Spectrum

When we are in times of crisis, we look to our leaders nationally, statewide and locally to provide us with guidance on how we will make it through the crisis and arrive safely on the other side.

At the foundation of what we expect from leadership is honesty and transparency, says Beverly Jones, an author, career consultant and executive coach.

Jones has been an attorney, lobbyist, corporate executive, trainer and career specialist as well as authoring the book, “Think Like an Entrepreneur and Act Like a CEO. Also, she is the host of WOUB’s Jazzed About Work podcast.

Jones notes that “positivity” is also at the top of the list of what we admire in leaders – not the overly optimistic type of positivity but the kind that gives confidence that we will get through this crisis and get through it together.

We also want our leaders to care about us, to have empathy and compassion—to be responsive to the broader needs of citizens or, at least, show concern about people’s pain and fears. We hate arrogance from our leaders in the time of crisis.

Jones claims that we also want our leaders to be collaborative in developing positions to meet a crisis. Bringing a team of top experts together and listening to their expertise is critical.

A leader must be decisive yet flexible enough to adapt to changing situations, she adds.

She cites Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and others as examples of leaders who have communicated honestly and often with constituents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

People rely on his daily press briefings which include the experts he is consulting. They display to the citizens of Ohio that there is leadership and a team approach to trying to keep the citizenry safe, Jones says.

She also cites Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as a good example of honest and trustworthy leadership in the midst of our current crisis.

Health care will be one of the main issues facing Presidential candidates in the 2020 Election, according to Dr. Daniel Skinner, a political scientist and health policy professor at the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine at Ohio University.

People are concerned about issues of health costs, access and health care quality, says Dr. Skinner. They also are extremely concerned that health insurance proposals cover pre-existing conditions.

He states that there is some confusion among the electorate when President Donald Trump says he is protecting people with pre-existing conditions at the same time his administration is in federal court asking that pre-existing protections be removed from the Affordable Care Act.

He says that determining President Trump and the Republicans position on health care is difficult because they really have not advanced or articulated a policy.

Dr. Skinner says that the Democrats certainly have not embraced a unified approach to health care.

In the podcast, he breaks down Sen. Bernie Sanders “Medicare for All” proposal into understandable terms. He also details the plans of other Democratic candidates.

Dr. Skinner says that the electorate folds into health care issues the concern over the high cost of pharmaceuticals. He states the strong pharmaceutical lobby in Washington has prohibited any Congressional action to lower prices but he thinks the Presidential candidates will be expected to address this matter.

Dr, Skinner is the co-director of the Osteopathic Health Policy Fellowship and an associate editor of a peer-reviewed journal “Critical Public Health.”

He also is the co-editor of the book “Not Far From Med: Stories of Opioids and Ohio” and the host of the podcast “Prognosis Ohio” addressing health care and health care policies.

Long before the Civil War and the Underground Railroad, “free people of color” were instrumental in settling the Northwest Territory as Americans pushed West after the Revolutionary War.

Dr. Anna-Lisa Cox, an award-winning historian on the history of racism and race relations in 19th Century America, has discovered hundreds of Black families who came West, owned land, and were instrumental in taming the frontier.

“When Detroit was still a Fort, African American pioneers were succeeding and rising on the nation’s earliest frontier,” says Cox. “Their story is one buried by violence and denial but a story of success on a level never thought possible.”

Their story, unfortunately, is one of backlash by many white settlers who, for example, taxed Black property owners for schools that African Americans were prohibited from attending among other discriminatory and prejudicial acts.

Cox tells the story of these black pioneers in her book, “The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America’s Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Equality.”

Cox is a non-resident Fellow at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Recently, she also was a Research Associate at the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Most recently she was one of the keynote speakers at the Settling Ohio: First Nations and Beyond Conference at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

Anne Hazlett is the Senior Advisor for Rural Affairs at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. In the year she has been in that post, she has traveled rural America to assess the drug crisis.

