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Todd Huffman

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Todd Huffman is a pediatrician and writer living in Eugene, Oregon. He is a regular contributor to many newspapers and publications throughout the Pacific Northwest.

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OpEd News Member for 942 week(s) and 5 day(s)

80 Articles, 0 Quick Links, 109 Comments, 1 Diaries, 0 Polls

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(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 7, 2007
Do Parents Matter? In our incessant media world of confusing and often contradictory advice, few are more vulnerable than parents. Across all forms of media, various self-described "parenting experts" contradict each other, and often even themselves. Parents are then left confused and uncertain as to what is considered the "best advice".
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 3, 2006
The Crisis of Meth Children are the forgotten victims of the worsening national epidemic of methamphetamine abuse.
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, July 1, 2007
What Does Freedom Mean Anymore? It is worth remembering during this week divided by an Independence Day holiday that as Americans we are united by freedom, perhaps even as many freedoms as there are of us. But what does the common man actually believe about freedom today? Does freedom today mean the same thing as written and fought for over two centuries ago?
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 11, 2006
Rules Don't Apply To Me Osama bin Laden brings far less fear into my everyday life than do 'Rules Don't Apply To Me' people.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Poverty In America: A Republican Moral Failing Republican leaders for a dozen years have led with the philosophy that the solution to poverty is to grow the economy out of the problem. And yet despite nearly two decades of generally robust economic growth poverty, especially severe poverty in single-parent families with children, has risen dramatically. Now, it's up to the Democrats to show moral leadership on the issue of poverty in America.
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 8, 2007
Stem Cells To Stay Locked Up The decision we face is whether an unwanted blastocyst, a mass of one hundred cells fully eleven weeks away from any neural function, has moral rights equivalent to the moral obligation we have to act for the benefit of the sick among us.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 26, 2006
Turning Kids' Minds Off Consumerism Children today are wired but disconnected.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, June 3, 2007
Science 101 From climate change to embryonic stem-cell research, from evolution to theories of the origins of life and the universe, science and scientific information is being yanked back and forth in high-profile public debates of urgent consequence to our nation's fiscal and educational future. The oncoming presidential election year promises even greater degrees of controversy and contention, and the outcomes are less than certain.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Stealing Jesus The Christian Left needs to do a better job pointing out the hypocrisy of those on the Right who claim to "walk" with Jesus even as they run away from those for whom Jesus spoke.
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, June 10, 2007
If John Q. Public Ran For President After work one recent evening the author had the good fortune to chat with John Q. Public over a few beers...
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, June 6, 2007
And That's The Way It Is With such an awesome responsibility as often the sole harbinger of news good and bad, we should expect much from our television media. Instead, we get the titillation of the trivial.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, June 11, 2007
Does Deterrence Trump Fallibility? After a long and relatively quiet time away, capital punishment suddenly appears poised to rejoin the crowded battlefield of America's culture wars.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, November 19, 2006
Giving The Gift Of Child Survival This Christmas Every minute of every day, 20 children die somewhere in the world. Each year, one in seven children in developing countries - nearly 11 million children - die before the age of five. Would it surprise you to know that fully two-thirds of these deaths are avoidable?
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, July 19, 2007
Bush's Views On Health Care Make Me Sick Mr. Bush apparently has no philosophical objections to the number of children equivalent to the entire population of the state of Oregon going without health care. Why should he? We all know that he also has no philosophical objections to the number of Iraqis he's killed equivalent to the entire population of Austin, Texas.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, May 7, 2006
Stem Cell Funding Ban: Five Years On This summer, President Bush's moratorium on federal funding for stem cell research turns five.
(13 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, June 4, 2007
Refueling Our Fears The news this weekend of the arrest of three suspects allegedly plotting to sabotage the jet fuel lines servicing JFK Airport – a plot in its nascent stages and one not likely to have caused much in the way of actual damage besides psychological – will undoubtedly have the effect of increasing the supply of fuel to the mass media's jet engine-like power to soar the worries of everyday Americans to the stratosphere.
(27 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 29, 2006
It's Time To Say "No More!" It's time for everyday Americans to stand up to the fiscal and social policies of the Republican leadership, to greed disguised as ideology, and say "no more!"
