Michael Douglas

At the center of the mind

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:41:33 +0000

You don’t have to be an expert in a field to appreciate a good argument. Take the recent row in psychology circles, driven by the release this weekend of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5.

Did someone say Medicaid ‘reform’?

Sun, 5 May 2013 01:41:05 +0000

John Kasich now must know how Barack Obama frequently feels. Republican lawmakers just won’t take yes for an answer.

Failing marks in higher education

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:33:35 +0000

When John Kasich tapped John Carey last week to serve as the next chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, he touted the progress he sees in higher education. “The reforms we’ve made to date,” the governor argued in a statement, “have led to greater collaboration among the universities, an increased emphasis on research commercialization and a funding plan that focuses on improving graduation rates.”

When we didn’t get it right

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 03:17:22 +0000

President Obama spoke to the nation late on Friday evening, after the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, following the intense manhunt stemming from the deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon four days earlier. The president applauded the people of Boston for responding with “resolve and determination.”

Real casualties of the sequester

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 02:55:53 +0000

On Monday, Tony O’Leary joined a handful colleagues in public housing at a meeting in Washington with Shaun Donovan, the secretary of housing and urban development. O’Leary runs the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority. He and the others requested a measure of relief.

Not at the speed of these businesses

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 03:17:11 +0000

Ron Amstutz said he was confused. What the Wooster Republican and chairman of the Ohio House Finance & Appropriations Committee really was doing was needling the witness, politely enough yet with a touch of the dismissive.

Mystery of the sales tax expansion

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 23:53:52 +0000

Whodunit? Who devised and crafted the governor’s proposal to expand the state sales tax, easily one of the most ill-conceived big ideas to appear in a proposed state budget in a long time, or maybe ever?

Ohio and ‘a big human thing’

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 01:28:59 +0000

John Kasich reprised a portion of his State of the State address last week. The governor told health-care advocates gathered near the Statehouse that in pressing for the proposed Medicaid expansion they must approach lawmakers “with intensity, but kindness, but with firmness that cannot be shunned aside. … And we have to let them know that if they stand and support these programs, for those folks who live in the shadows … that when they stand with us we’re not going to ignore them.”

John Kasich’s opportunity gap

Sat, 9 Mar 2013 23:59:18 +0000

If you were one of the school superintendents on hand five weeks ago when John Kasich unveiled his new plan for funding public schools, you likely would have been pleased, too.

Selling the Medicaid expansion

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 03:17:21 +0000

Hard to fault John Kasich for his all-out defense of the proposed Medicaid expansion. The governor even made the spiritual argument in his State of the State address last week, pointing to what he has “learned from the Good Book. … I can’t look at the disabled, I can’t look at the poor, I can’t look at the mentally ill, I can’t look at the addicted and think we ought to ignore them.”