The definition of “energy independence” is evolving. Until recently, it meant the United States producing enough oil domestically to no longer be dependent on other nations for any of our energy needs. But now we’re in a world of interdependence, especially for oil. Oil markets know no national allegiance. Globalization and profit motive are altering…
The U.S. has the world’s most expensive health care system, yet the World Health Organization ranks us 37th among nations in overall health statistics. Federal health reform will not change the fundamentals of our system and will actually increase cost. Health insurance will continue to be ridiculously expensive and for many people will provide poor…
April 17, 2012 was a beautiful day in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, weather-wise. Light blue skies. Temperature hovering in the low 70s. Air fresh as a baby’s breath. All in all, a lovely day to be out and about. But, yeah, it was Tax Day—the deadline for submitting your federal, state, and municipal…
When it comes to gas development in PA, Act 13 is now the very complicated law of the land. In their assessments of this new legislation, Mr. Rosenfeld and Mr. Henderson represent opposite ends of the spectrum. Personally, on rural land use issues, I tend toward the opinions so beautifully rendered by David Kagan in…
I never give Rush Limbaugh the time of day. I generally think his very existence is a giant air-suck and lament that because he’s in the world, there’s less oxygen there for me. But, since I don’t live on Everest, I deal. Then the Sandra Fluke controversy happened—look it up if you somehow missed it;…
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s effective tax rate for 2010 … 13.9%The speaking fees income Romney characterized as “not very much” … $374,327President Obama’s reported effective federal tax rate on his 2010 family income … 26%Top tax rate for wages and salaries, which constitute most earnings for the majority of people … 35%Romney family income…
If the first-year gross anatomy students at Penn State Hershey medical school need spare body parts to study, they can visit the cloakroom of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. That’s where most of the legislators left their spines. On December 13 the House voted 124–69 to send an animal welfare bill back to committee, in…
It’s hard to believe that it was almost 3 years ago that I somewhat naively agreed to become the new editor of The Williamsport Guardian and take on the task of bringing it back from the brink of extinction. The Guardian had not been published for over 4 months and the Board was meeting to…
State Rep. Rick Mirabito (D-Lycoming) is urging municipalities and nonprofit organizations planning to rehabilitate existing park and recreation facilities, develop trail projects, and close gaps in statewide greenways to apply for state grants. “Applications are now available for Community Conservation Partnerships Program grants, otherwise known as C2P2 grants,” Mirabito said. “In addition, the state Department…
This was the year that “fracking” became a household word. It wasn’t just that environmental concerns about the underground drilling process finally struck a mainstream chord—after three years of reporting and more than 125 stories. For the first time, independent scientific investigations linked the drilling technique with water pollution, and a variety of federal and…
With the onset of an ever-increasing gas boom in our region, the weight of the impact is being considered by many of us with great concern over the future of our community as a whole. Living a stone’s throw from Rt. 664, I have had fi rsthand experience with the increased truck traffic and the…
Successful people and successful organizations set goals and make plans to achieve them. A Comprehensive Plan is focused on the future, encouraging people to think about what kind of community we really want and attempting to define a shared vision in terms of goals and objectives. We know tomorrow will be dramatically different from today.…
The plaque just inside the front door of Penn College’s spectacular Madigan Library contains this message to former State Representative Brett Feese: “Your tenacity, skill and leadership provided the resources necessary for our dream to become a reality. We will be forever grateful.” Now that a jury has determined that Rep. Feese employed that same…
Are the Occupy movements starting to drift toward the classrooms? On November 17, several Pennsylvania College of Technology students “occupied” outside the Academic Success Center on Third Street, protesting against high tuition and demanding education equity. Like members of the Occupy Movement in New York, the Penn College students want to demonstrate that the movement’s…
The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street are polar opposites in their political commitments and policy goals. The former articulates a militantly right-wing ideology with particular emphasis on reducing the size of government social programs. The latter, while much newer and still inchoate insofar as specific proposals are concerned, certainly stands for more robust regulation…
Zuccotti Park in Manhattan is named not for some obscure Italians revolutionary hero or an oddly shaped pasta, but for John Zuccotti, co-chair of the board of Brookfield Properties, the company that owns the land on which the park is situated. A former deputy mayor of New York City, he has an annual salary of…
On November 22, in Tunkhannock, Terry Engelder of Penn State University gave a PowerPoint presentation advocating forced pooling. Our regular contributor Ralph Kisberg presented the following counterpoint to Engelder’s presentation. On the surface, no pun intended, compulsory pooling flies against the instincts of most of us. My property, my rock, my gas, my consent or…
Dallas billionaire T. B. Pickens addressed a crowd of 1700 in a folksy “conversation” at the CAC in Williamsport on the last Friday of September. The evening began with a fairly short monologue consisting of a few entertaining anecdotes, opinions on our political and economic situation, wisdom gleaned from the oil patch, and cryptic references…
When I was a kid, my father used to get free press passes to the circus when it came to Madison Square Garden. As a writer for a New York newspaper, he also got passes to go where ordinary mortals couldn’t go, like the VIP viewing platform for Michelangelo’s Pietà at the New York World’s…
