Be thankful, because it’s not all bad

By Steve Brawner

© 2017 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Problems are not hard to find, but there’s also much good in the world if we look for it. In the spirit of this Thanksgiving season, let’s do that for a change.

In Iraq and Syria, ISIS is all but defeated. After taunting the world with their cruelty and barbarism, the jihadists have lost one city after another. When Iraqi and American-led coalition forces last week retook the city of Rahway, ISIS was left with only isolated rural areas in that country, and Syria is in a similar situation. Remember that black-clad spokesman who would threaten the world and then behead an unfortunate victim, all captured on video? He’s long dead, and the fighters that remain are now surrendering.

The defeat of ISIS is liberating Iraqis and Syrians from that horrible group. Meanwhile, millions worldwide are being freed from another type of bondage. In 1990, 1.9 billion people lived in extreme poverty on less than $1.25 a day, according to MDG Monitor, published by various United Nations agencies. In 2015, that number had been more than cut in half, to 836 million. That’s more than a billion fewer people, even as the world population has grown. In 1990, nearly half of all people in developing nations lived in extreme poverty. By 2015, that figure had been reduced to 14 percent.  Continue reading →

Fans’ too-high expectations mean Jeff Long gone

Jeff Long, War MemorialThe natives were restless. Someone’s head had to be chopped off. And Jeff Long’s was the nearest one.

Long, as you no doubt already know, was fired as University of Arkansas Athletic Director Wednesday. Thanks to his contract, he’ll be paid up to $4.625 million by the Razorback Foundation. The football coach, Bret Bielema, would be owed almost $5.9 million – or maybe more – if he were fired, which might happen by the time you read this.

They must print money up there. Continue reading →

Democrats’ DCCC targeting French Hill

French Hill, Maria

Rep. French Hill represents Arkansas’ 2nd District.

Voters in central Arkansas’ 2nd District might, possibly, maybe experience something that doesn’t happen that much in congressional races – a real, contested campaign. That’s because national Democrats are targeting that race to try to unseat the Republican congressman, Rep. French Hill.

Hill was re-elected easily in 2016 with 58 percent of the vote against an uncompetitive Democrat and a Libertarian. His was one of many Arkansas races where the outcome was never in doubt. Democrats didn’t even field candidates in the other House elections. President Trump was such a shoo-in that Hillary Clinton, Arkansas’ former first lady, didn’t campaign here.

This time, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the House Democrats’ campaign arm, has made the 2nd District one of its targeted races. It already has run radio ads attacking Hill. Continue reading →

America’s health care sickness: Paid to treat, not heal

RosenthalBy Steve Brawner

Dr. Denise Faustman believes type 1 diabetes might could be cured using a tuberculosis vaccine already sold as a generic. Unfortunately, she’s had trouble obtaining funding for research. Too many people have a financial incentive to keep the status quo.

Faustman, a Harvard Medical School researcher, found that  the vaccine, long sold on the market, showed promise when tested on mice.

That would be big news, especially for the 1.25 million Americans living with type 1 diabetes. And it did cause a stir when she published the initial results – in 2001.

However, the pharmaceutical industry wasn’t interested in funding further research because it didn’t see a pathway to profits using a drug that’s already on the generic market. The big medical foundations haven’t wanted to fund her research because they’re allied with the pharmaceutical industry – in fact, often financially invested in its products. Despite the roadblocks, Faustman managed to find enough funding to publish further research in 2012. Now she’s trying to raise money through her website, www.faustmanlab.org.

Rosenthal: They’re paid to treat, not heal

Faustman’s story is one anecdote in “An American Sickness,” a book by Elisabeth Rosenthal, a medical doctor who became a New York Times reporter and is now editor in chief of Kaiser Health News. If you want to better understand why the American health care system is failing, read this 330-page book. Continue reading →

Their home was his place

By Steve Brawner

After 2,310 days in foster care and 24 caseworkers, Chase Bailey was adopted Jan. 10 by a mom who had insisted that the only way she would ever adopt a child was if Jesus descended from heaven and told her to do so.

Dawn Bailey and her husband, Brad,  had two daughters out of the home and a third who was a pre-teenager, and they could see the empty nest in the distance. Then three friends over a weekend sent her a link to 15-year-old Chase’s story, told by KTHV’s Dawn Scott in one of her regular “A Place to Call Home” features about children waiting to be adopted.

After tears and prayer, they decided their home could be his place. 

Continue reading →