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War in Iran may shape US policy for decades

The war with Iran that never really ended is back on. Like everybody else, including the Trump administration and the Iranian regime, I have no idea how it will end. But it eventually will, and how it will be remembered will matter enormously. Politics is about many things, but whether you call it “spin,” “framing” or “narrative competition,” storytelling is never far from the heart of it. As the philosopher Richard Rorty observed, “Competition for political leadership is in part a competition between differing stories about a nation’s self-identity, and between ...

Democrats sue to keep a biased CNN

The left has thrown a completely counterfactual fit about how the Paramount takeover of CBS created some kind of “MAGA-coded” news division under Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss. No one who watches network news daily right now can see much of a difference today between CBS and ABC and NBC. But mere internal questioning of whether CBS could attempt to be less biased to the left has caused a tsunami of panic. Now, as the Paramount merger with Warner Brothers-Discovery approaches its conclusion, 12 attorneys general filed a last-minute lawsuit to block it — but they won’t say it’s ...

Someone should have been looking out for those kids

A Vinton County case in which 16 children were rescued from horrifying conditions and four adults now face child endangerment charges has raised a host of questions. One that repeatedly surfaces is how in the world no one noticed what was happening to those children, inside that house. The answer highlights the crucial role of public school truancy officers and the safeguard we take away from kids when we allow them to be removed from the public school setting without proper monitoring and assessment. NBC 4 requested records from Gallia County, where it reports the local school ...

In defense of data centers

New York just became the first state in the country to sign a moratorium on data centers. There are two paths forward on this issue. One path builds the infrastructure that runs the next 50 years of the American economy. The other bans the future, then acts surprised when the jobs show up somewhere else. I’m here to defend the data centers because most of the fear you’re hearing is manufactured. Most people opposed to data centers don’t live anywhere near one. Their concern isn’t experience. It’s a propaganda campaign. The legitimate worries all have answers. Yes, you often ...

Letters to the editor

Remember where we started 250 years ago DEAR EDITOR: After 250 years, what is your contribution? Let me ask, how old are you? When is your next birthday? Ask yourself, “Looking back across all my birthdays, what have I accomplished?” Our country has 250 birthdays to look back on. Wow … 250 years! How many books would be needed to list every single accomplishment made by our country? How many people have made up the total population of this special land since its very beginning? Whatever number is the answer, each person who has ever lived or is living in our country has ...

How America’s love of air conditioning became a hot topic

Few things in life, besides a glass of water when you are crossing the desert, offer as much immediate relief as air conditioning. You’re boiling outside, you pull open a door, you step into a paradise of 68-degree air, and your body all but screams “Hallelujah!” In years past, businesses used to boast that their confines were chilled. Movie marquees used to promote “manufactured weather!” Roadside motels would flash “A.C.” in neon. Restaurants, banks, department stores, all happily bragged that they were cool — in the literal sense of the word. It was like the flip ...