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Carmona gagged

President George W. Bush's first surgeon general, Richard H. Carmona, told a congressional committee that top administration officials repeatedly squelched his efforts to express his views about such pressing health issues as contraception and sex education.

The Trib's take:

The Bush administration has long been accused of cooking the science books - suppressing and censoring reports on subjects like global warming and stem-cell research, for example.

Carmona, who served from 2002 to 2006, isn't the first surgeon general to feel political heat, nor will he be the last. The position is, after all, a political appointment.

Still, there is a difference between actively undermining the administration you work for and respectfully disagreeing with it.

It wouldn't have hurt the Bush White House to let Carmona have his say.

Global itching

Poison ivy is getting more poisonous. Research at Duke University and the Department of Agriculture shows that poison ivy revels in higher levels of carbon dioxide that are the signature of global warming.

The Trib's take:

For more than 80 percent of Americans - hikers, gardeners, kids at summer camp and golfers looking for lost balls - who are vulnerable to the nasty rash, this is not good news.

Researchers at Duke grew poison ivy in the carbon-dioxide levels expected around 2050 and found the plants were 30 percent more toxic and grew 149 percent faster. A USDA test showed the poison ivy of today is 50 percent to 75 percent larger and more toxic than the plants of the 1950s.

Global warming-caused floods, wildfires, droughts, killer storms and tsunamis are one thing, but oozing, itching, spreading rashes is quite another. We've got to uproot this problem before it gets us. You go first.

Keep D.C. short

A move is under way to abolish Washington, D.C.'s historic building-height limits - for all the usual reasons behind increased development, including the lure of increased tax revenues for the city.

The Trib's take:

The national capital lacks America's trademark skyscrapers because it imposes height limits on buildings. The result has been a spacious, airy, sunlit city with a low skyline punctuated by the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument.

The custom of height restrictions in the capital goes back to its founder, George Washington, and the open plan of Pierre L'Enfant, but it didn't become law until 1910. Since then, the height limit has effectively been 130 feet with some 160-foot exceptions.

The legend is that Congress wanted the 555-foot Washington Monument to remain the tallest building in the capital, and it did not want the 288-foot Capitol dome eclipsed by surrounding taller buildings.

Our national capital is a distinctive and quite beautiful city. Let's hope the residents, Congress, the tourists and the preservationists can keep it that way.