Washington Post

A century ago, great fortunes derived from private control over oil, coal and steel -- the essential inputs to mass industrial production. Today the American people collectively own the most valuable resource in the emerging information economy: the airwaves, also known as the electromagnetic spectrum.

Gary Payne and Jeremy Taylor are two Wall Street types who work for trading companies in, respectively, Kansas City and Houston. Their daily routine is familiar to speculative traders everywhere: They wake up early to get a jump on the markets, read the industry papers, take a look at their companies' trading portfolios, and log onto their Bloomberg terminals to see who's buying and who's selling. But they do not trade in stocks, bonds, currencies or even pork bellies.

The recent Post series documenting Prince George's County police as among the most brutal in the nation exposes a long-hidden truth: A racially diverse police force under the command of black elected officials is no guarantee against police violence.

The unraveling of Macedonia is a humanitarian crisis with great strategic and historical significance. What happens in the squalid, grimy streets of Macedonian villages now directly affects the future expansion of NATO that President Bush has spoken so eloquently about.

While two years have passed since Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's rampage through Columbine High School, the memory of their act continues to influence the national debate on school safety and discipline. Unfortunately, the panic created by Columbine and other highly publicized school shootings threatens to undermine rational educational policy.

Sometimes, it's easier to see the full implications of some of our race-related social problems by looking at them not directly but with our peripheral vision. Sometimes it's the ripples that tell the story and not the rock that set them in motion.

For all their scoffing at former president Clinton's "I feel your pain" oversentimentality, Republicans seem to have fallen prey to the same affliction. One can't help wondering, though, about this sudden respectful compassion for certain blacks in the wake of a divisive election and a weakened Democratic Party.

The current concern about those who serve in the military -- especially their pay and quality of life -- is a good thing, but also a little misguided in places. Sure, defending America is not a job to be foisted by the better-off and well connected onto the low-paid help. But unfortunately, the widespread ignorance about military life in a society where we don't have the draft anymore makes informed discussion of the subject difficult.

In early 1945, 20-year-old Christopher Columbus Kraft, just graduated from Virginia Tech with a BS in aeronautical engineering, was eager to do his part in the war effort. Disqualified from military service by a childhood injury, he went to work instead for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) at Langley Field, Va. An epoch -- the rise and fall of the space program -- lay ahead of him.

As the first president since the election of 1888 to assume the helm after having lost the popular vote, President George W. Bush has made great efforts to reach out to a range of constituencies. But there's one crucial interest group from whose ranks Bush has yet to name a high-profile appointment: Wall Street. His failure to do so is somewhat puzzling and potentially troubling.