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Compassionate Dolly Parton was rich in so many ways

Editorials

One of the unfortunate realities of getting older is finding that the people you like begin to die. There are some, maybe, who are taken before their time and others who go at the end of a complete life, but either way the obituaries pile up. When Dolly Parton died the other day, I felt the weight of another passing. I never met her, but she represented more to me (and to many others, I imagine) than her songwriting, her acting and her singing. I saw in her the way poverty can shape a person — slash their outsides and scar them in ways that never fully heal — while still failing to ...

Ohio SB 461 would fight indoctrination with more of same

Editorials

Students across the country have already shown what they think of the government-mandated “intellectual diversity centers” popping up in some states. Further, voters’ rightful displeasure with such a blatant attempt at government overreach has been evident. Yet calculating politicians just can’t help themselves. Ohio Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, has introduced Senate Bill 461, Enact the Strengthening Ohio Civics Act, which would give the Salmon P. Chase center for civics, culture and society — a purportedly independent unit within Ohio State University — “all the ...

Americans fail to understand rarity of liberty around world

Editorials

This well-known rhetorical flourish at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence needs closer consideration. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” it states. Look through history and you’ll find little evidence that most people experienced these self-evident truths. Until the West led the way in abolishing it, slavery was an accepted historical institution. Notre Dame Professor Keith Bradley once ...

Ohio business prosperity not getting to all corners yet

Editorials

Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel took a victory lap of sorts after CNBC said Ohio is the No. 1 state for business, with a nine-stop “Heart of Opportunity Tour” that wrapped in Springfield at the National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence. Other stops were in Cleveland, Youngstown, Toledo, Lima, Piketon, Middletown, Columbus and Cincinnati. Regarding his stop in Springfield, DeWine said. “The investments we’re making in aviation infrastructure, workforce, research and innovation are creating an environment that’s allowing companies to build the future of ...

Trump’s foolhardy conflict with inoffensive ally

Editorials

President Trump’s tariffs aren’t popular, but he’s found a way to make them even less so — a trade war with America’s most inoffensive ally. When one thinks of countries that deserve to be subjected to a steady stream of insults (it’s Lake America now, not Lake Ontario) and a punishing regime of tariffs, Canada is far down the list. Ottawa has been a loyal, if occasionally annoying, friend of the United States for nearly 100 years. The presence of a well-meaning country with similar values along the 5,000-mile border to our north is a gigantic geostrategic blessing, ...

Thank you, Dolly, for your music, humor, public service

Editorials

Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I am told, I was not surprised to hear Dolly Parton say in an interview that she once entered a “Dolly Parton lookalike” drag queen contest in Los Angeles unannounced — and lost. Parton, who died a week ago today at age 80, enjoyed telling that story, which illustrated, among other things, that it wasn’t always easy to be Dolly, even for Dolly. “Nobody applauded,” she said in a May 2025 radio interview, “like a little trickle that was probably David, my hairdresser.” Go figure. Maybe she looked too much like the ...