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    How different was the world of 75 years past? Few Americans were looking past tomorrow when the bombs began falling on Pearl Harbor, Malaya and the Philippines. In a Sunday afternoon, the world turned upside down and the dreams of millions of people lay shattered.

      Having to eat crow in the wake of a presidential election prediction goes with the job. I got this one wrong. But it’s a double disappointment when an abiding faith in the judgment of the American voting public gets flushed down the tube in a mob-driven frenzy.

        If, as the old saying goes, “ignorance is bliss,” claiming to be proud of such stupidity must be akin to approaching the rapture. How else does one explain the willingness of so many Trump supporters to disregard his childish meanness, misogyny and outright contempt for the Constitution?

          Camouflage clothing with its myriad choice of patterns, it seems, is a really big deal, not only for military uniform designers but especially for civilian folks who never took the oath nor the Queen’s shilling.

            When it comes to nuclear weapons, or the consideration of using such horrible forces to resolve basic human differences, it generally comes down to the unimaginable “when” and of course, the unknowable “who.”

              Finding a certain friend’s or neighbor’s birthday used to be a matter of glancing at the local church calendar — usually hanging over the kitchen sink — where each date in a turnover month sheet contained (in small-point type) a list of congregants’ birthdays or religious festival days.

              A blast of air and dust from the implosion of two smokestacks at a shuttered coal-fired power plant in western Pennsylvania last week caused damage to nearby homes. But the demolition company is vowing full repairs. The implosion was Friday at the Cheswick Generating Station in Springdale. KDKA-TV reports that Controlled Demolition said one chimney’s steel liner “focused air pressure as it collapsed." A county emergency official says the air blast broke windows, blew dust into homes and caused a power surge that damaged electrical appliances. The company says repairs of minor damage are underway and “will be fully completed to the satisfaction of each property owner affected."

              Pennsylvania lawmakers are back in session, as House Democrats are advancing a spending plan that could test Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro's ability to manage a politically divided Legislature in his freshman year. House Democrats on Monday unveiled and passed a spending plan that goes well beyond what Shapiro proposed for the fiscal year starting July 1. Democrats want more money for public schools and say strong tax collections this spring will support it. It's likely to get a chilly reception in the Republican Senate, however. There, GOP leaders were skeptical of Shapiro’s more modest spending proposal, citing forecasts of slowing tax collections, deficits and possibly a recession.

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