A colleague of mine recently said “A benevolent dictator is still a dictator.” No matter what your political affiliation, it is important to remember that the Founding Founders never envisioned our Republic to be ruled by a single Executive for long stretches of time. Both nationally ...

Since late November, the House State Government Committee has been actively providing sorely needed oversight of the Commonwealth’s election law and election administration. Pennsylvania is the only state in the country to take a comprehensive review of its entire election process from ...

Now I wake up listening to the birds sing. I really like that. When I was alone, I used to take my coffee outside and watch the birds. Now that I am married, we sit by the table and watch the birds as we eat breakfast. I have relocated my birdfeeders so they are easy to see from the table. We ...

Just recently, I’ve noticed I’m slowing down in the kitchen. It has started me thinking about the “well-seasoned” family members who preceded me. My mom didn’t slow down until her mid-80s, but my late mother-in-law started to slip right around the age I am now. Our Dorothy was ...

I was surprised and disappointed to read the opinion of our paper that the Redevelopment Authority (RDA) is the wrong entity for spending RDA money to purchase tables/chairs etc. to help downtown businesses expand business opportunities based on input from our city planner. The reason given ...

My recent trip to our river cabin, last visited in the fall, was notable on two counts. One was the signage I encountered in the “Trump Country” south of Titusville where numerous colorful signs supporting our 45th president remain standing along the highways despite Donald Trump’s ...

I was surprised and disappointed to read the opinion of our paper that the Redevelopment Authority (RDA) is the wrong entity for spending RDA money to purchase tables/chairs etc. to help downtown businesses expand business opportunities based on input from our city planner. The reason given was ...

My recent trip to our river cabin, last visited in the fall, was notable on two counts. One was the signage I encountered in the “Trump Country” south of Titusville where numerous colorful signs supporting our 45th president remain standing along the highways despite Donald Trump’s ...

If you have followed the misadventures of Xena, the Amazonian robin who has set up house on our porch, you haven’t quite heard the last of her. The large red-breasted squatter is living rent free on our baker’s rack, and reigning over her kingdom, our back porch, as if she owned the ...

I’m torn between two topics today. One is the apparent inability of today’s Republican Party to formulate policy or do anything much besides fling at liberals crazy accusations of impossible horrors. But I’ll set that aside for now to deal with the column of the dreadful Star Parker on ...

I’m torn between two topics today. One is the apparent inability of today’s Republican Party to formulate policy or do anything much besides fling at liberals crazy accusations of impossible horrors. But I’ll set that aside for now to deal with the column of the dreadful Star Parker on ...

“They say they built the train tracks over the Alps… before there was a train that could make the trip. They built it anyway. They knew one day the train would come.” This familiar line comes from a popular motion picture, “Under the Tuscan Sun.” Decades later, the train did come to ...

When I got married parties to buy a brand of plastic containers were popular. People hosted them in their homes. The hostess had all kinds of perks for doing the hosting. There was a demonstrator who brought all of the items with her to demonstrate. It was her job to make the stuff so enticing ...

Recently, Dear Richard upset me. Usually, it takes quite a bit to shove me over the edge, but he really got my feathers up. He touched the robin’s egg. A few weeks ago, I wrote about a giant robin who built her nest on the blade of our porch’s ceiling fan. The first big wind whipped ...

In the “Our opinion: Cyber schools drain resources” (April 5) I was kind of amazed with the heavy-handed language. I mean, how hard would it have been to get the actual data from local schools in the district vs. local children in cyber school? What oddly stuck out to me was the inference ...

Springtime dazzles me. Every day brings more green lushness and a rainbow of color. I would wax rhapsodic over the beauty around us, but I think a bunch of Hallmark poets have probably beat me to the punch. However, a handful of my friends with bad allergies don’t enjoy springtime at all. ...

Since 2019, I’ve been working with more than 200 other former members of Congress, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, in something called the “Reformers Caucus.” All of us are committed to promoting reforms that could restore Congress as an effective legislative body ...

Why is it that our town cannot plan anything without some out-of-town developer, planner, designer, etc.? I guess maybe our leaders don’t feel that there is anyone in the area with any intelligence. Years ago it was the Main Street development. And that planner got it wrong and now there ...

During the Tuesday, April 6, Parks and Recreation Commission meeting, a comment we received was read to the group in which it was asserted that Washington Park is “underutilized,” and so therefore we urgently need to build a bunch of mountain biking trails there all of a sudden. The ...

The weather forecast looks like above average temperatures for April. While we all want to get outside and into our gardens we need to proceed with caution. The lawns this time of year are very fragile. In many places the water cannot wick away because the ground is still frozen. Our flower ...