(12 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Full Bumpers And Empty Gestures Most everyone in America "supports the troops". But what does that really mean? Does displaying a $3 magnetic ribbon made in China really support the troops? Does countering with anti-war bumper stickers really support the troops? Or do both actions simply make the drivers feel good about themselves as if they are "doing their part" to support or resist this war?
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, June 15, 2006
If I Were A Progressive Candidate Some thoughts on what Joe & Jane Voter might want to see in a progressive candidate in 2006 & 2008.
(23 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, June 17, 2007
On Writing In The Age Of New Media We should be especially curious, in this the Age of Image, why writers nonetheless go on writing, why they still spend so much of their spare time conceiving ideas, nourishing them and helping them grow, and laboring to deliver them as words that few others will ever see when put to paper or screen.
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, March 30, 2006
If You Don't Mind, Why Don't You Mind? To anyone who isn't yet appalled by the extent of the disaster that is the Bush presidency: Why Don't You Mind?
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 16, 2007
Abortion Contortions Anyone pro-choice following the Republican debates – anyone? – must admit to a bit of schadenfreude at watching front-running presidential aspirant Rudolph Giuliani twist himself into Clintonesque contortions over the issue of abortion.
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, July 15, 2007
Doctoring Science Last Tuesday, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona gave testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. During his testimony, Dr. Carmona, who served as Surgeon General from 2002 until 2006, spoke of his experience working within the Bush administration.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, March 12, 2006
What Are We Afraid Of? Why do we fear the wrong things? Largely because of our crisis-driven media, which sears spectacular images into our minds, and diverts our anxieties from big risks toward smaller risks.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Taguba, Torture, And Abu Ghraib In the June 25th issue of the New Yorker magazine, Seymour Hersh interviews Army Major General Antonio Taguba about Abu Ghraib, and the administration's complicity with torture and human rights abuses.
(22 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Bring 'Em Home This war that our leaders have concocted has sapped our military strength, our credibility, our economy, our disaster preparedness, our morale, and our moral standing in the world. It has increased the threats America faces, and reduced the military, financial, and diplomatic tools with which we can respond. It is long past time for this gigantic distortion in our national priorities to be called to an end.
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, May 29, 2006
The Freedoms And The Fallen We Honor We would do well this Memorial Day to remind ourselves of the freedoms, unique in all the world and modeled since, for which untold Americans have fought or even given their lives.
(12 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 23, 2007
How The Christian Left Can Get It Right If the spiritual and Christian Left is to win the 21st century conflict between Christianities, it must talk more, much more, about spirituality and about Jesus. While protecting separation of Church and State is of utmost importance, it does not require that religion be banished from public discourse.
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 6, 2007
In The Ambulance Together We need a universal and affordable system of health insurance - available to everyone regardless of how much they earn, where they work, or even whether they have a job. Comprehensive health care reform is long overdue. By squandering time, we're narrowing our options.
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 13, 2007
A Nation Of Heroes In the aftermath of September 11th America became, to itself, a nation of heroes. Six years on we still fling the word hero around amply, carelessly, in every direction.
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, June 14, 2007
The REAL Domestic Terrorism Threats Why does no one cover the terrorism that does affect us personally, that exists in our daily lives, and is steadily on the rise? You know the terrorism I'm talking about, the kind perpetrated by a certain type of person with a certain type of personality, known as the 'Rules Don't Apply To Me' personality.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 18, 2006
Pro-Choice Democrats Have A Choice To Make The abortion issue is dragging Democrats down. Is it time for a more open-minded stance?
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 5, 2007
On The Release Of Two Prisoners Dear Mr. President, From the mind's prison, I release you – consider your time as served. However, Mr. President, be mindful that your freedom was not earned, nor was it reward for good behavior. Rather, your freedom was granted of my epiphany, after more than six years, that a mind consumed with holding one captive is a mind itself held in captivity.
(16 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 24, 2006
Our Christian Nation Should Shop Instead For A National Conscience Our greatest challenge if we are to remain a great nation is not terrorism, and not Iraq. Our greatest challenge is to recover our national conscience.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, March 16, 2006
I Saw The News Today, Oh Boy Television news once informed, and provoked, and challenged the status quo. No longer.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 24, 2006
How The Christian Left Can Get It Right A friend recently lamented that the Republicans have “stolen God”. Maybe, I said, but at least we still have Jesus. While many on the righteously religious right say they’ve “found” him, the story of the Jesus they’ve found is the one they’ve written themselves – in which a vengeful Jesus wields his cross as a sword and a shield. That’s not the Jesus I know, nor the one known by many Americans.
