Can Baggers Be Choosers? (at TFPO)

Culver City's City Council will vote on Monday on whether or not to ban plastic bags. Naturally, it has created quite the debate. Here's a round-up of op-ed pieces at The Front Page Online, culminating in my own contribution:

• Plastic Bag Bans Are Killing Californians, It Says Here by John Kuechle
• It’s in the Bag – That Is What City Hopes Plastic Bag Ban Is and Hopefully, the City Council Will Be as Wise as San Clemente’s by TFPO's editor, Ari Noonan
• Single-use Plastic Bag Is Far More Practical by Goran Eriksson

And mine:

If nothing else, the proposed ban on plastic bags has ignited a much-needed public discussion on our environmental impact, with a focus on two issues: Public health and resource management. The most pressing question that arises is this: Do you wash your underwear?

Read the rest here:  Can Baggers Be Choosers?

What do you think? To ban or not to ban?

a debate that's out of (gun) control (at TFPO)

A topic so big, it took two parts for me to (barely) scratch the surface.

Part 1

In discussing gun rights and gun control, let’s begin with a clarification: While gun bans can be elements of gun control policy, the reverse isn't necessarily true. Gun control is, by definition, a set of policies intended to manage the ownership and use of firearms. Inconveniently, perhaps, for gun rights ideologues, the very idea of gun control begins the moment we...

Part 2

Another understandable, albeit less reasonable, concern on the part of the gun lobby is the worry that arises from requiring universal background checks, an idea that strikes gun rights advocates like the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre as equivalent to a gun registry. If the government knows who has guns, the argument goes, they will know where to go to confiscate those guns. But let’s consider the conceptual difference between a universal background check and a gun registry...