Spectrum

Ian Mullins, 40, is a professional mountain biker based in Seattle. He started taking a drug in 2008 to ease pain after a bicycle accident. The drug, Tramadol, not only stopped his pain but improved his performance by allowing him to race through any physical discomfort. Soon, he was addicted. For seven years, he struggled with addiction to the painkiller. Eventually, it took over his life. He the...

How safe are the special drug compounds you take or put in or on your body? Most people, today, think that they are pretty safe but that has not always been the case. Back in 2012, the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Massachusetts produced 18,000 vials of a contaminated steroid that was distributed across about 20 states. The tainted compound, to date, has sickened 751 people with fu...

Philip Elliott has “seen it all” in Washington D.C. and today’s White House is nothing like he has ever seen before. It is “chaos” despite protestations to the contrary by Administration members and President Trump himself, according to Elliott. Elliott has experienced the West Wing under three different administrations. He covered President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama for the Associ...

Philip Ewing, National Security Editor for National Public Radio (NPR), gives us his insights into the National Security Council, President Donald Trump’s proposed military budget, the ongoing investigation of Russian ties to the Trump campaign and ISIS. Ewing has been the National Security Editor since November 2015 but he also has had almost a decade of prior experience covering military and def...

Dr. Richard Vedder, Director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington, DC, notes that the costs of higher education have increased markedly in recent years while the value of a college degree may be diminishing. To counteract these trends, he says that colleges and universities must implement reforms and modernize. But, the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economic...

Minnesota trial judge Kevin Burke is concerned about negative public perceptions of our courts – especially among people of color. People too often believe they are treated unfairly and that judges are biased and make their decisions based upon “political views” and not the law. They also think judges are not understandable and that court processes are mysteries. Judge Burke is on a mission to ste...

Award-winning journalist and former Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander just finished co-authoring an in-depth report for National Public Radio about the death of two of its journalists in Afghanistan in June. He is a strong proponent of increased security measures for reporters in a world ravaged with wars and terrorism. He also promotes improved security for reporters being threatened at...

A new documentary “Paul Laurence Dunbar: Beyond the Mask” is being distributed to public television stations across the nation through the National Educational Telecommunications Association. The film highlights the life and legacy of the first African American to achieve national acclaim as a writer. The documentary is the result of a collaboration of three Ohio University faculty members: Dr. Ju...

Recently the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) released the results of a post-election national survey of 50,000 teenagers between 13 and 18 years old. Some 70 percent reported witnessing bullying, hate messaging, or harassment since the election with racial bias being the “most common motive cited.” These incidents are far more frequent than before, according to the survey, and they seemed to escalate...

Megan Westervelt left graduate school with some experience under her belt and some uniquely creative ideas in her head about how she could capture environmental photos. She labels herself a Conservation Photojournalist which means she tells stories with her still and video cameras about human impact on the environment. While still in school, she did an in-depth story on exotic animal ownership in...

The American system of amateur athletics is mostly school based: elementary, middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities. Yet, that system is failing both the student-athlete and the general public, according to Dr. David Ridpath, the Kahandas Nandola Professor of Sports Administration at Ohio University. With a school based system, too many students are “cut” from competitive athletic...

To the vast majority of scientists, climate change exists and it has been exacerbated over the years by human factors. However, not all politicians agree and most assuredly, most of the dissenters from this proposition reside in the Republican Party – the party now in power. The GOP now controls both houses of Congress plus the White House and regulatory agencies. The fact that climate change deni...

Be prepared in the next couple of years for “virtual reality” (VR) and “augmented reality” (AR) to be more and more parts of your daily lives – from health and medicine to education, journalism and assistance in completing your daily chores. Although many still see VR and AR as primarily for gaming, that image is no longer accurate. Total immersive experiences are being developed for training and...

Karen M. Chan, an actor, director and producer is merging old-time radio dramatic techniques with modern podcasting to bring a new, fresh approach to storytelling for public media. Chan, a veteran of theater, television and film, has lately been concentrating her efforts on dramatizing works of literature for digital distribution by WOUB Public Media. She uses unabridged works of literature and br...

Ron Luce, a board member of the National Alliance for Recovery Residences and President of Ohio Recovery Housing, says “the Holidays” can be a troubling time for those addicted to drugs or alcohol –even those already in recovery. Addiction is often linked with depression, according to Luce, and “the Holidays” can exacerbate emotions in the addict of isolation, shame and feelings associated with ca...

Lara Stemple and her colleagues are leading the charge to change perceptions of sexual victimization and more accurately account for the gender of sexual perpetrators. Stemple is the director of Graduate Studies at the UCLA School of Law and is the director of the Health and Human Rights Law Project. Two recent studies have blazed the way. The first was published in April of 2014. It was co-writte...

Andrew Alexander, former ombudsman for the Washington Post and former Washington bureau chief for Cox Newspapers, states that the media have epic struggles ahead in covering our new President Donald Trump. However, he believes media should attack their jobs “fearlessly” and traverse this uncharted media landscape with impartiality and gusto. Alexander notes that there has always been an adversaria...

Linda Tirado, author and activist, has for the past three years written and spoken around the globe about what it’s like to be poor in America. She now talks truth to power and explains why many poor people voted for Donald Trump to tear down the Washington “Establishments” of both parties. Linda started her journey from the depths of poverty three years ago in October 2013. It began with an angry...

Valerie Lefler is a young entrepreneur and innovator. Nationally, she is launching an “Uber-like” service for rural American that works together with existing transportation services and supplements options for rural residents. Lefler is the Chief Executive Officer of Liberty Mobility Now, Inc. – currently headquartered in Nebraska. The demand for her services has exploded over the past year. She...

The rhetoric being espoused by candidate Donald Trump and some of his surrogates during the campaign caused fear and trepidation within several groups of people in America: such as immigrants, Muslims, the LGBTQ community and African-Americans. Now that Trump has won the election and has become President-Elect Trump how do some of these groups feel about his ability to lead? Will their group be ta...

Many more men than women are likely to become innovators or entrepreneurs. Why is that? Some experts say that there are fewer women in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics programs in colleges – commonly called STEM programs. And, there are fewer women in STEM professions overall. Therefore, there are fewer innovators in high tech industries. Other experts argue that venture capital grou...

The Presidential campaigns of 2016 have been dominated by the use of social media to convey messages and to lambast opponents. Social media usage has not only increased but in this campaign, more and different audiences are being targeted. In 2012, social media primarily was aimed at Millennials. However, in 2016, social media, generated by candidates, is being directed to all supporters, opponent...

Some are calling the 2016 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians the “Apocalypse World Series.” Both teams are not used to being the post season spotlight and most assuredly they are unfamiliar with winning the World Series…WHY? – Well, both teams supposedly have been under curses for over 50 years. Brian Corbin, the real-time correspondent at Wrigley Field for mlb.com, ex...

Veteran political observer and world renowned economist Dr. Richard Vedder analyzes Donald J. Trump’s unprecedented attacks on Republican high-ranking officials during a campaign and the intraparty fights led by the GOP’s presidential candidate. Vedder, a long-time Republican and fiscal conservative, said this type of intraparty chaos is unprecedented. “It is unique,” Vedder says. The only electio...

A new book claims that nearly 84,000 black and brown lives are lost each year in the United States due to health care disparities and unconscious racial and ethnic bias in the health care professions. Dayna Bowen Matthew just released a new book Just Medicine – A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care published by the New York University Press. She claims that African Americans and Lat...