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Orchids & onions

ORCHID: To the Mahoning County Board of Elections for its fiscally responsible plans to reduce the number of voting precincts in the county. Tom McCabe, board director, said last week the decision results from difficulties in recruiting sufficient numbers of poll workers for each of the county’s 212 precincts. It also comes at a time when more and more voters are casting ballots early, lessening the strain on precincts on general or primary election days. The county also has the dubious distinction of having the lowest number of voters per precinct among counties of similar size. The ...

American labor savors successes, faces challenges

On this weekend of the national holiday dedicated to the brains and brawn of the American worker, let’s take the pulse of our 170-million-strong U.S. labor force. More and more Americans are actively participating in the labor market. The most recent unemployment rates from July 2026 show only 4.1% of U.S. citizens are unemployed and even fewer Ohioans (3.4%) are out of work. Those percentages have dropped precipitously in recent years with Ohio’s rebounding economy reportedly adding 55,000 jobs this July alone. In addition, more and more of us are producing goods and ...

A message for men over 50

The diagnosis was not a surprise — well, yes it was, because like many men with a health issue we try to deny it, or delay treatment when everyone knows that “early detection” is critical to a cure. My PSA (prostate-specific antigen) had been slowly creeping upward for the last two years. When it reached 9.0 along with a Gleason score of 9, my doctor said it was time to do something about it. This meant a prostate biopsy. It came back positive for a cancerous tumor pressing against my rectal wall. Two options were explained to me — a complete removal of the gland, or radiation ...

Harry and Meghan. Who are these people?

It was a day of deep thinking and heroic typing, my brain so fried I could hardly call out for pizza. Then the news and social media feeds exploded with reports that Harry and Meghan plan to leave California and move back to England. What was that to me? I don’t care that the royals moved away or believe in royal anything except perhaps Royal Crown Cola. Most media, not me, insist on referring to Harry and his sitcom actress wife, Meghan Markle, as “Duke and Duchess of Sussex.” Their two children carry the official royal titles of prince and princess. And to think their ...

Praising God for another trip around the sun

As my high school and college classmates and I have gotten older, I have noticed that when birthday shoutouts go out on Facebook, many say they thank God for “another trip around the sun.” This wasn’t a saying that I grew up hearing, but it definitely has special meaning now in the middle years of middle age. When I posted my birthday selfie on Facebook in August, thanking friends for their “warm and loving” well wishes, I got comments saying how beautiful and amazing I looked, which made me giggle a bit since I was rocking my Ohio State gear and hyping the upcoming college ...

Were the bombs of August 1945 ‘demonic?’

Did demons create the first atomic bombs? Every August, debate renews over both the wisdom and the morality of dropping the two American atomic bombs, 81 years ago, on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (Aug. 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9, 1945). August 2026 was no exception. As ever, many critics have faulted the United States for the bombings: two gruesome blasts — aimed at dual-use military and industrial targets in both cities — that may have caused some 100,000-120,000 immediate deaths among combatants and civilians. And not all these critics are on the Left. Two years ago, ...