2009-11-19 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Brenda Becker isn't a doctor, and she doesn't play one on TV, either.She's the superintendent of Hempfield schools. With a budget of $96 million, she focuses on educating 7,200 students in seven elementary schools, two middle schools and one massive high school.Experienc......
2009-11-17 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
If you attended state Rep. John Bear's town hall meeting at Linden Hall in Lititz Thursday night, press 1.If before the meeting, you liked the pastries, appetizers and beverages Bear offered and the dazzling virtuosity of the violin and piano soloists, press 2.If you were OK wit......
2009-11-12 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
They're all busy people with other things they could be doing on Saturday mornings.But on six Saturdays this fall, a group of 20 put those things on hold to focus on leadership.They're ordinary people. Ivonne Diaz is 27. She works at the unemployment office, has a 4-year-old......
2009-11-10 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Ryan Tritch knew he was going to be tested when he signed on to teach at C.J. Jorgensen, a 700-student, K-8 public school in south Phoenix.Many of the students come from homes where English is not spoken. Many are eligible for free lunches. Many are new to town and don't know how long ......
2009-11-05 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
In his victory speech Tuesday night, Mayor Rick Gray gave credit to his campaign, and he singled out volunteers.But I think there was a more decisive factor in Gray's eking out a close-call win against Republican Charlie Smithgall.Day in and day out, in a strictly nonpartisan fa......
2009-10-29 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Keeping in mind how a budget reflects people's values, let's consider what Pennsylvania's better-late-than-never spending plan says about us.For one thing, it says we'd rather expand gambling than close corporate tax loopholes.For another, it says we'd rather ski......
2009-10-27 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
LaMar Weaver's crushing headaches vanished after he had surgery to remove a brain tumor.But just as things were getting better, his health insurer hit him over the head."They didn't want to pay," Weaver said. "They said it was a pre-existing condition."...
2009-10-22 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
At the men's room in my office, the future has arrived.The door now opens to darkness broken by a motion detector turning on the lights.It's a common-sense, energy-saving change that's good for my employer's bottom line and the environment.The savings might se......
2009-10-20 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Voters by a slim margin in 1967 said "no" to starting a county health department.Forty-two years later, that decision has ramifications in the push to vaccinate children and other vulnerable people against the worrisome H1N1 flu.In the dozens of counties like ours that don......
2009-10-15 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
The Patriot-News of Harrisburg offered a partially tongue-in-cheek list of the 100 reasons why Pennsylvania went without a budget for 100 days.No. 1 was Gov. Ed Rendell. The Patriot said Rendell went too long without being willing to compromise.The General Assembly ranked No. 2. It&......
2009-10-13 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Everyone has an opinion about packing heat.One view is you're safer if you've got a pistol in the glove box or strapped to your body. The other view is carrying a gun only increases your chance of getting shot.Where's the truth?It turns out researchers are as divi......
2009-10-08 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
They're talking about merging police services in York County.York city and eight municipalities in its orbit have committed to studying the effect a single metropolitan police force would have on public safety and costs.In Berks County, home to 38 police departments, they're......
2009-10-06 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Nothing was different about the moon rising over Padua, Italy, that evening in the fall of 1609 except the impression it made on 45-year-old Galileo Galilei.Having impressed navy commanders by crafting one of the world's first telescopes, Galileo that autumn night 400 years ago turned ......
2009-10-01 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
I admit it. I was sitting at a meeting feeling my eyelids grow heavy.After three hours of speakers at Tuesday's day-long Smart Growth Summit, I reached a point where I just wanted to put aside my notebook and lay my head down.I wasn't drowsy because the topic bores me. Not a......
2009-09-29 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Richard Jackson, a landscape architect and advocate of smart-growth land use, bravely admitted to feeling depressed.He and about a dozen others had spent over an hour around a conference table talking about the opportunities and obstacles to making Lancaster County an economic powerhouse....
2009-09-24 00:02:00
JEFF HAWKES
Hundreds crowded Penn Square that October day in 1979 for a glimpse of Muhammad Ali, and no one was more excited than 18-year-old Sidney Gantz, wearing a suit for the occasion. But the excitement turned to tearful disappointment when Gantz realized he wasn't going to meet his hero. The throng ......
2009-09-22 00:00:00
JEFF HAWKES
It was 6:18 p.m. Thursday when Angie Stevens, 39, heard a school bus arrive outside her immaculate four-bedroom home in a tidy subdivision near Maytown."Oh, my gosh, they're here!" Stevens exclaimed, and she went quickly to the vestibule to greet her dinner quests, 27 strangers from the st......
2009-09-17 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Deb Brandt and Tracy Cutler, entrepreneurial up-and-comers in their 30s, saw an opportunity to promote the best of downtown Lancaster, but this being Lancaster, they encountered push-back.Their brainstorm was fig, a glossy, magazine-like advertising quarterly mailed to affluent households ......
2009-09-03 00:02:00
JEFF HAWKES
I've heard quite enough about Cash for Clunkers, thank you very much. I guess it made sense to give the auto industry a boost, but what if Congress had done something different with that $3 billion? Imagine if people had been given an incentive, say, to trade in Crocs for real shoes....
2009-09-01 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
A steady drizzle heightened Jonathan Spicher's dread as he and a friend bicycled through a lonely stretch of Mexico's northern desert.They were crossing a 40-mile "lawless zone," where drug cartels had free rein, and with each passing vehicle Spicher remembered what a mig......
2009-08-20 00:02:00
JEFF HAWKES
The state wants you and me to use less electricity, and that's a fine idea because consuming less may make electricity cheaper and the air cleaner. But guess who the state put in charge of getting us to cut back. PPL and the other utilities, and that's crazy. If we're using less energy, th......
2009-08-18 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
It was mostly sunny in Annville on Monday, and solar rays were doing their thing on Philip Morgan's roof: heating his water.Fourteen rooftop vacuum tubes, each 5 feet long, had reached 130 degrees.An antifreeze solution, circulating in pipes, was transferring the heat to 80 gall......
2009-08-06 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Are you angry with Gov. Ed Rendell for wanting to raise your taxes?Apparently, Sen. Dominic Pileggi doesn't think you're angry enough.Pileggi, of Delaware County, is the leader of the majority Republicans in the state Senate and Rendell's chief nemesis in Pennsylvania......
2009-08-04 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
It was a classic Ed Rendell thing to say. AUDIO: Rendell discusses budget At a news conferenc......
2009-07-30 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Table 4 of Appendix A lays it out authoritatively.Harrisburg ranks No. 1 in the rate of serious crime per capita among Pennsylvania's cities, and Lancaster is No. 2.How can that be? Is Lancaster really that dangerous? What about big, bad, barely governable Philadelphia?We......
2009-07-23 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
You don't pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger, and you don't mess around with the NRA.So goes the conventional wisdom.But eight Pennsylvania cities — Lancaster included — are showing that the National Rifle Association might not be bulletproof after all....
2009-07-16 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Maybe you were at Field of Screams the night Matt Mulligan cut off his body hair and ate it in a hoagie roll.He did it to meet Beyoncé.Mulligan, then 23, was a Fiberglas technician and Marine Corps reservist, and he couldn't resist entering the gross-out contest FM 97 spo......
