AnnotatedOpinions.com

• Thanksgiving fare [USA Today]
• United we gather: Thank goodness for Thanksgiving: A break from divisions [Chicago Tribune]
• ‘I have never cooked a turkey’ [Chicago Tribune]
• You Say Potato, I Say Yam: A starring ingredient on many Thanksgiving tables is a reminder of our national history. [New York Times]
• No complaint? No thanks [Chicago Tribune]

State Courts at the Tipping Point: State budget cuts are impeding core court functions, forcing court closures and narrowing of access to justice. [New York Times]

Race haunts politics: Will it ever be OK to go there without name-calling? [Chicago Tribune]

A home remedy: Paid sick leave could help deter spread of swine flu [Houston Chronicle]

Reform isn’t illegal: Congress has every authority to force every American to buy health insurance. [Washington Post]

False Alarm on Abortion? What is being overlooked in the abortion debate is the other benefits that expanded health insurance coverage could bring to women’s reproductive health. [New York Times]

A pro athlete’s lament: U.S. health care discriminates [USA Today]

Europe’s bland new leaders: Last week, Europe’s presidents and prime ministers finally had the chance to select an EU president and a foreign minister. [Boston Globe]

Who’s watching Glenn Beck? [LA Times]

Rhode Island bishop errs in targeting Patrick Kennedy: Bishop Thoms J. Tobin is within his rights to ask Representative Patrick Kennedy to refrain from seeking Holy Communion. Yet the standard to which the bishop is holding Kennedy for his views on abortion is unfair. [Boston Globe]

Keeping Personal Data Private: There are many important issues competing for Congress’s attention, but passing a law to keep people’s personal information safe should rank high on the list. [New York Times]

Concussions: Colleges should follow the pros – If the House Judiciary Committee can humble the National Football League into taking concussions more seriously, then it should reconvene to admonish the National Collegiate Athletic Association. [Boston Globe]

Sisters in arms: Remembering women who count their beatings in the once-fair country of Zimbabwe. [Washington Post]

The struggle after the fight: Pakistan can’t just kick out the Taliban. It must rebuild its tribal areas, too. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Mahmoud Abbas, the Mideast’s big loser: A reported deal for an Israeli-Palestinian prisoner swap has benefits for all involved, except the weakened Palestinian Authority leader. [LA Times]

Caring for the elderly: It’s ironic that at a time when thousands of Americans are struggling to find appropriate care for their failing parents, the field of geriatric medicine appears to be vanishing. [Boston Globe]

Don’t Forget the Gulf States: Unless Congress acts quickly, more than 6,000 housing units for poor families might never get built in the Katrina-ravaged Gulf states. [New York Times]

Her love of ‘little plants’ lives on [USA Today]

To befriend or unfriend, that is the question [Chicago Tribune]

Weighing the benefits of a mammography: Although we all would like to think that public health pronouncements are the unmitigated truth about any issue, rarely is that the case. [LA Times]

Giving thanks in secular, holy ways: At Thanksgiving, the secular and religious impulses, usually taken to be antagonists, salute each other respect. [Boston Globe]

Ft. Hood and the bugaboo of ‘political correctness’: Look deeper at a killer and what do you usually find? An angry, crazy person. [LA Times]

The Church and the Capital: Washington lawmakers should negotiate the language of a same-sex marriage bill with the Catholic archdiocese without selling out same-sex couples. [New York Times]

Free speech: It’s the ACLU’s deal: For Americans liberal and  conservative, the organization continues to support their right to speak. [LA Times]

For American savers, the mattress beckons: Banks pay microscopic interest even as they recover. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

The Phantom Menace: The scare stories from Wall Street seem to be intimidating Washington from doing more to rescue the economy. [New York Times]

What the Pilgrims really sought: Their trip to the New World wasn’t about tolerance or diversity. It was about purity. [USA Today]

Tim DeChristopher’s wild legal ride: He disrupted an oil and gas lease auction last year by posing as a buyer. Now a judge has rejected his last-ditch defense strategy. [LA Times]  

