Commentary & Opinion

I assume most of our listeners have heard of the columnist Charles Krauthammer.  Recently, he has been on a tear attempting to convince his readers that the Affordable Care Act is causing a reduction in employment.  He understands that it is no longer possible to get away with falsely asserting that the Congressional Budget Office prediction that the ACA will cause a decline in hours worked means an increase in involuntary unemployment.   Instead he argues that the voluntary decline in work because people are no longer tied to their jobs to get health insurance is somehow a terrible thing for the economy.

This weekend brings art openings, rock concerts, Afropop, classical music, and a whole lot more to the greater Berkshire region.

A man in his 90s became very ill and was brought to the hospital by ambulance. The emergency room physician called and asked me to admit the patient to the intensive care unit. I was upstairs in the hospital.

In late January, President Obama announced the creation of a special task force to examine and, as necessary, coordinate federal enforcement efforts regarding rape and sexual assault on our nation’s campuses. This White House Task Force on Protecting Students from Sexual Assault will provide leadership for colleges and universities as they work on developing more transparent and more effective campus procedures to decrease and/or investigate incidents of sexual assault.

With Russian armed forces seizing control of the Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, President Putin has sent a loud and clear message to President Obama. In effect, Putin contends the U.S. support for the political upheaval that dislodged a Kremlin ally, means little in the face of the Russian bear clearly intent on reacquiring “the near-abroad” – those nations lost with the dismemberment of the Soviet Union.

In the wake of the revelations of the extent of our government’s collection of information from our phone calls, there has been a good deal of discussion about whether that is a problem. Most people feel safe if they did nothing wrong. They have NO idea!

There’s been much angst expressed by parents of America’s children and youth, of late, about the rapid erosion of funds and services, to provide education needed to prepare them for appropriate and gainfully competitive adulthood.  There’s also been a mounting volume of critical carping and castigation by those in government, responsible for providing the funds necessary to achieve adequate levels of education and warnings of dire consequence, from those invested with the onus to plan and produce educational services at superior levels of educational accomplishment, from the President and throughout his executive departments.

There is a lot in New York State’s budget that is important. Children need schooling, the poor and the sick need to be taken care of, the roads and bridges need repair, the public needs to be protected, and the courts need to administer justice.

Everywhere I go, people are congratulating the radio station for, by far, the fastest million dollar fund drive in history. I always try to make the point that it is not the WAMC staff and board that deserve the kudos but all of you who made it happen. The amount of money that came in before the drive even started was astounding. A few weeks out we had about $300,000 in the magic locked (or lox or lock) box. We announced that number on the air and within days, we had $417,000 in the box. Every penny that came in before the drive that was marked for the box was accounted for and added to the total and used to shorten the drive.

This week NY State of Health, also named "The Official Health Plan Marketplace," put out a press release to celebrate a milestone.