Editorials from around Ohio

Excerpts of recent editorials of statewide and national interest from Ohio newspapers: The Columbus Dispatch, Sept. 15

Is 16 too young for a driver's license? The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says yes, that states should raise the driving age to 17 or 18. Relevant statistics have been compiled for decades, and both sides have good points to make, so let's reopen the debate.

In the most states, the minimum driving age is usually 15 or 16, except New Jersey, where it's 17. Many European Union countries set the age at 18. As the insurance institute points out, the rationale behind these decisions isn't well-known and might be arbitrary.

Many states and countries wrote the age rules early in the 20th century, when society was largely agrarian and working teenagers helped to support their families. New Zealand, for example, set the age at 15 in 1925, when that also was the legal age for dropping out of school.

A wholesale re-evaluation of age restrictions is overdue. ...

Perhaps this discussion should be folded into the national debate kicked off by college presidents about whether the drinking age should be lowered from 21. Both issues center around the development of the teen brain and what it means to become an adult.

On the Net: http://tinyurl.com/6r2nxn

------ The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, Sept. 11

The dedication of 184 shimmering benches set amid paper-bark maple trees and small reflecting pools doesn't just bring into being this nation's first national Sept. 11 memorial.

The memorial park along the path hijacked Flight 77 followed into the west wall of the Pentagon also evokes just how far the country has traveled since that fateful day seven years ago. And it reminds us how far we have yet to go to come to grips with a terrorist attack that both challenged and changed America, not always for the better. ...

With one curving bench arranged by age for each of the 59 victims who died on the hijacked plane and the 125 who perished inside the Pentagon, the memorial promotes a fuller appreciation of the sacrifices of those who still toil behind those walls to guard our national security.

That struggle must encompass all of us, if we as a nation are to make the adjustments and sacrifices necessary to keep pursuing terrorist plotters wherever they hide, without undermining the vitality of our military.

On the Net: http://tinyurl.com/6n3s3z

------ The (Youngstown) Vindicator, Sept. 9

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland favors a law that would require companies to provide workers with paid sick leave.

There are those who would agree and those who dont. We believe, along with chambers of commerce and other business organizations, that sick leave and other fringe benefits are issues that should be left to companies to decide. They know the demands of their own workplaces, they know their labor pool and they know which benefits they can afford and which they cant. ...

Mandatory sick leave almost became a center stage issue in Ohio this year, and but for Stricklands intervention, it might have.

Ohios Republican legislature had refused to pass a mandatory sick-leave bill, so an organization called Ohioans for Healthy Families took up the cause, which had been pushed by the Service Employees International Union. Petitions were circulated and a ballot issue was prepared for the November election. ...

Regardless of his philosophical leanings toward providing sick leave and his political ties to labor, Strickland took a firm stand against passage of the November ballot issue. ...

After spending $1.8 million on the effort, Ohioans for Healthy Families pulled the plug. ...

Even having the issue appear on the statewide ballot would have sent a message to companies considering a move to Ohio that this was not the most business-hospitable state in the union.

On the Net:

http://www.vindy.com/news/2008/sep/10/ohio-avoided-a-showdown-over-s ick-leave-this/

------ The (Steubenville) Herald-Star, Sept. 13

Campaigning in this era of presidential candidates seeking to wear the "change" mantle really hasn't changed.

If anything, until American voters demand more substantive national coverage -- by actively paying attention, watching and reading quality information and reporting (it is still available) -- campaigning for president will continue far into the future as attack-counterattack, neck-and-neck horserace events.

Want evidence?

Just look back over the past week.

Barack Obama made a comment that "you can put lipstick on a pig and it is still a pig."

John McCain's campaign took that as a direct shot at vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who has taken part of her implausible rise to fame on the back of a line about the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull dog being lipstick.