Crunching the numbers on bioenergy rules: The right rules will encourage the development of fast-growing grasses and trees that can greatly increase the amount of carbon absorbed by plants on marginal land. [Boston Globe]

Hot times: As a crucial climate change conference nears, more evidence of a warming globe [Houston Chronicle]

Obama needs to feel the heat: The melting arctic ice is unimpressed with his climate-change efforts. [Washington Post]

A green future for old buildings: Many existing buildings, especially those built before World War II, embody environmental and energy-conscious design. [Boston Globe]  

GPS and Privacy Rights: A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., should rule that police need a warrant before putting a GPS device on a suspect’s car. [New York Times]

Heal thyself: The slow reaction by the Department of Veterans Affairs to a flawed cancer-treatment program in Philadelphia suggests an agency that would rather forget its mistakes than learn from them. [Philadelphia Inquirer]  

Afghanistan Plan C: Obama tries to think his way around the all-in-or-all-out dilemma. [Washington Post]

In El Salvador, a grim reflection, and a glimmer of hope: The president has bestowed the country’s highest honor on six Jesuit priests massacred 20 years ago, more evidence that peaceful change is possible, if slow to come. [LA Times]

India and us: South Asia is a tar pit filled with failed and dysfunctional states, save for one. [Washington Post]  

Slang from the mouths of babes [Chicago Tribune]

From vinyl to digital, my obsession lives on: Technology has made the pursuit of our pleasures much easier. But in so doing, I often wonder if it has made them less sacred. [Boston Globe]

A Luddite in the library: Search engines are all well and good, but sometimes the best place to find something is a library. [LA Times]  

Myths and mammograms: Why you don’t need to fear the new screening guidelines. [Washington Post]

Testing our patients: The aim of medicine is, above all else, to do no harm. But one must wonder if that will be the case with a new medical recommendation on the detection of breast cancer. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Breast cancer debate must strike a balance: My parents are complete opposites. My father is deeply rational, a chemist by trade and a man of science. My mother is more emotional, artistic and swayed by the power of one. She is whom advertisers had in mind when they invented the testimonial. [USA Today]

We can deliver health reform: The bills under discussion will put us on a path to a high-quality, low-cost system. [Washington Post]

Holder’s reasonable decision: Some of the prominent criticisms are exaggerated. [Washington Post]

Terrorism’s war of ideas: The concept of justice is a key battlefield and a way to show we practice what we preach. [Washington Post]

Iran’s iron fist [Chicago Tribune]

Cuba’s isolation begets abuses: Congress should heed those who have argued that free movement between the United States and Cuba offers the best chance of spreading democratic values and emboldening dissidents in the island nation. [Boston Globe]

Paper money that works for the blind [Chicago Tribune]

The end of sprawl: The phenomenon of sprawl has passed into history [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

GOP now the Party of `Noooooooooo!’ [Chicago Tribune]

Iraq’s Election Law Morass: American officials need to help resolve the impasse over election laws in Iraq, and Iraqis must learn how to forge reliable compromises. [New York Times]

Lipstick on a rogue: Even women who are profoundly tired of the fact that we have to be overqualified to win are turned off by a celebrity pol who still will not admit she was wildly underqualified. [Boston Globe]

Sarah Palin doesn’t fit the ‘Rogue’ title [USA Today]

Fixing the music royalties system: Songwriters get royalties but not recording artists. Bills now being considered should pay performers fairly, protect against abuses by powerful industry players and promote the availability of music. [LA Times]

A Gift to Credit Card Companies: A Senate bill to move up the effective date of the law protecting consumers from predatory actions by the credit card industry should have become law already. [New York Times]

Clipping Bernanke’s wings: Why the Fed needs its independence from Congress. [Washington Post]

Homophobia and AIDS funding can’t coexist: The U.S. sends millions of dollars in relief money to Uganda, which is considering a draconian law aimed at homosexuals. [LA Times]

Choosing the public they school: Charters exclude the unlucky students whose parents can’t be bothered. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

WOMEN MUST always fight to make sure they are not thrown under the political bus. The latest example is health care reform. . .

