The images are from another place and time, grainy, black and white photos among an archive of American experiences from “back in the day” and they appear in my mind when I think about the word “polio.” One of these ancient photos is of a warehouse-sized room filled with row after row of capsules each containing a person, like some strange 1950s era sci-fi movie. Dozens of nurses in old-style uniforms and caps are buzzing around the tubes. The capsules have viewing windows, access ports, gauges and dials and at one end a pressurized seal where each patient’s head extends outside the tube. The scores of tubes in the image are iron-lungs, the much feared last resort treatment for the thousands and thousands of Americans afflicted with polio who, because of paralysis, were unable to breath on their own. Their lives were extended through the pumps that provided negative air pressure, taking over the function of their ineffective diaphragms.
I am writing to share with you my great concern about the Defense Authorization Act, just passed by Congress and signed by you, which permits indefinite detention of American citizens.
"They came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.."
by Pat Ryan The wit, wisdom and good humor of that great American philosopher Yogi Berra may be the last...
Jon Stewart on the Daily Show continued coverage of the New York City Islamic Center controversy last night ("Tennessee No Evil") taking his examination of the controversy from the Park 51 Center (the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque") in Manhattan, two blocks from the WTC, to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, "18,000 blocks" from the WTC.
Today we posted "Not on the Cover of the Rolling Stone" among the columns here. For those of a different generation who might not have heard the Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show tune you should take a look and listen.
I did go to Brooklyn Technical High School but it didn’t stick. In other words I am not a rocket...
by Pat Ryan “Certain” was certainly an unambiguous answer to a question, about the likelihood the United States would be...
By Pat Ryan There’s no better place to start writing a column on international affairs than parked in front of...
This week I wrote about politicians’ pandering to voters over possible fears of Islam — opposing mosques and Islamic community...