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Opinion

Get off the sidelines and vote!

Editorials

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

Editorials

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 ...

MOV Climate Corner: Dolly’s mountain legacy: Keeping Appalachia wild

Local Columns

On Aug. 25, the world lost a giant in so many respects. Especially in this day and age, you are hard pressed to find a person who bridges nearly every divide and who so few people, if any, have an unkind word to say about them. Dolly Parton, a self-proclaimed country girl from the mountains of east Tennessee, created a legacy that spans so many pieces of today’s popular culture, but almost none more than her love and respect for our natural world, and the lengths she went to keeping them as wild as could be. If you’ve never heard Dolly talk about her beloved Smoky Mountains or ...

Early Marietta: Early salt making on the Ohio frontier

Local Columns

Today, there seems to be too much salt in our diets. But salt on the frontier was a scarce yet vital resource. Blueridgetales.com: "Life (then) hinged on one thing: salt. It preserved food, kept animals and humans healthy, and was used as trade currency..." Salt in Washington County in the 1790s was $8 ($200 today!) per bushel if bought in the east. Finding local sources was imperative. Most salt deposits had been discovered centuries ago by animals and indigenous people. Animals were attracted to “salt licks”; buffalo (yes, they roamed the Midwest) wore paths to the salt which were ...

Cracking the Code: Learn from others and the past

Local Columns

Last week, Lynnda and I hosted a foreign company we met at SelectUSA who visited our region looking for potential sites for their high-energy manufacturing business. They will create over 100 high-wage jobs. We were their tour guide and chauffeur. We had a full schedule of meetings and site visits. Everyone involved did an excellent job. This company makes several important products the USA currently imports from China. They said, “We are coming to Shale Crescent USA because you have…” * A large and existing market. * A stable operating environment. * Freight cost and time ...