Now, a government panel is telling women in their 40s that they don’t need routine mammograms. According to the US Preventive Services Task Force, the benefits of screening are supposedly outweighed by the potential for unnecessary tests and procedures and the anxiety they might cause. . .  

Yes, these are simply guidelines . . . On their face, they don’t stop any woman who wants a mammogram from getting one at any age.  

As women are finding out, every aspect of health care reform won’t be win-win for everyone. Cost control is a necessary part of the reform equation. But no one has yet cut treatment for erectile dysfunction. Why are women the first losers out of the reform box?  

It’s all about the greater good, the argument goes. The first headlines out of Washington show that women should pay close attention to what they are being asked to give up in the name of health care reform.  

[AO: I agree with the writer. Women should pay close attention to what they are being asked to give up in the name of healthcare reform. Indeed, everyone should pay close attention: women, men, younger people, low income individuals, you name it. After all, depending on the final form of the legislation, healthy low-income individuals could end up funding healthcare for more wealthy individuals when they can’t themselves afford treatments. Moreover, the entire plan is premised on younger, healthier people funding healthcare for older, likely less healthy individuals. Put another way, 20 and 30 year old women could be among those funding the cost of mammograms for women in the 40s.  

But that’s all simply in the vein of being mindful of what ends up in a final reform bill.  

Another, more important point deserves clarification though. Recommending yearly screening later in life is not the same as recommending no treatment. Allow me to put this another way: screening guidelines apply to the few people who are sick and the vast majority of those who are not. Treatment guidelines apply to people who are actually sick. So, one cannot compare a recommendation for yearly screenings to begin later in life with cutting treatment for anything, including erectile dysfunction as the writer does. A more apt comparison would be recommending that men wait 10 years longer before starting regular colon cancer screening.  

Moreover, recommending yearly screening start later in life doesn’t mean that no screening will occur before the yearly screenings begin. Current screening guidelines which call for annual mammograms starting at age 40 also call for three-year clinical breast exams for women starting in their 20s.  

So, yes. We should all be mindful of the healthcare bill that comes out of congress. But equating screening with treatment? No, they are not the same. Ultimately, as the Chicago Tribune, quoting Dr. Diana Petti, reported: 

"No one is saying that women should not be screened in their 40s," says Dr. Diana Petitti, vice chair of the task force. "We're saying there needs to be a discussion between women and their doctors." ]

The Wrong Side of History: Attempts to discredit the health reform proposals now before Congress resemble the flawed arguments made in the 1960s. [New York Times]

Lieberman and others should allow vote on health care [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

The Breast Brouhaha [New York Times]

Taking a hit on health care? Why, that’s women’s work [Boston Globe]

A new mammogram Rx [Chicago Tribune]

Immigrants and the HPV vaccine: A flawed prescription: The U.S. finally saw the light and dropped its requirement that girls and women seeking a green card be vaccinated against the virus that causes cervical cancer. [LA Times]

The best of bad options: more troops, but not 40,000 [Boston Globe]

Mr. Obama’s Task: To move forward in Afghanistan, President Obama needs to explain the stakes, the aim of the war, the costs and his definition of success. [New York Times]

Afghans want Obama to hold Karzai’s feet to the fire: Additional troops and resources should be conditional on the cleaning up of Afghanistan’s government. [LA Times]

To succeed in Afghanistan, we must fail: The Afghan government must take responsibility for its own survival. [LA Times]

Asking questions: Congressmen are getting cranky about the work of a new independent House ethics board [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Sarah Palin and the conservative descent [Chicago Tribune]

GOP’s procedural torture: Stall tactics are making the Democrats look foolish, ineffectual and incompetent. [Washington Post]

Bailouts revisited [USA Today]

A shield for the public [Chicago Tribune]

Fort Hood shooting hearing is too little, too soon: Sen. Joe Lieberman’s rushed Senate inquiry is unlikely to provide any answers. [LA Times]

In Palestine, a ray of light: A state-building plan that deserves the endorsement of the U.S. [Washington Post]

Operating over the limit: Surgical residents at teaching hospitals are putting themselves and patients at risk by being forced to work shifts of 30 straight hours or more. [Boston Globe]

More than half the chocolate milk sold in America is packaged in those little half-pint containers that are a staple of the national school lunch program. Some parents and nutritionists think that’s unconscionable. An 8-ounce serving has the equivalent of three teaspoons of added sugar, or about 45 calories. (That’s half a banana for those of you on a restricted calorie diet; five minutes on the elliptical for you gym rats.)

