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Remembering Operation Desert Storm

We remember the service and sacrifice of our citizens who faced a massive Iraqi Army 33 years ago this week. The Iraqi Army had just come out of an eight-year war with Iran. Skilled in modern warfare and equipped with chemical weapons, the Iraqi forces were confident of victory. It all began on Aug. 2, 1990, when Saddam Hussein ordered his army to invade and occupy Kuwait. President Herbert Walker Bush acted swiftly and ordered American forces into the region. By January 1991, nearly 700,000 U.S. forces backed by 256,000 allied and coalition forces were in the region. My own ...

Fear, facts and COVID-19

Merriam-Webster defines fear as “an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.” Fear was essential to humanity’s early survival, and it is still crucial today. It is one of our most basic and most powerful emotions; it helps us to recognize and respond to threats. Feeling so little fear that we fail to anticipate or respond to serious threats is obviously bad. Overwhelming fear that keeps us from responding to danger is just as bad. Fear of something that isn’t dangerous (or doesn’t exist) can be bad too because it limits our enjoyment of ...

A more dangerous form of piracy

The Bible opens with the words “In the beginning.” Modern physics has finally caught up with the Bible. Out of chaos, after the big bang, came the stars, the planets and ultimately humankind. Leaving for Israel, I could not help but think of how Israel has traveled from chaos to order and back to chaos again. October 7, 2023, to borrow Roosevelt’s phrase about Pearl Harbor, will not only live in “infamy” because of the Hamas assault upon farmers, innocents, peace activists, and especially women, but because it marked a descent of humanity into the bowels of unspeakable ...

A budget for the wrong direction

Pennsylvania’s population is shrinking as working-age families move away to other states. State policymakers’ most important challenge is how to make our commonwealth more competitive and attractive to families, workers, and job creators. Unfortunately, Gov. Josh Shapiro’s recently proposed state budget takes Pennsylvania in the wrong direction. Chock-full of startling spending increases and a myriad of new initiatives, Shapiro’s proposal would explode the state’s budget deficit and invite massive tax hikes on working Pennsylvanians. His plan completely ignores our actual ...

The impact of a tiny country church fish fry is immeasurable

PROSPERITY — If you make a fish fry dinner, people will come for miles around. They will even cross several state lines to get to your church basement if the fish sandwich is fresh and spilling out of both sides of the bun, the macaroni and cheese is homemade with just enough crisp on top, and the coleslaw is crunchy and tangy. It turns out that people will return if, when they leave, they aren’t just pleased with the food they’ve eaten but they’ve also found new friends among the hundreds of strangers that were sitting on the wooden folding chairs along the long, cafeteria-type ...

First responders need tools to help us save lives

The opioid epidemic continues to rage across the country — and Pennsylvania is not immune from it. It’s been seven years since it was first designated a public health emergency and it has continued unabated in the time since. Every day, news agencies across the Commonwealth tell of the recent overdose deaths or highlight the latest synthetic drug being pushed by the illicit drug market. Unfortunately, because there is a constant drumbeat on this issue, news of the opioid crisis can almost become white noise to the public at large. But as a law enforcement officer with 40 years of ...