The donnybrook that broke out on the Ohio University campus Monday afternoon when so-called “gun-girl” Kaitlin Bennett arrived with a small entourage and quickly drew a huge crowd of mainly antagonistic students was both nothing new and something entirely new.
Dear Sen. Portman: Lots of folks I know contacted you in recent weeks to urge you to support the well-deserved impeachment of President Trump, and more recently to vote in favor of last Friday’s Democratic motion to introduce witnesses and evidence in the president’s impeachment trial in the…
No doubt the Joe Burrow Phenomenon has been good for The Plains, Athens, Athens County and southeast Ohio.
To observe that Donald Trump has said, tweeted and done a lot of alarming things since taking office is an understatement. But nothing has been as scary as the prospect of this erratic, impulsive, quick-to-anger leader single-handedly steering our nation into what easily could flame into a m…
For what it’s worth, here’s what I’m wishing for in 2020, and be warned, there’s a lot of politics in here…
With The Athens NEWS now located in the Athens Messenger building near The Plains, I’ve gotten into the habit of taking lunch-break walks on the nearby Hockhocking Adena Bikeway. Walking recently, I encountered a black hole. Stay with me here...
Please indulge me in the hypothetical situation that I will outline below. Any resemblance to current events is purely intentional.
The Athens County Agricultural Society took a disappointing vote on Saturday, with 124 members casting ballots against a proposal to ban the sale and display of Confederate flag merchandise at the annual fair. Just 33 members voted yes.
The debate over Confederate merchandise at the Athens County Fair has sparked a lively – and at times bitter – debate around town, including on The Athens NEWS Facebook page. One particularly ugly aspect of that debate has been individuals revising the history of the Civil War, in order to a…
In the spirit of Halloween tricks rather than treats, here’s a bullet-point column about mainly Halloween topics but with one wildcard about local elections.
Local Republicans are holding their annual Fall Dinner tonight (Thursday) in Athens, and one of the guests of honor is LeeAnn Johnson, wife of U.S. House Rep. Bill Johnson, a true-blue Trump Republican* whose Sixth District includes part of eastern Athens County. LeeAnn heads Women for Trump…
The violent arrest of a young black man in uptown Athens around midnight Saturday has sparked a brushfire around town and campus that was still alight as this edition went to press Wednesday afternoon.
When a president repeatedly favors his own political and financial interests over those of the nation and its people, he’s a danger to our republic, a threat to our democracy.
Starting this general election season The Athens NEWS will no longer publish unsigned endorsement editorials for candidates and issues. This ends our policy of endorsing in every election (if not in every race), something we have done dating back to years before I arrived as editor in 1987.
Editor's note: This "Wearing Thin" column appeared in The Athens NEWS on Sept. 13, 2001. I wrote it the evening of the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. I realized just now that it's no longer findable online, so I'm giving it new life. I still think it's a worthy messa…