2009-07-14 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
"Are you American?"Joe Moore, 62, heard the question as he was walking through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.It came from a Palestinian man in Western dress, who asked, "Can I speak with you?"Moore, a member of Lancaster Friends Meeting, w......
2009-07-02 00:03:00
JEFF HAWKES
They're worried about making ends meet, and they're a little miffed, these mayors from Pennsylvania's blue-collar, rust-belt cities that Bruce Springsteen might sing about.At a news conference in Lancaster to plug tax reform that would give cities a fighting chance to reverse d......
2009-06-30 00:38:00
JEFF HAWKES
Debate will forever rage about how high taxes should rise. Still, at the end of the day, most of us pay up out of a sense of duty.We're willing to hand over some of what's ours for the betterment of all.Good will, then, lies at the heart of taxation. The system works because......
2009-06-26 00:36:00
JEFF HAWKES
I think public money should support upscale housing in redevelopment projects like the Lancaster Press Building, and I wrote about that issue last week.Jeremy Raff, a reader in Leola, sees it as a handout to the rich and says I'm wrong."I simply fail to see why this should happen," ......
2009-06-25 01:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
With inner-city Fulton Elementary School as his backdrop, Gov. Ed Rendell defended his call for higher state taxes as a "moral obligation" to children.Noting that Republican lawmakers have drawn a line in the sand against a tax increase, the governor drew his own line.&quo......
2009-06-23 00:16:00
JEFF HAWKES
All of a sudden, everybody's sorry.David Letterman told a salacious joke about Sarah Palin's daughter, and now he's sorry.Jessica Alba got caught plastering Oklahoma City with posters protesting the decline of the great white shark, and now she's saying sorry by maki......
2009-06-19 01:26:00
JEFF HAWKES
Developers say the century-old Lancaster Press building, a vacant, six-story, industrial-age structure at North Prince and Lemon, has promise.Since 2006, they've been hoping to remake the former cigar factory into a posh residential building with retail space and 47 condos going for up......
2009-06-18 00:48:00
JEFF HAWKES
The bees want to get me, and I can't blame them.I'm intruding on their turf to watch the taking of their honey and maybe the seizure of their queen, their reason for being.The bees suspect their tightly structured world could be thrown into disarray, and they're right....
2009-06-16 00:48:00
JEFF HAWKES
Making her first visit to the county's Youth Intervention Center, Cindy Moyer worked on calming her jitters.A Hempfield School District retiree, slender, white-haired and vivacious, Moyer taught art for 35 years and encountered every kind of student.But passing through a metal d......
2009-06-12 00:18:00
JEFF HAWKES
State Sen. Lloyd Smucker of Lancaster County last week described the Senate Republicans' no-tax-increase budget bill as putting Pennsylvania on "the new road of responsibility."Sen. Jake Corman, the Centre County Republican and Appropriations chair, similarly called the deep ......
2009-06-11 01:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
The mayor was there, and two county commissioners.U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts sent a staffer, too.The event was a breakfast meeting to address worrisome trends in the Latino community.And so it was a good thing elected leaders or their representatives attended, but let's be hones......
2009-06-06 01:33:00
JEFF HAWKES
If the state budget were a jungle in which you were lost, you'd appreciate having someone like state Sen. Jake Corman around.He'd take a machete and chop his way to the rescue.How satisfying to whack away at everything and anything impeding the mission.As Senate Appro......
2009-06-05 01:57:00
JEFF HAWKES
What's next for Lancaster?It's a question I'm asking now that the Marriott and convention center, 10 years in the making, are about to open.In yesterday's column, I asked a few community leaders if the city needs a new challenge along the lines of the convention cent......
2009-06-04 01:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Remember August 1999?That's when civic and business leaders unveiled an ambitious plan.Where the landmark Watt & Shand building had stood empty for years, they envisioned a luxury hotel and convention center.It took 10 stormy years, but developers are about to deliver......
2009-06-02 01:24:00
JEFF HAWKES
Eighteen-year-old Jen Augeri cradled a paintball gun Saturday and confessed, "I'm scared."Two days earlier, she had shot a paintball at a tree, her first time pulling a trigger.But Saturday, Augeri, of Middletown, Conn., knew people would be shooting at her, and the th......
2009-05-29 01:59:00
JEFF HAWKES
Fred Kent lives and works in New York City and loves to ride the subway and watch people.The subway gets Kent to where he needs to go, but also important to him is how it adds fun and variety to his life.The subway station and the interior of a subway car are public spaces that have......
2009-05-26 00:41:00
JEFF HAWKES
Grown men on tricycles. And not a beer keg in sight.The guys at Nxtbook Media were at it again Friday morning. With the big race only five days away, work could wait while they got in one more practice."Ready. Go!"It was Brent Hughes, 32, versus Jeremy Smith, also 3......
2009-05-22 01:13:00
JEFF HAWKES
At budget time, here's the easiest argument to make: cut spending, do more with less.Matthew Brouillette of the Commonwealth Foundation, which promotes free enterprise and limited government, made that pat argument Thursday before the state House Appropriations Committee.The pan......
2009-05-21 01:38:00
JEFF HAWKES
I reach Michael Wagner by phone.His voice is clear, but there's a lag, which is understandable because I've contacted the Peace Corps volunteer while he's sitting under a tree beside a thatched-roof hut in the middle of Africa."It's probably 100 degrees right no......
2009-05-19 01:14:00
JEFF HAWKES
As President Barack Obama puts health care reform on the front burner, at least one observer thinks the White House has learned from mistakes that doomed the Clinton administration's efforts.In a talk to a Lancaster audience, Andrew Webber, head of the National Business Coalition on He......
2009-05-15 01:59:00
JEFF HAWKES
Bryan Hubbard says he wants to work himself out of a job.In this economy, that's a funny thing to say, but I don't doubt his sincerity.Hubbard works at the county's Youth Intervention Center. He's in charge of the programs for juveniles who are temporarily locked up ......
2009-05-14 01:04:00
JEFF HAWKES
After the state Senate, on a party-line vote, passed a budget with sweeping spending cuts, Sen. Jake Corman (R-Centre County) predicted the savings would position Pennsylvania for "the long-term future."And Corman just might be right — if the long-term future he has in mind......
2009-05-12 01:09:00
JEFF HAWKES
State Rep. Mike Sturla calls it "outdated, unfair and … an abuse."He could have called it absurd, too.The target of his scorn is special-education funding in Pennsylvania.The state, by law, must provide special-needs children with schooling that prepares them......
2009-05-08 00:59:00
JEFF HAWKES
The latest Newsweek features the moist snout of a hog on the cover and a surprising farewell from "The Last Word" columnist Anna Quindlen.Hinting at "torpor and fatigue" but noting that she'll continue to write novels, Quindlen wrote that she's giving up the col......
2009-05-05 00:56:00
JEFF HAWKES
Keoddi Wilson is only 12, too young to be thinking about college, but the right age to be impressed by Capt. Danny Castro — a fit, ramrod-straight commander of a North Philadelphia police precinct, cool and confident in a deep-blue uniform — and thinking, "Maybe I could be like h......
