The Spark

Today, Ulyssis S. Grant is most often remembered for commanding the Union Army that secured the surrender of General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate troops at Appomattox – in effect ending the Civil War. But Grant was much more of course. He was elected president of the United States twice, although historians don’t rank him very highly, was one of the nation’s biggest celebrities in the late 19th Century and an early protector of Civil Rights. He also was swindled out of all his money.

His wife Julia came from a Missouri family that owned slaves. She was the love of Grant’s life.

Author Jon Clinch's new historical fiction novel called The General and Julia tells the story of Grant's last days and the significant moments in his life.

Appearing on The Spark Thursday, Clinch talked of the book's inspiration,"We think of him (Grant) as this silhouette on horseback and on a battlefield. We think of him as that glum looking grumpy character on the $50 bill. We think of him as a guy smoking a cigar or a or a drunk, which it turns out he wasn't. But we think of him in all these ways. But what I took away finally from learning as much as I did early on about him was the tragedy of the last year or so of his life. That period where he had lost everything, he had lost his fortune, such as it was. He lost his money. He lost his standing in many ways. He lost his health. And what he had left was his memory and his ability to write under the worst of circumstances his wonderful memoirs with the idea that by selling them, even after he was gone, his family might be able to pull themselves back together and pull themselves back from the brink of disaster. I thought that was that was the most heroic thing I saw him do."

Clinch was asked what he wants readers to take away from the story,"I want us to remember the kindness and the family love that he left behind more than anything else. They were a family, husband and wife, four children, three grandchildren. They were the real deal. He was not the small set of big things that we think of him as being. He was a big set of small things that every human being is. And I wanted to think about that."

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In the vibrant arts scene of Pennsylvania, THEM The Collective, a group of exceptionally talented artists, continues to make waves with their captivating performances. Renowned for gracing various stages, their notable appearances include the annual Launch Music Festival in Lancaster, where they have left an indelible mark.

The spotlight on THEM The Collective intensifies as they gear up for a two-night performance at the Ephrata Performing Arts Center in February. The event, titled "A Celebration of the Evolution of Black Music," promises to be a mesmerizing showcase of the group's diverse talents and a tribute to the rich tapestry of Black musical contributions.

In an exclusive interview, Jeannette Wehye and DeJuan Rosado, key members of the collective, shed light on the upcoming performance and the collective's artistic journey. Their insights provide a glimpse into the passion and dedication that drive THEM The Collective to push artistic boundaries and deliver unforgettable experiences on stage.

As anticipation builds for the upcoming event, fans and art enthusiasts alike eagerly await the opportunity to witness THEM The Collective's unique blend of artistry and creativity. The two-night extravaganza at the Ephrata Performing Arts Center is poised to be a celebration of not only Black music but also the collective's enduring impact on the Pennsylvania arts scene.

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The Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board sets minimum prices for milk in the state. It’s designed to ensure dairy farmers have fair opportunities to sell their product while consumers pay a competitive price.

Milk is sold like any other product and the market often determines the price in most states.

The Milk Marketing Board wanted to find out what would happen if they dropped minimum pricing and commissioned a study of the issue.

Phil Gruber, the News Editor of Lancaster Farming reported on the study and was on The Spark Wednesday where he described what the study found,"We would see maybe a small increase in the amount of milk that Pennsylvanians drink, but that would be more than offset by a pretty serious likely decline in the number of companies bottling milk in the state and in the number of dairy farms."

The study found that if there weren't minimum prices on milk, 57% of processors would be at risk of bankruptcy. It's estimated the state would produce 10% less milk.

The study concluded the loss of minimum pricing and the aftereffects would cost the state's economy $2.8 billion, eliminating $700 million in wages and 10,000 jobs.

Gruber indicated it doesn't appear the system will change,"There was not an imminent decision to do away with with minimum price. Here was something that had been talked about within the industry and disgruntled farmers and things. I would expect minimum pricing to stay around here in Pennsylvania."

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South Central Pennsylvania has some of the worst air pollution in the country.

That may come as a surprise to many when they compare a mostly rural area with lots of suburbs and a few small cities to large urban areas throughout the nation. But almost every measurement of air pollution over the last few years ranks the region or individual metropolitan areas like Lancaster and Harrisburg in the top 10 polluted places in the U.S.

Faculty and students at Millersville University are measuring and studying air quality in the in region. It’s a learning experience for the students but can tell us a lot about the air we breathe.

