Commentary

When Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by land, air and sea on Feb. 24, 2022, the images of war were conveyed to dismayed onlookers around the world. Far from the action, many of us became aware of the unprovoked aggression by reading online coverage or watching TV to see explosions and people running from danger and crowding into underground bunkers. Half a year later, the violence continues. But for those who have not been directly affected by the events, this ongoing war and its casualties have been shifting to the periphery of many people’s attention. This turning away makes sense.

Once upon a time, the legendary U.S. Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill proclaimed “all politics is local.” Nowhere was this truer than in K-12 classrooms. Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote in a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1974: “No single tradition in public education is more deeply rooted than local control over the operation of schools.”

Independence Day festivities are almost always associated with fireworks, picnics, and concerts. Celebrations of the nation’s Constitution in September, meanwhile, are usually more cerebral and muted. Those outside of public colleges and universities, which are mandated to commemorate the occasion, might not even know that the U.S. Constitution was signed on Sept. 17, 1787. An even more overlooked date is Sept. 14, which marks Francis Scott Key’s writing in 1814 of what would become known as “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The poem, later set to music, served unofficially as the national anthem long before Congress declared it to be such in 1931.

I happened to be watching television this past weekend when I stumbled upon a gentleman doing his demanding job near-flawlessly at an advanced age despite the chorus of doubters around him. Yet he found himself in conflict with his disapproving spouse. I instantly recognized the fellow. Why, that was me. The similarity was uncanny. High achiever? Check. Working hard? Of course.

As two physicians who have devoted our lives to studying cancer, we’re thrilled with President Joe Biden’s “Cancer Moonshot” initiative to halve the disease’s death rate within 25 years. But we worry that it won’t achieve that goal unless we act on a related, lesser-known health crisis. For many cancer patients who die from this awful disease, their tumors aren’t solely responsible. In many instances, superbugs sicken these patients, who can’t fight off resistant infections due to weakened immune systems — even with the help of antibiotics.

In the first three months of last year, Maryland recorded 110 traffic fatalities. During the same time period this year, there have been 164 such deaths, a nearly 50% increase. And while that first quarter trend was among the worst in the nation, ), it was hardly unique. U.S. road deaths increased by 7% overall from January through March this year continuing a nearly two-year trend to produce the highest 3-month level of traffic fatalities in two decades, according to recently released National Highway Traffic Safety Administration numbers. At what point will those in charge of traffic safety at the state, local and federal level find these numbers alarming? This quarterly result represents 9,560 deaths.

Twenty-one years after the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in Lower Manhattan, one can ask whether the United States has yet learned the principal lesson of that shocking, savage day. It is a lesson well-known to military planners, yet hard for a nation with allies on its borders and oceans at its sides to believe bone deep. In the starting and ending of wars, the letting of blood and the waging of battle, the enemy has a vote. The day that has come to be known as 9/11 began a war only for us; for the enemy, the war had been raging for years.

Oscar Wilde is said to have quipped that “God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” Our species is capable of folly on a grand scale. Exhibit 4,000 in this litany of woe is the continued existence of open plan workplaces. For decades, research has found that open plan offices are bad for companies, bad for workers, bad for health and bad for morale. And yet they just won’t die. Human beings, if they are to thrive, need a bit of privacy — walls and a door. And yet employers, decade after decade, neglect to give workers what they need, refuse to do what’s in their own self-interest.