Image from Oregon Live

Oregon’s governor has halted all executions for the remainder of his time in office.

This move grants temporary reprieve to the state’s 37 death row inmates, one of whom was scheduled to be put to death on Dec. 6.

Citing his personal beliefs, Gov. John Kitzhaber announced his decision on Tuesday.

It is time for Oregon to consider a different approach. I refuse to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer; and I will not allow further executions while I am governor.”

At the same time, he addressed two executions which took place during his previous terms as governor.

They were the most agonizing and difficult decisions I have made as governor and I have revisited and questioned them over and over again during the past 14 years. I do not believe that those executions made us safer; and certainly they did not make us nobler as a society. And I simply cannot participate once again in something I believe to be morally wrong.”

Oregon is now the fifth state to put a hold on the death penalty since 2007.

What is the policy in your state?

Luke 4:38-39 (NIV)

³⁸Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. ³⁹So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.

Reflection

What do we do if we are asked to help someone with a high fever? It seems like an ordinary thing, since we have all suffered through fevers. We think of cool baths, damp towels, and medicine. Then if those things don’t work, we have another armory of treatments: drink hot chicken noodle soup, stay under the covers, sweat it out, call the doctor. What comes out in this passage is that Jesus didn’t have an armory of treatments, he didn’t have to go to powers greater than his own. His power was enough. Jesus simply rebuked the fever and it left. To the ancient world, it was rare and a marvel, but it wasn’t a fluke, a magic spell, or a show. It was real, it was supernatural, and it was Jesus healing the ordinary in ordinary life circumstances.

Responding to the Transmission

While we also need to continue to take care of ordinary life circumstances, let’s live ordinarily by surrendering in faith to the healing that can take place in our lives and in others because Jesus is here and God’s kingdom is with us. If we need healing physically or in our hearts and minds, let’s pray in faith that Jesus would heal us in those areas. It doesn’t have to be special or dramatic, but agreeing and believing that God can do it.

In the November issue of his monthly podcast, “The EMS Squadcast,” Emergency Health Services alumnus Tim Perkins ’97 interviewed UMBC paramedic program director Dwight Polk about Polk’s recent EMS World Expo presentation “HIV/AIDS: Why Don’t We Talk About It Anymore.”

Perkins, who works for the Virginia Office of Emergency Management Services, began his 20-year career in EMS as a volunteer fire fighter in rural New York.

To read more about The EMS Squadcast and to hear the podcast, click here. Polk appears 8 min 51 sec into the recording.

To learn more about UMBC’s EHS program, click here.

Seniors in need often receive excessive donations near the holidays. Julie Rosenthal, program management specialist for Asian studies, makes sure that they are fed the rest of the year, too.

Rosenthal runs a nonprofit program called “Food on the 15th.”The project has delivered 9,500 bags of groceries to hundreds of low-income seniors over the past six years, and is designed to introduce children of affluence to people who are struggling.

“I thought my kids were way too focused on themselves. There was dance and drama and all that, but it was all about them,” said Rosenthal. She needed something that would make her kids understand how privileged they were compared with others around them, so she organized parents, teachers and children to bag and deliver groceries to low income seniors. The key to the approach is for the kids to do more than fill a bin with canned peas and boxes of cereal. By handing the food to people in need, they get a more intimate look at what people who struggle might look like.

The story, “Food program puts kids face-to-face with the needy, not just at the holidays” was published in the Washington Post on November 21.

This week EMS World features an EMS Squadcast interview with Dwight Polk, UMBC’s paramedic program director. Polk was interviewed by Tim Perkins, a UMBC alumnus who now works for the Virginia Office of EMS. The conversation focuses on Polk’s EMS World Expo presentation “HIV/AIDS: Why Don’t We Talk About It Anymore.” Key topics include how trimming educational budgets has harmed preventative measures targeting the disease and how instructors can better prepare EMS practitioners to provide quality care for patients with HIV/AIDS. To access the podcast click here. Polk appears 8 min 51 sec into the recording.

Our everyday lives are increasingly affected by events and issues beyond our nation’s borders, and many colleges are responding by creating specific programs that address the need to understand different cultures, reports the Baltimore Sun in an education supplement story entitled “Learning through Language.”

One program that the Sun highlights is UMBC’s new Asian studies program, the first such program at a public institution in Maryland. “Asia cannot be ignored, and our students need to be prepared for a world in which Asia plays a major role,” said Constantine Vaporis, director of the program.

The story appeared in the Sun’s education supplement on November 20. A pdf of the full story can be seen here.

On Tuesday, November 15, UMBC professor Bruce Walz, chair of Emergency Health Services and past president of the National Association of EMS Educators, represented NAEMSE at a White House meeting with national security staff. Walz was part of a delegation of 13 physicians, EMS and trauma service experts assembled by Advocates for EMS to discuss the issue of an EMS federal lead agency.

During the meeting, Walz stressed that EMS educators prepare health care professionals regardless of the means by which the providers deliver EMS response and care. Walz is also immediate past-president of  AEMS, a coalition of EMS providers, physicians, regulators and educators who advocate for EMS-related issues at the federal level.