Worse yet is the gateway effect: Kids who develop a taste for chocolate milk tend to lose interest in the plain stuff, progressing to harder drugs such as Yoo-hoo, Pepsi and Red Bull. As a result of these arguments, chocolate milk is being banned from a growing number of school cafeterias.  

This week the National Dairy Council struck back with a campaign . . .  

The cafeteria cops say kids would drink plain milk if not tempted by chocolate. Offer them french fries or applesauce to go with their sandwich and they’ll take fries every time, but offer them applesauce or applesauce and they’ll happily eat applesauce. Our experience suggests that if you offer them plain milk or plain milk, they’ll go for the water fountain — but that’s not scientifically valid. . .  

Thanks to [Haley Morris, Lizzy Hucker and Ivy Moore, fifth-graders at Roslyn Road School in Barrington Community Unit School District 220], the schools now serve chocolate (and strawberry) milk on Fridays. . . In January, administrators will tally the data and decide whether to serve flavored milks every day. . .

[AO: The Tribune makes light of an important issue. Having too much sugar in one’s diet, which can lead to obesity, is a problem that can have long term consequences, especially for child. Although the editorial makes this point jokingly, having too much sugar can lead to consumption of other unhealthy foods. 

Suggesting that five minutes on an elliptical at the gym is the equivalent of the calories children consume from drinking an eight ounce bottle of chocolate milk misses the fact that chocolate milk is not the only food consumed that requires exercise (meaning the five minutes will be above and beyond additional exercise one has to do).

Also, getting children hooked on sugary drinks can create long-term desire for unhealthy foods that is relevant for the greatest issue in our current national debate: healthcare. As most experts will argue, the cost of healthcare continues to increase mostly because Americans’ waistlines continue to increase. Starting kids off with sugary drinks plays a part in this growing national problem that costs us billions of dollars each year. The Tribune makes it seem as if the only consequence is five minutes at the gym when in fact long-term consumption of unhealthy foods can lead to obesity which causes serious health problems.

Moreover, the Tribune implies that the only choices are between sugary-flavored milk, which children will drink, and unflavored milk, which they will not drink. But there are alternatives. In addition to eliminating chocolate milk and replacing it with plain milk, schools can provide other healthier types of drinks that kids are willing to consume. In addition, children who refuse to drink plain milk can have their nutritional can be offered other types of food that provide the nutrients contained in milk.  

In the end, there are alternatives to supplying millions of barrels of sugary chocolate flavored milk to our children. These alternatives must be considered in light of the potential long term medical and financial harms that can result from consumption of unhealthy foods.]

CNN: Doubling down on straight news: Lou Dobbs’s departure from CNN is a welcome event, and the network deserves credit for replacing him with John King. [Boston Globe]

A Farewell to Lou: Lou Dobbs calls himself Mr. Independent, but he is closer in style and method to the right-wing ranters who mold the facts to shape the argument. [New York Times]

Calling the filibuster bluff: Democrats should force a real filibuster, make Joe Lieberman bring the business of the Senate to a screeching halt. [Boston Globe]

A false choice in health care battle: Where exactly do you draw a line when the opposition keeps moving it? [Boston Globe]

Close, but no cigar: The House’s health-care bill was put to the fiscal test, and it failed. [Washington Post]

Invisible wounds: Returning soldiers with mental health problems are ill-served by their country. [Houston Chronicle]

Vet Day memories: From heaven to hell. [USA Today]

Bring the troops home: Without clear goals, Obama shouldn’t be sending more soldiers to Afghanistan. [Washington Post]

