It's been two or three weeks since I've weighed in on fracking so here's a few disparate points to consider:

Discussion about rolling back legislative term limits in Ohio is starting to percolate among leaders from both side of the partisan aisle. It's about damn time, since term limits reflect a profoundly undemocratic reflex among the American voting public.

The Athens Planning Commission's Jan. 11 ruling on a proposal to build student apartments on the site of the old One-Stop Carryout building on Stimson Avenue had me twisting one way and then another.

We recently published two letters to the editor from Ohio University students debating the merits of security cameras in dorm common areas. This apparently is happening in some limited fashion on campus (and a story we publish in today's issue should fill in the details).

Here's my annual backhanded and front-handed New Year's wishes, a few days late and a few dollars short...

It's housekeeping time in the zany world of fracking.

Over the past few weeks, I've been collecting articles and information about the shale oil and natural gas boom that is poised to strike our little corner of the world… unless it doesn't, which is entirely possible.

I'll confess, one of the most rewarding aspects of covering our local installment of the national controversy over the ongoing oil and gas boom (aka, fracking) is that I'm carrying on a family tradition. My great grandfather on my mother's side, Don H. Biggers, was a muckraking journalist and political player in Texas during the oil boom of the 1920s, aggressively attacking shady oil promotion schemes.

A lot of Ohio University Bobcat fans have been grousing about the football team having to play this year's bowl game in Boise, Idaho. Complaints have been aired about the distance, climate, the football field and the destination in general.

The story of the day in Athens County — hell, probably of the decade — is fracking, of course, and it's exciting to be on the front lines covering the issue as a journalist.

Something of a tradition hereabouts, here's my backhanded Thanksgiving column for 2011.

Just like everybody, I'm thankful for some things and not thankful for others. But since the "not thankful" stuff is more fun to write about, it usually gets most of the ink.