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Own nothing? A little less would be OK

A few years ago the prediction that “By 2030 you will own nothing and be happy about it” was flung rudely at Western Civilization, which greeted it with a howl of indignation. As I sit here now on a large pile of My Stuff, owning a little less of it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. I don’t know where to put it all. We were made acutely aware of just how much stuff we have in our house when we had a new floor put in and had to move everything to accommodate the project. It was like moving house, with everything thrown into boxes and shuttled here and there to stay one step ...

Skating on air

It was two weeks ago that grandson Bob called to tell me something about our farm pond, but his words made no sense. “What do you mean, ‘collapsed’?” I said. “The ice collapsed. It’s laying on the bottom of the pond.” “What happened to the water?” “I don’t know. Gone.” When I got there I saw the pond had become a giant bowl of ice, and Bob was ice skating around on the bottom of it. Fissures showed around the edges and through the center of the upper pond where it was shallow, but a large area of thick ice in the center, thickest we have ever seen, had ...

Reality: Ohio is growing because people follow jobs

Recent headlines have suggested that Ohio’s population is destined for long-term decline, citing projections from a state development report that rely heavily on birth and death rates. While those demographic trends matter, they tell only part of the story and overlook one of the most important drivers of population growth: economic opportunity. The reality is that Ohio is growing, and it’s growing because people follow jobs. The analysis in question focuses on natural population change (births minus deaths) but does not fully account for domestic migration, particularly the ...

Congressional candidates facing struggle to defeat incumbents Rulli, Joyce

Those challenging the two incumbents who represent the Mahoning Valley — U.S. Reps. Dave Joyce, R-Bainbridge, and Michael Rulli, R-Salem — face tremendous odds to beat them. Defeating a sitting member of the U.S. House is very difficult. With the power of incumbency comes name recognition and a considerable amount of money, largely provided by political action committees who know the reliable votes of those already serving in Congress, particularly for a long time. OpenSecrets, a website that provides data and analysis of money in politics, also tracks the reelection rate of U.S. ...

China’s stranglehold on critical minerals is now a national crisis

In the 1970s, when OPEC halted oil shipments to the United States, Congress established a “Strategic Petroleum Reserve.” It was an emergency measure to stockpile oil against a future crisis. Now, 50 years later, the United States is building a new strategic reserve. With China repeatedly threatening to halt exports of rare earth metals, the Trump administration has launched “Project Vault”—a $12 billion plan to stockpile critical minerals ahead of potential shortages. Much like the 1970s oil reserve, this “vault” will store key metals and minerals to blunt future supply ...

Next frontier is building digital assets framework

Ohio has a long history of producing people who attempt what others insist cannot be done. When two bicycle mechanics from Dayton argued that human flight was possible, the response was fear — warnings about danger, disorder, and defying nature. When an Ohio inventor promoted electric light, critics predicted fires, chaos, and threats to public safety. History settled the argument anyway. Flight shrank the world, electricity powered modern life, and the warnings that once dominated debate now read like footnotes. The lesson is simple: caution matters, but fear disguised as prudence ...