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, June 7, 2007
No Sin Left Behind Public interrogations of piety and faith, such as undergone by the Democratic candidates earlier this week, amount to a sort of religious litmus test for public office. Something, lest we forget, our Constitution in Article VI explicitly forbids.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Listening To Voices Sometimes I find it comforting to step outside of our own immediate historical experience into the past, to learn about problems that never change, remember what wiser men and women before us have said, and bring back some of that inheritance.
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, July 8, 2007
Intelligently Designing Politicians These are heady days in the world of science. Rapid advances in robotics, computers, and nanotechnology all promise less work and better living. Genetic engineers tell us we can expect designer children and designer pets within the decade. And perhaps best of all, scientists are offering cautious hope of designer politicians.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 2, 2007
The Voice That Is Great Within You To the Class of 2007 Graduate: Use the voice that is great within you to raise uncomfortable questions, and speak uncomfortable truths.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Searching For Common Ground The author considers how unfortunate it is that people get along best when unaware of each other's beliefs.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 2, 2006
Titillation Of The Trivial With such an awesome responsibility as often the sole harbinger of news good and bad, we should expect much from our television media. Instead, we get the titillation of the trivial.
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, June 11, 2007
On Finding Common Ground Our mental filing cabinets in America today seem to have only two drawers, labeled "those who think like us", and "those who do not". Those who think like us earn our uncritical admiration and our unbending ear. Those who do not are just filed away, and never listened to again.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, February 25, 2006
Just Where Is Our National Conscience? How can America become as good as we already see ourselves?
(21 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Hoping Against Indifference Heretofore all too seldom, several authors have been read in recent weeks expressing sentiments of hope against and despite all that so many more authors have so richly and explicitly detailed as going wrong with our world. I find such hope refreshing...
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 26, 2006
Bring 'em Home This war has been a recruiting sergeant for the very forces of terror our leaders sought out to destroy.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 22, 2007
Will Any Candidate Champion America's Children? What of the largest sliver of America than does not vote, involuntarily that is? Why does no candidate at least pretend to pander to their needs, to champion their cause? Of course, that unrepresented group is America's children.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, June 28, 2007
Over The Horizon Has anyone else noticed how often White House Press Secretary Tony Snow uses the term "over the horizon" when answering questions regarding the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq? It makes one want to break out in song...
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 4, 2006
George's War Three years ago George Bush started a war of choice - and all for what cause?
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, February 27, 2006
The Coming Pandemic? The H5N1 virus is rapidly spreading to new countries and continents. Health experts are increasingly worried.
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, December 13, 2006
George's War In just three short months, the fourth anniversary of the aerial "shock and awe" campaign that launched the U.S led war on Iraq will tap our shoulders. It will remind us that a fifth year of war stands raving and eager to follow the same terrible path down which this country has been misled for four.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, July 2, 2007
Here We Go Again Make no mistake. The current posture and policy of the Bush administration is leading our nation inexorably toward a ruinously self-defeating conflict with Iran, a conflict that will have grave consequences for the Middle East, the United States and the world. And once again, everyone is busily pretending that it is not happening.
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, April 13, 2006
Here We Go Again Haven't we heard all this before? The fate of the world lies in the hands of two fundamentalist regimes: American and Iranian.
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, March 2, 2006
Pledging 0.7 Percent For Child Survival It might surprise you to know that the United States ranks last amongst the wealthiest nations in foreign aid as a percentage of national income: only 0.16 percent.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Election Song A favorite line of song, penned by the Canadian band The Magnetic Fields, poses the question: If you don't mind, why don't you mind? Where is your sense of indignation? To anyone who isn't yet appalled by the extent of the disaster that is the Bush presidency, I could not think of how better to ask it: Why don't you mind?
