Breaking News

Opinion

Essay’s truth evident 60 years after written

Local Columns

When I was a teenager in the 1980s, I came across a copy of an essay in the newspaper that made me sit up and pay attention. It was pretty much the reason I began writing in the first place. You see, the words were so impactful, so truthful, that it made me stop and think — really think about the world, about life. When I first read it, the essay was only about 20 years old. But still, it was dead-on accurate and so well-put that I decided to cut the article out of the newspaper and I placed it among my poems, my keepsakes. I still have it to this day, 40 years later. ...

Celebrating residents’ rights month

Letters to the Editor

To the editor: Every October, communities across the country recognize National Long-Term Care Residents’ Rights Month, honoring the 1.3 million individuals who live in nursing homes, assisted living and other residential care settings, while bringing attention to the rights that protect them. It serves as a powerful reminder that residents deserve more than basic care. The federal Nursing Home Reform Law guarantees a set of rights that promote dignity, choice and a meaningful quality of life — rights that do not fade with age. In celebration of this year’s theme, Stand ...

Speak up about health care

Letters to the Editor

To the editor: Surely, I am too old to be writing letters to the editor. But, maybe not — maybe my age can be trusted as wisdom on this important subject. This is a subject of most importance — immunizations against contagious diseases. Aw, the word diseases — against ease, so says Noah Webster. The diseases I speak of now are becoming a national question — do we or should we immunize against them? Again, because of my age and profession, I speak from experience. I am 84 years old, a retired registered nurse and a survivor who benefited from vaccinations. My ...

Expanding access to eye care

Letters to the Editor

To the editor: As a privately practicing, medically centered doctor of optometry, I am faced with a problem that the generation before me did not have. I am a second-generation OD who returned to my hometown in Belmont County to join my mother in practice. When she returned to the Ohio Valley to begin practice in 2003, there were 15 other privately practicing, medically based ODs. At the time of writing, Belmont County has only five. Concerningly, access to medical care through ophthalmology is even more dire. There are two ophthalmologists who primarily practice in Belmont County ...

Gilman right for Indian Creek

Letters to the Editor

To the editor: I have had the privilege of knowing Rachel Gilman both personally and professionally — as a friend and as a fellow board member on the Jefferson County Humane Society Board of Directors. Gilman embodies a rare combination of business acumen, clinical expertise, genuine compassion and steady, thoughtful leadership. As a respected physician and accomplished businesswoman, she approaches challenges with calm determination and a clear eye for solutions. In our time working together, I saw firsthand how she listens carefully, weighs multiple perspectives and then acts ...

Choose life, love and peace

Letters to the Editor

To the editor: You are special, one of a kind. In fact, in the history of the world there was not another person the same as you, and there will never be another person the same as you in the future. Science has shown that at the very moment of conception, a unique person is created, an individual genetically different than any other human being ever created or who ever will be created. That is a fact of science that cannot be denied. Any time a life in the womb is ended, such as from an abortion, the life of a unique individual is ended, a human being that will never be created ...