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Happy New Year — with or without COVID-19

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions anymore. I know myself too well. I know that I tend to make promises to myself that I can’t—or won’t—keep. Two years ago I swore to finally read James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” I felt like someone as well read as I like to think I am should have read it. Besides, I wanted to see what all the fuss has been about. The dust on that book is two years old now. So, as we begin a new year, I haven’t made a New Year’s Resolution. But I know what I’m going to do in this fourth year of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m going to do what matters most ...

Bring back the Monday opener

A coalition of hunters and businesses across the state is supporting legislation aimed at changing the opening day of deer season back to Monday. Pennsylvania has opened its rifle deer season on the Monday after Thanksgiving for over 60 years, that is until 2019. The Pennsylvania Game Commission moved the opener two days earlier. To those not familiar with Pennsylvania’s hunting culture, the change would seem innocuous, but it has turned out to be anything but. State Rep. Brian Smith, R-Punxsutawney, recently announced plans to introduce legislation soon to amend Title 34 and ...

Solving our energy crisis starts with smart policies that support natural gas, oil

The global mismatch between energy demand and available supply has put upward pressure on fuel prices, impacting U.S. consumers everywhere from the gas pump to the supermarket. In the U.S., petroleum demand returned to pre-pandemic levels in late 2021 and has remained near the top of the five-year range, even as inflation remains high. Despite the need for more energy, Washington has introduced numerous policies that constrain natural gas and oil production and may discourage investment, such as pausing federal leasing and canceling pipeline infrastructure. As the editorial ...

New Year’s resolutions and COVID-19

Are you one of the many people who make a New Year’s resolution? More important, are you one of those who keep the resolution all year? This year, more than ever, we should all share a “civil" resolution that we will keep through the upcoming year. For almost three years we have had to deal with COVID, but how we have dealt with it has varied. Some people have taken the threat of COVID seriously, while others think it is a hoax, and falling somewhere between these views are many people with mixed emotions on the whole situation. Of course, this makes for interesting ...

The New York Times’ editorial board stokes hatred, anti-Semitism

The New York Times full editorial board took the opportunity to attack Israel’s new, not fully formed as of yet, government. What is the basis for this unique action, given the nations around the world that the New York Times leaves unscathed? The New York Times editorial board does not like former Prime Minister Netanyahu making a comeback with a government that is right of center. Keep in mind that this so-called “right-wing” government will have at most a bare majority in the Knesset, the Parliament. By no means is this an overwhelming mandate. Israel will continue to ...

Have a happy and healthy holiday and new year

I recently found a Christmas card my grandparents received. Handwritten under the verse was a wish for them to have a happy and healthy new year. Healthy was underlined twice! That is not the usual wish we write when we send a greeting to friends and family wishing them a Happy New Year. So why the emphasis on health? My grandparents were born at the turn of the century. They saw firsthand the 1918 influenza pandemic which spread worldwide at the close of World War I. Here in the United States, it was first identified in military personnel during the spring of 1918. In the USA it ...