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The slow, steady road to progress — despite setbacks

A recent exchange in our Facebook comments section regarding the new benches placed around one of the trees outside the Downtown Lock Haven office highlights a continuing struggle within the community: While some are disillusioned because of where we have been, others are inspired by where we are going. That is not to say there are not setbacks — the continuing degradation of rural healthcare comes immediately to mind as the news broke recently that the former Lock Haven Hospital has been sold by UPMC to Allaire Health. While there are problems with virtually any healthcare ...

Summer soon comes to a close, not with a whimper, but with a JAM

It is early August — summer still by most metrics, yet the creeping signs of autumn’s advance have already been spotted. The sumac on the hills has begun to turn, and if one were to listen to the area’s corporate outlets — Walmart, the dollar stores, et al — it would seem to be almost Halloween. Soon, students will return to the classroom and the air will cool and crisp. But first, summer will have one more hurrah — LH JAMS has returned for its 9th year in downtown Lock Haven. The arts fest, which began with a kick-off concert Thursday night and proceeded with a ...

Violence is the enemy. Seek togetherness, instead

For as much as our culture likes to hold itself as above political violence, people historically sure do a lot of it. The horrendous attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump, as he campaigned in Butler, Pa. — nearly three hours to our west, just north of Pittsburgh — is another wretched entry to an equally wretched list. Political violence extends beyond presidents and candidates, of course — consider the shooting of Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise and the assault of Paul Pelosi, both among recent examples. In 2022, a man paused and called the police on himself ...

Don’t trust our digital world

The latest theft of digital information is massive beyond scale. AT&T has reported that hackers stole six months’ worth of call and text message records of nearly every AT&T cellular network customer. This breach has the potential to reveal sensitive information about millions and millions of Americans. The data contains records of calls and texts between approximately May 1 and Oct. 31, 2022, and on Jan. 2, 2023. The company insists that content of the calls and messages was not compromised and customers’ personal information was not accessed. Yea, right. Yet, AT&T ...

Come together this Fourth of July

We write this ahead of the Fourth of July holiday — our Independence Day, to quote both our founding fathers and also Bill Pullman. Wry humor aside, Independence Day is many things to many people. It can be a party with family and friends, a somber moment of reflection, or just an opportunity to see borderline military-grade pyrotechnics. We would suggest that it can be all three. This year, more than most, Americans are divided and scared. We still haven’t recovered, emotionally if nothing else, from the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the fabric of our ...

Pride is American

We frequently hear comments about, “when is it our turn?” regarding Pride celebrations. There are myriad ways to respond to this, but with the juxtaposition of the Pride in the Haven celebration, happening this weekend, and the 4th of July holiday in less than a week, we wanted to point out — respectfully — that there are striking similarities between the desires of the LGBT community and most Americans. A few examples from an Associated Press story which ran in late April on how most Americans agree on core values include: — 91% of Americans polled find “the right of ...