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” — Albert Einstein Hopefully, there will come a time when it is widely understood that people are complex organisms with varying degrees of political persuasions. But these days, the media have become a successful tool in shaping our inner monologues in…
COUNTY COMMISSIONER Steve Shope I’m running for county commissioner for two reasons. First, I was tired of seeing career politicians ignoring the will of the people that put them in office. The issues facing our county have become too serious to allow complacency and party politics to keep us from getting the work done. I…
There is a movement happening. I am not referring to a small percentage of angry kids walking behind an empty cause. The Occupy Wall Street protests have drawn a following from every age, race, occupation, gender and sexual orientation. The movement has even spread out of Manhattan and into a projected 65 cities within a…
Up until last October, my wife and I lived in the Mid-Hudson Valley in New York, a half hour from Woodstock, possibly best known for Bob Dylan and having the 1969 music concert named after it. This part of the Mid-Hudson Valley is a beautiful area with many apple orchards, corn fields, wineries, and the…
To The Editor, I’ve been watching the nastiness of the Tea Party for two years and wanted to do something to gather together people who will support a more positive and respectful kind of civic action. So when MoveOn started a new program called “The American Dream”, I hosted one of 1500 house meetings held…
Amount of Pennsylvania’s budget surplus at the end of fiscal 2010-11 … $785.5 millionAmount of surplus predicted by Governor Corbett’s March budget proposal … $78 millionAmount of a year-end surplus available by law for appropriation in the next fiscal year … 75%Average monthly enrollment in Medical Assistance (MA, or Medicaid) in fiscal 2010-11 … 2,265,543Medical…
We are all feeling the effects of the economy. Donations to all non-profits are on the decline. And unfortunately, AIDS Resource, the area’s only agency dedicated to eradicating the spread of HIV and STDs, is dealing with an unprecedented budget cut, which is leading to cuts in preventive services. Not only does AIDS Resource have…
Participate in Shale Gas Outrage, a rally and conference to be held September 7 and 8, in Philadelphia. Go to shalegasoutrage.org or call (215) 391-1630.Print PDF
Most political parties/ individual candidates have internships available. Interns learn the skills they need to go on to a career in politics, government, or elected offi ce. They get hands-on experience in all aspects of politics: how to raise the funds to run an organization, how to communicate with the press and voters, how to…
SRBC seeks public comment on Chesapeake’s application. Anyone who lives, vacations, and/or travels along Route 87 and the Loyalsock, plus others concerned about the Commonwealth’s waterways and the Susquehanna Watershed, can leave comments on the SRBC site at srbc.net. The application can be viewed on www.srbc.net via the “Water Resources Portal.” Click “search for projects,”…
Volunteer at one of these activities sponsored by the Susquehanna Greenway Partnership: Celebrate Our River Day Saturday, July 23, 3-8pm Tunkhannock Nature and Arts Festival Saturday, July 30, 9am-4pm Ned Smith Nature Center & MYO Park, Millersburg 5th Pine Creek to Jersey Shore Cleanup Saturday, August 13, 8:45am-12:45pm Jersey Shore The Sunbury River Festival August…
An application the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) is reviewing from Chesapeake Energy would have life-changing consequences for people in the Loyalsock Valley, in both Lycoming and Sullivan Counties. Chesapeake proposes to build a frack water filling station just off Route 87 at the edge of Hillsgrove and has applied to SRBC to withdraw 720,000…
At their February 23 meeting, the Loyalsock Township School Board unanimously approved a random drug testing policy for grades six through 12. The policy requires students and parents to consent to random testing if the students wish to participate in extracurricular activities, play sports, or drive to school. Members of the community have met the…
Tom Corbett’s first executive order after becoming Governor of Pennsylvania was to create the Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission. Its mission, to be completed in 120 days, was to make recommendations concerning “Efforts necessary to promote the effi cient, environmentally sound and cost-effective development of Marcellus Shale and other unconventional natural gas resources.” The Williamsport Guardian…
If you have health insurance—or used to have it before it got too expensive—you’re familiar with the annual letter telling you how much your premiums are going up next year. Not only that, but your co-pays are doubling, or tripling. Plus, your new, more costly plan has even less coverage than the old one. The…
The End of Country by Seamus McGraw is the true story of the Marcellus Shale development in and around Dimock, Pennsylvania. McGraw grew up on a rocky hillside farm where his mother still lives. When she was approached by gas company front men to lease the drilling rights to the gas company, she asked her…
I have been getting up bright and early a few mornings a week to learn the Yiddishized version of study with the Rabbi. This enables me to flip between Fox News and MSNBC at an early hour before the news gets too stale. When I tuned in one Friday morning, I saw President Obama talking…
If the mention of El Salvador conjures up any images at all in your mind, I’m guessing they involve civil war, massacres, and people “being disappeared.” But two years ago, in democratic elections (after a Peace Accord in 1992 and then gradual gains through elections as the guerrilla force transformed itself into a political party),…
Ecuador has seven types of corn. On some level I knew this, because I’ve been eating quite a lot of it, but I didn’t actually find this out for sure until today, when my host brother confirmed the contents of the special drink my host mom is making for breakfast tomorrow. I’m not a particular…
Where is Teddy Roosevelt?
Sagamore Hill. Most people have never heard of the place, but history buffs know it to be the home of Teddy Roosevelt on the north shore of Long Island, overlooking Oyster Bay. It was the place where Roosevelt, as President of the United States, greeted the “great white fleet,” which others criticized as America’s version…
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