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The importance of reliable sources

A Wisconsin Supreme Court judge recently made headlines for editing her own Wikipedia page to remove links to news articles she considered critical of her, instead replacing some of the page’s content and citation links with her own judicial decisions. On the off chance you are unfamiliar with it, Wikipedia is a “free encyclopedia” on the internet. Often the top search result for any given topic, Wikipedia offers webpages dedicated to virtually every subject under the sun as well as notable objects, events and people. The thing about Wikipedia that makes it both a font of ...

Moore needs to hold his horses on Hope expansion

West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore is pushing to quickly grow the Hope Scholarship. He’s asking for a year-round application period, which currently only runs March 1 to May 15, and for scholarship funds to be dispersed quarterly instead of twice a year. He’s also advocating for the Hope Scholarship to be available to all West Virginia students. Right now, only kids leaving the public school system or just entering kindergarten are eligible, but existing legislation contains the option to expand the scholarship to current private and home-schooled students as well by 2026. Moore ...

Tarr would let WVU flounder so he can own the libs

Recently, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, sent a letter to state and university officials objecting to the drastic cuts at West Virginia University and imploring the state to help. Sen. Eric Tarr (R-Putnam), the Senate Finance chair, responded last week in a rebuttal filled with name-calling and right-wing buzzwords. Reasonable people can disagree about whether the West Virginia Legislature should have kept up funding levels in the past and whether the state should provide financial assistance to WVU now. But Tarr’s comments reveal that he ...

Forgotten value of liberal arts

There’s a disheartening national trend where universities, as they contend with declining student enrollment and less government funding, shift their focus and narrow their offerings so earning a degree becomes less about education and more about job preparation. However, there is value in a liberal arts education that can’t be recorded on paper — and that many won’t even realize until long after they’ve graduated from college. When you’re a student, the general education classes in English, foreign languages, philosophy, art and history all seem like irrelevant ...

Love animals? Here are some ways to show it

WVAQ’s Just Jaime will be “ruffin’” it (to borrow Erin Cleavenger’s pun) outside of The Glass Factory in Star City this weekend. She’ll be pitching her tent in the parking lot as part of the Camping for Canines fundraiser for Animal Friends of North-Central West Virginia. She’s aiming to get $10,000 in whatever way she can — cash, credit or coin (hold the pocket lint). For those who don’t carry cash anymore, Jaime and Animal Friends will gladly take payments via PayPal or Venmo. Animal Friends runs a nonprofit, no-kill shelter that provides veterinary services, ...

Press pause on ‘safety’ ordinance

For months, as he has crafted his not-a-panhandling-ordinance, Monongalia County Commissioner Tom Bloom has repeatedly said his proposal is based on an Alabama law that prohibits panhandling. So what is the Alabama law? The better question is “which one?” The Alabama Code of 1975 had two anti-panhandling statutes: §13A-11-9, which said someone commits the crime of loitering if he/she “[l]oiters, remains, or wanders about in a public place for the purpose of begging,” and §32-5A-216, which said “No person shall stand on a highway for the purpose of soliciting ...