Opinion

GUEST COLUMN, Sue Peschin

Every day, medical discoveries are made in American labs. But turning those discoveries into accessible diagnostics and treatments requires more than scientific brilliance -- it demands a policy environment that supports risk-taking, rewards public-private collaboration, and protects invention.

That’s where the United States’ intellectual property (IP) laws come in, and they are the key to unlocking better access to healthcare.

More broadly, IP rights enable researchers, inventors, businesses, designers, artists, and others to legally protect their innovative and creative outputs and secure an economic return from them.

SAINTS PERSPECTIVE, SCCC President Brad Bennett

Collaboration. There was a time when collaboration was an unwelcome term that described someone working against the agenda, possibly in cahoots with an enemy in a time of war.

That’s no longer the case. At Seward County Community College, we list collaboration as one of our core values because we are huge fans of what collaboration means in 2025. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, that is: “to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.” The word itself comes from the Latin  Latin collaboratus, meaning to labor together (from Latin com- + laborare to labor). The word was first recorded in 1837, a moment in history that also saw the introduction of the terms “American way,” “bread-and-butter,” and “rebirth.” 

MY PERSPECTIVE, Gary Damron

For several months, we've been looking at Jesus who is best described as God-man, both fully divine and fully human. After Jesus' ascension into heaven, there were three biblically documented appearances to people on earth. One was to Stephen as recorded in Acts 7:55. "Being full of the Holy Spirit, [Stephen] gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God." A second appearance was to Saul of Tarsus, on the road to Damascus, in Acts 9:3-5. And the disciple John recorded in Revelation 1:12-16 that Jesus appeared as a person, but more than revived in flesh, He was spiritual in nature.

GUEST COLUMN, J. Basil Dannebohm

Last week I wrote a commentary entitled, “Grading Elon: Rocketman's realistic report card.” In it, I laid out the numbers indicating DOGE was a complete failure. The piece was met with the usual, highly predictable responses from the far-right: “Fake News,” “Go Elon, MAGA baby!”

The Publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett sent me an email which read: “LOL Nice try dude..MAGA!!”

For the record, I’m 43 years-old – not 23. I’m not exactly a “dude.” I’m also a stranger to this individual, who receives my commentaries via a mailing list; including “LOL” as though the message was a text betwixt longtime drinking buddies is slightly juvenile. But it’s not the first “LOL” I’ve received from this publisher. Earlier this year, he sent me a message that read: “LOL- nice try. Maybe you'd prefer the gender confused fetal murdering Kamala Harris in the Oval? Much more along your lines of Christian teaching I'm sure. Don't forget... a bankrupt America can't tythe. When you're done pouting, you might try helping Make America Great Again.”