Commentary & Opinion

Mitt Romney just tossed Medicare front and center into the presidential campaign with the selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate. It is the most unexpected development yet in this political season.

The president’s words, “If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” echo through the corridors of public opinion. It seems that every talking head has commented on this statement. Some assert the president was merely stating the obvious since business needs an infrastructure in order to get off the ground. Others contend the president has a tin ear and doesn’t understand the personal sacrifice that accounts for business success.

In a recent TV interview on a Public Television Educational Update program, New York State’s Education Commissioner stated that one of his major goals was to make “Digital Literacy” a primary factor in the lives of rural, poverty-riddled and largely minority populated areas of the state’s cities.  While this commentator totally understands the importance of bringing these areas to equal status with use and availability of the latest ‘on-line’ computer equipment, the term “Digital Literacy” struck a chilling chord in one’s consciousness.  Especially, given the spate of recent studies which

Last week, New York’s law on indoor tanning went into effect.  The law prohibits all those 16 years old and younger from using indoor tanning beds or booths.  The logic of the ban has become more compelling.

The prestigious British Medical Journal published the latest research on the impact of indoor tanning.  It concluded that indoor tanning is “associated with a significant increase in risk of melanoma. This risk increases with number of sunbed sessions and with initial usage at a young age” (those under the age of 35 years).  The report also found:

This morning [Monday], the nine-member New York Metropolitan Transportation Council called a "special" meeting at its Manhattan headquarters to vote on the Cuomo administration's plan to build a new Tappan Zee Bridge - a necessary step for the project to replace the aging span to move forward.

As this interminably long political season threatens to heat up with the Democratic and Republican Party conventions, and so forth and so on, it is appropriate to cite a new film that lampoons the one-note sniping that has become so much a part of politics, American style. That film, of course, is THE CAMPAIGN, which features Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis as candidates who comically butt heads while facing off in a North Carolina congressional race.

In the parlance of Orwellian newspeak words often mean the opposite of their seeming intent. The Internal Revenue Service is anything but a service. Now we have yet another government inspired contradiction. Social Security has been transformed into the “Federal Benefits Payment.” One might well ask how an insurance arrangement in which the recipient makes payments throughout his working existence is regarded as a “benefit.”  Whatever happened to “earned income”?

Now that the mercurial, changeling some-time adherent of Latter Day Saints belief and an unabashed aspirant to the U.S. Presidency, George Mitt Romney, Jr., has finally picked a running mate for his monetarily manipulated campaign, the rest of America: pols, pundits and public can begin the impossible task of trying to make simple sense of the ‘Gordian Knot,’ that couuld well deliver fiscal fascist domination into the tight fisted control of the Romney-Ryan entente.

Mitt Romney ended the suspense with the choice of Paul Ryan for Vice-President. And what did we get? Nothing! The Ryan budget for dealing with our problems is zero – no taxes, no expenses, no government. No regulation, no protection, no help, no investment. We’re in a recession and what do we get to pull out of it – nothing, zero, nada.

If Chicago Cubs third baseman Ron Santo had been conjured up by a Hollywood screenwriter, he would have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame during his lifetime. He would have come to Cooperstown on a bright midsummer day and, perhaps, shed a tear or two during his induction speech.

New York receives a decent, but mixed, review for its legislative work to combat cancer, according to a new report,  How Do You Measure up?: A Progress Report on State Legislative Activity to Reduce Cancer Incidence and Mortality (www.acscan.org) issued by the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network.

An enraged madman kills a dozen people and injures many others in a carefully planned mass murder in an Aurora Colorado movie theater. What can one possibly say? So desensitized by stories of brutality on the nightly news, my emotions are muted. It seems to me that on first blush the nation is becoming more coarse, more susceptible to the inner beast, that evil lurking in the hearts of men.

For those of us who have experienced the worst of war, for our nation’s sake and survived it, there can be no greater disappointment than to learn that leaders entrusted with this nation’s defense traded away lives of those they commanded, for personal and political gain.  A spate of recent revelations, some by participants, have publicized this.  Newly minted political aspirants are cravenly pursuing their own shoddy profit, by reshaping what’s already been warped and winnowed to a fiction.

Many Americans have health-related problems that are defined as pre-existing conditions. A pre-existing condition is a health problem that existed before you apply for a health insurance policy or enroll in a new health plan.

A pre-existing condition can be something as common and as serious as heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, diabetes and asthma – chronic health problems that affect a large portion of the population.  Even if you have a relatively minor condition such as hay fever or a previous accidental injury, a health plan can deny coverage.

A good documentary, like good fiction, can entertain and even enthrall viewers. A good documentary also can spotlight an issue and offer truths and insights regarding that issue. However, unless that documentary deals with a hot-button topic-- such is the case with BULLY, which deservedly has received reams of publicity and a high-profile theatrical release-- most documentaries earn limited theatrical play, if they even make it into movie houses. But thanks to DVD and other non-theatrical venues, documentaries do become available to one-and-all.

Cancer takes a staggering toll on New Yorkers.  More than 107,000 New Yorkers were diagnosed with cancer in 2011, and more than 34,000 died from the disease.  A different perspective is that roughly 2,000 New Yorkers are diagnosed with cancer and 660 individuals die from cancer each week.