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I ruined my ‘surprise’ party, so I joined in the planning

Local Columns

Is it wrong to ask for Father’s Day gifts from your four kids and wife who just threw you a semi-surprise 60th birthday party in which you were showered with love, gifts and baked ziti, along with dozens and dozens of homemade cookies? OK — so before I request some Father’s Day swag (that’s what the kids call gifts these days for you old folks like me who don’t use, or understand the origin of the word swag) — let me tell you about my birthday party. My wife, Ann Marie, says I have always wanted a party, and she is partly right. I did but I didn’t want to have to pay ...

Local law enforcement made a summer night into something more

Editorials

They came with their families, friends, and neighbors, and for one night, Kish Park felt like the unofficial center of the county. The helicopters touched down on schedule, fire trucks gleamed in the fading sun, and the smell of grilled hot dogs drifted through the crowd. National Night Out 2025 unfolded as more than a date on the calendar — it became a genuine gathering of the community, shaped in large part by the commitment of local police. If you were at the park on Tuesday, you saw the work up close. Officers from Mifflin County Regional, Granville, Derry Township, and ...

Public notices must remain accessible

Editorials

Some state lawmakers seem to think they have come up with a way to modernize how local governing bodies get the word out about their meetings, pending actions, tax increases, new ordinances and other measures. But Senate Bill 194 — which resurrects the idea of putting public notices on governmental websites — is another way to keep the public in the dark because the idea begs the question: “Who’s going to see them there?” Public notices have long been published in the classified section of local printed newspapers. Those who follow local governments regularly monitor ...

Criminal caper reminiscent of comedy films

Editorials

In a “plucky” caper reminiscent of the comedy, “The Apple Dumpling Gang,” featuring Tim Conway and Don Knotts as two bumbling outlaws, four people were charged in a failed attempt to fire a drug-filled crossbow arrow into the Fayette County jail. The caper was foiled after the “sharpshooter” missed the target – a window covered with titanium mesh – and landed on the ground below. Jail staff discovered the arrow June 6 near the southeast wall of the building. Police cut open the arrow to find cocaine-stuffed rubber gloves inside the shaft. It would appear the ...

Another mass shooting, another bogus rationale

Editorials

I have a pet peeve about news coverage of mass murder. When the story breaks, cable news anchors report, as they first did last week in Midtown Manhattan, that the killer’s motives were unknown. What do mass shooters’ motives matter? When killers leave notes to explain their brutality, they leave self-aggrandizing excuses for snuffing out the lives of good people who deserved to go home to their families. The victims’ untimely deaths are set aside, while the killer’s twisted grievances get oxygen. So what do we know about shooter Shane Tamura of Las Vegas, who took his own ...

Starvation in Gaza: Whom to blame?

Editorials

In the Middle East, war is conducted not only with bullets and missiles, but also with pictures. The latest are pictures of allegedly starving children in Gaza distributed by Hamas and its enablers with the intention of blaming Israel for delaying, even denying entry of food trucks into the strip. Such pictures are gobbled up and distributed to the world without question by media that are always critical of Israel and hardly critical at all of forces that seek to destroy the Jewish state. Perhaps no nation in history has cared about preserving human life more than modern Israel. It ...