Category: Commentary

My husband, Phil, a New Jersey native, father of three children under 7, and former Penn State University football receiver, needs a kidney.

According to the National Kidney Registry, more than 90,000 people in the United States are currently waiting for a donor kidney. In the Philadelphia metropolitan area, that number hovers around 5,000.

My husband suffered an acute kidney injury in December 2023 caused by liver rejection medicine, a complication that affects 4% of transplant recipients.

Chronic kidney disease is common in the U.S., affecting one in seven adults. Most people don’t feel symptoms at first, but if it gets worse, it can lead to kidney failure and serious health problems. Dialysis is a lifesaving treatment for kidney failure, but requires the patient to be hooked to a dialysis machine for hours at a time, often for several days each week.

The small joys and normalcy of daily life quickly shift around dialysis schedules and doctors’ appointments.

It’s been nearly two years since we were placed on the transplant list, and our three small children rely on us to keep their world from being turned upside down even more than it already is.

They see the dialysis boxes stacked taller than they are in the front room, the catheter that we have to be careful of during playtime with their dad, and the frequent hospital visits because of a weakened immune system. Our daughter is even able to set up the peritoneal dialysis machine with help from Phil.

As a partner of someone on the transplant list, my grief is silent and omnipresent. I find myself torn between supporting my sick husband, bringing my best self to the classroom each day, and ensuring our three little ones can simply be kids.

When I drive to work, I see the billboards off I-95 for others who need a kidney; the wives and husbands and grandchildren and parents who are feeling just as overwhelmed and hopeful as I am. Maybe there is a match out there; perhaps someone will see their billboard, car magnet, or transplant profile and respond.

Like so many other families with someone on the transplant list, I help the best way I can. I work to know what the weekly lab numbers mean, whether my husband’s sluggishness is due to low iron and blood count, and if there are early signs of an infection.

Each December, his weakened immune system seems to lead him to the hospital, where he spends more time than our family would like. There is also guilt in not being able to know everything, and how best to help him in every critical time of need.

Throughout this journey, Phil remains ever the optimist. Always looking on the positive side, while struggling to stay awake or suffering from terrible headaches and exhaustion. He remains diligently waiting and hoping things will turn around.

But it has been two years, and we are still waiting.

There are ways to help; for example, getting a donor match screening, as my friend, Meredith, did. She donated with extraordinary grace to a stranger last April, and this year, her family member received a kidney thanks to her advanced donation.

To become an organ donor, you have a few options:

• Join your state’s registry. Visit the Donate Life America website to sign up for your state’s online donation registry.
• Use your driver’s license. Declare your intentions to be an organ donor on your driver’s license.
• Start the donor screening process. On the Donate Life America website, you can also scroll down to “Start the donor screening process.”
• Donate through the National Kidney Registry. If you want to donate a kidney to someone in need, you can visit the National Kidney Registry.

Hesitation about organ donation, whether during life or after death, can stem from cultural beliefs, religious views, or medical mistrust. Many common myths about organ donation have long been disproven, but becoming a living organ donor is a demanding process, with a full return to normal taking eight weeks.

According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, 11 people die every day waiting for a kidney.

The truth remains simple: You have the power to save a life, to restore a family, and to give someone like Phil the most extraordinary gift of all.

Morgen Perdue-Collins is a Philadelphia teacher, and her husband, Phil, is still looking for a match. You can visit his kidney donation page here. And visit the National Kidney Donation site here.

In the days after the mass shooting at Brown University and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, the Trump administration suspended the diversity visa “green card lottery,” saying the suspected shooter, a Portuguese national, had obtained permanent residency through it. It’s a convenient move that redirects attention from what happened to whom to blame.

But one of the two students killed at Brown was a migrant, too.

Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov was a Brown freshman, raised by a family that came to the United States from Uzbekistan to build a life here. Those who knew him described his kindness and generosity. Friends and family said he dreamed of becoming a neurosurgeon, a goal shaped in part by the brain surgery he needed as a child.

This young man represented what so many families come here hoping for: safety, education, a bright future. His death should have sparked a national reckoning with gun violence. Instead, the policy response once again targeted immigration, even as an immigrant family is among those grieving.

Freezing the diversity visa lottery doesn’t touch the core problem of mass shootings at schools across the country. It doesn’t answer the question that matters most in the wake of any campus shooting: How is it so easy to get a gun, let alone bring it into a place built for learning?

