Opinion Page

A worse scandal

The outrage concerning the governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, continues but we think the focus has been on the wrong bit of menace emanating from him. Yes, we are appalled by a photo on Northam’s graduate school yearbook page of two people, one in blackface

An important election awaits

With municipal election season upon us, it’s only right that we announce what issues are important to us and what characteristics and priorities we would like to see in a mayor. The first matter is that of honesty. If a candidate doesn’t have it, nothin

Preserve your heart

It is the season for matters of the heart, what with Valentine’s Day Thursday and Heart Month being all of February. Take time to stop and think about that most vital organ that we often take for granted. Heart disease is still the leading cause of death in I

If only Trump would do that more often

 Last week, President Trump stood before a joint session of Congress and touted the economic successes of his term so far. He embraced reasonable conservative positions with broad backing. He pointed out the opposition’s recent excesses on abortion and i

The opposite of what we were

A philosophy teacher at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., Crispin Sartwell, wrote a piece for The Wall Street Journal recently in which he questioned whether self-reliance, long supposed to a keystone of good character and the motivating idea behind the

Much ado about nothing

Regarding the contractor ordinance that fell to defeat this week at the Marion City Council, we have to say we are not all that disappointed. Yes, we think that it would have been good to have some system that would prevent incompetent contractors from doing work o