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What’s the thing we are not seein

In late May 1930, O’Neil Kennedy made his way from his office at the corner of Pittsburgh and Peter streets to a platform several blocks away, on Church Street, for a ceremony marking the start of construction on a new Bell Telephone building in Uniontown.(The building is still there, across ...

Partners: John Murtha and G.H.W Bush

Longtime lawmaker John Murtha was an important foreign policy figure in Washington. The Johnstown congressman, who died 12 years ago at the age of 77, was a force to be reckoned with, even by presidents.A Democrat who at one time or another represented Fayette and portions of Washington County, ...

Listening in to state Rep. Dowling

Yours truly poked his ear into a “telephone town hall” the other evening featuring UniontownĢƵ representative in the Pennsylvania House, Matthew Dowling, a Republican.Dowling, who was in a serious vehicle accident in October 2021, sounded in fine voice. How he felt he didn’t say. Even ...

Bernstein and the art of reporting

Carl Bernstein, the <em>Washington Post</em> reporter who, in investigating the Watergate scandal, helped to bring down a corrupt presidency, was a journalistic prodigy.He entered the profession with the old <em>Washington Star</em> while ...

Trouble: misreading a foe with nukes

“History,” Barbara Tuchman concluded, “is the unfolding of miscalculation.”Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the unexpectedly stiff Ukrainian resistance, questions have been asked about miscalculations made by Russian ruler Vladimir Putin. Did he miscalculate both the Ukrainian ...

Improbable reality: war in Europe

The distance from Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, to Sofia, Bulgaria, is 800 miles, which is the same distance, approximately, from here to Minneapolis, Minnesota.I’m telling you this for two reasons. Reason No. 1 is that Sofia was the home of Milko Kobahob. Milko was imprisoned by the Germans ...