Opinion: In today’s pages: Are contractors in Iraq mercenaries or necessary partners?
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The editorial board explores racial tensions in Jena, La.:
Jena, La., has been portrayed by big-city reporters, who swarmed to the small town Thursday when it became the center of a racial protest, as a place caught in a time warp. African Americans, who make up about 12% of the town’s population of 3,000, live in their own neighborhood, are buried in their own cemetery and reportedly can’t even get their hair cut at the white barbershop. The Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have likened Jena to Selma, Ala., which became a national symbol of Jim Crow repression in the 1960s.Many white residents, meanwhile, find such criticism bewildering. To them, Jena is just a pleasant, friendly place to live and work. They say everything would be fine if all the media and outside protesters -- agitators, they would have been called in a not-so-bygone day -- would just clear out and leave them alone.The reality is probably somewhere in between.
The board says Dan Rather’s lawsuit is killing the cult of the anchor, and notes that campaign-money ‘bundlers’ should be subject to disclosures laws.
Columnist Rosa Brooks rails against the Bush adminstration’s auctioning off its war duties in Iraq, while Army Infantry captain Timothy K. Hsia says contractors are necessary to supplement over-stretched troops. Columnist Joel Stein reports back on his night at the Emmy Awards, and attorney Laine T. Wagenseller wonders if the city can zone away her love handles.
Readers respond to Republican senators’ refusal to change war strategy. Laguna Niguel’s Kurt Page says, ‘Another campaign slogan down the drain. ‘Family values’ is a goner, and now so is ‘support the troops.’’