I have been sick. I don’t know if it’s this year’s version of the flu or a flare-up of an old ear problem that has been making me nauseous, but I’m grateful for President Obama’s recent advocacy of precision medicine. We so much need to have personalized medical tests and records that can create precise treatments designed for each differing individual. The funding that the National Institutes of Health will get for this, however, is in the hundreds of millions, while the Pentagon continues to get hundreds of billions to wage war. I saw a small story in Sunday’s news that some 4,000 troops are headed to Kuwait. Why? Read More
Doris writes a weekly column for LaGaceta, the nation's only trilingual newspaper, which has pages in English, Spanish, and Italian. Begun in 1922 for Tampa's immigrant community, it continues to thrive more than a century later. Her column is titled "In Context," as it aims to put contemporary issues in the context of the past.
The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance
February 9, 2015
I read the comics in both local papers religiously, including the very small one that recently appeared in the Times called “Stone Soup.” I was especially grateful for last Sunday’s, as it gave me a light opening for this week’s heavy column. Two preteen girls were quarreling over which TV show to watch when they happened to catch the news about children being bombed in the Middle East. The last panel showed the sisters crying and embracing each other. Read More
Why Title IX is Important
February 2, 2015
As if she didn’t have enough to do in her busy life, Betty Castor volunteered to lead the program committee for the Athena Society this year. The first one, for October, was on Title IX of the 1972 Education Act. That may sound boringly legalistic, but this federal law gave female students equity with male ones in all educational programs, including athletics. Read More