When the West Virginia House of Delegates shot down the "Omnibus" Education Bill sent to it by the State Senate, the people of our state were failed. I suspect this failure was inevitable.The Senate and the House approached the issue of public schools from entirely different points of view. The ...
This month I would like to share with you my own soul searching about my role as a citizen in a democracy that is now under real threat to its existence. When conservative mouthpiece Ann Coulter says that the only state of emergency in America is that the president is an idiot, you know we're ...
The State Senate has taken the lead in working on the proposal by Governor Jim Justice to provide "tuition-free" community college to a limited number of West Virginians.I use the word "free," although his proposal does not meet my definition of "free." Lately, his bill is being described more ...
Before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day completely fades from our awareness for another year, let's pause to be challenged by his "Letter from Birmingham Jail."The letter is dated April 16, 1963, and was literally written from his jail cell at first on the margins of a newspaper, then on scraps of ...
The Chronicle has graciously permitted me to use this space to report to you once each month, throughout the year, on the doings of the West Virginia Legislature.I was informed last week that I will be serving on the Education Committee. This was my first choice, and I'm happy my request was ...
Let's take a look back at 2018.First, at the dawn of the year Linda and I had one major preoccupation and that was how on earth we would raise the money to get us out to California for the shaman training we both felt very deeply we were called to attend. For nearly 30 years my soul had been ...
Just this week the Washington Post editorial section highlighted two toxins for children that most are aware of, tobacco and alcohol. Here is my voice from the darkness of the current health status of children in response to both the Nov. 16 front-page article "FDA unveils broad anti-tobacco ...
Fourteenth century Persian Sufi Poet Hafiz said, in one of his many beautiful verses, "People say that on hearing the song the soul entered the body, but in reality the soul itself was the song."If you read this and feel a deep sigh of longing, as if you wish this were true but it does not feel ...
Yesterday was Ring Day at the O'Brien household. Oct. 25 is the anniversary of the day Linda and I bought our wedding rings down in Washington, D.C. back in 1997. We always remember how we lingered in the car, wanting to be sure, before we hopped out and bought those rings. The person who sold ...
As summer wraps up, the humid, warm mornings give way to crisp, cool air, lending itself perfectly to the fall running season. What better time for West Virginia's largest running event on Oct. 6 -- the 10th Annual Freedom's Run, generously supported by American Public University System for the ...