Public Health – Professional Copywriter | Wyalusing, PA Bradford County

Facing Up to the Monster Within Us

Sometimes the simplest demands can turn a man into a monster. Because the mask has become so polarizing, the extreme reactions aren’t really about being asked to wear one for an hour. It’s about communicating what side you’re on. — ProPublica, October 7, 2021, “We’re Losing Our Humanity and the Pandemic Is to Blame” In a well-researched October 7 article for ProPublica, Sarah Smith takes a fascinating look at how COVID-19 has turned Americans against each other, [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:35+00:00October 27, 2021|1918, Constitution Rights, COVID-19, Masks, Pandemics, Public Health|

Big Pharm Cranks Up TV Ads to Bypass Doctors

Choosing your medication: Who do you trust? I still watch the traditional television networks where they include advertising in the programming. Not only do they include commercials, but they claim a huge chunk of an hour-long program. I understand that there are between 15 and 20 minutes of advertising in a typical television hour. You can calculate the percentage on that, but you no longer need to rush to the kitchen to grab that snack during a [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:45+00:00August 5, 2021|Advertising, Commercials, Prescription Drugs, Public Health, Television|

Wildcats and Panthers and Wolves, Oh My!

“I told you we shouldn’t be out here after dark!” We seem to have entered a weird time of make-believe where stuff is made up by people who I’m not going to mention, because they wish things hadn’t turned out the way they did. That’s the way it is today. If we don’t like the way things are, we just pretend they aren’t and move on believing what we want to believe. I mean who would have [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:56+00:00December 30, 2020|2020, COVID-19, History, Mortality, Public Health, Uncategorized|

The Constitution, Case Law and Public Health

Anger abounds during this pandemic, but what Constitutional rights are being threatened? We should all commiserate with someone who owns and operates a restaurant, bar or combination of both in this year of the pandemic. It was tough enough before when many concessions had to be made to keep dining rooms open, as well as limitations on hours of bar sales and other restrictive recommendations. Many supporters of these small businesses in our communities stepped up and [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:56+00:00December 16, 2020|1918, Constitution, Coronavirus, Democracy, Public Health, Sacrifices|

Tale of Two Pandemics: Beware of Slackers

Some slackers faced death sentences during the 1918 pandemic. I guess we are all familiar with the idea that history repeats itself, and, accordingly, if we don’t learn from the mistakes of the past, we’ll keep on making the same blunders. The Philosopher George Santayana gets the credit for best expressing this theorem with this assessment: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." He was looking at this from a historical perspective, a world view, [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:58+00:00July 22, 2020|1918, American History, Coronavirus, Coughing, COVID-19, death, History, Mortality, Pandemics, Public Health, Spanish Influenza, Ventilators|

Welcome Back to Bizarro World U.S.A.

It is better to have a mask on your face than a foot in your mouth. Looking back over the recently departed month of June in the Land of Opportunity, which, in case that rings a bell, was once synonymic for the United States of America, two images are branded into my memory. One is of a Minneapolis cop looking casually at the camera and then down as George Floyd takes his dying breaths. The other is [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:59+00:00July 1, 2020|Bible, COVID-19, Fox News, Lying, Marketing, Masks, Pence, Presidency, Public Health|

Another Invisible Threat Complicating Our Lives

How much plastic are you ingesting? I’ve been doing a lot of research the past couple of weeks on quackery and consumer scams, mainly because there has been such a tremendous increase of such chicanery and it is keeping state attorneys general busy across the country. This outbreak has been triggered by the pandemic that as already changed our lives and will recast our future as a country and, sadly I think, hastening our exit from the [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:10:00+00:00May 6, 2020|Advertising, Coronavirus, Current Events, Health, Marketing, Nutrition, Plastic, Public Health, Recycling, Technology|

Curdling the Milk of Human Kindness

Sometimes it takes some digging to get to the truth I guess you might call this the era of fake news, so our biggest challenge as informed citizens is to get real and not live life like a reality show. It’s about exploiting our biases with adulterated or downright phony stories that get passed along until they amass hundreds of thousands, even millions, of believers. The 21st Century version is nurtured and promulgated by social media and [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:10:00+00:00April 22, 2020|Compromise, Coronavirus, Donald Trump, Fact Checking, Fake News, Fakes and Phonies, Health, Pandemics, Public Health, Sacrifices, Social Media, Uncategorized|

Joining Forces against a Common Enemy

Since we crowd together to spread it, we need to join forces to vanquish it. Like it or not, this strain of the coronavirus is going to drastically change the way we live our lives. It’s started already. We can’t avoid it, and the transformation is going to be drastic, even historic. It has the dual potential of tearing us apart and bringing us together. I’m rooting for the latter. At last count, as I am writing [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:10:01+00:00March 11, 2020|1918, Coronavirus, Fear, Politics, Public Health, Sacrifices, Self-Control, Spanish Influenza, World War I, Wyalusing Life|