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Nothing brings you local news like a local paper

Oct. 1-7 is pulling double-duty this year. Not only is it Banned Books Week, it’s also National Newspaper Week. Like Sunshine Week in the spring, which celebrates the work news organizations do to shed light on everything from crime to government to events, National Newspaper Week also celebrates the work reporters do to keep readers informed and up-to-date. But more than that, National Newspaper Week is a reminder that the best way to get local news is from a local news source — like your hometown newspaper. Too many communities are losing their local papers, putting them at ...

The fear of books has a long history

Book banning and burning is nearly as old as civilization itself — with evidence of manuscripts being burned dating back to the B.C.s — and is often done for the same reasons: politics, religion and “morality” (in quotes because its definition is so subjective). In 200s B.C., Chinese emperor Shih Huang Ti is said to have killed scholars so he could control the historical record and burned nearly all the kingdom’s books so the empire’s history would start with him. In the 1500s, when conquistadors invaded Mexico, they burned manuscripts, thereby destroying Aztec history ...

For the buckwheat cake inexperienced

On the very slim chance you didn’t already know, it’s Buckwheat Festival weekend in Preston County. Festivities started Thursday, but they continue well into today and tomorrow. There’s live music, carnival rides, parades, livestock shows, arts and crafts for sale, bingo and food down at the fairgrounds in Kingwood. And just about anywhere you go in Preston County this weekend you’re liable to find someone/some place serving up the main attraction: buckwheat cakes. The festival’s namesake dish is surprisingly polarizing — people either love them or hate them. Very few ...

WVU believes what it says, but some things have been left unsaid

A couple weeks ago, West Virginia University President E. Gordon Gee sat down with The Dominion Post Editorial Board to discuss the ongoing academic transformation and to answer some questions. Gee was adamant that the transformation is necessary, and it has been in the works for several years. He reiterated that the university is not facing a financial crisis. Rather, WVU faces a structural deficit (in Gee’s words, a decrease in students but no decreases in faculty or programs) of $45 million, which is not a crisis in and of itself. However, if left unchecked, it could snowball ...

Joke MCCARTHY Shutdown Act raises valid points

Why should Congress get paid for shutting down the government? Maybe Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig was trolling House Speaker Kevin McCarthy when she introduced the My Constituents Cannot Afford Rebellious Tantrums, Handle Your (MCCARTHY) Shutdown Act, but we suspect many Americans would throw their support behind the legislation, even if the rest of Congress won’t. The MCCARTHY Shutdown Act (kudos to whomever successfully reverse-engineered that acronym) would withhold pay from U.S. representatives and senators for every day that the government is shut down. As Craig said in a ...

Capito’s trade-off: Higher wages, but no illegal workers

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito is one of six Republicans sponsoring the Higher Wages for American Workers Act, which would gradually increase the federal minimum wage over the course of five years to $11 per hour. After that, the federal minimum wage would be indexed to inflation. If you’re surprised, we were, too. The last federal minimum wage increase was in 2009, and at that time, it was set at $7.25 an hour. Many states do offer a higher minimum wage (West Virginia’s is $8.75), but 13 states only match the federal wage; five states  don’t have a minimum and two states ...