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Rapp’s right, budget bill is lacking

On the surface it would seem the state House of Representatives’ passing a state budget proposal and moving the process to the state Senate is a step forward. But we have to agree with state Rep. Kathy Rapp, R-Warren, who disagreed with both the amount of time Republicans were given to review the proposal as well as undecided issues that make the House plan essentially useless. Rapp’s first criticism is purely political. The party in the minority often gets short-shrift in the budget-making process. Republicans in the New York state Legislature levy the same complaint year ...

Government could learn from Steelers

The boys are back in town. On Wednesday, Saint Vincent College in Unity became the center of the Pittsburgh Steelers universe as players arrived on the scene for their annual training camp. This is where the players begin the process of becoming a team. Sure, they all have numbers and jer- seys and contracts — even T.J. Watt, who just slid that three-year, $123 million extension deal in under the wire. But training camp is where everyone learns to work together. It’s where veterans like Watt and Cam Heyward find out how they jell in the locker room and on the field with ...

It’s important to take precautions against ticks

There has been no shortage of news stories warning of ticks and the dangers they pose to both humans and their four-legged companions. No one is immune to the unwanted stowaways that latch on during a long hike through the woods or a quick stroll through the back yard. All it takes is momentary contact in tall grass or shrubs, and the tiny pests will dig in, questing for their next blood meal. Pennsylvania is among the top 10 states in the country for the disease, with the State Department of Health reporting 16,620 confirmed cases last year. The most common variety, the ...

Grading second Trump presidency, six months in

Over the course of four years’ banishment to America’s political wilderness while subjected to both a would-be assassin’s bullets and the humiliating and unprecedented spectacle of criminal prosecution by his political opponents, Donald Trump seems to have intuited a key life lesson: Time is of the essence. Carpe diem, seize the day. And so it has been. Like a thoroughbred bursting out of the Kentucky Derby starting gate, the second Trump administration has been racing full speed ahead ever since Trump was inaugurated once again as president of the United States. If the Derby is ...

What standard? What scandal?

Following the resignation of Astronomer CEO Andy Byron after he was caught on a Jumbotron at a Coldplay concert in Boston, cuddling with Human Resources chief Kristin Cabot (who is not his wife), the company issued the following statement: “Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently that standard was not met.” That got me thinking. There are standards? Haven’t we been living at least since the 1960s with an “if it feels good, do it” philosophy which promotes the notion that if standards exist they are personal and subjective, ...

Williamson case destined to be a mystery

It’s an almost universal reality that when a news report deals with a crime or criminal court case, that account either explicitly reports, if it’s been confirmed, or at least hints about, what efforts there might have been — or probably were — to conceal the crime and/or protect its secrecy for evermore. A major mystery or puzzle in Gallitzin’s nearly 45-year-old Stella Williamson case, in addition to the current mystery about where some of the remains of the five infants found in her attic might be today, is that there apparently were no efforts to forever guarantee that ...