While giving birth at a small hospital in central Tennessee, Whitney Brown developed terrible breathing problems and seizures. The medical staff in McMinnville decided she needed the attention of specialists at a big hospital in Chattanooga. It took nearly two hours to get her there. Despite the new team’s heroic efforts, the 28-year-old died shortly […]
Froma Harrop
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
President Trump’s top advisers can still shock
An insane woman was madly swinging her pocketbook at strangers on the street. No one tried to shame or reason with her. They knew she was unwell and needed to be removed by responsible parties. In a similar vein, I’ve stopped expressing shock at things Donald Trump says, tweets and does. His is a cracked […]
advertisement
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Data-collecting products put end to privacy
Privacy advocates cried in protest after a report that the maker of the Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner, will sell maps of customers’ homes to third parties. Investors, on the other hand, shouted buy orders for the company’s stock. Data has become the gold nugget buried in things and services connected to the internet. A […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
British solidarity led to health care policy
The movie “Dunkirk” recounts an astounding story of courage and self-sacrifice, without which Hitler might have won World War II. One can draw a straight line from Britain’s heroic solidarity in the war to the welfare state that emerged in peacetime. Set in 1940, the movie features two sets of heroes. One is the military […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Suicide epidemic: Social, economic or both?
Ours is a nation in despair. U.S. suicide rates have surged to a 30-year high, and it’s not just among struggling middle-aged whites. Suicides by girls age 10 to 14 have spiked over the last 18 years. And there’s been a shocking surge in children 17 or under dying from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Since 1999, […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
America’s misguided opposition to world trade
Donald Trump bragged that he would put America in the driver’s seat. He would keep us out of trade accords that let China swamp us with its products and take factory jobs away. Then he did the opposite. He pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. TPP was designed to help us compete against […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Learning to interpret a scientific study
Many women obsess over their risk for breast cancer. That’s why news media flash blazing headlines whenever a study suggests a link between breast cancer and some “exposure.” That’s why television news shows that rarely spare even five minutes for science of existential importance to humankind find time for this. A new report cites evidence […]
Posted inOp-Eds
French election sets example for U.S. centrists
When historians recount the downward spiral of Trumpian populism, they may very well start in France. As in the U.S., voters were crying for radical change. The French had a Trumpish option in nativist right-winger Marine Le Pen and, over at the far left, an old-school Trotskyist. But French voters gave victory instead to a […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Can Americans be happy again?
America is not a very happy place, and it is getting less so. Our downward trend in happiness precedes the election of Donald Trump, but sadly, there’s little in his agenda that would reverse this trend. That’s because a boost in economic growth, though nice, wouldn’t get to where the trouble is. Per capita income […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Campus liberals are too easy to bait
“Rising to the bait” is a fishing term. Anglers lure fish hiding in the deep by positioning bait on or near the surface. Fish that rise to the bait usually end up on someone’s dinner plate. Conservative groups routinely try this technique on college liberals. Their lure is an inflammatory right-wing speaker. The catch comes […]