2009-05-01 02:12:00
JEFF HAWKES
Dawn Cubano is down to one Newport 100, maybe two, a day.At least that's what she tells the wellness counselor who's helping her quit. One or two a day is tremendous progress."You're doing good. You're doing good," Jennifer Barney, the tobacco cessation cou......
2009-04-30 01:00:00
JEFF HAWKES
Gov. Ed Rendell is right.An examination of whether Pennsylvania's taxpayers and students would be better served having fewer than 500 school districts is long overdue.Rendell in his budget address raised the issue, saying that "in today's economy, we cannot afford"......
2009-04-28 01:21:00
JEFF HAWKES
The sky might be falling on Sen. Arlen Specter.The latest poll has the five-term Republican incumbent down by 21 points to right-wing challenger Pat Toomey.The same poll shows that nearly 60 percent of Republicans are less likely to vote for Specter because he crossed party lines to......
2009-04-24 00:41:00
JEFF HAWKES
I'm OK being the father of kids in high school.What I won't be OK with is being a grandfather while having kids in high school. Or being a grandfather while having kids in postsecondary school.I'll be happy to be a grandfather, but not until my sons are responsible men r......
2009-04-23 01:21:00
JEFF HAWKES
Evil people, beware. Ted Nugent wants me to shoot you.The '70s rocker who gave us "Cat Scratch Fever" says I should get a gun, fight for the right to take it anyplace I please and use it liberally when I encounter someone doing evil.In advance of his appearance at a ri......
2009-04-21 01:36:00
JEFF HAWKES
Think our health-care system is in need of an overhaul? Have any ideas to fix it?You could win $10 million!The X Prize Foundation announced the contest last week. The big bucks will benefit a community of 10,000 people who improve their health by 50 percent over three years.F......
2009-04-17 01:38:00
JEFF HAWKES
Fourteen times Shawn Reilly walked out of Lancaster County Prison thinking it would be the last time.Fourteen times he was wrong.On March 30, after serving six months for public intoxication, Reilly, 43, walked out a 15th time.And this time, Reilly vows, it's going to be ......
2009-04-16 01:32:00
JEFF HAWKES
If the stars blinked out, never again to make me pause between my garage and my home to admire their cold and beautiful aloofness, would I accept the loss as the way of the world?Would I think they were only stars?Just stars.I can name a few. Polaris, of course. And Betelgeus......
2009-04-14 01:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
First-term County Commissioner Scott Martin railed against Somali pirates last night in an address to a joint session of Congress."Lawlessness on the high seas cannot stand," Martin said in a 96-minute prime-time address interrupted 17 times by applauding members of Congress and ......
2009-04-10 01:28:00
JEFF HAWKES
Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray needs a shovel to do his job. Pennsylvania gives mayors a wheelbarrow instead.A wheelbarrow is a handy thing to have. No doubt mayors put them to good use.But when you need to dig, you want a shovel.Even before the recession, mayors were trying to di......
2009-04-09 01:44:00
JEFF HAWKES
The Last Supper, which Christians observe today, is a story fraught with foreboding, dwelling on Jesus' anticipation of betrayal, arrest and execution.But beyond the Last Supper's role in furthering the Holy Week narrative as it rushes to its triumphal climax is a meaningful messag......
2009-04-07 01:46:00
JEFF HAWKES
Gays and lesbians in Iowa might want to brace themselves for the backlash.While all seven justices of Iowa's Supreme Court joined Friday in ending the Hawkeye State's 11-year ban on same-sex marriage, a strong majority of Iowans sees things differently.A Des Moines Register ......
2009-04-03 01:07:00
JEFF HAWKES
Kevin Henderson had a thing for cheese.He'd watch TV and eat a half-pound, all 708 fatty calories.Henderson craved chocolate peanut butter ice cream, too, and could demolish a half-gallon in one sitting. We're talking 2,880 calories.He liked bacon on his Domino's ......
2009-04-02 01:50:00
JEFF HAWKES
Gasoline prices are back over $2 a gallon.The stock market is showing signs of rubbing sleep from its eyes and tossing back the covers.And economists tell us consumer confidence in March, while pathetic, at least didn't tumble lower.Sure, we're still stuck in a recess......
2009-03-31 01:15:00
JEFF HAWKES
Joel Ario isn't exactly Al Gore.He's never made a documentary, won the Nobel Peace Prize or come within a whisker of winning the White House.But Ario is Pennsylvania's insurance commissioner, a position with some clout.And, like Gore, he thinks global warming is a......
2009-03-26 00:15:00
JEFF HAWKES
She finds his poems lovely, dark and deep, and each morning she sits with them and they speak to her.She listens for the narratives, the conversational cadences, the insights Robert Frost draws from the commonplace, and some days she sits straight up, dumbfounded at his gift for reading he......
2009-03-21 00:02:00
JEFF HAWKES
Bill Ayers at Millersville University was a funny, thought-provoking and passionate speaker with a heartfelt message for teachers and everyone who cares about preparing children for a life of inquiry and the responsibilities of self-government. In Ayers' mind, education is democracy's great hop......
2009-03-20 00:01:00
Jeff Hawkes
She has long called her fourth child "porocho."She says it sweetly, drawing out the middle syllable lovingly.It's a term of endearment because Adelaida Meyer loves him, loves all her children, but with Danny there's a story. They almost didn't survive his birth 31 years ago.D......
2009-03-19 00:00:00
JEFF HAWKES
Thomas, 17, got caught with marijuana.It happens. And maybe he'll make the same mistake again. But the other Tuesday, he experienced something to help him make better decisions.Thomas observed drug court.The next time he's offered a joint, will Thomas remember what he......
2009-03-17 01:20:00
JEFF HAWKES
Teens chatted outside the church, cigarettes in hand, smoke curling into the chilly night.Teens smoking at church?Yeah, and Mike Wenger rolls with it.That's how much he believes in a ministry that seeks to reach young people on their terms.Wenger's style is wel......
2009-03-13 00:58:00
JEFF HAWKES
I bet you remember a time when the lights went out. Even if you weren't trapped in an elevator with an Elvis impersonator, you recall where you were and what you were doing.Recently, I was on a treadmill at the gym and jogging to a Beyoncé music video when the lights went off, o......
2009-03-12 01:41:00
JEFF HAWKES
For a long while, the nuclear industry couldn't catch a break.First came the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, followed seven years later by Chernobyl.Then pop culture began parodying the industry in the form of Homer Simpson, the inept nuclear safety inspector.D'oh......
2009-03-10 01:54:00
JEFF HAWKES
We're 39 days into the William Ayers controversy with nine more to go until his talk at embattled Millersville University, and what have we learned?First and foremost, we've learned that MU president Francine McNairy is a leader with strong guiding principles and a backbone even st......
2009-03-06 01:02:00
JEFF HAWKES
Hard times inevitably lead to people living in cars and sleeping on park benches.As the mortgage crisis deepens and layoffs mount, even recession-resistant Lancaster County may be seeing the fallout.Advocates for the homeless here did a count Jan. 26. They found a record 734 people ......
