Romney needs an “exception” because he doesn’t challenge the platform’s philosophical underpinning – that “life begins at conception.”

In my view, that core principle needs to be challenged. Women should have broad control over early term abortion without exception because the creation of man cannot be reduced to a mere biological event. The majesty and mystery of human life is trivialized when we equate man with a single call – the equivalent of …

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Re: “McKenna says he supports abortion rights” (TNT, 8-24).

How refreshing to find a candidate for high public office who stands by the will of the people and not the position of a political party. Evidently, Rob McKenna is willing to brave angering the Republican Party by supporting abortion rights – clearly not the position of the Republican Party – simply because the people in the state of Washington have spoken.

Can it really be true that we now have the chance to elect a candidate who will be the people’s governor, who wants to fix our state’s problems …

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Re: “Akin’s ignorance puts focus on GOP’s ‘war on women’” (Eugene Robinson column, 8-21).

Everyone is running away from Todd Akin’s comment (that rape rarely leads to pregnancy), but it does contain a kernel of truth.

No one seems to recall that zoologist Desmond Morris made a similar point in his book, “The Naked Ape.” He thought that the evolution of intense emotional human pair bonding fostered modes of physical intimacy that enhanced the probability of fertilization, such as the couple lying together after copulation instead of the woman walking or running away.

Although it may not be germane …

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