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In Senate race, Fetterman serves up class envy card

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman likes his hoodies. He doesn’t seem to have any other piece of clothing in his wardrobe, and he struts around in the “everyman’s” uniform as if he were campaigning to repair the broken cement on your front curb instead of a seat in the U.S. Senate. Fetterman, who comes from affluence, has played this “hail fellow well met” game all of his adult life. I’m not sure how it went over at Harvard, his alma mater, but it’s snookered a lot of folks in the media. Bully for him, the Twitter bully. Fake it till you make it, as they say. But ...

A return to school

When it gets to be about this time of year I always think of my days in the classroom. I went to school long before the students. I had things to get ready. I made name tags. I put up bulletin boards. I got my plan book filled in with the activities. When I was teaching kindergarten, I was aware that this was the student’s first experience with school. Often, I sent them a letter. In my letter I gave them something to bring to school on the first day. Sometimes it was a sheet to color. Other times I asked them to bring something to share – the requirement was that it had ...

A chatty visit to the Big Apple

The alarm was set for 4:30 a.m. Or as we night people call it: zero dark thirty. My BFF, Ginger, was having a significant birthday. She flew here for my celebration last fall, so naturally, I was heading to NYC for hers. I hate it when I have to set an alarm for three hours early, because I don’t sleep. Well, I sleep a little… but not well… awake every half hour or so. Getting to bed after 1:00 AM didn’t help. My flight was leaving out of Buffalo at 10:05AM. From where I live, JetBlue is always 5.5 hours away from wake-up time. Just before heading out the door, I checked ...

Clinger’s gerrymandering fears still a reality

You could say, sadly, that they don’t make many Republicans like the late Bill Clinger any more. William F. Clinger represented a north-central Pennsylvania district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979 until he retired in 1997. Clinger, who died last year at 92, was a lawyer who was born in Warren, spent most of his life there, and served a term as chair of the venerable Chautauqua Institution’s Board of Trustees after he retired from Congress. He was a proud conservative who pushed to investigate Clinton Administration scandals and fought for regulatory reform and ...

Keeping our eyes on the tree

Editor’s note: This is the final article of the mini-series exploring Christian themes seen through kayaking and canoeing. I remember looking over the vast Canadian lake in Haliburton Scout Reserve 15 years ago. One of my Boy Scout masters was teaching our troop the canoeing and kayaking merit badge. He challenged us to go across the lake staying as straight as possible. We had learned the paddling strategies but the distance was simply too far that it was hard to stay on the straight and narrow. All of us zig-zagged to the left and right. On the other side of the lake, the ...

Debate lacking in state amendment changes

On Aug. 2, the Warren Times Observer published a full page of proposed amendments to our state constitution. This was followed up with an article by State Sen. Judy Ward on Aug. 15. These amendments concern contentious and important issues: allowing the legislature to disapprove a regulation without the Governor’s approval, denying a constitutional right to abortion in Pennsylvania, adding a new identification requirement for all voters at every election, requiring a new form of election audit controlled by the legislature, changing the way our Lieutenant Governor would be chosen. ...