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MOV Climate Corner: The ‘scare’

For many years, the story of C8 or PFOA contamination in the Mid-Ohio Valley was framed as nothing more than a "scare.” Journalists who covered it were accused of using inflammatory and irresponsible language to frighten people. Calling it a "scare" became a way to dismiss the message without ever confronting the contamination. Because if this was a scare, the problem wasn’t the poison — it was the reaction. This framing had consequences. Critical health advisories were withheld from the public because officials did not want to cause a “scare.” We are talking about ...

The Way I See It: Sometimes news has lasting impact

In the news business you have slow news days, normal days and days where it seems impossible to get everything in one edition. At first glance Feb. 2, 1968, looks like it might have been somewhere in the middle, but several small stories on the front page would end up having broad, ...

Importance of relationships and SelectUSA

Sunday night in Washington, D.C., Shale Crescent USA President Nathan Lord, my wife Lynnda and I had dinner with friends we met on our Turkish road trip in February. Kaan, the project manager, brought his CEO on the trip. Kaan and I have visited weekly via Zoom. He taught Lynnda how to use the Turkish teapot she bought to make Turkish tea. It is really two pots. In Turkiye, (the correct name for Turkey) we learned business meetings are longer than in the USA and focused first on relationships. National Speakers Association Hall of Fame speaker and sales expert Jeffrey Gitomer says, ...

What I learned about Johnny Appleseed and his Marietta connections

John Chapman (1774-1845), AKA Johnny Appleseed, was the eccentric Massachusetts native who planted apple tree orchards from western Pennsylvania to northern Ohio and Indiana. I found that reliable facts about him are sparse; legends and tall tales abound. Author David McCullough: “Much ...

MOV Climate Corner: Time to step up on injection wells

Last fall I received a phone call from someone in Parkersburg who reported that she witnessed brine waste (production waste from high-pressure hydraulic fracturing, i.e., fracking) being transported from railway freight cars in Parkersburg to trucks, which were taking the waste to the Deep Rock Disposal LLC facility in Warren Township, just outside Marietta. On receiving this news, I contacted the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil & Gas Resources Management (DOGRM), to ask about this issue. I was told that this process of shipping brine waste from West Virginia to ...

Living Democracy: Supreme Court Case Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)

Marriage has been an institution for millennia but has also endured changes over time. One change that occurred has concerned coverture. Coverture is the practice of binding a man and a woman together as one entity in a marriage. This practice, being male dominated, always favored the man, making the woman a silent and unseen partner. Over the last century (or two) coverture has been eliminated in developed countries, allowing the woman greater autonomy. Another change occurring in developed countries has been the suppression of arranged marriages. This was once a common practice with ...