The administration’s response hinges on a simple narrative in which the suspected shooter’s immigration history becomes the headline, and the first policy move becomes a freeze on a visa program that has nothing to do with how a gun was obtained or used.

Even the publicly reported timeline is more complicated than that talking point suggests. What’s clear is that the suspension of this visa program diverts attention from gun access and campus safety.

The diversity visa lottery is one of the few legal routes for people from underrepresented countries to come to the United States. This year alone, more than 5,500 people from Uzbekistan were selected in the lottery. For many families, it represents the only legal path forward. The administration has closed the door on that pathway.

So when the administration suspends the program in the name of “safety,” it does more than change a policy. It tells grieving immigrant families that their place here can shift with every news cycle.

It also asks the public to draw the wrong lesson from what happened at Brown. If leaders want to prevent another campus shooting, they have to deal with the common denominator across these tragedies: easy access to guns and the absence of meaningful guardrails.

Suspending a visa program does not keep a firearm out of an attacker’s hands. It does not make a classroom safer. It does not protect the next student walking into an engineering building on an ordinary day.

Umurzokov should not be an afterthought in this debate. His family came here to build a future. He earned his place at Brown. He wanted a life spent helping others. Yet none of that kept him safe.

If we are serious about honoring the lives of people like Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, we should resist the impulse to turn grief into scapegoating.

In a nation built by immigrants and now mourning an immigrant student, leaders should be focused on preventing the next shooting, not using this tragedy to deepen fear while guns remain exactly where they are.

Mehri Hamrokulova grew up between the U.S. and Uzbekistan, and recently graduated from Colgate University with a degree in sociology, focusing on immigrant experiences.

Remember Y2K? That panic was cute.

In 1999, we simultaneously braced for a new millennium and the end of the world.

Y2K loomed ahead, a huge question mark. Best Buy convinced us that everything from air traffic to banking to the machine in your “computer room” would be affected. Chaos was to ensue.

Or maybe not. It was a curious, innocent type of fear — not the gut-punching terror that dominates today’s news.

This was before smartphones, before push alerts every five minutes. Panic traveled by television anchors, phones tethered to the kitchen wall, office rumors, and chain emails that screamed “FWD: URGENT!!”

We prepared for the chaos with zeal, clearing out Wawa like we were preparing for a decade underground. Nothing says “national crisis” like a region hoarding Shortis and Tastykakes. If the world were ending, we were not going down without one last soft pretzel.

Looking back, the panic feels almost sweet. No one knew exactly why we were worried — something about floppy disks and zeros? It was an amusing type of fear — not the adrenaline surges and terror layered across today’s news feeds.

Here in Philly, our emotion was focused wholly on saying goodbye to Veterans Stadium, beer-soaked basement jail and all. We panicked more about losing that stadium than we ever did about losing our computers. Underneath the apocalyptic preparation was a communal consciousness that understood we were safe.

Freedom Fries

A few years later, our national anxiety shifted from computers to potatoes. In 2003, “French fries” were hastily rebranded as “Freedom Fries.” Restaurants reprinted menus. Congress cafeterias complied. Late-night comics had a field day.

In an unprecedented show of unity, Americans declared a “War on Terror” and pushed for an invasion of Iraq. France wouldn’t participate, so the U.S. did the most Philly thing we’ve ever done and declared a nationwide rebranding of the French fry.

It was Red October at McDonald’s. The poor soul who ordered French — not freedom — fries got no potato side, with disapproval to boot.

This was the norm for national crises then. They were the civic version of Dikembe Mutombo: gentle and kinda funny. We felt safe. Disagreements were just that — disagreements. They didn’t split families, and they weren’t the origin story for the latest school shooter.

National conversations were civilized (as much as they can be in Philly), respectful, and safe. Things felt steady. We felt safe. When Mutombo hugged Allen Iverson after big wins, it felt like the whole city was getting that hug. We were together. We were OK.

Those were what I call vintage panics — silly enough to laugh at later, harmless enough to leave us intact.

Y2K didn’t kill us. Freedom Fries resulted in menu changes, not bloodshed. The Vet came down. Wawa expanded. This was the era of the DREAM Act. Diversity in most any form was encouraged. Panics were survivable.

