By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - 02.09.14

Pope Francis has been taking some pretty remarkable positions, for a Pope at any rate, during his first year in office.   Indeed, in the context of the Roman Catholic Church they could be considered radical.  For example, he has opened the door to gay Catholics, he has acknowledged that there is some sort of “gay lobby” within the Vatican itself, he has said that atheists might well be welcomed into heaven.  He has also been engaging in some fairly substantive house-cleaning and reorganizing, like bouncing more than one reactionary Cardinal from places of influence on policy making and politics...

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By STEVEN JONAS MD, MPH  - January 2, 2014

Recent discoveries from the Kepler telescope have indicated that in our galaxy, the Milky Way, alone there are 647 possible “Earth-sized” planets orbiting various sun-star equivalents. (One does wonder how they get to that exact number.)  And then there are an estimated 500 billion other galaxies out there.  The speculation is becoming more intense as to whether or not there are other “intelligent” species on one or more of those planets.  Well, the great Dr. Stephen Hawking’s view to the contrary notwithstanding, given the vast...

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STEVEN JONAS MD, MPH - Nov. 26, 2013

Lyndon Johnson's vision of the "Great Society" Program came to an end in 1967, after he had decided that in order to fend off GOP red-baiting tactics, he had to expand the War on Vietnam. Since that time, our nation has been governed either by Republican Presidents and Republican policies or by Democratic Presidents who pretty much went...

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By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - 11.01.13

So you think that the GOP-controlled Congress (the House through their majority, the Senate through the filibuster and other Senate “customs” like one-person “holds”) is going to let pass the “bi-partisan” immigration reform bill that came out of the Senate, especially when President Obama (who certain GOP House members can’t even stand to look at --- couldn’t be the color of his skin, could it?) has...

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By STEVEN JONAS MD, MPH - 10.20.13

The Presidential election of 2000 was Karl Rove's first big play on the national stage. He won the election for Bush through a combination of luck (his opponent and the President he was trying to succeed didn't talk to each other much), skill (hiding the true nature of his candidate very well and also managing to get the media by and large to ignore his "military record"), Ralph Nader's 90,000 votes in Florida, threats of...

 

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By Steven Jonas MD, MPH – 09.29.13

In my previous TPJ column on this subject (1), I endeavoured to "set the stage." I briefly retailed the history of the establishment of US Permanent War policy by BushCheney. In a recent speech, President Barack Obama appeared to attack the policy head-on, and suggested that he would endeavour to end it (2). Of course this speech was given befoe he prepared to attack Syria on the excuse of “punishing the reime for using...

 

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