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• Diamonds to the area’s Jewish faithful for sending off the history-filled Jewish Community Center in Wilkes-Barre with a ceremony and Purim carnival suitable, of course, for all ages. Kudos as well for gathering the resources to open a new, updated center in Kingston to continue the tradition of community service provided so long and so well. David Schwager, co-chair of the building committee that spearheaded the long effort to build a new center, put it best during the celebration at the old location. “It’s not a sad day,” he said. “It’s a day to look back on over 60 years of very good memories.”
• Coal to all those in Washington responsible for the failure to secure money for the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund. While this space is usually reserved for more local issues, this one is a textbook example of how local national politics can be. While King Coal has long been demoted to bit player in the region it helped shape, Black Lung remains the ugly aftermath for many — as well as a continuing risk for those still in the mining industry. As an Associated Press story Wednesday explained, a tax on coal that fed the Trust was cut amid the turmoil of the partial government shutdown in January and has not been restored. The pols along the Potomac should do the right thing and keep the trust fund solvent.
• Diamonds to area faith groups for organizing a rally Sunday at 3:30 p.m. in Wilkes-Barre’s Public Square to show solidarity and offer prayers of many faiths for the Muslim victims of the horrific shootings in New Zealand. Titled “Standing Against Terror: United with our Muslim Neighbors,” the rally will include comments from Dr. Ibrahim Almeky from Masjid Al-Noor Mosque, Almeky’s wife, Rev. Robert Zanicky of the First Presbyterian Church and Rabbi Larry Kaplan of Temple Israel. These rallies are more than symbolic. They are a genuine expression of religious belief and show how faith traditions may vary while sharing unifying commitment to peace.
• Coal to Luzerne County in general for continuing to score poorly in the annual County Health Rankings compiled by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in association with the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. As a Friday story noted, the county gets poor grades for things within our collective power to change: Low mammography screenings, high rates of preventable hospital stays, lack of leisure time activity. We also had one of the worst rates of childhood poverty in the state, and a high rate of children living in single parent households — admittedly problems more difficult to correct. We have positives, including reasonable availability of health services (physical and mental), and we were below the state average (though not by much), in smoking, obesity and heavy drinking. But it is clear we can do better, and in turn feel better. Here’s hoping more people take the annual study the way it is offered: as a road map to actions, individually and collectively, to improving the county’s rankings in the future.
— Times Leader