Editorial voices from across the country
Editorial voices from newspapers around the United States as compiled by the Associated Press:
When federal officials consider new regulations regarding prescription drugs, one wonders whether they take even a cursory look at how those laws might affect those living in the real world. It is no secret to anyone living in a state affected by the hideous plague of opiate abuse that OxyContin is a problem.
Greed and ignorance led to poor prescribing practices and pill mills that have brought great swaths of Appalachia and the Midwest to their knees. OxyContin and other opiates led to heroin. No state has yet been able to find a solution.
Does the federal government really believe that, when there is money to be made, some unscrupulous prescribers will not throw caution to the wind? Probably not. But that is Ohio’s – or West Virginia’s, or Kentucky’s – problem, not theirs.
We would like to ask our readers for help.
We seek enlightenment as to why businessman Donald Trump, the say-anything, insult-everyone candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, continues to attract so many enthusiastic followers and remains the poll front-runner among a dozen or so GOP hopefuls.
It is true beyond the shadow of any doubt that Trump is far removed from the typical Washington insider politician with whom so many Americans have rightfully become disillusioned. Is that the source of his appeal? Our own random, highly unscientific polling suggests people are drawn to The Donald because he says what he thinks and doesn’t care who might be offended.
Such “honesty” can be refreshing. The trouble with Trump is that so much of his outrageous rhetoric is like a giant facade, impressive maybe at first glance but lacking any depth, any substance, and built on nothing more than raw emotion, fear and anger. Trump goes out of his way to inflame his audiences, because that’s all he has. That’s all there is to Donald Trump. That’s his shtick. And people seem to love him for it. The question is, why?
“RIP: Black Friday … born (purportedly) in the early 1960s in Philadelphia, as the city’s police department sought a name for the troublesome pedestrian and vehicle traffic congestion on the day after Thanksgiving … died in 2015 from oversaturation and changing times, or is this a Mark Twain death rumor moment?”
That tongue-in-cheek obituary definitely is exaggerated and certainly may be premature, but the results of this year’s Black Friday prove the landscape has changed.
Reports from across the country say it was, more often than not, a typical shopping day. It probably was confusing and frustrating for merchants, who are so conditioned to the day being circled on their calendars as the most significant indicator of what the shopping season will bring.
Those feelings might be misplaced, however. The National Retail Federation still predicts holiday sales will total about $630.5 billion this year, for a 3.7 percent increase over 2014.
So people still are buying stuff, just not so much on the day after Thanksgiving.
Most significantly, more folks are staying home, avoiding all crowds (large and small) and shopping online.
Some retailers already have picked up on those changing habits, starting sales as early as October (the NRF estimates that 60 percent of shoppers started buying a couple of weeks ahead of Thanksgiving). They’re opening on Thanksgiving itself, which has prompted complaints about forcing employees to miss the holiday with their families, but seems to attract shoppers wanting to work off the goodies they’ve ingested.
There are 54 shopping days from Nov. 1 to Christmas Eve. Folks today are using ’em all.