Mark Knows It All

All of the talk about the recently passed health care reform act has centered on politics. The press has spent untold hours analyzing who are the winners and losers on the political scene as a result of the landmark bill. The story they are missing is the undercurrent that is reaching people who are typically apolitical. Places where political discussion had heretofore been taboo are now brimming with political dialogue. People are asking questions. People are reading about the founding of the country and the founding fathers and the founding documents. Seventeen states have sued the Federal government over a plethora of issues relating to the health care bill, including special treatment afforded to certain states in exchange for a senator’s vote and states being ordered to provide substantially more services without necessary funding to the point of bankruptcy. But the heart of the constitutional question is the individual mandate. Under the bill, all people are required to have heal...

So the hangover is beginning to lift, and America is basking in its new health care system. One of the talk radio hosts played a recording of a man describing his joy about the passage of Obamacare. He said it was like Christmas. He apparently lost his coverage 4 years ago, and was afraid that he or his family might get sick and incur thousands of dollars of medical expenses. Now he is going to have health care, and he can sleep at night. Well….not exactly. The provisions for his children will go into effect the next few months. Of course, the kids already qualified for an SChip program. He just didn’t sign up for it. As for himself, he will have to wait for about four years. But not really! His wife has a health insurance plan through her work. He just doesn’t want to pay the additional premium to put himself onto the plan. Another sob story gone a-muck! But then again, free is always better. But he is right in one sense. This is like Christmas. There are some really nice presents und...

President Obama is going to propose amendments to the No Child Left Behind Act that is either vilified or glorified, depending on whose ox is being gored. The basis of the proposed changes will be a more generalized statement of goals, with an emphasis shifting from “hard scores” on achievement tests to items like graduation rates and life skills preparation. How that is going to help achievement in Math and Science is beyond me. It looks more like looking for “feely touchy outs” for those who can cut the muster. But that is another story. Here’s the truth. I’m sure there are bad teachers out there just like there is bad everything else. But for the most part, these are good, hard working folk who really want to do a good job. Unfortunately, No Child Left Behind nothwithstanding, the powers that be work against the educators at every turn to the point where many teachers are forced into being nothing more than glorified babysitters…not by choice…but by design of administrators, the cou...

I wouldn’t want to be a newspaper owner in this day and age. With the proliferation of news sources, both national and local, the wonder isn’t that most papers have shrunk to a shadow of their former selves. The wonder is that they are still here at all. One commentator put it this way. People are going to get their news one way or the other. A recent study shows that most people can do without their morning paper and television news. What they worry about losing is their broadband access. That is the pipe through which the information now disseminates…and it goes in all directions. This past week, the Vindicator (aka the Youngstown Vindicator) introduced its new form. It’s more than evident the paper put a lot of effort into dealing with the realities of today’s publication business. It has manipulated its column size substantially reducing the physical width of the paper resembling USA Today. It purchased a bunch of new printing presses to allow it to print crisp, clear full color ph...

In case you haven’t been paying attention, network news is collapsing. The latest in a series of announced cutbacks comes from ABC News which announced that it is closing all of its physical news bureaus across the country except for the one in Washington. It will keep a minimum staff at various locations relying on the local affiliates for staff and bricks and mortar support. This follows an announcement by CBS News, until recently the gold standard for network news, that it will lay off hundreds of employees. The biggest casualty will most likely be anchor Katie Couric, whose contract is expiring. Word has it that CBS is talking to Anderson Cooper to replace her at a substantially lesser salary. The networks claim that this is the result of a proliferation of news sources including the likes of Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, other cable television outlets, the internet, yada yada yada. That, obviously, is a great part of the problem. Back in the day, Americans would gather around their televi...