After meeting with grassroots elements across the country, she is encouraged that progress is being made in the opioid battle. Overdose deaths are down breaking a long-time upward trend.

Hazlett says she is heartened with the efforts generated by small rural communities across the country in taking command of this issue and providing innovative approaches to addiction and treatment.

She is especially laudatory about efforts at Ohio University to help local and regional communities. She especially noted a virtual reality segment on administering NARCAN in the case of an overdose. That project is being developed by the Game Research and Immersive Design Lab (GRID Lab) in the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University.

While on the Ohio University campus, Hazlett met with community officials and several faculty and staff from the College of Health Sciences and Professions, the School of Nursing and the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs.

Hazlett says that partnerships between universities and local communities are critical in combatting the opioid crisis and associated rural problems. She also says that the federal government plays a critical role in combatting addiction.

Lisa Friedman, a veteran reporter about climate change and environmental policy, says that covering climate change issues during the Trump administration has been a real challenge.

“I often feel like I’m just writing the obituaries for environmental and climate change policies,” she added.

Friedman notes that the Trump Administration has spent the bulk of the first three years in office ‘’undoing” the climate change policies and agreements of previous administrations.

She says, although currently the Trump Cabinet seems to have been purged of outright climate change deniers, that deregulation of climate issues still remains the norm.

Even though climate change is a global issue, the United States under the Trump presidency has tended to become more isolationist in its approaches.

Climate change, however as a political issue, is not dead, according to Friedman. She believes that it will be a vital part of the policy debates in the 2020 Presidential Election. Candidates will debate both climate change generally and the Green New Deal proposed by several new members of the House of Representatives.

Friedman will be the featured speaker on Tuesday, Feb. 11 at 7 p.m. in the Baker Center Ballroom at Ohio University. She will speak about “Covering Climate Change in the Age of Trump.”

Friedman’s lecture is the fourth installment of the “Challenging Dialogue” series created by Ohio University President Duane Nellis. The series provides an outlet for constructive conversations about hot global and national topics.

Three cases are pending before the Supreme Court of the United States that could have significant impacts on the employment rights of LGBT workers. Decisions will be issued before the Court recesses at the end of June.

These cases will determine if the 1964 Civil Rights Act prevents employment discrimination based upon sexual orientation and transgender status.

Lydia Lavelle, politician and law professor, breaks down these cases in plain English and gives us some context for these monumental decisions that could be issued at any time.

Lavelle is mayor of Carrboro, North Carolina near Durham. When she was elected in 2013, she was the first openly-lesbian mayor in North Carolina.

Lavelle also is a law professor at North Carolina Central University and one of her research areas has been the effects of anti-discrimination laws on LGBT people.

She notes that currently states across the country have a patchwork of civil right laws and employment discrimination against the LGBT population is allowed in much of the nation.

The cases, now pending before the Supreme Court, ask the Court to interpret Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or transgender status.

Title VII bans discrimination based upon race, religion, national origin and sex. The question the Court is considering is whether the term “sex” applies to “sexual orientation” and “transgendered status.”

If the Court rules in favor of this interpretation, then state discriminatory practices would be banned under preemptive federal law. LGBT civil rights would be upheld across the country. The cases were argued before the court in early October.

These are the first LGBT rights cases to come before the court since the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy and the controversial appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Justice Kennedy was the swing vote giving same-sex couples the right to marry by a 5 to 4 Supreme Court vote.

We often hear stories about drug addiction and the opioid crisis from physicians, policy makers or people involved with the legal system. However, we rarely hear from people directly impacted by the epidemic.

That’s not the case in the book “Not Far from Me: Stories of Opioids and Ohio” co-edited by Dr. Daniel Skinner and Dr. Berkeley Franz from the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine at Ohio University.

They collected some 50 personal stories from people living in 20 Ohio counties. The stories come from those directly affected by the drug and opioid epidemic. It showcases stories from drug abusers, their family members, member of the clergy, health professionals and policy makers.

