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Covid stole my Dad’s final months
OPINION: Because of the pandemic, I couldn’t visit him in his nursing home, and because of his dementia he couldn’t understand why. Mismanagement of this crisis has failed the elderly and caused incalculable hurt. By Alison McCook 11.09.2020 On September 16, my father died. He lived the last six months of his life entirely cut off from his family and friends. That’s because he was one of the 1.3 million people living in nursing homes across the country. He didn’t have Covid-19, but even though the disease didn’t take his life, it took his time. It took his last months away from him, during which he couldn’t enjoy the relationships…
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‘Canceling’ Student Debt is Unfair to Graduates Like Me Who Sacrificed to Pay Off Our Loans
Matthew Noyes &emsp &emsp &emsp &emsp &emsp &emsp January 26, 2021 A year after graduating from college, I was able to pay off my student loans in full. Now, President Biden wants me to pay for my peers who have yet to do the same. Biden’s platform includes “student loan forgiveness” of at least $10,000 per person. Meanwhile, Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer have proposed $50,000 in debt forgiveness per individual. On its surface, this sounds generous. American student loan debt is nearing $1.6 trillion, and the cost of college is higher than ever. But what does this “forgiveness” entail on a moral level? Loans are not “forgiven”…
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Digital Text is Changing How Kids Read— Just Not in the Way That You Think
Holly Korbey Aug 21, 2018 After his bath each night, Julie Atkinson’s eight-year-old son grabs the iPad and settles into bed for some reading time through kids’ book app Epic! Though Atkinson and her husband were accustomed to reading to him, now their son explores different subjects on his own inside the app’s 25,000 titles, reading biographies, history and fiction all pre-selected for his reading level. Atkinson is impressed with Epic’s quality titles, and likes the recommendation feature that makes the monthly subscription service feel like Netflix. But Atkinson, who guesses that her…
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The World Series of the Apocalypse?
October 27, 2016 By Chris Lamb In it, Al Tiller, the manager of the Chicago Cubs, is haunted by a prophetic dream that the world will end if the Cubs defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League pennant. This puts Tiller in a bind: He must choose between momentary glory or the end of the world. Those familiar with the short story may have braced themselves on Oct.…
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A Teachers Union Shaped CDC School Guidance. Is That a Problem?
The influence of the union has prompted debate over its role in scientific decision making. BY HANNAH THOMASY June 10, 2021 WHEN THE U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued much-anticipated guidelines for school reopening in February, some critics argued that the nation’s premier health agency had set unreasonably strict standards for schools to follow. But the two largest teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, long hesitant about reopening schools amid the Covid-19 pandemic, rallied in support of the document. “For the first time since the start of this pandemic, we have a rigorous road map, based on science, that our members can…
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The Trump Card
by Gene Myers January 22, 2017 The following essay is not intended to either sway opinion, insult, or convert anyone to my thought process. It is simply an unfiltered opinion relating to recent national issues as analyzed by me. And who among humanity doesn’t want to hear my opinion? If not, read no further. Easy, huh? So, here we are months after the presidential vote, and a new leader has been installed. Still, most of what I see and hear on television / radio news shows, NPR, and read in print has to do with sobbing, complaining, swearing, and hand-wringing over the results. As much as I enjoy the asinine…
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The Freeway Flag
I was driving home today and saw a faded American flag hanging on a freeway bridge near Rancho Cucamonga. I figured it was probably from one of the local Marines that was killed last year in Kabul during our shameful exit from Afghanistan. So here’s my question: Why hasn’t anyone who played a part in this foreign policy disaster been fired? None of the high ranking military officers, cabinet secretaries, and other experienced officials were really held accountable for this debacle. Our military left billions of dollars in military equipment behind, abandoned a valuable airport, left Americans in Afghanistan, and the marines were killed on their watch. Nothing. I wonder…
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Held Back: Inside a Lost School Year
Thompson converted her daughters’ bedroom into a teaching space. Credit:Cydni Elledge, special to ProPublica Elledge, special to ProPublica Teacher Ashlee Thompson had a lot to worry about this year: A deadly virus. A poor district under threat by the state. And now, a new mandate for her students: Learn to read or flunk the third grade. Editor’s note: ProPublica obtained parents’ consent to feature their children in this story. Ashlee Thompson turned on her camera. At the other end of the screen one morning last September was a third grader she’d never taught. To assess his reading, Thompson showed the boy a string of letters. S B C He made a…
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Chivalry is not about opening doors, but protecting society’s most vulnerable from attack
March 23, 2021 8.32am EDT Author Jennifer Wollock Professor of English, Texas A&M University Modern society is in dispute over the value of chivalry. Chivalry originally referred to the medieval knight’s code of honor but today references a range of – usually male – behaviors, from courtesy to overprotectiveness. Some see it as the mindset of elite warriors, glorifying violence and demeaning women. Others see it as necessary and desirable to protect groups under attack. As a historian of literature who studies chivalry, I stand with the latter group. Rather than fostering misogynistic attitudes or overprotective behaviors that insult women, chivalry has been a liberating force from ancient times onward. Across many cultures it arises to…
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Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas
June 21, 2022 The rapid gains Republican women have made since 2018 could be a signal for how the party fares in this year’s midterms Mayra Flores was sworn in on Tuesday, becoming Texas’ first Republican Latina to join Congress. Flores’ victory also sets a new milestone: A historic high of 147 women overall and a record 41 Republican women now hold congressional seats, according to data from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University. Born in Mexico to migrant farmworkers, Flores is a first-time candidate who defeated her Democratic opponent this month in Texas’s 34th congressional district, which is historically Democratic. Flores’ addition to Congress…