2009-03-05 01:41:00
JEFF HAWKES
Today, let's start by counting the ways Pennsylvania could spend $3 million.That's not a lot of money compared to the $29 billion the state will spend this year, but still $3 million is almost enough to run the Governor's Schools of Excellence, which the governor says must go i......
2009-03-03 01:38:00
Jeff Hawkes
HARRISBURG — Until scientists come up with something to put in the water that keeps people from anti-social or self-destructive behaviors that get them in trouble, we're going to need prisons.That means we're going to continue paying for prisons, and they don't come cheap.In P......
2009-02-27 01:05:00
JEFF HAWKES
Of her origins, at least, Marie Ferguson is certain."Winnipeg. ... Winnipeg, Manitoba," she says with conviction.Marie, 66, also remembers being a cook years ago for a nursing home in Charlotte, N.C."Fourteen people cook," she says in broken English....
2009-02-26 01:14:00
JEFF HAWKES
Steamed about William Ayers speaking at Millersville University?That's certainly an honest emotion.What Ayers did as an angry, misguided young man in the age of Nixon, when protesting the Vietnam War was chic, is indefensible.Politics by blowing things up is not the Ameri......
2009-02-24 01:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
Eve Eisemann is a Warwick High School senior who plays the cello, competes in the long jump and keeps 18,000 honey bees.So does she get stung?"Yes, I do, as a matter of fact," said Eve, 17, who is tall and slender with soft, demure features.Well, how often?&q......
2009-02-20 01:21:00
JEFF HAWKES
"All rise," the bailiff ordered.Entering Courtroom 1, Lancaster County Judge James Cullen took his seat at the bench and asked if the plaintiff was ready to proceed."Yes, your honor," said Nguyen Nguyen, 17, a McCaskey High School junior and member of the mock tr......
2009-02-19 01:26:00
JEFF HAWKES
More often than not, state Rep. Mike Sturla gets it.He's a dependable champion of such noble causes as insuring the uninsured and funding schools so every student has a fair opportunity to achieve.Local progressives never fail to rally around Sturla because he's the one and ......
2009-02-13 01:12:00
JEFF HAWKES
Hungry?In this age of Triple Whoppers with cheese and the ubiquitous Chinese lunch buffet, most aren't hungry for long.Still, the doorbell starts ringing in the parish house at St. Anne's Catholic Church on North Duke Street about 11:30 every weekday, and that means someone&......
2009-02-12 00:45:00
JEFF HAWKES
Abraham Lincoln's spirits soared.The self-taught lawyer from Illinois stepped off a train in Cincinnati excited to start the biggest case of his career.It was 1855, and Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the reaping machine, had sued an Illinois company over a patent.George Har......
2009-02-10 01:33:00
JEFF HAWKES
They donned hard hats, dodged drywall installers and tramped across the concrete floors of the unfinished Marriott hotel and convention center.And at the end of an hourlong tour, an elegant lunch at Carr's Restaurant and presentations by Mayor Rick Gray and others, the band of 15 visit......
2009-02-06 00:51:00
JEFF HAWKES
In early January, Mark Moosic made a promise to which he's going to be held.Moosic, general manager of soon-to-open Marriott at Penn Square, told 1,300 job seekers who flocked to hiring orientations that anyone earning a work-readiness certificate from PA CareerLink will get a job inte......
2009-02-05 00:46:00
JEFF HAWKES
"Brandon," Amanda Robinson said, "tell me about your work experience."Seventeen-year-old Brandon Brison — tall, athletic, a hint of beard accenting the line of his jaw — leaned in and told Robinson about working part time as a floor supervisor at Castle roll......
2009-02-03 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Thomas Pauli paid dearly for committing a sex crime. Society made sure of that.Convicted of having sex with a child, Pauli spent more than 11 years in a Michigan prison. Sufficient punishment? Apparently not.After his release in 2003, the stigma of "sex offender" clung to ......
2009-01-30 00:41:00
JEFF HAWKES
The first thing to be said is Jim Miller served on the Government Study Commission and worked hard in the failed effort to have the county adopt a home-rule charter. Miller's ardent advocacy would not have gone unnoticed by county commissioners Scott Martin and Dennis Stuckey, who sought the ......
2009-01-29 00:51:00
JEFF HAWKES
No columnist would be worth his salt if he didn't from time to time share from the heart.And perhaps I'll do that someday, although it dawned on me as I waited in a gastroenterologist's office Monday that the heart gets enough attention as it is.Ever since the ancients m......
2009-01-23 00:42:00
JEFF HAWKES
Sitting down for an interview last week with state Sen. Mike Brubaker, I was struck by how often he used the word "substantive."He described dog breeding, for instance, as a "substantive business" in his district.He said he'll support legislative-reform propo......
2009-01-22 01:14:00
JEFF HAWKES
In scandal-plagued Harrisburg, 13 GOP state senators went before the cameras Wednesday and insulted our intelligence.But, really, what else is new.The senators trotted out 10 tepid legislative reform proposals — one would post the use of state airplanes on a Web site — a......
2009-01-15 01:59:00
JEFF HAWKES
On a day when an antiquated, Civil War-era school in Maytown was shut down by a faulty furnace, it was democracy that dealt the bigger blow to supporters of public education.Where once a simple majority on a school board could commit a community to a big construction project, Pennsylvania ......
2009-01-13 01:58:00
JEFF HAWKES
A city of 98,000, its 49 square miles patrolled by 225 cops, High Point, N.C., is no Mayberry R.F.D.But the innovative way High Point is combating its illegal drug markets — so busy they once created afternoon traffic jams — is something Sheriff Andy Taylor, TV's folksy kee......
2009-01-10 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Shelby Chunko is torn.She values education and wants the children in Donegal School District, where she is a homeowner, to have the advantages of rigorous instruction and modern facilities.But Chunko's support of public education is not limitless.Chunko and other Donegal ......
2009-01-09 01:34:00
JEFF HAWKES
A troubled mother wanted her four children back, but foster parents desperately hoped to adopt them.What was the best thing for the children, ages 1 to 6?The decision fell to a judge, but he had help. He turned to Susan Wagman, 48, of York, a volunteer who, while not trained in soci......
2009-01-08 00:42:00
JEFF HAWKES
Ta' Shanda Hollman, 24, wants a job at the soon-to-open Marriott Hotel and convention center. Any job. "I'll cook. I'll clean. Wash dishes," she told me. "It don't even matter … as long as I get some money. I need some money."Hollman's not alo......
2008-12-27 00:37:00
JEFF HAWKES
The past year was disappointing if you believe "progress" and "Lancaster County" don't have to be mutually exclusive terms.For those trying to make this place better than they found it, two events in particular came as blows.The first happened early in the ye......
2008-12-25 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
My teenage son works on a dairy farm a few evenings a week, and while he's grown accustomed to the nose-wrinkling odor of manure, I have not.I pick him up and he plops into the passenger seat, oblivious to how his work clothes fill the car with a pungent, organic smell, not exactly a s......
2008-12-23 01:03:00
JEFF HAWKES
Aggregate demand. Optimal allocation. Market equilibrium.Economics is Greek to most of us.So it was for Sue Miller, a part-time bookkeeper taking classes at Harrisburg Area Community College at the age of 53.Since her classes in accounting had gone well, she approached Econ 2......
