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Americans should pay attention to politics

It’s a presidential election year, and most political junkies are following every gyration of the upcoming rematch between President Biden and former President Trump. But a reality that political obsessives may be missing is how little attention many of their countrymen are paying to the day-to-day drama that unfolds in Washington, D.C., in state capitals and on the campaign trail. A poll recently released by Gallup found that only 32% of Americans pay close attention to politics. This is actually an improvement over the 1980s and 1990s, when the number was below 30%. The poll ...

Speaker at banquet shares important traits to model

“I often think about what makes someone a good leader. You hear words like empathy, compassion, that they are good communicators; they are passionate about what they do. To me, all those things make a person a leader.” Tina Cook, coordinator of fire training at Harrisburg Area Community College and a firefighter for over 20 years, recently spoke to the Old Lycoming Township Volunteer Fire Co.’s annual banquet, sharing her thoughts on leadership. While we agree with much of what she said, we are tempted to take it a bit further: Empathy, good communications skills, passion for ...

Data on uterine cancer raising concerns

Women across America have been delivered a wake-up call regarding uterine cancer, but it probably will take at least several years to ascertain how well they have paid attention. Hopefully, women of the Southern Alleghenies region will be among those eventually delivering the message that they have responded correctly. According to a report in the Feb. 13 Wall Street Journal, the disease will kill an estimated 13,250 women in the United States this year, on its way, the American Cancer Society says, to surpass ovarian cancer and become the deadliest gynecologic cancer. The cancer ...

Efforts to simplify federal student aid keep falling short

The federal government had supposedly made it much easier to apply for college financial aid. Except there was a glitch and students could not access the new online tool they needed. Applications were delayed by months and the numbers of students seeking aid plunged. That’s the scene in 2024. No, wait, that was 2017. Actually, it’s both. It seems as though each time the dreaded Free Application for Federal Student Aid is made easier, it (temporarily) gets a lot worse. Never has the problem been bigger than this year, when colleges have been forced to put off their application ...

Deficit spending continues to need addressed

Our federal government — particularly the White House — continues to fail to take the consequences of deficit spending seriously. President Biden’s approach to economic policy is, in the words of Peter Suderman of Reason magazine, “a philosophy of throwing money at programs, people, political allies and favored constituencies.” This philosophy can be seen in a $510 billion budget deficit in the first quarter of fiscal year 2024 — an increase of $89 billion from the same period a year ago. The director of the Congressional Budget Office, Phillip Swagel, warned members of ...

Three in four Americans don’t know about this often fatal disease

Editor’s Note: February is designated as American Heart Month. Heart valve disease affects as many as 11.6 million Americans, many of whom have little knowledge of the disease or its symptoms. Yesterday, hundreds of organizations in the U.S. and worldwide observed Heart Valve Disease Awareness Day. While as many as 11.6 million Americans are living with heart valve disease at this very moment, an estimated 3 in 4 have little to no knowledge of what it is. Heart valve disease occurs when one or more of the heart’s four valves disrupts blood flow. With age being the most common ...