Free to Lose: With long-term unemployment at its highest levels since the 1930s and on the rise, the U.S. should consider policies that address job growth directly. [New York Times]

No more ‘too big to fail’: The term must be excised from our vocabulary, says the chairman of J.P. Morgan Chase. [Washington Post]

Intel’s $1.25 Billion Settlement: Intel may have reached a deal withAdvanced Micro Devices, but that does little for consumers hurt by anticompetitive practices. [New York Times]

Sudan needs boldness: Will Obama insist on a policy that stops the rapes and the murders in Darfur? [Washington Post]

Saving the bluefin tuna: The industry may not want to hear it, but a complete ban on commercial fishing of the Atlantic bluefin tuna is called for. [LA Times]

Planetary heat and trade chill: How we can treat the problems together. [Washington Post]

The ‘Highly Qualified Teacher’ Dodge: Recent decisions in Washington continue to allow poorer schools to be disproportionately staffed by unqualified teachers. [New York Times]

Bad examples: Selling grades. [USA Today]

Fidel Castro’s long goodbye: The ailing former leader of Cuba remains true to his word: ‘I am a revolutionary, and revolutionaries do not retire.’ [LA Times]

Recall the Marshall Plan: With creative adaptation, the aid program that worked in Europe can work in Pakistan. [Washington Post]

Of Fruit Flies and Drones: President Obama has shown a quiet predilection for drone warfare, but the U.S. should not be targeting people for killing without a public debate. [New York Times]

Soaring pay for coaches throws academics for a loss: Beyond the elite teams, football ‘arms race’ too often a futile game. [USA Today]

What’s ‘Good Hair’? Rock confronts taboo [USA Today]

A referendum on Obama? Not likely [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Getting a handle on elections [Chicago Tribune]

The Off-Off-Year Elections: If there were broad messages in the grab bag of contests, they were for both parties. [New York Times]

Voters send cautionary messages to both parties [USA Today]

Time for equal rights for gays is now: Progress is occurring, but Tuesday’s rejection of a same-sex marriage law in Maine shows there’s still a lot of work to be done. [LA Times]

Who ended the Cold War? The fall of the Berlin Wall is as much Gorbachev’s unheralded achievement as it is Reagan’s. [Boston Globe]

1989 was a very good year: The end of the Cold War brought change that sent ripples around the world. [LA Times]

Berlin Wall’s lessons for today: The oxygen of a free society is accurate and trustworthy information. Yet even today, regimes around the world are intent on cutting off the supply. [USA Today]

Deteriorating relationships? The United States only seems to be more polarized [Chicago Tribune]

Welcome sign: U.S. ends a misguided HIV policy [Houston Chronicle]

Women and health care [Washington Post]

Fixing healthcare: Primary care is job No. 1 – Effective reform requires spending for front-line doctors, those who screen for preventable diseases and are a patient’s advocate. [LA Times]

A Powerful Idea on Youth Violence: A Chicago plan that will put high-risk youth on the road to productive lives deserves full support. [New York Times]

Airline safety: I say Obama, you say O’Bama – New requirements by the Transportation Security Administration that names on plane boarding classes exactly match those on personal identifications could present major headaches. [Boston Globe]

Cyclists and motorists on collision course: A physician’s conviction in a bicycle crash case reveals a noxious form of road rage. [LA Times]

For university presidents, a pay cut is in order: Presidents at the top research universities should be embarrassed by 2008 average salary increases of more than 15 percent. [Boston Globe]

The Facebook grave site [Chicago Tribune]

Take the Shot: The most vulnerable people and those in critical jobs should take the swine flu vaccine. [New York Times]

One mom’s rapid conversion to swine flu vaccine believer [USA Today]

Obama must stand firm on Honduras crisis: A U.S.-brokered deal to return ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to office is unraveling, and the Obama administration seems to be wavering. [LA Times]

Iran’s abuse goes on: The problem is not limited to Tehran’s illicit nuclear activities. [Washington Post]

Send a patient and a companion on business class, the basic pitch went, and we’ll give them deluxe private rooms, a concierge and a driver. You’ll still save half or more of the U.S. cost — tens of thousands of dollars.   

