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Use vast sources to stay most informed

Brenda J. Linert February 5, 2023

Debate and discourse, as I’ve frequently noted in this very column, are critical to ensuring we are well educated on decisions involving our present and our future. I personally enjoy reading or hearing well framed arguments from those who feel passionately about their beliefs — but only when those arguments are researched, fact-based and attributed to reputable sources. I’d love to tell you this newspaper is all you need, but that’s simply not true. Rather, to be really educated, you information must come from varied sources. Some might even describe my demand for ...

What happened to robust and good debate?

Brenda J. Linert January 29, 2023

I cringed the other day during a newsroom discussion. Primary election season is right around the corner. As if that’s not bad enough, somehow it’s about to be campaign season for — brace yourself — the next presidential election. That is what triggered the cringe. You see, with national elections emerge angry Americans, even uglier-than-usual social media posts and, yes, angry readers who soon will be firing off emails to the newsroom and ringing my office phone. They will insist this newspaper is far, far too left. Or others will argue we are way, way too far ...

Vaccine political divide not going away

Brenda J. Linert January 22, 2023

At some point in history vaccinations became politically divisive. I’m not sure exactly when that happened, but it must have been sometime after American physician Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccine in the 1950s, because at that time, people seemed to have no qualms about lining up themselves and their children for injection. Salk so believed in his experimental creation that in 1953 he bravely tested the so-called “killed-virus vaccine” on himself and his family. Then just one year later he tested it on 1.6 million children in Canada, Finland and the United States. It ...

Living in the golden age of lottery jackpots

Brenda J. Linert January 15, 2023

I was forlorn. “We forgot to play,” I told my husband last week, moments before the Mega Millions drawing was set to go off. Or was it the Powerball? Does anyone else think all these massive lottery jackpots are running together in their dreams? It’s easy to confuse them. An Associated Press report I read recently cleverly described the phenomena as “the Golden Age of lottery jackpots.” As I write this, Friday night’s $1.35 billion (yes, with a “B”) hadn’t yet been drawn. If there was no winner, that prize will get much bigger before the next drawing Tuesday ...

Ohio voters now must provide photo ID at polls

Brenda J. Linert January 8, 2023

I’m not sure whether the date of Friday’s state legislative action was intended or merely coincidental. It was, of course, the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on our Capitol and on our democracy in an attempt to disrupt Congress’ affirmation of the 2020 presidential ...

Responsible owners don’t carry guns in airports

Brenda J. Linert January 1, 2023

It’s travel season. It’s likely I didn’t need to tell you that, especially considering all the recent news reports about the onslaught of horrible travel delays affecting so many Americans this holiday season. I’ve personally heard some of those stories, including two friends who told me about unrelated trips they planned for the holidays in which their scheduled flights were delayed or canceled. In both cases, the only good news was that each got to stay home, rather than wasting Christmas Day curled up in uncomfortable seats inside the airport. But I digress. It’s not my ...