* Find your free copy today!
PROMOTING AWARENESS, ARTS, CULTURE AND EDUCATION IN NORTH-CENTRAL PA
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s effective tax rate for 2010 ………………………………………………. 13.9%The speaking fees income Romney characterized as “not very much” ……………………………………………………….. $374,327 President 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 vast majority of people………………….. 35%Romney family...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
“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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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 …...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
Tuesday, June 7. Rally at the Capital at noon. Join us in Harrisburg and SPEAK OUT! Let our Legislators know that we need them to take action NOW! Contaminated drinking water, pollution in our rivers, hazardous air pollution, safety problems, and destruction of our state forests are just some of our problems. We need...
A GAS INDUSTRY WORKER SPILLS The Williamsport Guardian had the following conversation with a young man who has worked as a floorhand on several drilling rigs in Bradford and Tioga Counties. He also worked for a well emergency clean-up, containment, and rig moving company. He asked that we not publish his name. Q: What...
State Senator Joseph “Super Bowl” Scarnati, along with Senator Eugene Yaw, among others, introduced Senate Bill 1100 (SB1100) last week. The bill, “An Act Amending Title 58 (Oil and Gas) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes,” imposes a natural gas impact fee tied to a model zoning ordinance. Watchdog groups around the state quickly dissected...
If you want to learn what your state government plans to do about gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, you need look no further than the Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission. This is a group of thirty white men and one white woman, average age maybe 55, which meets in the Rachel Carson State Office...
Recently, Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney did a little rhetorical dance around health reform, arguing that his Massachusetts plan was good, but the federal law signed by President Obama was an evil “government takeover of health care.” The language echoed the Republican mantra of 2010 promulgated by GOP strategist and Fox News “analyst” Frank...
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...
Read more »