Body Politic

With so many homeowners and businesses making greener energy choices, private utilities — along with big oil, gas, coal, and nuclear companies — see the writing on the wall.

Unlike some other denizens of the fossil-fueled set, this gang isn’t beating oil wells into solar panels, retiring nuclear reactors, or embracing wind and geothermal power. Instead, these guys are trying to coax lawmakers into rigging the rules against increasingly competitive new energy alternatives.

For the first time since 1997, the U.S. economy just added at least 200,000 jobs per month for six months running. GDP grew at a 4 percent annual clip between April and June. The percentage of Americans who describe the economy as “good” has climbed to the highest level of President Barack Obama’s presidency.

Who wouldn’t rejoice over these happy milestones on the bumpy road to a real recovery?

How much longer will it take before the United States declares a truce in the Drug War? This latter-day prohibition is taking an immense toll. And most Americans don’t want to jail those caught with small amounts of pot.

But it takes some courage to speak up. So thank you, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, for joining the swelling chorus that wants to see marijuana legalized. “The distinction between marijuana and alcoholic beverages is really not much of a distinction,” Stevens said during an interview with NPR’s Scott Simon in April.

It’s hard to get your mind wrapped around Russia’s annexation of Crimea and seizure of Ukrainian military bases there. It was — and many Ukrainians say still is — part of a neighboring sovereign country until mid-March.

And it seemed like Europe had transcended that kind of old-school warmongering.

Just two years back, the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to the European Union for ending such conflict on its own turf and “for over six decades (contributing) to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.”

Easy come, easy go.