Opinion: Hospitals bring big questions about our ‘grand bargain’ with nonprofits
By Bruce DeBoskey The charity “grand bargain” in the United States allows nonprofit organizations to perform charitable, religious, educational and scientific duties for the “public good,” often relieving government from performing those same functions. In return for their contribution to the public good, nonprofits are deemed tax-exempt organizations, which means they typically don’t pay income, Read More →
Opinion: Do the right thing for our veterans
By Ritch Eich It wasn’t until several years after the Vietnam War ended that Vietnam veterans who were exposed to toxic herbicides sprayed in the jungle were granted presumptive disability benefits for illnesses caused by exposure to Agent Orange. According to the Agent Orange Act of 1991, veterans who served anywhere in Vietnam from Jan. Read More →
Opinion: How to avoid becoming a hacker’s victim
By Dale Stein Some of the nation’s largest corporations, like McDonalds, Adobe, eBay, Equifax, LinkedIn, Marriott, Target and Yahoo, have been affected by cybersecurity breaches. While many of these breaches have been widely publicized, they only represent a small fraction of the attempted cyberattacks that the modern business owner now faces. As a result of Read More →
Opinion: How to turn the next crisis into something routine
By Angel Iscovich We are just emerging from a once-in-a-generation crisis. COVID-19 has disrupted not just nations, but the world. We can view events as Pre-Pandemic and Post-Pandemic. To say the coronavirus has also disrupted businesses would be the understatement of the year. Or decade. We have witnessed the destruction of companies and industries that Read More →
Opinion: When it comes to vaccines, trust the real experts
By Frank Kalman When it comes to facing a deadly disease, who you are relying on for advice truly matters! According to Dr. Philip Landrigan — epidemiologist and pediatrician and one of the world’s leading advocates of children’s health — children today live longer, healthier lives and suffer less disease than children at any previous Read More →
Opinion: Moving Main Street forward
By Judy Mahan What a difference a year makes — and when the year was 2020, this couldn’t be more true. It is beyond refreshing to see San Luis Obispo County’s Main Street areas back to their pre-pandemic hustle and bustle: diners enjoying non-socially distanced meals, yoga studios at full capacity, retailers serving their customers Read More →
Opinion: A better way to pay for carbon emissions
By Marcus Thomson The recent extreme heat in the Western United States and Canada is remarkable. But events like these are made more likely, and more severe, because of the contribution of greenhouse gas emissions to climate change. We should expect the consequences to be far-reaching, with mainly negative impacts on land and ocean ecosystems, Read More →