The frontline

July 12, 2018

Editor: Not unlike 1776, today God, country and revolution are at the forefront of the battle for these United States of America. Freedom and liberty bonded in faith and guarded with resolve remains vital to sustaining our republic. Conflicts of ethnicity, cultures, values and ideologies anchored in religious beliefs are the battlefields. Theology and ideology profoundly reflect each other. Every ideology has intrinsically a declaration of a god, whether it is the One True Living God or a god which is sought to displace Him. Even the ideology of atheism inevitably faces an ...

Real red flags

July 11, 2018

Editor: Gov. Kasich in April proposed gun legislation so “Ohio law be changed to automatically incorporate any future changes to federal gun regulations into state law” writes Julie Carr Smyth of the Associated Press. Kasich ignores states’ rights, a staple of the American Constitution, and seeks for Ohio to ape the federal government’s laws — as if the federal government is some kind of golden standard. Without knowing the future of federal leadership, locking Ohio’s plight to an unknown is incredibly foolish. Kasich’s policy writers also introduce an alarming “red ...

Against it then, against it now

June 14, 2018

Editor: In the wake of reporter Tom Giambroni’s two-part story on issues related to the Columbiana County Jail, I’d like to remind the citizenry that privatization of the county jail was not a unanimous decision of the three-member county Board of Commissioners at the time. I sat on that board and fought voraciously against privatization, expressing at that time 20 years ago the issues that have come to light in recent months. Despite the reported money-saving maneuver, a private company is a for-profit company, so one can anticipate corners would be cut somewhere. Before the ...

Unsocial justice

June 7, 2018

Editor: “Justice, justice shall you pursue….” of Deuteronomy calls for the pursuit of righteous justice that is much different from that which is being advanced in our society and culture. The phrase often heard today is “social justice.” This form of social disorder has at its core revenge, covetousness and a distortion of judgment. Social justice activists, all too often through acts of anarchy, threaten our society to bring it to submission. When anarchy is just too messy, another somewhat more civilized propagation of social justice is engaged through our educational ...

Henpecked

May 31, 2018

Editor: I write today to inform the citizens of Columbiana who do not know that one of your own is being taken to court because he decided to have backyard hens. If you do not know, Richard Simpson is now in a legal battle with the city. Wherever you may stand on one’s right to have backyard hens, please understand that the zoning infraction that Mr. Simpson is in perceived “violation” of is gray at best. That is why they are taking him to court to get a declaratory judgment against him. He was never turned in for any zoning infraction, they took this action because he is a ...

Keep it clean

May 12, 2018

Editor: Can’t we Americans think a little harder about not polluting the edge of our highways with all our fast food wrappers and drink containers? Every spring our highways look like war zones out of the Middle East. This is America, with a supposedly well-educated and intelligent population and clean environment. So come on, Americans, think about what you are doing as you roll down your car window and let the debris fly away. Harry John Herbert East Palestine