The name for this is medical tourism. It’s not a phrase that has come up openly in the national debate on healthcare reform. But the medical tourism industry has its hopes set on embedding the globalization of healthcare in standard health insurance packages. . .  

If the reforms being decided in Washington don’t clearly reduce costs for healthcare and insurance — and right now they’re headed in the wrong direction — American workers may find themselves facing “incentives” for overseas surgery that border on coercion. . . [AO: This is wrong. Healthcare reform will have little if any effect on medical tourism. This is because health insurance companies are businesses and as a result will take all legal steps available to them to cut costs. That means, even if the cost of a particular surgery is reduced as a result of healthcare reform from $200,000 to $100,000, if the health insurance company can further reduce the cost of that surgery to $50,000 or even $75,000, it’ll do so. The company wll do so because it has to. It has to because it is in constant competition with its competitors and must continue to lower cost or risk becoming irrelevant.]  

When overseas surgery goes well, the insurance company –or an employer with a self-funded health plan — ends up with a fatter profit and a satisfied patient.   

If the surgery doesn’t go so well, or a long flight home generates a deadly post-surgical blood clot, the patient has little recourse.  

Overseas surgery or cancer treatment is as drastic as cost-cutting gets, putting the whole burden of risk on the patient. Yet Congress is heading toward a bill that forbids cost efficiencies such as direct government drug purchasing or Medicare-style price-setting. Medicare-for-all never even got serious consideration.  

That’s why medical tourism should be under a microscope now, before employers and insurance companies decide it’s part of their own cost — and profit — solution.  [AO: Medical tourism is just another manifestation of globalization. In a way, it is not much different from moving call center jobs or engineering jobs oversees. Here, medical industry jobs are being moved oversees. But, as the writer identifies, it is unique in that it has the potential to shift the entire risk to the patient. When a US company off-shores its toy manufacturing to China, you can still sue the company if the toy they sell you here in the US is defective. This illustrates the problem with off-shoring medical treatment and suggests potential solutions. Namely, steps should be taken to limit burden shifting onto patients and to prevent health insurance companies from placing too much burden of individuals so that they accept medical tourism in the first place.]  

A bipartisan boost for the parks: Neglected during the Bush years, National Parks finally found enough allies in Congress, Democratic and Republican, to pass a much necessary funding increase. [Boston Globe]Afghanistan: Now what? After the election mess, Obama has little choice but to work with President Hamid Karzai’s weakened government. [LA Times]

The arithmetic of the frontier: In adding up the toll of the Afghan war, one must examine the total time, treasure, and lives Americans must commit [Boston Globe]

President Karzai’s Second Term: After being re-elected by default, Hamid Karzai needs to do everything in his power to persuade the Afghan people that he is deserving of their trust. [New York Times]

Throwing away the key: Should a juvenile be sent to prison for life for a crime that doesn’t involve murder? That’s the question the U.S. Supreme Court is weighing in two cases before the panel. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Medical tourism — outsourcing your health [LA Times]

Obama’s first year: I wish he’d be tougher. But he’s a president, not a Hollywood action hero. [Washington Post]

Freedom of the Press: The Senate should pass the federal shield law to protect reporters and ensure that Americans get the information they need about the institutions that affect their lives. [New York Times]

Reshaping our housing dreams: Before the crash, smaller American families bought ever larger, more expensive trophy homes. [Boston Globe]

Madoff’s federal allies: How investigators, in their own fumbling way, were accessories to his crime. [Washington Post]

The Halliburton Loophole: If hydraulic fracturing is safe, the oil and gas industry should not fear regulation that will come when a dubious loophole is closed. [New York Times]

Merkel’s quiet dominance: One of the world’s most powerful women, but will anyone notice? [Washington Post]

Are Facebook wishes for real? Facebook age raises sincere doubts on birthday wishes [Chicago Tribune]

Billion dollar Ford [USA Today]

Stalin’s stain: President Medvedev’s feeble attempts to reinvent Russia as a modern nation. [Washington Post]