University Times

Wall Street disconnect

To the editor:

This rumination is perhaps mischievously prompted though seriously fortified by the tenacious belief that most of Pitt’s faculty is in synch with the noble sentiments of recent Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demonstrations on Wall Street, and in Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Oakland (Calif.) and elsewhere, by OWS activists and their cheerleading sympathizers.

I daresay, however, that scarcely few of our faculty, not to mention the well-intentioned OWS adherents themselves, are losing  sleep whilst enduring fits of mea culpa over the unimpeded flow of dividend checks, including TIAA-CREF among other financial benefactors, they relish uninterruptedly month-in-month-out or quarterly.

There’s a  palpably contrarian disconnect between (a) dumping on Wall Street, which is what OWS is clearly all about, while at the same time (b) being beholden to the Street’s white-shoes bankers for the welcoming money they dispense to their fault-finders. The two situations [(a)and (b)] don’t mesh as do, for example, Dun & Bradstreet, hot dogs ’n’ mustard, and Jack & Jill. Trashing Wall Street and grasping for its deep-pocket dividends simply don’t go together — they’re disconnected. The OWS upstarts shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds them. Again, we have here a troubling disconnect between two opposing behaviors.

On the other hand, in defense of the aforementioned inconsistency, we should heed Ralph Waldo Emerson’s observation that “A foolish inconsistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Go figure!

Robert Perloff

Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business

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PTEI sponsors Wounded Warrior fundraiser

To the editor:

The Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative (PTEI) is sponsoring the second annual Run for the Wounded Warrior, a 5K and 5-mile walk/run fundraiser to assist service members who have been injured in the line of duty. This event will be held in Pittsburgh’s North Park on Nov. 12.

All proceeds from the Run for the Wounded Warrior Project will support the nonprofit organizations Wounded Warrior Project and the National Organization on Disability. These programs support a full range of programs and services for severely injured service members and their families.

To date, over 40,000 members of our nation’s armed forces have been physically wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Studies estimate that more than 30,000 will suffer from the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

These injuries are often devastating, leaving formerly active young men and women unable to care for themselves. While grateful for their return, the ’round-the-clock care required to treat these wounded warriors often falls on their families, giving caregivers no choice but to leave their jobs and forgo health care of their own.

Last year was our inaugural year and together with our sponsors and 455 participants we were able to raise almost $18,500 to give back to the Wounded Warrior Project.

This event is being organized first and foremost to raise money and awareness for the Wounded Warrior Project and the National Organization on Disability.

However, we want to take this opportunity to highlight what else is happening in the Pittsburgh region to specifically benefit the health and well being of the wounded warrior. There are countless scientists, doctors, companies and many others whose focus is regenerative medicine techniques to specifically heal our soldiers. On race day we will take the time to highlight these efforts.

This year we also would like to support the National Organization on Disability. Proceeds will help NOD initiate a Wounded Warrior Careers Project in western Pennsylvania. This will help us serve up to 100 of the most severely injured veterans and family members pursue a career — and the dignity, financial self-sufficiency and sense of optimism that careers bring — upon their transition home from combat.

Since 2008, NOD has operated Wounded Warrior Careers in Colorado, North Carolina and Dallas, Texas. Our veterans are achieving work and education milestones at 68 percent — twice the rate of their counterparts without benefit of our services.

Since its establishment in 1996, PTEI has sought to support the growth of a regional industry through focused efforts to facilitate commercialization of university-derived technologies associated with engineered tissues. This mission reflected PTEI’s early efforts to establish Pittsburgh as a major hub of U.S. research and technology development in tissue engineering, a field of biomedicine that was then in its infancy.

Now, PTEI directs national research programs for the U.S. Department of Defense, supporting professional training for scientists, creating award-winning science education programs for “students” of all ages, and bridging geographic and scientific boundaries to link scientists and industry partners around the world. These innovative programs in research, education and industry network development enhance the very means by which regenerative therapies are developed, and will accelerate their delivery to patients.

By doing so, PTEI is fulfilling its mission to improve the health of individuals by establishing the region as an internationally recognized center of excellence in research, education and commercial development for the advancement of tissue-related medical therapies.

More details on the Wounded Warrior event and how to become a sponsor can be found at www.ptei.org.

Race registration can be completed online at www.raceit.com, search for “Wounded Warrior.”

Charlotte Emig

cemig@ptei.org

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