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 4, 2006
Progressive Values Mission Statement One man's attempt to articulate what progressives, and most Americans, stand for.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Negative Global Attitudes: Why Should We Care? Three years after the invasion of Iraq, America's image in the world remains broadly negative and is getting worse.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, March 1, 2006
Behind The Curtain No Longer Six months ago today, Katrina not only flooded a city and flattened a coast. She also blew away the thick curtain our nation had drawn across our most poor.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, July 30, 2006
American Tune Do what you can, where you are, now. It is "the age's most uncertain hour".
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, October 24, 2006
The Politics Of Hope Indifference is still the dominant American civic attitude towards politics. What's wrong with having a little hope?
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, May 25, 2006
Countering The Prosperity Fable The economy may be doing fine, but the people in it are not.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Remembering Our Freedoms This year perhaps more than any before we would do well to use the opportunity of the anniversary of our nation's Declaration of Independence to remind ourselves of the freedoms, unique in all the world and modeled since, for which untold Americans over the past 231 years have fought or even given their lives.
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, February 23, 2006
Where's The Party? Six months after Katrina, rescuers are still looking for the Democratic Party.
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, March 13, 2006
Darfur In Darfur, will the world once again wait until genocide is complete and lament afterward that we should have done something?
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, October 30, 2006
No More! Families that work hard and full-time shouldn't be poor in America. On November 7th, Americans need to elect politicians of every stripe who will support a living family income, who will put poverty relief ahead of tax relief for the rich, and who will put the interests and needs of America's workers ahead of corporations and wealthy estate-owners.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 18, 2006
Another Crack In The Wall With virtually no public awareness, the U.S House of Representatives late in September passed a bill that undermines enforcement of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, which the Supreme Court has for more than 150 years upheld as vital for the separation of church and state.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 22, 2006
Lifting Our Lamps, Or Putting Them Out The first in a two-part series in which the author examines the current debate on immigration reform.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Of Congress And Camels As Congress is set to pass more billions in tax cuts for the wealthy, the author wonders how the faith of Jesus came to be pro-rich and pro-business.
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, August 7, 2006
Fear No Evil Another election season is upon us, and we can soon expect to be terrorized by the politics of fear.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, November 23, 2006
Keeping What We've Been Given While voters resoundingly gave both houses of Congress back to the Democrats on November 7th, Democrats must clearly understand what it is that they have been given: a mere two-year opportunity to demonstrate why they deserve a shot at measuring for new curtains in the Oval Office in 2008. It isn't much time, and there's too much work to be done to waste time sharpening the hatchet.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 17, 2006
Moral Standing Falling Down Three years after the start of the war on Iraq, it is crucial that we consider its effects on global attitudes towards America as we debate whether this war has made us any safer.
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, October 19, 2006
Words We'll Never Hear "My Fellow Citizens, On this night I would like to depart from the usual empty talking points demanded by my pollsters and political spinmeisters. On this night, ladies and gentlemen, I would instead like to speak about America's children..."
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Asleep And Dreaming Our soldiers need to know that while their nation loses sleep worrying for them, and wishing for their safe return home from their Mesopotamian nightmare, their commander-in-chief sleeps easily, more easily than they'd ever assume.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, September 11, 2006
In Memoriam On a bright and terrible morning five years ago this day three thousand lives were lost in a series of instants. Five years on, let us leave the past to its restless peace.
SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Sowing Dragon's Teeth By insisting that the United States can win a "long war" against "radical Islam", the President is sowing dragon's teeth.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, August 20, 2006
Five Years On The fifth anniversary of September 11th will tap our shoulders next month. It will warn of another year of war that waits raving and eager along that same terrible path down which this country's grief over that day has been misled for more than three.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Making Sense of Sensible Immigration Reform The second of a two-part series in which the author examines the ongoing debate on immigration reform.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, May 28, 2006
To The Class of 2006 Your future promises more possibilities and more challenges than those experienced by any generation before you.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 26, 2006
Intelligently Designing Politicians Imagine using biotechnology to design better politicians.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, October 16, 2006
What If The Democrats Win? Barring a wouldn't-put-it-past-them pre-election staging of George W. Bush personally dragging bin Laden by his beard out of his bat cave, Democrats appear poised in a few short weeks to translate their witty way with bumper-stickers into control of one or both houses of Congress. Will they use their newfound power wisely?

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