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Elections: Get off the sidelines and vote

There are a disturbing number of intelligent, well-informed people who have taken a look at the state of our government and decided to wash their hands of it by removing themselves from the voting process. How often have you heard, “It’s all a mess. Neither side cares about anything but winning. No one represents me. I’m just not going to vote?” And so, elections are increasingly decided not by those who feel as though they are caught in the middle, but by those who are happy to fall toward one of the extremes. It is an understatement to call that less than ideal. “In ...

There is no hiding on social media

A New Philadelphia municipal court’s creative sentence for a 21-year-old’s 17 wildlife crimes is fitting, yes; but also an important reminder to all of us about the boundaries we seem to forget when social media is at our fingertips. According to a Yahoo News report, Carter J. Hickey pleaded guilty to charges involving taking wildlife out of season, hunting without permission, illegally-possessed animals, using a vehicle to spotlight and kill wildlife and failure to follow game-check rules. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigation spanned 17 states. That investigation began ...

Labor Day: Remember what we’re working for

No longer the precursor to the start of the school year for most students, Labor Day weekend now serves as the first three-day weekend break. Kids and their parents get one more chance to take it a bit easy before the grind of the fall semester and all its activities starts to take its ...

Free Speech: Do not punish judges for exposing flaws

Judges in West Virginia get a front-row seat to the mess that is our foster care system, and the damage it is doing to children. When they speak publicly about what they see — when they pull back the curtain and express concerns about what is happening to our most vulnerable kids — fragile ...

Oral Health: Organizations working to improve access

It’s an old punchline, but one rooted in truth. West Virginia is the butt of jokes about teeth, dentistry and oral health because we consistently rank at or near the bottom of nearly every data set that is studied on the subject. Access and affordability are a big part of the problem; as ...

Streamlined: Charleston should weigh benefits of AI

Technology can be a wonderful thing — when it is working properly and we understand it. Though it doesn’t always deliver on its promises, it seems one improvement in the technology in the Hope Scholarship Program IS delivering what taxpayers demand. State Treasurer Larry Pack, also ...