Breaking News

Local Commentaries

Our opinion: Believing in the magic of Christmas

In September 1897, 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon asked a now-famous question in a letter to the New York Sun. Is there a Santa Claus? Not only did the letter make young Virginia O’Hanlon a celebrity, but it prompted one of the famous newspaper editorials ever written with an answer to O’Hanlon’s question. It is reprinted today, a tradition our sister paper in Warren, Ohio, takes part in each year in part, the editorial page said, because it’s entirely possible that no one has answered the question better, nor has anyone better described the spirit of Christmas. The ...

Rounding Third: Years of fulfilling the dreams of Christmas

Marcy’s vacation week offers a holiday column excerpted from her book, Rounding Third … originally from 2006. Christmastime is pure nostalgia. Many of my holiday memories began with our children’s arrival. I will never forget the total exhaustion of falling into bed after filling the last stocking and cleaning up the toy construction evidence. The elves who visited our house weren’t super handy or organized. Depending on how successful last-minute wrapping and battery searches were, bedtime followed – during a lucky year at 2:00am. Often much later. I never felt as stringy ...

Rescuing Obamacare is bad medicine in U.S.

The recent U.S. government shutdown brought to light America’s debate over government intervention in our economy, and particularly in healthcare. Are we Socialist? Free-Market? Something else? Obamacare was sold as the remedy for perceived shortcomings in U.S. healthcare. Its supporters promised to save families $2,500 per year, contain costs, and make healthcare unicorns available for all. Yet, Democrats recently held the nation hostage for 45 days of shutdown demanding additional subsidies to rescue Obamacare from itself. But rescuing Obamacare is the opposite of rescuing ...

A seasonal church visit that was a gift

Dear Richard and I were in Niagara-on-the-Lake on Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. We had matinee tickets for “White Christmas”, the holiday musical, on stage. When I bought the deep discount tickets, I thought it would be a great way to jump into the mood of the holiday season. We stayed at a friendly B&B and had a fun, chatty breakfast with the two other weekend couples. After breakfast, there was time before our theater afternoon for the Sunday service at St. Marks Anglican Church downtown. It was a good decision because for the past week, I’ve been chewing on a few ideas I ...

Pointing fingers won’t lower electric costs

Pennsylvanians are frustrated by rising electricity bills, and rightfully so. In a letter sent just this week, Gov. Josh Shapiro pointed to PJM, the regional transmission organization that manages our power grid, as the cause of these increases. In reality, energy costs more because we’re not producing enough of it. Before we point any fingers, it’s important to understand what PJM is, what it does and, most importantly, what it does not do. PJM is one of nine regional transmission operators (RTOs) in the United States and the largest in the nation. It coordinates electricity for ...

Tax the left, not the rich

Internal Revenue Service data indicate that the top 1% of taxpayers pay about 45% of all income taxes in the United States. The same data indicate that 49% of the U.S. population contributes absolutely nothing. Yet we still hear the nonsensical “Tax the rich!” mantra on infinite replay (yawn). It started with Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto in 1848. Marx – the quintessential socialist who mooched off others all his life — thought that confiscating the earnings of productive people would be fun. Socialist movements always start with “Tax the rich!” and always end in ...