Columnists

On education, Southern Nevada is ‘a state apart’: Sunday, May 5, 2013; OTHER VOICES:; Andres Ramirez; Last month, Nevada introduced its new marketing slogan: “A World Within. A State Apart.” While the tagline’s value as a tool for economic development and tourism is debatable, it does offer a fitting description of how the state prioritizes K-12 and higher education between Northern and Southern Nevada.

Pro-austerity CEOs rake in taxpayer money: Sunday, May 5, 2013; OTHER VOICES:; Sarah Anderson; Laurence Fink, the 60-year-old CEO of Wall Street money manager BlackRock Inc., wants the retirement age raised to 70. In one TV interview, he explained that we could all wait a few more years before collecting Social Security because most of us have jobs where we just “sit around.”

Why judicial activism matters: Sunday, May 5, 2013; OTHER VOICES:; George Will; Under today’s regulatory state, which Madison could hardly have imagined, the legislature, although still a source of much mischief, is not the principal threat to liberty.

Anger after the explosion’s fallout: Sunday, May 5, 2013; Where I Stand:; By Brian Greenspun; On this weekend’s 25th anniversary of the explosion at the PEPCON industrial plant — a mighty blast that killed two people, injured several hundred and blew out windows throughout the valley — I am ceding my normal column space to my late father, Hank Greenspun, who was the editor and publisher of the Sun at the time.

A better way to track a bomber: Saturday, May 4, 2013; OTHER VOICES:; Tom Zoellner and Sam Kleiner; The mayhem in Boston the week of April 15 was a reminder of how an American city can be paralyzed by a homemade bomb. The same kinds of improvised explosive devices that menaced U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan can easily be deployed by freelance terrorists or madmen trying to send a message, incite panic or just create a media spectacle.

When profiling becomes a real menace: Saturday, May 4, 2013; OTHER VOICES:; Clarence Page; Some media found the possibility that foreign terrorists bombed the Boston Marathon to be too tantalizing an explanation to pass up, even when it snares the wrong suspects.

It’s hard to talk to kids about sex and money: Saturday, May 4, 2013; OTHER VOICES:; Susan Reimer; It’s as hard to talk to your 20-somethings about money as it is talk to them about sex. Maybe harder.

Dollar coin could save taxpayers billions: Friday, May 3, 2013; OTHER VOICES:; Tim Penny and Jim Kolbe; The Obama administration last week released its budget proposal for 2014 but neglected to heed the advice of Congress’ own budget watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, to modernize our one-dollar currency.

Reacting, or overreacting, to terror: Friday, May 3, 2013; OTHER VOICES:; Michael Smerconish; When the Boston Globe conducted an online discussion of whether the lockdown of the city during the hunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was overkill, one of its columnists, Lawrence Harmon, weighed in: "Friday’s lockdown was more than an abundance of caution. It was an overreaction. Hundreds of millions of dollars were lost to the local economy. Yet authorities urged some Dunkin’ Donuts stores to remain open for the convenience of officers ."

Bottoms up, lame duck: Friday, May 3, 2013; OTHER VOICES:; Maureen Dowd; During the 2012 campaign, the president and his top advisers liked to make the argument that if he was re-elected, the “fever” would break. Washington would no longer be the graveyard of progress, the crypt of consensus. Once dystopian Republicans accepted that President Barack Obama was not running again, they would start cooperating with him.

The luv guv's last stand: Friday, May 3, 2013; OTHER VOICES:; Gail Collins; Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s fight for post-Appalachian Trail forgiveness ends Tuesday with a big congressional election. The focus, of course, is on issues, issues, issues.

We're living in a 401(k) world: Thursday, May 2, 2013; OTHER VOICES:; Thomas Friedman; It’s hard to have a conversation today with any worker, teacher, student or boss who doesn’t tell you some version of this: More things seem to be changing in my world than ever before, but I can’t quite put my finger on it, let alone know how to adapt.

Obama's second-term blues: Thursday, May 2, 2013; OTHER VOICES:; Clarence Page; Was President Barack Obama really joking at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner? Or was he showing, as I suspect, early signs of the second-term blues?

Gun control is only a matter of time: Thursday, May 2, 2013; OTHER VOICES:; Joshua Green; Although overshadowed by the Boston Marathon attacks, the low point of Barack Obama’s presidency may have come when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid bowed to the reality of a Republican filibuster and tabled the bipartisan Toomey-Manchin bill to broaden gun background checks