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We must be free within ourselves first

I was about to give a speech — I can’t remember when or even where — when this teacher brought a student up, hoping I could help her. The teacher was white, and her student was a black girl, perhaps 13 or so, of painfully shy demeanor and very dark skin. The woman told me the child thought she was ugly because of her sable complexion. Could I say something to encourage her? I was stunned. Is this true? I asked the girl. Eyes down, she nodded and whispered that it was. I have no memory of what I told her. I do remember feeling it wasn’t enough. Then the event began and I had to ...

A doctor’s view: Betraying ideals boosts suffering

Every time we think the humanitarian situation in Syria has bottomed out, it gets worse. More than 160,000 Syrians have been displaced so far in the new chapter of this crisis, and many more are expected to suffer. President Donald Trump’s abrupt and capricious decision to withdraw American troops from northern Syria is not the first betrayal of Syrians by our policymakers. Nor is it the first strategic blunder. As a physician and humanitarian who has spent nine years providing health care in Syria and other disaster zones, I witnessed firsthand the impact of our policies, or lack of ...

We need to improve flu vaccine

Influenza — the flu — is more than a bad cold. Seasonal outbreaks mean not only misery but increased hospital admissions and deaths. The last flu season, from October 2018 until May 2019, caused up to 42.9 million illnesses, up to 647,000 hospitalizations and up to 61,200 deaths, according to preliminary numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What can we expect this year? Australia’s flu season, which runs ahead of ours (May to October), is often a good predictor. Its onset this year was early and there was a higher than average number of cases. The U.S. ...

How small cities and towns can right their ship

Several large pieces of cobalt-blue glass panels bearing “Don’t Give Up the Ship” and a bold likeness of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry lay broken at the top of the third-floor stairs of the old Park Place building in the city’s main square. If ever there were a motto that exemplified a place and her people, it would be those five words Perry had stitched on a flag — words that inspired him over 200 years ago when he bore the flag in his unlikely defeat of the British at the Battle of Lake Erie. Given everything Erie, Pa., has gone through — from her heyday as the ...

Do our supermarket aisles really qualify as racist?

My supermarket has a giant “international” food aisle dominated by Asian and Latino products. Which items end up in a section dedicated to a particular foreign culture’s cuisine and not mixed in with the so-called American staples — Heinz, Campbell’s, etc. — fascinates me. Why, for example, is Cafe Santo Domingo on a Dominican Republic shelf and not next to Maxwell House in the regular coffee aisle? David Chang doesn’t see these placements as mere marketing decisions but as something more sinister. Founder of the Momofuku restaurant empire, Chang calls the “ethnic” ...

Some new insight into ‘facts’ about media bias

Since colonial days the press has been a target of those who believe journalists have a point of view that shapes their reporting. There have been numerous articles and studies revealing a journalistic predisposition to opinions and subjects that reinforce liberal points of view. Now comes an excellent critique from World Magazine editor Marvin Olasky. His latest book, “Reforming Journalism,” is a philosophical and even theological deconstruction of historic and contemporary media. Olasky dismisses the notion of “objectivity” in journalism. Everyone has a belief ...