Rage then vs. rage now

Today’s rage is different. It’s constant, heavy, and often deadly. Rage is in our politics, our traffic, our classrooms, our feeds. It no longer renames a side dish; it breaks communities. It divides families. Sometimes it takes lives.

Another awful headline recently made me stop and think: Maybe this is it. Maybe we’ve gone too far. The contrast with the potato wars of 2003 could not be sharper.

Back then, we funneled our fury into countdown clocks, menu edits, and worrying whether Mutombo’s knees would last through the NBA Finals. Now the stakes are so much higher.

Y2K didn’t take us out. Freedom Fries didn’t tear us apart. Sports heartbreak never broke this city’s spirit — if we survived those four straight trips to the NFC championship, we could survive anything.

What we have now? Much harder.

A call to calm

We’ve tried a call to arms. We’ve armed ourselves with anger, suspicion, conspiracy, and endless fights. It hasn’t worked.

So here’s another option: A call to calm.

To put down the rage, the hostility, the weapons, both literal and digital. To remember there was a time when our national arguments were about VCR clocks and potatoes. When even our panics were crispy, golden, and — in hindsight — almost sweet.

Because potatoes don’t storm capitols. Potatoes don’t undermine democracy. Potatoes don’t bleed.

And maybe we should offer a long-overdue apology to the French. You gave us the Statue of Liberty. You didn’t deserve to be demoted for the sake of alliteration.

And much like that movement, this idea is so crazy it might work: a National Chicken Tender Movement. Not aimed at treating our fellow citizens with suspicion or rage — but with tenderness.

Because we don’t need bigger enemies.

We do need smaller panics.

And maybe what we all need most right now is this:

Small fries.

A little calm.

And a touch of Mutombo-level kindness.

Angela B. Ryan is a writer, lawyer, former Villanova Law professor, and mother to four under 4 based in Villanova. She started the National Chicken Tender Movement today, and she is the only person left in the country who refers to French fries as Freedom Fries.

Nearly two weeks after the shooting at Brown University, I still struggle to understand what happened on my campus.

Since rushing back to Gettysburg the evening afterward, I’ve repeatedly sat down with myself and tried to come to grips with the fact that the community I treasure has been torn apart.

Every description of that night and the following days feels cliché. Not because my feelings are simple, but because they’ve been reported hundreds of times. Everything I’ve ever read in the news about the aftermath of a shooting is true: the inability to comprehend what has happened, the feeling that this could never happen to you until it does, the anger toward political leaders who never act.

But there is still no way to convey the heartbreak that underlies the anxiety and anger.

The attack against our campus is an attack against the entire nation, one that prides itself on some of the best academic institutions in the world. The campus community is a sacred bond, something that has become even more apparent to me since Dec. 13. It extends beyond College Hill in Providence, R.I., throughout the United States and the world. And when one of these communities is ripped apart, they all are.

We live in a country where active shooter drills are the norm. Those drills proved useful to me.

When I barricaded myself into a conference room where I sat for nine hours, I operated on autopilot. I knew exactly what to do. At first, this was comforting. But as time has passed, it has haunted me more than anything.

There is a weird sort of satisfaction in applying something you learned practically, but this skill is one I never wanted to have to learn, let alone take to college with me.

During the entirety of my high school career, nothing was more exciting than the prospect of attending college. I dreamed of decorating my dorm room, attending classes, and forging a sense that I belonged to something bigger than myself. Brown has surpassed all of my expectations.

But I’ve found it difficult to hold onto this dream since that Saturday afternoon. When I open Instagram to see that our local Indian restaurant is offering free meals to students, a little bit of my faith is restored. When my friends, professors, and colleagues text to check in on me, I still get the warm feeling of home. But it’s a home I know is forever changed, and perhaps that is the hardest part.

Push for change

When I received the alert reporting an active shooter, I was studying for a political theory class that discusses the philosophies of injustice and resistance. The most valuable thing I have learned is that change cannot come without active advocacy. I ask that, in the coming weeks and months, we all actively advocate for change, even when it is inconvenient and uncomfortable.

When I call my elected representative, I get the common response: He is praying for me. This is a response I will no longer accept. None of us should. We must refuse to let our legislators sit in session without a substantive response to this tragedy — and the many thousands that came before it, hundreds of them just in the last year.

Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, who were killed, deserve better. The nine others injured deserve better. Brown deserves better. Our nation deserves better.