2008-12-19 02:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
The chill has set in, as have the long, long nights.We brace for another winter, which might not be so bad if only we could hibernate.Instead, we're beings that must go here and there, rarely getting anywhere.Bears might not be perfect creatures. I would not want one snuf......
2008-12-18 01:07:00
JEFF HAWKES
What's cooking?In homes across Lititz last Friday night, it was Mexican beef stew.More than 30 moms and dads picked up the ingredients when school let out at Lititz Elementary.One youngster took on the responsibility himself. He tucked cans of vegetables and tomato soup, ......
2008-12-16 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
They committed their time, money and hearts to putting Barack Obama in the White House.But they're not done yet.Across the country over the weekend, thousands of Obama supporters gathered in homes in 1,950 towns and cities to talk about what they can do to advance the incoming p......
2008-12-12 01:52:00
JEFF HAWKES
By this time in a normal year, principal Doug Lyons sees the student body at the vocational school in Brownstown start to thin out.Twenty-five to 40 of the most conscientious high school seniors qualify for internships, which allows them to work off campus one day a week in their trade and......
2008-12-11 01:25:00
JEFF HAWKES
Chain saws would be on the way out. Bird-watching scopes would be in.And across intensively farmed Lancaster County, forests would make an improbable comeback.A call for reforestation is the surprising and welcome objective of a new land-use planning document that rejects the centur......
2008-12-09 01:49:00
JEFF HAWKES
The song talks about "stacks on deck," and I have no idea what that means.Same deal for the phrase "patron on ice." My guess is it's pricey booze, but really I'm clueless.It's hip-hop slang and, therefore, not my forte. I'm a 51-year-old white guy......
2008-12-05 01:45:00
JEFF HAWKES
Maybe you saw the front-page headline yesterday: "Local jobless rate up: Is at highest point in almost 16 years."On the heels of that, this column is going to feel like piling on.Sorry about that, but it's not healthy to be ostriches when it comes to bad news. Unpleasa......
2008-12-04 01:43:00
JEFF HAWKES
After a hearing on the state's budget crisis, Rep. Mario J. Civera Jr., House Appropriations chair, released a statement pledging to do "whatever is necessary" to navigate these tough times.What an interesting thing to say, given that the Delaware County Republican also said ......
2008-11-21 01:00:00
JEFF HAWKES
We're born into an indifferent world that spins in the coldness of space. Our time is short, our fears are deep and our suffering is not going away. Life is an absurdity, a carnival of winners and losers randomly chosen, a ludicrous trip through a landscape of cosmic indignities. And ......
2008-11-17 21:34:00
JEFF HAWKES
Another day, another headline about a bankruptcy, layoffs, a record plunge in retail sales. You don't need a Ph.D. to see what's happening.People who have money get worried so they don't spend, which means people who need money don't have any so they can't spend.......
2008-11-14 01:07:00
JEFF HAWKES
If a scientist contradicts the conventional wisdom about a threat as grave as melting ice caps, expanding deserts and flooded coastal cities, you figure he's got scientific reasons for doing so.The public understands that research into something as complex as whether human activity is ......
2008-11-13 01:24:00
JEFF HAWKES
It's said that to see where you're going, know where you've been.Berwood Yost got to it Tuesday, telling 300 community leaders meeting for a day of strategic planning that Lancaster County must fix nagging problems if it hopes for continued prosperity.Yost, of Franklin &......
2008-11-11 01:14:00
JEFF HAWKES
The prison door swung open for 43-year-old Eileen after three and a half years, but rather than welcoming freedom, she was reluctant to leave.Her husband did not want her back, and Eileen had no home."That's a very common thing that happens" to inmates, she said. "......
2008-11-07 01:37:00
JEFF HAWKES
Half of all Latino students at McCaskey High School drop out.That stark fact is in a report Frances Rodriguez keeps on her desk.Every day when Rodriguez, 45, comes to work as chief of staff at state Rep. Mike Sturla's office, she can't miss seeing that report.It's......
2008-11-06 01:37:00
JEFF HAWKES
I simply do not believe Lancaster County voters oppose controls on taxes, spending and debt.I simply do not believe they think it's a bad idea to expose county government to greater public scrutiny.I simply do not believe they aren't in favor of checks and balances, term lim......
2008-11-04 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
No one expected home rule to be an easy sell.It could well flame out today because change is unsettling and the Republican apparatus, not wanting to cede an ounce of influence, has played on voters' fears through a campaign of distortion and misinformation.That people are pickin......
2008-10-31 01:50:00
JEFF HAWKES
You're excited about getting out and supporting your choice for president.Even made up your mind on whether to vote for or against home rule, haven't you? And that statewide referendum on sewer projects? You definitely know where you stand on that.Oh.You don't?No-no-no......
2008-10-30 00:55:00
JEFF HAWKES
Every day gasoline prices fall a little more. Life is good.Or at least life isn't quite as painful as it was in June, when it seemed $4-a-gallon or higher gas was here to stay.Americans actually cut back on driving — and that's saying something.Mass transit saw ......
2008-10-28 00:01:00
Jeff Hawkes
This land — all 629,880 acres — is your land. What's to become of it?That's been the guiding question for Lancaster County Planning Commission, an advisory body marking its 50th anniversary this month.At this milestone, a good question to ask is this: How well ha......
2008-10-24 02:50:00
JEFF HAWKES
Rick Wiggin, 60, grew up hearing how an ancestor was a Civil War general who turned the tide at the bloody battle of Antietam.The historic tidbit was an oft-repeated piece of family lore, much like another belief that an ancestor named Lord Washburn came over on the Mayflower.At the......
2008-10-23 03:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
We're going to find out if scare tactics work.Opponents of home rule think playing on fear is a winning strategy, and they're out to frighten rather than appeal to reason.Their "Vote No" pamphlet is so over-the-top with emotion-laden phrases — "A complet......
2008-10-21 02:03:00
JEFF HAWKES
OK, who's responsible for knocking some sense into Lloyd Smucker?Whoever you are, they're not paying you enough.Back in April, before winning the four-man GOP primary race for state Senate, Smucker had this to say at a forum about school funding:"If additional fu......
2008-10-17 03:09:00
JEFF HAWKES
My mind gets a workout just calculating how much tip to leave.I fear if I were to try real math or science, my gray matter would short out. There's a reason why I write for the Intelligencer Journal and not the Astrophysical Journal.But that didn't stop me from giving Greg A......
2008-10-16 01:49:00
JEFF HAWKES
Is Sen. Arlen Specter conflicted about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin? The reluctant endorsement he offered Tuesday in Lancaster says it all.Specter said the folksy governor of Alaska is "obviously an intelligent woman" who has "potential."Potential?Isn't tha......
2008-10-14 00:37:00
JEFF HAWKES
Susan Jacoby is a thinker and a writer who has never starred in a reality TV show or even been mayor of a little town in a sparsely populated Western state, doggone it.So what are the odds of getting people to pay attention to her message, which is that America's ever tighter embrace o......
