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Diamonds to the Wyoming Valley Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution for dedicating a newly-planted tree in honor of those who fought for American independence. It’s a small marker by a young sapling on the Luzerne County Courthouse lawn, unlikely to draw the attention of larger commemorative items nearby. Yet it is no less meaningful. As the story in Tuesday’s edition noted, the marker and tree honor some of our very first military veterans — national defenders before there was really a nation to defend. The tree takes on added significance because it also honors America’s imminent semiquincentennial in 2026, and because it is a replacement for a George Washington Sycamore from Mount Vernon that had been planted nearby in 2018 with the expectation it would be mature by our country’s 250th anniversary. That tree met an untimely end for several reasons, but the Daughters did not give up, making this tree not only a recognition of past resilience but a testimony more moving forward.
Coal to the whatever led to two people being injured in Larksville as a father-son fight escalated to gunfire. According to police, the father slapped his son for being disrespectful or loud, which led to a fight with a second son. One son had legal possession of a gun, and an adult female not familiar with the weapon attempted to remove it and mistakenly touched the trigger. A bullet struck the father’s hand and continued into the calf of the second son. Statistically, the presence of guns in a house increases the odds of an accident or suicide, and this may be a fine example of how even if the person wielding the weapon follows all safe practices and even if others present have nothing but good intentions, things can go horribly wrong in milliseconds. It’s the unforgiving nature of the weapon.
Diamonds to Luzerne County Council for declaring an outdoor burning ban county-wide for 30 days. We may quibble about the language details — open burning is defined as outdoor ignition and burning of any combustible material in a screened or unscreened burn barrel or on the ground, yet campfires are allowed in confining fire rings, and tobacco use in any form is not covered by the ban. There seems to be semantic wiggle room in all that. But the basic intent makes sense amid a warm and very dry autumn, when shedding trees and parched ground cover create tremendous fuel for fire. Even a moment or two of inattention for an outdoor flame can lead to disaster these days, and the ban is a sensible, temporary effort to prevent that.
Coal, albeit a small chunk, to the ongoing absurdity of otherwise legitimate mail ballots being rejected because of a trivial technicality. The Luzerne County Election Board was forced to reject 108 ballots from the recent election solely because the voters did not fill in the date on an outer envelope. The mandate to fill in the date is state law, and to be blunt, it’s a stupid law. The election bureau time-stamped the ballots upon receipt and did not accept ballots after the 8 p.m. election night deadline. Requiring the voter submitting the ballot to print the date on the envelope, as Election Board Chairwoman Denise Williams rightly put it, “doesn’t make any sense.” The very fact that the submitted ballot must obviously contain the candidates from the current election makes requiring the date writing inane. There is a lot of talk about “disenfranchising” voters, from both parties. This is one example where that clearly happens, and that everyone should agree can be eliminated. State legislators should either require the right date to be pre-printed on the envelopes, or drop the mandate.