CJ Lair is a sophomore at Brown University and an opinions editor at the Brown Daily Herald. He studies political science and is from Gettysburg.

For years, I envied Jews who enjoyed Christmas without getting into the weeds of what it’s all about, who put up a tree and lights without a sense of guilt. I admired Jews who wrote the best Christmas songs in history (google it), even though the holiday will never be their own.

But the day itself has never been my favorite. It ranks slightly ahead of Good Friday and Easter, but not by much. While no mindful Jew needs to be reminded of what a small minority we are, Christmas puts us in our tribal place. No amount of secular candy canes or court-ordered ecumenical neutrality softens the reality that the day is not for us.

This is not a complaint or a condemnation of the celebration. If there is a war on Christmas, I am not a combatant.

Unlike the Grinch, I never begrudge others their joy, even though I can’t embrace it. I wish others a merry Christmas and mean it. Why shouldn’t they be happy?

Adaptation

I have no resentment toward public displays of Christmas decorations. So long as they are not paid for with tax dollars, who are they hurting? There are far greater injustices to litigate, more serious public displays to mourn. With antisemitism on the rise, nobody has the luxury of getting upset over a creche.

To survive, one need not assimilate; one need only adapt. And Jews are masters of it. Take, for example, the now cliché practice of our eating Chinese food on Christmas.

But it has become more than an adaptation.

Tradition

The Christmas Chinese dinner is one of the truly great and unique nights of the American Jewish year. Jewish families patronize the same restaurant every year with the dedication generally reserved for delis and houses of worship.

What makes the night different from all other nights is the special joy that can only be found in our shared otherness. Being with those who share your identity — religious and otherwise — is always a blessing. But that feeling of togetherness is never more poignant than in those moments when what makes us different from others also makes us so alike among ourselves.

And it is often reciprocated by the people feeding us. The owners of the restaurants seem as happy to see us as we are to see them. And to share in our joy.

That I especially feel my Jewishness in a Chinese restaurant on a Christian holiday is the stuff of comedy.

And thus humanity.

Jonathan Shapiro is an Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning TV writer and the author of the recent “How to Be Abe Lincoln: Seven Steps To Leading a Legendary Life.”

Christmas hasn’t always meant warmth, family, or celebration for me. For nearly a decade, the holidays were some of the most frightening days of my life. While others wrapped gifts and prepared meals, I was consumed with one mission: securing enough pills to avoid opioid withdrawal.

People rarely talk about this side of addiction — the logistics, the panic, the constant calculations. For me, the days leading up to Christmas weren’t merry or bright. They were a dangerous countdown.

My entire holiday hinged on whether a doctor would answer the phone before the office closed. I’d sit in my car with trembling hands, rehearsing my tone before calling, trying to sound calm even as fear tightened my stomach.

I knew exactly which doctors might authorize an early refill and which ones suspected I had become addicted. My 10-year addiction, which began when I was prescribed painkillers after knee surgery, had me cycling through more than 65 doctors in a half dozen states — each one recorded in the many calendars I hid in drawers. They were my secret maps for survival.

I would flip through them frantically, searching for any appointment I could make to save me from a night of withdrawal. I wasn’t looking for relief or euphoria. I was looking for a way to avoid the sickness that came the moment I ran out.

Many of the pharmacies I used were inside large chain stores. While they stayed open late, their pharmacies did not. As the metal grates rolled down over the pharmacy windows, the rest of the store hummed on. That contrast haunted me — bright aisles full of shoppers on one side, and on the other, the closed counter that meant I would be sick by morning. Once those grates came down, my options disappeared.

My withdrawals weren’t mild. At the height of my addiction, I was taking close to 30 pills a day just to feel normal.

When the supply ran low, withdrawal hit me brutally and immediately. My stomach would bubble, my skin would prickle, and waves of nausea and trembling would take over. My chest tightened until breathing felt like work. Fear of that sickness controlled my entire life — especially during the holidays.

There were Christmas Eves when I sat alone in my car, looking at my dwindling supply of pills, trying to make it last through the night. I would delay doses longer than my body was used to, forcing myself to wait, bargaining with myself, fighting back tears each time the sickness crept in. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t smart. But that was all I could do.

At family gatherings, I appeared frail and hollow. While everyone raved about my mother’s sweet potato pie, I barely touched my plate. My stomach was in knots, and nausea had stolen my appetite.

