MiddletownJournal.com

The Associated Press

Excerpts of recent editorials from Ohio newspapers:

This season’s flu vaccine shortage may be a useful wake-up call, and it should prompt citizens to demand the production of a sufficient supply of vaccines. Then, citizens must follow up and get vaccinated.

The World Health Organization fears a pandemic is likely. It says a strain of bird flu that has killed citizens in Asian nations could mutate and easily spread. Klaus Stohr, influenza chief of WHO, said, “It’s only a matter of time. We have a window of opportunity now to prepare ourselves.”

This is a public health issue, and in a market economy, it’s the federal government’s job to make it profitable for firms to make flu vaccines.

Vaccine firms make little profit on flu vaccines. That helps to explain why there is only one major flu shot supplier now. Just 10 years ago there were five.

THE (TOLEDO) BLADE, NOV. 5

The first transplant of a human face, when it occurs, will have nothing to do with vanity. That is as it should be and should remain.

A review board at the Cleveland Clinic has given Dr. Maria Siemionow, the institution’s director of plastic surgery research and microsurgery training, approval to try the procedure. The decision came only after months of debate about the technical, psychological and ethical issues involved.

That, also, is as it should be.

The philosophical and ethical aspects are ripe for discussion. The face is the most recognizable outward sign of a person’s identity — the banner of uniqueness and the most basic tool of recognition and communication.

It is not, however, the key to a person’s uniqueness. How a person looks is among the most superficial measures of who that person is.

THE (CLEVELAND) PLAIN DEALER, NOV. 6

Doomsaying predictions of chaos and a legal quagmire proved false as voting went pretty smoothly across the nation in the 2004 election.

Local election officials generally did a good job this time around and deserve recognition for that fact.

Before the next election, however, Ohio election officials need to work out a number of matters, some of which led to rapid-fire court battles right up to early morning on Election Day. Their agenda should cover the proper role and use of challengers at polling places, provisional ballots, absentee ballots, registration deadlines, early voting and extended voting times. Clearly agreed-upon answers are needed.

The overall goal should be to make it easy to vote without long waits, yet guard against fraud and tallying error. Electronic voting is on the way as a result of the Help America Vote Act, although reliability and accountability questions still must be settled to protect the integrity of election results.

THE (LORAIN) MORNING JOURNAL, NOV. 8

It was refreshing to see Ohio State University and the University of Michigan turn down an offer for the naming rights to their annual gridiron slugfest.

Consider it a victory of tradition over crass commercialism.

The universities had the opportunity to take an offer from SBC to change the name to the SBC Michigan-Ohio State game.

Ohio State University would have made $260,000 a year from the $1 million offered by SBC, a drop in the Buckeye bucket compared with an annual athletic program budget of $85,000,000.

While some regular-season games at other schools have been sold to the corporate world, the administrations and athletic departments at OSU and Michigan should be commended. It is almost laughable to speak of tradition in sports these days, but there are still some icons we hope are never sold.

STEUBENVILLE HERALD-STAR, NOV. 5

There, Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro has said it: Ohio’s body of public employees is top-heavy. There are too many managers being paid to manage too many splintered departments.

Almost lost last week among all the postelection coverage, was Petro’s speech before the Ohio council of Retail Merchants during which he unveiled his plan for reshaping Ohio government. The plan, obviously, will be the cornerstone of Petro’s campaign for Ohio governor in 2006, and as such it is a good example of how politics is supposed to work.

It is a candidate’s serious look at the overarching issue in the next gubernatorial campaign — the state’s crippled budget.

Of course in Ohio jobs are an issue, education is an issue, public safety is an issue. But the state can’t properly address any of those issues if it doesn’t get its financial house in order.

THE (YOUNGSTOWN) VINDICATOR, NOV. 8