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Editorial

‘Operation Next Door’ brings home message

In naming its latest statewide human trafficking operation, the Ohio Attorney General’s Organized Crime Investigations Commission chose “Operation Next Door” as a way to bring home the message that the people committing these crimes are not distant strangers. They may, indeed, live right next door. With the help of more than 100 law enforcement agencies, 135 people were arrested for seeking to buy sex — some of them from minors, according to state Attorney General Dave Yost’s office. Of those 135, one was from Salem and the other from Canfield. Think of all those in our ...

‘Riches to Rags’

By FRED MILLER EAST LIVERPOOL —McKinley’s protective tariffs on pottery were long gone, erased by the free-trade Democrats, but sales also were impacted not only by cheap imports but by new materials, especially glass and aluminum. (Grays, Amazing Ware) As dinnerware sales went cold in ...

State close to accepting crypto currency payments

Last week, Ohio moved one step closer to being able to accept crypto currency as payment for state fees and services. The news was greeted with congratulations from officials such as Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose. “Ohio has always been a state of pioneers and innovators,” LaRose said. “I want to commend Treasurer (Robert) Sprague, Auditor (Keith) Faber, and Attorney General (Dave) Yost for taking this bold step to position us at the forefront of the emerging digital economy. There’s a reason why we now rank among the top five states in the nation to do business. It’s ...

‘Riches to Rags’ Part 2

EAST LIVERPOOL - Homer J. Taylor succeeded his father Col. John N. Taylor as president of the giant Knowles, Taylor and Knowles pottery when John died in 1914. In 1935, long after Homer had lost that position and KT&K went under, when he was ill and his family was scratching out a living in ...

Kitten creep

“Kitten creep” is like “mission creep” but with kittens. Mission creep is what happened with Vietnam. Kennedy sent in the CIA and military advisers. Johnson sent in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Nixon bombed Cambodia. Kitten creep is also an example of “creeping determinism,” a psychological term which writer Malcolm Gladwell explains is the ex post facto belief that a surprising outcome was, in retrospect, inevitable. “Hindsight is 20-20,” the saying goes, but was the outcome really inevitable? There were dots to connect. Why didn’t we? “I knew it ...

‘Riches to Rags’ – From America’s largest pottery to a pottery in a chicken coop

EAST LIVERPOOL - On Feb. 17, 1901, a special train carried 350 passengers from East Liverpool to Sebring, Ohio, to witness the lavish wedding of Homer J. Taylor, 24, and Pearl Sebring, 20. President McKinley, a close personal friend of the family, sent a set of silver knives and forks, inlaid with gold and with pearl handles. With the wealth generated by the giant Knowles, Taylor & Knowles pottery, members of the Homer J. and Pearl Sebring Taylor family lived in mansions with servants and vacationed at Atlantic City. Three decades later the Taylor family’s fortunes and the ...