The longer days of summer mean more time to enjoy life. Sometimes we miss a lot of the simple things. The new day and age, with I phones and face book seem to be abound. As an older guy, I think back of how life was so simple years ago.

There were harsh winters with feet of snow. Ice storms that knocked out power for days (usually on the New Year or January thaw as we called it). Life was different because we only knew what was in our community or in the town where we went to school. I can honestly say that the only newspaper I read was in the library and I really only read it when I needed a current event for history class.

Today as I sit here on the computer reading, I realize how fast our lives spin. I am already thinking about going to the township building in the morning to cut grass on the roadsides. I get up early in the morning to the heat so I can trim the sides and make it easier to see animals that try to cross as well as road signs.

Ararat township after having the largest turn out this spring of voters in history is having a two party race for the township supervisor. Change is what I know the township needs. Not to change the memories but change to use knowledge for the security and serenity of all our people. Your hometown newspaper keeps us all informed and I applaud you for still doing one of your passions from your youth.

Sincerely,

Peter A Seman,

Thompson, PA

There's something wrong when a clod like Donald Trump is being taken seriously as a candidate.

Trump is a narcissist and egomaniac. He is a bully. He is a shameless demagogue who viciously insults his competition, more honorable men than he, and who panders to the ugliest element of the rabble. He stokes xenophobia against foreign countries and immigrants like a modern-day Know Nothing. He traffics in conspiracy theories. He spews hyperbole and grandiose claims.

So it should be clear to all that he does not begin to possess the character to be President. Now let's look at his qualifications. He's a real-estate wheeler-dealer-- not really preparation for making public policy. And he's gone through bankruptcy, so he's not even so good at that. Unless his goal is to finish what W. started and bankrupt America.

Trump simply has no class and no decency. He's degraded politics to the level of World Wrestling Entertainment. Yet despite it all, he has the largest chunk of the GOP electorate at the moment. Can it be that there are that many people who are so choking with resentment that they actually approve of his boorish approach? If so, they ought to be ashamed, and it bodes poorly for America. Nothing good can come from negative emotion, certainly not functional policy.

In the past, narcissistic demagogues who had sufficient resentment to exploit rode that to power, and the consequences have always been disastrous. Generally I'd be reluctant to compare a politician to Hitler-- it's dreadfully cliche-- but the comparison is just too apt here. The only difference is that Hitler wasn't a draft dodger, and Trump has a silly combover instead of a silly toothbrush mustache.

Stephen Van Eck

Rushville, PA

Is Donald Trump's exploding popularity exposing a disconnect with the GOP and the voters?

When Trump expressed outrage over the US's de facto open-boarder policy with Mexico, the media went apoplectic with a fusillade of purple-veined scorchers.

The GOP presidential hopefuls joined the fray in a melee of Trump bashing. Honors go to Jeb Bush and Rick Perry.

Yet according to a AP poll, 90 percent believe that illegal immigration is a serious problem and the majority want illegals deported.

Now Trump has the temerity to say that Senator John McCain, a fighter pilot who flew 23 combat missions over Vietnam, was shot down, and spent five years as a prisoner of war, is “not a hero.”

Has Trump gone too far this time? Once again, despite a blitz of criticisms, Trump refused to offer a groveling apology to McCain for saying that he admires those who were not captured.

But does Trump have a point?

There were 9 million servicemen who served in country with McCain who were not captured. Aren't they heroes? And what about the 22 million veterans? Should we not also add them to the ranks of heroes? Even animals, most notably K9 military and police dogs, are awarded this ennobling accolade. And no one blinks an eye.

But our magnanimity of designating tens of millions as heroes is accompanied by a dilution of definition.

When heroism becomes common place, its meaning becomes meaningless. Granted, defining heroes is not easily done.

Heroes cannot be corralled within a neat definition. But simply put, it has something to do with a courageous act performed above and beyond what is expected, an act that greatly imperils one's life for the sake of another.

Such acts are recognized with that most rarely given decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor. In the US's twenty-year war with Vietnam, there were uncounted acts of bravery and sacrifice; it was only to be expected of our fighting men. But just 257 warriors were recipients of the Medal of Honor.

That Medal meant something. It earned a salute; from a general to a lowly private wearing the blue ribbon around his neck, a gasp as to what these honored few did, a tribute to the finest of our species. It whispers, perhaps there is hope for us.

No one denies McCain's bravery. It took courage to dodge missiles and fly through flak in his Skyhawk; he was awarded a Bronze Star. Neither can one overlook the hardships he endured during five years of being a POW. But, does that make him a hero?

Herein lies the difficulty. In everyday conversation, we, the media, and the GOP's lineup, use the word expansively, while Trump retrains its original meaning, applying it sparingly to the exceptional few.

Admiral Chester Nimitz commenting on the recent victory of the Marines over the Japanese Imperial Army on Iwo Jima said, “Among the Americans serving on Iwo island, uncommon valor was a common virtue.”

Indeed, uncommon valor was common among the 80,000 Marines who battled on Iwo, yet only 27 were awarded the Medal of Honor, 14 of those posthumously. Did that diminish the bravery of the 80,000? Did it detract from the sacrifice of the 7,000 who saw their last day on that volcanic outcrop? Not one wit.

So, then, should Trump be faulted if he thinks of heroes as exceptional, rather than common?

And, maybe we shouldn't shy away from someone who speaks plainly rather than blandly. Trump is the only candidate vying for the GOP's top spot whose words are not carefully combed to avoid offending, who doesn't use a stock of rehearsed answers and who doesn't offer hand-wringing apologies for imagined slights.

And Americans love it.

In a nationwide survey conducted June 14 by USA Today, Trump trounced all the Republican candidates with 17 percent, beating runner-up Jeb Bush by 3 percent. A more recent poll by the Washington Post gave Trump 24 percent, with Scott Walk taking second place at 13 percent.

Next year Republicans have an opportunity to field a highly successful businessman, rather than a professional politician to run the biggest business on the planet, the United States Government.

And what about tapping Ann Coulter as Trump's running mate? Her single-word assessment of Trump: “Magnificent.”

Coulter is also a non-politico, an articulate spokesman for traditional values, and author of 11 books. She's a woman with plenty of smarts, who, like Trump, responds to criticism from the Left with a right-cross to the jaw.

A one-two punch delivered by this ticket could send Democrats down for the count.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA