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If you want something to stick, say it again

Columnists

Repetition can be a good thing. If you follow my work, hardwiring is a word you are likely familiar with. It’s how I describe systems and behaviors that are in place to create consistency. Hardwiring is a good thing. Yet, it doesn’t mean that what we hardwire stays in place forever. Dan Collard and I wrote the book Rewiring Excellence: Hardwired to Rewired on this subject. When we rewire, we don’t change what is working. We take a fresh look at results, and, when needed, we rewire actions. Rewiring is harder than the initial hardwiring. It means adjusting or stopping ...

2026 Issues

Columnists

For generations, West Virginians have believed in something simple: if you focus on the fundamentals, reward hard work, and let families keep more of what they earn, good things happen. That’s the approach we’ve taken in the Mountain State, and today we’re seeing real results. This year, working alongside the legislature, we secured major wins that will strengthen our economy, empower our families, and position West Virginia for long-term growth. Three of those victories stand out above the rest: cutting taxes, protecting educational freedom, and unleashing our energy ...

Careless rhetoric

Columnists

On the eve of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, Vyacheslav von Plehve bullishly promoted a conflict. As Russia’s Minister of the Interior, he promoted the idea that “a small victorious war” over Japan may be just the thing to boost the popularity of his sovereign, Nicholas II. In a style which Americans are increasingly familiar with, Plehve declared, “Russia has been made by Bayonets, not diplomacy.” Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth tend to imitate this kind of bluster. With the war in Iran incomplete, the administration seems to strut without measuring or knowing where ...

Serious Issue

Editorials

On its face, copper theft is a dumb crime, culprits breaking into homes, business or other areas to yank out that metal and sell it somewhere else. It’s just scummy. Yet someone in West Virginia found a new way to make that crime even scummier. Wheeling police were called out to an Appalachian Power substation near Elm on Friday morning after someone had broken into it and absconded with the copper inside. That theft created another, much larger, problem. With that copper gone, the substation went down. And at the outset, 7,700 Appalachian Power customers were without ...

Red Cross

Editorials

“We never take a holiday because disasters never take a holiday.” As Wood County Commissioners recognized American Red Cross Month, Sharon Kesselring, executive director of the American Red Cross of the Ohio River Valley, reminded them just how vital the organization is to our communities. All across West Virginia, the Red Cross provides services to the armed forces, disaster services, training for CPR and first aid and, of course, blood and blood product services. Kesselring said the Red Cross in her area helped 81 people, and “put more than $22,000 into the pockets of ...

All eyes on Hegseth

Columnists

Watching Secretary of War, or is it defense, Pete Hegseth, trying to transmit the latest from the front is a fairly queasy exercise. He tries to be definitive but casually dismisses every concern by stressing that you “Don’t need to worry about it”. Compare his facile analysis with Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine’s sharp and incisive reports. Caine sees War as serious, not a game to play on a phone. He is not optimistic nor pessimistic; he is just the facts, and nothing but the facts. Hegseth blends many of the worst traits of the Viet Nam style of optimism without ...