2008-10-09 02:32:00
JEFF HAWKES
First grade is all about learning to recognize common one-syllable words, being able to manipulate a pencil well enough to keep letters anchored on a line and, if you are part of Sue Althouse's class at Central Manor Elementary School, standing in front of Dudley, a 70-pound boxer with search......
2008-10-07 02:33:00
JEFF HAWKES
It was just an old, rented garage, a space for John and Rebecca Palmer's vintage Mercedes and not much else.But then landlord Michael Mastros bought the garage (and 39 others on North Christian Street) and raised the rent $5, to $65.And then the Palmers, a team of self-employed ......
2008-10-03 01:46:00
JEFF HAWKES
One evening in March 1992, shots echoed across a playground, and 18-year-old Debbie Rivera fell dead with a bullet to her head.The horror of her killing was compounded when police discovered the shooter was only 13.Richie Cruz of Lancaster, joined by three teens, went to settle a gr......
2008-10-02 00:57:00
JEFF HAWKES
Today's column is for consumers who like information before they part with their money.If you're an impulsive shopper who believes thinking spoils the fun of spending, this column is probably not your thing. Go watch a shopping network.As for the rest of you, let's discu......
2008-09-30 01:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
The economy is teetering, and we have high-powered financiers, elitists all, to thank.With their derivatives and hedge funds, they've benefited handsomely from a rarefied form of capitalism that leaves the average Joe scratching his head and, worse, holding the bag.If anyone des......
2008-09-26 01:13:00
JEFF HAWKES
I know I should probably be writing about gloom and doom, what we should do about it, who's to blame and what a relief it will be in January when a moving truck pulls up to the White House.But what I feel compelled to share with you today is the fact that I'm wearing my son's u......
2008-09-25 02:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
"My health-care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health-care insurance."(Sen. Barack Obama's) plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government-run health-care system where a bureaucr......
2008-09-23 00:02:00
JEFF HAWKES
She came into the world with 10 little fingers, 10 little toes and a fleeting hold on life. She was a baby girl who, we may surmise, kicked in the womb and emerged crying, her tiny lungs taking their first breath. Did the mother stop to kiss her baby's temples? Did her lips feel the so......
2008-09-19 02:23:00
JEFF HAWKES
It's often the case that the best and brightest of Lancaster County's young people pack up and move in pursuit of dreams and opportunities far beyond anything we have to offer here.That's as it should be. With the possible exception of our Plain-sect culture, home-school movement and puppy......
2008-09-18 01:59:00
JEFF HAWKES
What this country needs is a regular toothbrush.Enough with the big, fat handles already! The darn things don't fit in the bathroom holder.Sen. Obama? Gov. Palin? Are you listening?You might think you have to talk about the implosion of financial markets, Russian aggressi......
2008-09-16 01:15:00
JEFF HAWKES
How refreshing to hear a health-insurance executive speak well of Sweden's single-payer health system.Not that Richard Gilfillan, president and CEO of 220,000-member Geisinger Health Plan, advocates a universal, government-financed system for the United States.But at a forum Fri......
2008-09-12 02:44:00
JEFF HAWKES
Back in the day, softball was Charles Kirstner's thing.He'd take the mound, eye the catcher and whip the ball past the batter.Ah, the glory days of youth.But 50 years have come and gone, and Kirstner, 73, is no longer a burly, 195-pound steel mill electrician, Marine ......
2008-09-11 01:43:00
JEFF HAWKES
One thing hiking the entire Appalachian Trail gave Ted Houser was time to think about how he wanted to live his life.And when he reached the misty top of Maine's Mount Katahdin last week after walking 2,176 miles from Georgia, Houser, 32, had come to a decision.He decided he'......
2008-09-09 02:15:00
JEFF HAWKES
One thing Kristen Stephen learned in college is that prison is cold in the wintertime.It's cold, and the blanket one gets is thin and a jumpsuit, and flip-flops do nothing to ward off the chill.As a Franklin & Marshall College junior in a class on human rights, Stephen learn......
2008-09-05 02:30:00
JEFF HAWKES
Sen. Barack Obama came to Lancaster and nothing bad happened.Not that anything bad was expected to happen.I just worry sometimes.A crowd of thousands upon thousands greeted Obama at Buchanan Park. They cheered and chanted. And after he talked to them for about a half-hour and......
2008-09-04 01:52:00
JEFF HAWKES
If teens, by definition, have lots to learn, why are they such experts at confounding parents' best efforts to encourage good choices and keep them from screwing up?In the treacherous passage to maturity, all teenagers make wrong turns, some more than others. Adolescence is always frau......
2008-08-22 01:37:00
JEFF HAWKES
State Rep. Mark Mustio is a Pittsburgh-area Republican who has this really goofy idea that the state Legislature is too big.He thinks we could reduce the cost of government and improve legislative accountability by simply shrinking the pool of politicians who pass laws.Can you imagi......
2008-08-21 01:36:00
JEFF HAWKES
The moon was full, but all Karen Blevins could make out was a fuzzy spot of brightness, an indistinct glow, a ghostly disc reminding her, as if the thought ever really slips from her consciousness, that she is slowly, inexorably going blind.A self-employed personal caregiver who raised two......
2008-08-19 01:30:00
JEFF HAWKES
Phil Starr grew up playing punch ball on Belmont Avenue in Brooklyn.It was a base-running, ball-fielding game played barehanded with a pink rubber ball natives called a "spaldeen."Starr and his pals played in the street, where cars were few, it being the 1940s. The biggest......
2008-08-15 02:03:00
JEFF HAWKES
During the winter of 1993, the closest thing to a bedroom for a handful of men down on their luck was the heated lobby of the city's fire bureau.But by the time spring arrived, firefighters were sick of the squalor and stench. The squatters were told to move on.But where? While ......
2008-08-14 01:38:00
JEFF HAWKES
Dieters, take note: Scientists have created mice that can eat like a pig and not get fat.Not since "Fantasy Island" was canceled has there been news this good.The mice can sit on their tails eating Gouda all day and still look like Keira Knightley. If the scientists can fi......
2008-08-08 01:09:00
JEFF HAWKES
He's a selfless, courageous person of faith who puts his beliefs in action.Or he's a sanctimonious, rule-bending former politician who puts his neighbors at risk.People are polarized about Marietta's Tom Armstrong and his mentoring of ex-offenders.But whatever you......
2008-08-07 01:37:00
JEFF HAWKES
You might be on the fence about home rule, but I bet you're not on the fence about paying taxes.That's why a change the Government Study Commission made Tuesday to its proposed 27-page charter should grab the attention of undecided voters.If voters in November approve the ch......
2008-08-05 01:51:00
JEFF HAWKES
Planners are asking us to think of Harrisburg Pike as a laboratory.And you thought it was just another congested strip of Lancaster County asphalt.Well, you're right about the congested part. Up to 28,000 vehicles a day travel the section between Prince Street and Dillerville Ro......
2008-08-01 01:28:00
JEFF HAWKES
Two flats did not deter Robert Shifflett. Fishtailing his 1972 Dodge, the demolition derby driver kept on the tail of a pink Chevy wagon.Shifflett, strapped into his maimed heap, accelerated even as the wagon came at him in reverse.Bang! In any other setting, such a collision would ......
