Dairy farmers are ‘stronger together’

June 10, 2020

We are your dairy farmers, families just like you facing unprecedented challenges posed by COVID-19. Like everyone, Pennsylvania’s dairy farmers have been tested in ways we could not have imagined months ago. We were positioned for a strong year at the start of 2020. But that drastically changed in March with epic supply-chain disruptions, customer-order cancellations and the closing of our schools, colleges, restaurants, government, businesses, and retail outlets. Yet, we have persevered and continued to care for our animals while every day producing, nutritious milk and ...

Mitigation of COVID-19 risks important

May 29, 2020

OK. I’m taking the bait to, “We challenge anyone to explain how allowing customers to go to these businesses poses any more of a danger than allowing those same people to go to a big-box retailer,” as presented in the May 20 editorial “It’s time to treat us like adults.” The answer is as clear as mud to people who are imitating the president of the United States who called the pandemic a hoax, did not use the powers of the presidency to mandate the production of protective equipment, etc., for workers on the front lines exposed to and or caring for the sick, and who, until ...

Rural broadband investment is a must

May 21, 2020

The size of the investment necessary to bridge the urban/rural divide in Pennsylvania is in the billions of dollars, telecommunications experts and government officials tell us. The trouble is that some of those potential investment dollars are currently locked up into costs that landline telcos incur complying with outdated state regulations. Regulatory reform legislation, SB 1112, recently introduced in the state Senate by long-time broadband champion Kristin Phillips-Hill (R-York), would reduce costs for the landline telcos, without sacrificing long-held consumer ...

Lesson from connoisseur of economics

May 14, 2020

John Maynard Keynes, celebrated economist of the 1930s, was a fierce debater. In one, he abruptly changed his position on a certain important issue. Understandably, his opponent immediately questioned his “flip flop” on the issue. Keynes caustically responded: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” The debate was over — and Keynes prevailed. In my view, we are at a similar juncture with the COVID-19 crisis. To review, COVID-19 started infecting humans in China in early December 2019, but the Chinese Communist Party delayed notifying ...

Believe in the (political) science

May 5, 2020

It’s not an understatement to say every Pennsyl­vanian has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Thousands have faced the virus itself, over a million children are not in school and more than 1.5 million workers have lost their jobs as a result of Gov. Tom Wolf’s shutdown. The governor assures us his decisions are “data-driven,” and that we need to “believe the science” in combating COVID-19. But what exactly is the data driving these decisions? And what is the science we are to believe? Unfortunately, we don’t know. For weeks, Wolf has refused repeated ...

Mountainous divide should be asset

May 4, 2020

Mountains matter. Mountains always have mattered. Our Appalachian Mountains have been, from our nation’s beginnings, a barrier — for better or worse. The mountains traditionally have delineated the East from the Midwest. The mountains had to be conquered to bring railroads and highways from the eastern part of Pennsylvania to the west. Some families, including mine, have retained European pronunciations of their names for three centuries because they occupied the mountains. Ethnomusicologists looking at Appalachian music in the early 20th century found melodies that were ...