I’d slip into the bathroom, sit on the edge of the tub, and try to steady my breathing before returning to the table. People often assume addiction is about chasing a high. Mine wasn’t. Mine was about avoiding the physical collapse that came when the drugs left my system. I wasn’t celebrating Christmas — I was surviving it.

Addiction has a way of making you disappear, even when you’re standing right in front of the people who love you.

Today, my holidays are very different. More than 15 years into recovery, I can sit at a Christmas table fully present. I can breathe without fear. I can enjoy a meal. I can laugh. I can be myself again.

But I never forget the version of me who couldn’t.

And I haven’t forgotten the people who are living that experience right now.

If you’re struggling this holiday season — if you are using, withdrawing, unhoused, hiding your pain, or simply trying to make it to tomorrow — I want you to know something:

Your story is not over.

You are not beyond help.

You are not alone.

Even if all you can do today is stay alive, that is enough. The holidays are hard for many people, but especially for those battling addiction. I survived nights I didn’t think I would survive. And if I could make it out, so can you.

This Christmas, my prayer is that you hold on — just long enough for the light to break through.

There is life beyond this moment. Even if you can’t feel hope right now, hope can still find you.

Chekesha Lakenya Ellis is a certified peer recovery specialist. The Burlington County resident uses Facebook to raise awareness about addiction and recovery.

With the announcement of record sales across the country on Black Friday, including $11.8 billion in online transactions, the holiday shopping season was off to a great start. In the next few weeks, the average person was expected to spend about 10% of their annual shopping budget. By Dec. 25, the National Retail Federation expected a record-setting $1 trillion to be spent nationwide on consumer goods.

As a Christian, I am not supposed to like the commercialization of Christmas. I was taught from childhood that the birth of Jesus is “the reason for the season,” not gifts. In recent years, critics of all faiths — and none — have joined a growing chorus of anti-consumerist sentiment toward the holidays.

But rather than dismissing holiday shopping as a symbol of materialism and excess, I have come to view it as an expression of generosity and joy that captures the purpose of the season.

The tradition of giving gifts at Christmastime was introduced several centuries ago in Europe by Christians who took stories about the gift-giving of an ancient saint, Nicholas of Myra, and turned him into the modern Santa Claus. As the Industrial Revolution created a new middle class and increased the availability of consumer goods, the tradition grew.

The importance of material generosity at Christmas was especially championed by Charles Dickens in his 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, which depicts the infamous Ebenezer Scrooge’s transformation from a penny-pinching grump to a joyful philanthropist.

Dickens’ largely secular vision of giving gifts at Christmas helped to make a holiday originally confined to Christians more accessible for an increasingly pluralistic world.

Of course, there are problems with the connection between Christmas and shopping. I do not like how it can exacerbate class difference, revealing a vast disparity in the quantity and quality of gifts from one household to the next. The upper and middle classes can use Christmas as another opportunity for an exotic vacation or the acquisition of yet another status symbol.

One only needs, however, to recall the refrain from so many holiday movies to realize that the vast expenditure inherent to the season is not the main problem.

As Charlie Brown struggles in A Charlie Brown Christmas to pull together the perfect Christmas play, he realizes that, while he may need a Christmas tree for the set, it does not need to be particularly tall, pretty, or even upright. A short, scrawny tree will do just fine.

Christmas is about being content with what you already have and, out of that contentment, being generous to others. Instead of trying to buy happiness, or a better relationship with a loved one, or the perfect Christmas tree, we can use Christmas to focus on what someone really needs.

To keep ourselves focused on others and avoid unnecessarily lavish gifts, my wife and I use holiday sales as a means to get a discount on items that we would otherwise buy for our kids at some other point in the year. We also focus on practical gifts people will actually use — last year, we got a battery caddy for my mom and gardening gloves for my dad. Our son requested an expensive toy this year — an electric train set — so we found a small one that is in good secondhand condition, which reduces waste and expenditure.

Perhaps the greatest reason why I like to give gifts at Christmas is that they embody the heart of the Christmas story — the one, ironically, that so many Christians use to create skepticism about Christmas gifts — in which God “gave” Jesus as a savior for the world (John 3:16).

Perhaps, then, giving gifts does not destroy Christmas; it captures its very essence.

B. G. White is a faculty member in the theology department at Boston College.