Seattle Times Editorial, Friday, Feb. 17, 2006
By Ronald R. Thomas

After the torch at the 2004 Summer Olympics was extinguished, we learned that more than $1.2 billion was spent on security. This extraordinary expenditure — over four times the amount spent at any previous Olympics — came in the absence of any specific threat to attack the Games. The remarkable fact is not that we heard so much about security at the 2004 Olympics, but that we had not heard more about it before.

First published in the Seattle Times on September 7, 2004
By Ronald R. Thomas
Special to The Times

When the mythical Ulysses returns home to Ithaca after celebrated exploits in the wide world, he realizes — and resists the knowledge — that the greatest challenge of his talent is that of leadership in his own city.