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Commemoration of 9/11 should never end

People use the word “anniversary” in the context of something good in one’s life, something worth celebrating. Unfortunately, that word also is associated — or attached — too often to dates that remain a source of sorrow, loss and anger, such as Sept. 11, 2001, the date 20 years ago that suicide terrorists killed more than 3,000 innocent people at the World Trade Center, Pentagon and aboard Flight 93, which crashed in Somerset County. Just like Dec. 7, 1941, the date Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, will live in infamy as long as there is a United States, so will that date two ...

There’s no price to compensate human suffering

Pennsylvania has an opportunity to extract a modicum of justice from drug companies that brought untold death and suffering to vulnerable people in what has been dubbed the opioid epidemic. The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office is recommending state officials sign on to a $26 billion settlement with four companies, including Johnson & Johnson and three major distributors of opioids – McKesson, Cardinal Health, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen, based in southeastern Pennsylvania. The commonwealth would not get all of that money. But we could get as much as $1.06 billion ...

Sentimental card world changing

Boys growing up in the 1950s and ’60s never envisioned a time when Topps cards might no longer be an exciting component — or, indeed, a partner — of every major league baseball season. Every year, when the teams of those days were preparing to take the field for Opening Day, boys already had begun purchasing — with the nickels and dimes that their parents gave them — that year’s “bubble-gum card” packets that they hoped would reward them with their favorite players and other members of their favorite team or teams. Not only were the cards prized possessions, but also ...

Let’s make Labor Day new start

One of this country’s key strengths always has been its citizens’ commitment to hard work. Unfortunately, on this Labor Day, however, America has far too many citizens who are content to live by the credo “ask what my country can do for me, not what I can do for my country.” The current attitude embraced by many Americans is a disgraceful, embarrassing dereliction of the message President John F. Kennedy delivered in his inauguration address on Jan. 20, 1961, when he implored that people of the United States put their nation ahead of selfish interests. His message — ...

Area needs to embrace vision beyond

Appalachian Botanical is a West Virginia company that cultivates lavender on a former surface mine. As an article in last Monday’s Wall Street Journal reported, Appalachian produces essential oils and other scented products — all part of a growing effort in that state to reimagine an economy not dependent on coal. Other former surface mines in West Virginia are producing lettuce and tilapia, thanks to a solar-installation company that uses aquaponics technology. The state is finally embracing the realization that coal mining isn’t likely to return to past levels and that the ...

Gov. Wolf oversteps his bounds

On Tuesday, Gov. Tom Wolf announced the Pennsylvania Department of Health is mandating face coverings for everyone in the commonwealth’s K-12 schools beginning Sept. 7. One can understand why this action was taken with the uptick in COVID-19 cases due to the delta variant, especially among the unvaccinated, which includes everyone younger than the age of 12. But it would appear the governor has learned nothing from what the voters of Pennsylvania plainly told him and his administration in the spring primary when it curtailed his authority to unilaterally impose restrictions upon ...