2008-07-31 02:18:00
JEFF HAWKES
Eight-year-old Fatou Barrow doesn't quite get subtraction.The part about borrowing is throwing her. And Fatou's struggle with the concept is testing her tutor's patience."I'm getting a little bit irritated here," Shahin Sayeg tells her. "Fatou, be shar......
2008-07-29 01:42:00
JEFF HAWKES
One Sunday 10 years ago, I visited 14-year-old Amy Kenavan and watched with discomfort as she balled her fist and punched herself in the face.Although I knew Amy was likely to hit herself, I was still taken aback.I had traveled with Amy's parents, Frank and Kathy Kenavan of Warw......
2008-07-25 01:00:00
JEFF HAWKES
Lancaster City spends more than it takes in. That's hardly breaking news, but are people truly aware of the precarious state of city finances? The city anticipates $42.5 million in revenue this year, but expects to spend at least $43.5 million. The situation is so dire that the millio......
2008-07-24 01:04:00
JEFF HAWKES
Jim Herrick, 53, grabbed his leg and went down hard. For a long moment, he sprawled on the grass, a profusely sweating Frisbee hero injured at a most inopportune time. At stake was a Frisbee championship. If Herrick could continue, the trophy was within his grasp. Rick LeBeau, 51, saw......
2008-07-22 00:21:00
JEFF HAWKES
If a boss noticed an employee returning from lunch every afternoon smelling of alcohol, that worker would quickly be singled out for intervention.A worker showing signs of a drinking problem is a worker who may cost a company in productivity, absenteeism, accidents and health insurance....
2008-07-18 01:35:00
JEFF HAWKES
Last week's column hailing Pennsylvania's school funding overhaul prompted good questions from reader Tim Wentworth of Manheim Township.In the column, I explained that the Legislature finally recognized something'......
2008-07-17 01:30:00
JEFF HAWKES
Lancaster County Republican leaders are out to torpedo home rule, ginning up fear and insulting our intelligence.By voice vote to drown out dissent within its ranks, the GOP committee last week passed a resolution so maliciously dishonest, so florid in its warnings of "powerful intimi......
2008-07-15 02:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
The good news is I just paid off my car loan. The bad news is I had to take out a loan to fill it up.Burump-bump.Hey, did you hear car thefts are down? Crime reports, however, have a new category: bikejackings.But seriously, folks, the Smithsonian has announced plans to expan......
2008-07-11 01:45:00
JEFF HAWKES
Lancaster County Democrats, have a word with your leader. Please.Bruce Beardsley, your unfailingly optimistic, indefatigable county chairman, is in need of a reality check.While Beardsley is a courageous partisan, always marching the flag of Democratic values into the gale of Lancas......
2008-07-10 00:55:00
JEFF HAWKES
Irrefutable evidence that our often-maligned state Legislature can sometimes do the right thing is found near the end of a 67-page bill passed on the Fourth of July.Specifically, check out part (B) of Section 2502.48, which offers a sentence as momentous in application as it is simple in w......
2008-07-04 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
If putting one's country first is the test of patriotism, what are we to make of George Washington and everyone who took up arms against their king?The British certainly considered Washington and his conspirators traitors, not patriots, and would have dealt with them harshly if the Fre......
2008-07-03 01:34:00
JEFF HAWKES
If lightning destroys it, they will come.They are people such as Doug Yoder, a 50-year-old farmer from Elverson, Chester County.Yoder could have been bringing in hay but instead spent Wednesday ripping out drywall, shoveling debris and breathing in the smoke-tinged dust permeating t......
2008-07-01 02:03:00
JEFF HAWKES
Persecuted for his Quaker faith, William Penn founded Pennsylvania as a "holy experiment" where people would be free to worship as they choose.As a result Catholics, Lutherans, Mennonites and Amish joined Quakers in settling Penn's Woods 300 years ago.Penn's charte......
2008-06-26 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Maybe it's because we're creatures of a blue planet largely immersed in water.Maybe it's because our bodies are 55 percent to 60 percent water.Maybe it's because our ancestors were fish and something in our DNA tells us it wouldn't be so bad to be a yellowtail da......
2008-06-24 01:43:00
JEFF HAWKES
A rock-strewn creek tumbles out of mountains masked by curtains of rising mist.The silver creek takes a path past a hollow where, a few hours after dawn, fingers of sunshine are only starting to reach.The creek spills down below the hollow, down where the mountains begrudge a stretc......
2008-06-06 02:45:00
JEFF HAWKES
My response to rising gasoline prices and lengthening gas lines in 1979 was to coast downhill with the clutch in and the engine off. Wheeee!Probably didn't save much gas, but the spine-tingling, gravity-fueled ride was priceless.President Carter's response to gas shortages that summ......
2008-06-03 01:38:00
JEFF HAWKES
Mark Fenton started pulling people from the sidewalk and lining them up on the street like so many traffic cones."I need a couple of bodies here," said Fenton, arranging people side-by-side at a 'T'-intersection next to House of Pizza in Millersville."Here &he......
2008-05-30 02:12:00
JEFF HAWKES
On the night the cyclone hit, Katrina Lehman sat alone in the dark and hugged her knees.Nothing in her 42 years had prepared her for the torrential rain and the wind's unnerving howl. "Just stop it!" Lehman finally yelled after hours of huddling with two cats in her basement.A gust ......
2008-05-29 01:34:00
JEFF HAWKES
"No need to travel!" a cynical sailor in Melville's "Moby Dick" declares. "The world's one Lima."Goodness, if that's how Melville felt in the 1850s, what would he say about the monotony of today's McDonaldized world?With every destinatio......
2008-05-23 02:32:00
JEFF HAWKES
A rising curl of smoke told Emily Cost she was starting to unlock the mystery of fire.She was using the wood-against-wood friction technique of a bow drill, and the smoke was thickening.Cost had wrapped the bow string around a pointed 6-inch wooden spindle. As she moved the bow in a......
2008-05-22 02:25:00
JEFF HAWKES
Unlike generals who get scouting reports on the size of enemy forces, educators battling dismal dropout rates often don't know what they're up against.The nation's graduation rate is said to be as low as 70 percent and as high as 83 percent, The Center for Public Education repo......
2008-05-20 02:23:00
JEFF HAWKES
The phone rang at Tom Cunningham's home Friday.It was a corporate recruiter looking to fill a position — senior metallurgical engineer — ideal for someone like Cunningham with years of experience making better steel.Cunningham, 37, barely gave the opportunity a thought. ......
2008-05-16 01:55:00
JEFF HAWKES
Doug Brubaker is standing by provocative comments in an e-mail intended for only a few of his anti-smart growth allies in East Hempfield Township.Brubaker, an East Hempfield supervisor who opposes higher-density housing that saves open space, describes most of his colleagues as lacking &qu......
2008-05-15 00:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Maybe I underestimated Scott Martin.He ran for commissioner last spring saying a county health department would be a "tremendous mistake."I thought, "Tremendous mistake?"Betting against Eli Manning and the Giants was a tremendous mistake. Invading Iraq, th......
2008-05-13 01:01:00
JEFF HAWKES
Although he's given home rule the thumbs down, Jim Bednar has unwittingly made a case for a home-rule charter.Bednar, a former county GOP chairman, would be the last person to see it that way. He's certainly been consistent in opposing home rule.Last summer, Bednar was in th......
