Commentary & Opinion

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.

When President Obama visited Berlin a couple of years ago he raised the prospect of an idea that circulated throughout the twentieth century: world citizenship. Eminentos such as H.G. Wells and Bertrand Russell contended that unless humanity embraced this nation, it is doomed.

In a study published earlier this week, researchers found that pregnant women who take acetaminophen -- a widely used drug found in such over-the-counter painkillers as Tylenol and Excedrin -- are at increased risk of having children with hyperkinetic disorders like ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).

When President Obama visited Berlin a couple of years ago he raised the prospect of an idea that circulated throughout the twentieth century: world citizenship. Eminentos such as H.G. Wells and Bertrand Russell contended that unless humanity embraced this nation, it is doomed.

People are angrily attacking Gov. Cuomo’s proposal to provide a college education for some prisoners in order to put them on a path toward more constructive, and law abiding, lives.

Back before the phenomenon called “Social Media” Ping-ponged anyone and everyone’s personal plaints as gospel, across a fact-hungry universe, H.G. Wells declared: “Lies are the mortar that bind the savage individual into the social masonry.”  He may have been right but what about truth?  What’s become of it in this mélange of personal prerogative presentations, unleashed and unlicensed?

Lawmakers return to the Capitol this week to tackle the big issue of the session: approving a state budget.  As part of that $140 billion plus decision, lawmakers will be forced to also debate a key issue: reforming the state’s campaign finance and ethics laws.

During World War II, Hitler and the Nazis looted and eventually destroyed countless works of art in an attempt to obliterate a cultural heritage that did not conform to the tenets of National Socialism. And the key issue that is explored in The Monuments Men, the new film directed by and starring George Clooney, is: Was it worth risking one human life to salvage this heritage? In other words, what is of more value: The survival of one painting by Pablo Picasso or the life of one otherwise obscure human being?

Among many people who have benefited humanity so permanently was the book binder's apprentice, Michael Faraday.

His mother was a farmer's daughter, and his father was a blacksmith.

“My education consisted of little more...” he wrote “....than the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic at a common day school … and my hours out of school were passed at home and in the streets”[ref.1 p.77]. This modest, self-educated and hard-working man would later turn down a knighthood, as well as two offers to be President of the Royal Society.