The stories range from personal narratives to poetry and even photographs.

Although the book focuses on Ohio, the stories are reflective of personal experiences across the nation, Dr. Skinner says.

He believes it is important to hear first-hand from those who are directly involved in the opioid epidemic because it gives different perspectives to the conversations about the drug crisis.

The book is divided into five sections: establishing place, processing loss, making sense, devising solutions and challenging assumptions.

In addition to the book, Dr. Skinner and Dr. Franz have conducted town-hall type meetings in communities around Ohio to hear directly from people about how opioid abuse has affected them and their towns.

“Not Far From Me” is published by the Ohio State University Press. The website for the book and the community meetings is https://notfarfromme.org/

The Friday killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani by an American drone has thrown the Middle East into chaos.

Philip Ewing, the former national security editor for National Public Radio (NPR) and currently an election security editor on the NPR Washington Desk, sorts out some of the possible short term and long term consequences of this action.

Even after Iranian officials have pledged “revenge” for the death of their national hero, United States President Donald Trump continues to threaten Iran with more violence and destruction claiming the United States will “take-out” 52 important targets in Iran – including cultural icons.

The U.S. is beefing up its military presence in the region by sending thousands more troops and B-52 bombers nearby.

Meanwhile, while the war of words escalates and preparations for possible conflicts solidify, the parliament in Iraq has passed a resolution demanding that America withdraw its troops from the country.

Mixed messages have been issued by the Pentagon whether the United States will comply.

As a result of the Iraq’s actions, President Trump has vowed to place crippling economic sanctions on the country – an American ally. However, the details of these sanctions are currently unknown, according to Ewing.

All of this preparation for conflict may be impetus for Iran and the United States to meet at the bargaining table, says Ewing. However, the prospects of that happening soon are nebulous.

In the short-term, the Middle East situation remains muddled and extremely dangerous.

Abdul Williams has had a hot decade of screenwriting for both the big screen and television. Over the past 10 years, he has written a feature film and two award winning series for the Black Entertainment Network (BET).

In 2010, his first feature film “Lottery Ticket” was released and in 2017 and 2018 BET released major series – “The New Edition Story” in 2017 and “The Bobby Brown Story” in 2018.

Both are winners of NAACP awards. Williams was the recipient of NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Television Movie (2018) and he received the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Television Movie, Miniseries, or Dramatic Special (2019).

Williams talks to WOUB’s Spectrum Podcast about his career, his work, and his creative process.

He breaks down his writing rituals and explains how he develops and nurtures stories from his imagination to the final product.

He also discusses how he decides what projects he will work on and how he goes from the seed of an idea through all of the iterations of the work.

Besides his busy writing and producing career, Williams also has been a guest lecturer for the OHIO-in-LA Program of the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University.

Since 2002, Rachel Dissell has been a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. During her 17 years at the newspaper, she has covered trauma and trauma victims and one major tragedy after another.

Her career has focused on complex and emotionally draining issues such as the impact of violence on women and children, life-changing environmental topics, corruption and several instances of social injustice.

Her reporting has instigated major policy changes, new governmental procedures, and legislation to protect the citizenry.

Covering trauma victims and tragedies call for several special reporting techniques, according to Dissell.

It often takes a special cautious approach and patience on the part of the reporter to get victims to tell their stories completely and thoroughly, she notes.

A reporter often must approach a victim with caution not to scare them or push them into isolation, Dissell adds.

She also notes that burn-out is a major factor facing reporters who spend their careers covering human tragedies. She discusses ways that she regains her perspective and her equilibrium after immersing herself in stories of violence and human turmoil.

Dissell is a Dart Fellow at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the Columbia Journalism School and she also has been a Health Journalism Fellow at Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California.

Besides her full-time reporting, Dissell serves as an adjunct journalism professor at Kent State University, her alma mater.