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In the ‘nicest place in America,’ community thrives

COLUMBIANA, Ohio The thing about a city earning a title such as the “nicest place in America” is that outsiders often assume the people who live there don’t have to work at being nice. Well, anyone in this lovely city that straddles both the Mahoning and Columbiana counties would say you do have to work at it. But like anything worthwhile (including warmth, generosity, common courtesy and the selfless notion of paying it forward), it starts to come more easily with time. It also helps that Columbiana has a deep sense of community, which means it is committed to its success. ...

Sen. Warren’s problems go beyond health care

Elizabeth Warren had great momentum for a while. Then her poll numbers leveled and fell. The standard explanation is that the Democrat’s “Medicare for All” plan comes across as too radical — both the price and the part that would force over 150 million Americans off their employers’ private coverage. But other negatives subtract from Warren’s appeal as a presidential candidate. One is that she grates on us, another way of saying not likable. The other is she’s not totally honest. I asked one of Warren’s ardent admirers about the political risks in her health plan. ...

Chickening out will not spare fast-food chain

It is a truism that a blackmailer is rarely ever satisfied. Once the payoffs start, there often is no end to them. The Chick-fil-A fast-food chain is about to learn this hard lesson, far too late, as many victims of blackmail and extortion generally do. For conservatives and evangelical Christians, Chick-fil-A has been a model company that has consistently stood against the “anything goes” spirit of the age. It’s founder, the late S. Truett Cathy, ordered that his restaurants be closed on Sundays to allow employees to attend church and spend time with their ...

Bury medals of Wounded Knee?

The commendable “Remove the Stain Act” originated in the House of Representatives (H.R. 3467) on June 25, 2019, sponsored by, among others, Rep. Denny Heck, D-Wash. The bill’s purpose: “To rescind each Medal of Honor awarded for acts at Wounded Knee Creek on Dec. 29, 1890.” By 1890 the Plains Indians were desperate. Their land had been confiscated and the buffalo were gone. They were starving. In late December, a band of 350-375 Lakota Sioux, led by Spotted Elk, was making its way to the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota when they encountered a detachment of the 7th Cavalry. ...

Combat the evil done in our names

Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays. We know because Perry Como reminds us incessantly every year about this time. And because the airports become madhouses and the highways parking lots, so many of us trying to find their way back to that place where you are safe and known, that place where they’ll always take you in, home. Here in the season of festivity and light, it’s probably natural that we don’t think much about how it feels to be a child in a chain link cage, a woman sleeping on concrete, a man denied soap, toothpaste and medicine. In the season of home for ...

The Zen of the most American of nation’s holidays

Editor’s Note: This is a revised version of a column first published in November 2002. Thanksgiving is the most American of holidays. But there is something almost un-American about it. It is a day opposed to striving, to getting more. We stop adding up the numbers on the scorecard of life. We freeze in place and give thanks for whatever is there. The Wall Street Journal once featured sob stories about failed dot-com entrepreneurs. People still in their 20s and 30s spoke painfully of their disappointments. They had planned to make many millions on internet startups, but the ...