2008-05-09 03:09:00
JEFF HAWKES
State Rep. John Bear of Lititz talked to more than 2,100 of his constituents Tuesday without leaving the Capitol building.New technology allowed Bear to simultaneously dial 19,043 homes and, for 45 minutes, preside over the biggest conference call in Lancaster County history.Bear in......
2008-05-08 01:55:00
JEFF HAWKES
Doug Brubaker is a rookie East Hempfield Township supervisor who has issues, shall we say, with managed growth.I mean real issues."I hate to sound like, 'Throw the walls up, close the gate … and don't let anyone else in,' " Brubaker said last week at a s......
2008-05-06 02:13:00
JEFF HAWKES
Hillary Clinton yesterday repeated her call for a summer-long gas tax holiday, but she's not stopping there.Hoping for an upset victory in today's North Carolina primary, Clinton proposed a temporary repeal of the law of gravity."My proposal would lighten the load for t......
2008-05-02 01:55:00
JEFF HAWKES
No money. No home. No job.No problem.There's now a drop-in center for those living on the margins. It's called CHOC, and at 9:30 a.m. weekdays it puts out the welcome mat. There are free pastries, coffee, newspapers and plenty of tables and chairs, where people can read, soc......
2008-05-01 01:20:00
JEFF HAWKES
Crime might not pay, but it sure costs a lot.Pennsylvania will spend $1.6 billion this year to incarcerate 46,000 inmates, about 4,400 more than its 27 prisons were meant to handle.With the inmate population expected to reach 57,000 by 2012, you know what that means. We'll need ......
2008-04-29 01:00:00
JEFF HAWKES
If you talked with Bret Lieberman at Case New Holland, it might escape you that Lancaster County has been shedding 1,000 manufacturing jobs a year.Lieberman, manager of the agricultural equipment plant, has been trying for months to hire five industrial maintenance mechanics."W......
2008-04-25 02:06:00
JEFF HAWKES
Irene Aco-Cortes had a way of letting her sons know failure in school was not an option.Mediocre grades, too. Not an option."She'd say, 'Just get me an A,' " recalled Alejandro Alfaro-Aco, 19. "That's what she wanted. She was like ... 'I know you c......
2008-04-24 01:05:00
JEFF HAWKES
Tom Bashore, 60, knocked on the apartment door. No answer.He climbed back into his Jeep Grand Cherokee, ran his finger down a printout for the next address, drove to a single-family home and rang that doorbell. No answer.He eased the blue SUV farther down the block. He got out and r......
2008-04-22 01:54:00
JEFF HAWKES
Michael Kimmel is an academic whose passion is exploring what it means to be a man.He teaches sociology at SUNY-Stony Brook and writes books with titles like "The History of Masculinity" and "The Politics of Manhood" — none of which I've read, or have a burnin......
2008-04-18 02:25:00
JEFF HAWKES
I'm always after my kids to turn out lights when they leave a room.Conservation of energy is good for the earth and my checkbook.And if I'm successful in getting my kids to buy into wise use of electricity, it will lessen the wallop of spiking electric rates when rate caps, ......
2008-04-17 01:26:00
JEFF HAWKES
The most demanding volunteer position in local government is school board member.The things a school board has to deal with — taxes, testing, curriculum, safety, busing, dress codes, construction, expulsions — are mind-blowing.Good school board members truly are unsung h......
2008-04-15 01:19:00
JEFF HAWKES
Abby led a life relegated to the shadows, as was typical for enslaved women at the time of the American Revolution.While great events went on around her, Abby attended to her mistress' chores.If not for a single momentous event, everything about Abby's life would most certai......
2008-04-11 01:26:00
JEFF HAWKES
Sen. Bob Casey Jr., visiting the newsroom this week, made light of the term "superdelegate," saying having people think politicians consider themselves super is the last thing politicians need."It didn't impress my wife at all when I informed her that I was one," Ca......
2008-04-10 01:47:00
JEFF HAWKES
Why is it not a surprise to find Paul Thibault appealing to a voter's baser instincts?I'm referring to a Thibault campaign mailer that plays on the age-old prejudice that Lancaster County shouldn't have to pay for Philadelphia's problems.The card features a photo of ......
2008-04-08 00:00:00
JEFF HAWKES
Of the many good-government ideas in the draft home-rule charter that will be on the November ballot, none is more compelling than the document's opening words: "We, the people of Lancaster County."The phrase, echoing the U.S. Constitution, sums up the whole point of home rul......
2008-04-04 01:31:00
JEFF HAWKES
If I were a teacher, I'd make some of the local Republicans running for state Senate stay after school.Their remarks at Lancaster Rotary Club this week suggest they haven't done their homework.If you want to be a state lawmaker, you ought to know something about Pennsylvania......
2008-04-03 01:41:00
JEFF HAWKES
More than 90 jobs are being cut at Adamstown's Bollman Hat Co. One hundred or so office jobs at Armstrong World Industries may soon be history.Construction of a Home Depot at Schaum's Corner was abruptly halted. Meanwhile, commercial construction is off 40 percent; home building is......
2008-04-01 02:03:00
JEFF HAWKES
Someday Luca will hear all about it. He'll hear all about the day he got kissed by Barack Obama.Luca will hear how his grandmother stood in the cold for two hours to get two tickets to Obama's town meeting in Lancaster.He'll hear how his mother, Katherine Suliveras, 32, ......
2008-03-28 01:23:00
JEFF HAWKES
I can't remember the defendant, the judge or the case.But what I do remember is Jack Kenneff's final words to the jury.A seasoned, world-weary prosecutor who brought a smoldering intensity to the courtroom, Kenneff stood before the jury box, a legal pad in his hand.Ha......
2008-03-27 01:21:00
JEFF HAWKES
The African-American minister spoke in church the Sunday after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and related America's shock after "a day of devastation and senseless death" to a story in the Bible.He spoke of the people of Jerusalem taken captive after the Babylonians sacked their......
2008-03-25 01:45:00
JEFF HAWKES
They were neighbors on a country road, two girls who became best friends, bouncing on a trampoline, expanding a tree house to three stories, collecting berries in the meadow and mashing them into a paste.For a while, they went to the same church, where they were angels in a play and passed......
2008-03-21 01:31:00
JEFF HAWKES
School districts serving economically stressed communities in Pennsylvania have been fed up for years.Although the state constitution requires a "thorough and efficient" public school system, lawmakers have passed budget after budget that shirked their responsibility.Where......
2008-03-20 01:50:00
JEFF HAWKES
Speed should not be of the essence when contemplating a change to the constitution, the bedrock of principles upon which a democracy is built.Yet the Republican-controlled state Senate, known for dragging its feet on festering problems Pennsylvanians want fixed — from burdensome prop......
2008-03-14 02:31:00
JEFF HAWKES
Holy Week is almost upon us, and the faithful will be flocking to church.Which is to say Methodists will be with Methodists, Catholics with Catholics, nondenominationals with nondenominationals, each to his or her own little box and way of following Jesus.What Jesus might say about ......
