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Color the Valley pink this month to fight cancer

As the first full month of fall begins, awesome colors abound. Vibrant shades of red, orange, green and yellow will soon mix amid the leaf-filled landscape to create a mesmerizing melange of splendor. Over the past three decades, however, pink has upstaged the traditional autumnal color palette. That’s because pink affixed to ribbons, clothing, banners, buildings and more symbolizes the increasingly robust campaign each October to fight breast cancer in our community and in our nation. The Mahoning Valley can take pride in the overwhelming and compassionate commitment it makes in ...

The perfect metaphor at the UN

The perfect metaphor to characterize the U.N. General Assembly delegates who walked out before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke is this: “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” You can’t make people understand the truth if they choose to ignore it. The problem with the Middle East is that both sides have their own “truth,” which is contradictory because the only alternative to truth is falsehood. Prime Minister Netanyahu, as he has done in previous U.N. appearances, laid out the truth which dozens of delegates didn’t want to hear. “Moral ...

Stop buying votes, everybody!

It would be hard to find a more insulting offer than to exchange money for your vote. That’s exactly what President Donald Trump did in announcing that if voters keep Republicans in power come the midterms, he’ll send every adult citizen a $5,000 check. Now, one would not put money on that promise. Even if Republicans do retain control of both the House and the Senate, the promise will surely be thrown in the same manila folder as the vow to release the Epstein files, all of them. Of course, Trump would not be paying us five grand — the federal government would. That would ...

Letters to the Editor

Former 65th candidate endorses John Barbo DEAR EDITOR: Whatever happened to Lorna Westlake, long-time letter writer and candidate for state representative in the 65th district? Well, what happened was a health crisis of severe proportions. On Feb. 26, my husband Tom Westlake was taken by helicopter to University Hospital where emergency surgery was performed to find the source of massive bleeding. Taking anti-inflammatories for a knee replacement operation had eaten a hole the size of a quarter in his duodenum. What followed was 150 consecutive days in the hospital. Knowing that ...

Archbishop Fulton Sheen and me

History yields people whose influence extends far beyond their earthly lives. They become teachers to generations they never met, spiritual companions to people whose names they never knew, and reminders that faith is not merely a set of propositions to be accepted but a way of life to be embraced. For me, one of those extraordinary figures is Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. Fulton Sheen possessed a rare gift: He could bring the richness, beauty and intellectual depth of traditional Catholicism into the homes of ordinary Americans. Through his Emmy Award-winning, half-hour weekly ...

If TMH will not reopen, start with houses next door

Warren has spent two years trying to keep a hospital on East Market Street. That effort was right. A city this size should not have to send its emergencies, its births, and its paychecks somewhere else. It is time to say out loud what a lot of people already know. The building we still call Trumbull Memorial Hospital is not, at this moment, on a path back to being a hospital. The TMH campus has passed through Forum Health, Steward Health Care, and Insight. Steward’s bankruptcy closed the doors. Insight took over, closed, briefly reopened an emergency room, then surrendered its Ohio ...