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Justice’s State of the State Reflected Well on Time in Office

On Wednesday, Jan. 10, for the last time in his tenure as governor, Jim Justice delivered an occasionally emotional State of the State address to the 1.79 million people who call West Virginia home. As one might expect, Justice’s eighth such address was reflective, prideful, and, ultimately, optimistic. Admittedly, I was expecting something of a glorified campaign speech as Justice is running for one of West Virginia’s two United States Senate seats, but I was, happily, surprised. There is no doubt that West Virginia in 2024 looks much different than what it did when Justice ...

Homeless Crisis Not Just Happening in Wheeling

I can remember back in 2005 when I was the health officer for the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department. We were debating changing the clean indoor air act to include bars, restaurants and gaming facilities. The overwhelming public health consensus was that secondhand smoke was harmful to your health. The 17th Surgeon General, Richard Carmona, had just come out with the official policy stating the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, until then we didn’t realize how harmful it was. We even thought that having separate sections in a restaurant would help. Luckily we now have a ...

Marshall Memo: A Love for Mathematics; Adult Education; and Birthdays

Students in fourth through 12th grade put their “mathletic” skills to the test during the annual Marshall County Math Field Day competition held recently at Wheeling University. Some 150 students competed in categories ranging from mental math, mental estimation, measurement estimation, and short answers. Participants also took a written test. Math Field Day was established to promote increased student participation in classroom and extracurricular mathematics. One of the primary objectives of the event is to demonstrate mathematics being a challenging yet exciting subject to ...

2024 Election Season Is Underway in West Virginia

Fire the metaphorical starter’s pistol, because the 2024 primary and general election season begins now as you are reading this. The candidate filing period for statewide candidates continues through midnight Saturday, Jan. 27. Races on the statewide ballot include: U.S. president, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, governor, secretary of state, state auditor, state treasurer, agricultural commissioner, attorney general, Supreme Court of Appeals, Intermediate Court of Appeals, state Senate and House of Delegates. The candidate filing period always is an interesting time, ...

Israel-Hamas War: It’s Time for a Second Look

Early in the Israel-Hamas War (Oct. 17, 2023) I analyzed the conflict according to the traditional norms of the Catholic just war theory: 1.) a defensive war in response to armed aggression 2.) undertaken as the last resort 3.) with a reasonable prospect of success 4.) and likely not to cause worse evils than the one it wants to eliminate (this last criterion sometimes referred to as proportionality). I claim no infallibility for my analysis but it seemed clear to me that Israel was justified in attacking Hamas in Gaza in response to the brutal rape, murder and ...

Credit Card Competition Act Hurts Economic Growth

Economic development has always been near and dear to my heart. Helping our economy grow strong is one of the reasons I ran for the West Virginia House of Delegates, and it is something that I take very seriously. Sometimes expanding our economy means that I must support state bills and sometimes it means that I must oppose others that I think will hurt expansion and growth. And sometimes it means that I must either support or oppose federal legislation. That is the case in this instance. Today I am writing about the Credit Card Competition Act and the damage it will do to our ...