On The Spark Tuesday, Dr. Greg Blumberg, an Assistant Professor of Meteorology in Millersville University's Earth Sciences Department compared Central Pennsylvania's topography with many hills and valleys to Thailand, which has the worst air quality in the world. He added that the air in Central Pennsylvania is nowhere near as bad, but the region's topography is a factor in high levels of air pollution. On the program, Blumberg provided an analogy,"I often like to think about a pot of water or even kind of like waffles. When you're looking at places that have terrain, when you're talking about mountains and valleys, the air pollution can act a lot like syrup, where it just kind of falls down into the the valleys where the little divots are on a waffle. And so the Pennsylvania area has a lot of kind of these different valleys where you can get all that pollution settling down. And one of the things that allows air pollution to kind of intensify is if you're not removing that air. And so if you have stagnant conditions where you don't have very strong winds, the sun's not up allowing some of those pollutants to get mixed, then these are the cases where you might see the air quality really get bad over time. And Pennsylvania kind of has a lot of the ingredients for that right now."

There are several interstate and heavily traveled highways in our region and Blumberg indicated the vehicle traffic in Central Pennsylvania is a significant contributor to particle or soot pollution.

Keelie Steiner, a senior meteorology major at Millersville studies air quality  and appeared on The Spark. She described how a changing climate could make air pollution worse,"Some of these traffic admissions that we're steadily studying react very well in warmer temperatures. So, for example, ozone, which is something in the stratosphere. So, our ozone layer that protects us from those harsh UV rays coming from the sun. However, once ozone finds its way down the troposphere, that's something you don't want to be inhaling. So, over the wintertime, those cooler temperatures, those ozone levels aren't going to be as high because that ozone, the chemical bonds aren't breaking and reproducing as frequently. However, once you get to the summer with warmer temperatures, it becomes a rapid reproduction of ozone. So now you have large amounts of ozone finding itself down at the surface level that people are breathing in, and that has relation to some respiratory and cardiovascular issues."

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More than 8,400 cases of Lyme disease were confirmed in Pennsylvania last year. That’s the most in the nation. In fact, Pennsylvania has had more Lyme disease cases than any other state in 11 out of the last 12 years.

The disease is spread by the black-legged or deer tick.

A recent report in SpotlightPA suggested one of the reasons Pennsylvania has more Lyme disease is development and the loss of forest land.

Marley Parish is the Rural Affairs Reporter for Spotlight PA and was on The Spark Monday,"Pennsylvania happens to be in a situation where we have a lot of forest land. And the black-legged tick, also called the deer tick, loves forest. It thrives in forests, which have a lot of host options for them -- deer, mice, birds, raccoons, chipmunks, sometimes humans. But something that Pennsylvania has been seeing is its forest land declining for development, typically commercial residential development. Whenever that happens, there are fewer and fewer hosts for ticks. So they are kind of forced to select what they interact with. But that's something that Pennsylvania has been seeing. Since 2019, there's been about 3 million acres of forest land that have declined, mostly for those developments"

Parish reported that a Penn State entomologist she spoke with for her story pointed out that ticks don't move once a forested area is cleared -- they adapt, staying in areas that were once forests but are now housing developments or shopping centers.

A tick researcher told Parish that half of tick bites in Pennsylvania occur in backyards.

Parish quoted her sources as saying development won't stop or slow down because there may be more tick bites or Lyme disease, so it's up to homeowners and Pennsylvanians overall to be aware of ticks and take precautions to protect themselves and pets from tick bites.

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The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation or Penndot’s District 8 is made up of eight counties in South Central Pennsylvania.

During the 2023 construction season, $517 million in contracts for new projects were awarded. That’s more than double its 2022 total in contracts. The money from the federal infrastructure had an impact but how much.

Kevin Keefe, Penndot District 8 Assistant District Executive for Construction appeared on The Spark Monday with details of the just completed construction season..

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Highlights from this past week of shows!

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“It’s no longer an opioid epidemic – this is an addiction crisis.” That’s a quote from Michigan State University associate professor Dr. Cara Poland in the New York Times.

It seems that every few months, there’s a new drug or substance that drug users find to create a better or more potent high.

Dr. Asif Ilyas, President of the Rothman Orthopaedic Institute Foundation for Opioid Research and Education was on The Spark Thursday and said drug dealers and manufacturers are mixing multiple substances or drugs into what their customers are buying,"They're trying to modify their product to enhance it as best they see it, to increase sales, unfortunately. And the victims are those who are abusing them. And these individuals don't really know necessarily what are the agents that they are abusing. We've already known for quite some time that the common agents that are being mixed are things such as fentanyl, which is one of the most powerful illicit opioids, Xylazine, also known as tranq, which is essentially a veterinary sedative, and then methamphetamines, which is a stimulant. These are often being mixed with various agents, typically opioids, to increase that high."

Ilyas indicated those mixing the drugs aren't skilled at knowing what amount of a substance to put into their product,"They're not necessarily being mindful of the dosages, the concentrations and the purity of what they're mixing. And often times what we're seeing when people pass out because of opioid abuse and illicit drug abuse is because of just that, they thought it was one thing and there was more fentanyl in there than they thought or there was more meth in there than they would have it thought or do. They didn't expect it at all."

Dr. Ilyas said education is a major part of stopping drug abuse,"It's about helping the public understand the severity of opioid abuse, drug abuse. We've known this for forever, but there's some real significant effects that happen from it, and it can affect everyone around you, your friends, your family. It doesn't take much to get addicted and start to go down this path. So everything we can do to prevent it, to support people that are showing signs of it, and then to help people who have addiction to seek appropriate care so that it doesn't manifest into more severe problems for the individual."

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Homelessness, food insecurity, exposure to violence, and access to healthcare – all barriers to young people learning in school. Kids living in poverty is behind many of these challenges.

These all issues that schools deal with in providing an education to students.

Communities in Schools in Pennsylvania provides what are called "wraparound services to students and schools. The organization's Vice President Lyndsey Sturkey was on Thursday who explained what wraparound services are,"They're just a holistic approach to addressing barriers that students may be facing, particularly outside of school, that's hindering or having a negative impact on their ability to come to school, either ready to learn or continue through through the grades."

Communities In Schools offers services including mental health counseling, after-school programs, access to nutritious meals, and housing assistance. The organization says that by addressing students’ basic needs, they create a more stable foundation for learning, allowing them to focus on their education.

Sturkey pointed out that they use an online tool called the  from the Pennsylvania Department of Education to identify schools that could use their services. Often, those are school districts where there is a larger percentage of students living in poverty or Title 1,"It will give you information on every school district, every school in the entire state. So you can look at standardized test scores over a couple of years. You can look at their socioeconomic breakdown, where kids are coming from, how many kids are in each school, for example. So that's typically where we start -- a lot of the schools that we work with our Title One. So we'll kind of look at which districts may have a lot of Title One. We will also look of where they are geographically. Are they nearby another district where we already work?"

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Aired; November 29th, 2023

When determining what college will cost, the first thing many students and their families look at is what the tuition price tag is for a college or university and maybe add room and board into the equation as well.

What sometimes is down on their list of expenses is the cost of textbooks and other course materials. Those costs can run into the hundreds of dollars and maybe more .

A new survey of Pennsylvania college students for Affordable Learning PA and the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation finds that nearly half of students are worried about textbook costs and a third say they go without course materials because of the cost.

California-based Bay View Analytics conducted the survey. On The Spark Wednesday researcher Julia Seaman, told us,"We wanted to know how much the course materials cost. So we have some information about that and then what the impacts were, both at the small scale so that the course level, like if you can't afford materials, does that mean you're failing the course, getting poor grades or at the larger scale? This actually had a bigger impact on their academic choices, which very surprisingly we saw that it does really impact student choices. One of our biggest surprises for me was that the cost of course materials has impacted students choice of their minor, their major and the majority have said it's impacted their choice of an institution that they chose to go to."

Key findings from the Pennsylvania-focused survey include:

Seaman added that students and their families aren't often thinking about textbook and course material costs before taking a course, and part of the reason is it's a challenge to pin down those costs,"Your costs aren't part of that tuition bill that shows up, aren't part of the enrollment information because it is highly dependent on the courses that the students take. And then also those choices are made by faculty, often semester by semester. So you don't know ahead of time what that course may require. One thing I want to make sure is while you normally think about as a textbook, this is now actually including a lot more than just the textbook. If you're in a science course, you could be including all the lab fees, all the art fees if you're doing any art courses. So of course, material cost, while it does include the textbook and required textbooks, are the most common course, it is incorporating everything around that. And it's a lot of things that you don't really know until you're at that course. And it may not be that expensive for one course. But remember, students are full time most of the time, and they're taking 4 to 6 courses and each one of those may have 90 to $100 worth. Of course, material costs."

Seaman was asked why this matters,"If it starts out with a student can't afford a textbook, that generally means they're also potentially choosing cost issues around housing or food or other quality of life issues as well as if they're not having the textbook, then they're not learning that specific course. They may not be able to pass the course. We find that 15% of students said they failed the course because of the costs, which then could potentially mean they have to retake it, change their major. So having the rolling impact to just get bigger and bigger and potentially that could mean the data for the class at the materials and freshman year. So now it takes them 5 or 6 years to graduate or they might drop out anyways because they couldn't afford the costs."

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