today’s news and information gleanings from here and there!

Quote for today… “Don’t it always seem to go – That you don’t know what you’ve got – Till it’s gone – They paved paradise – And put up a parking lot.” – Joni Mitchell sings this refrain in her “Big Yellow Taxi.” The Commonwealth is losing its paradisiacal appearance as well as the forests are paved with gas drilling apparatus and supports. – Harrisburg Patriot-News

Click on album cover to hear the song.

• Shopping can have that effect: 81-year-old man “lost it”; chokes wife at Wal-Mart. – Sharon Herald

What a difference a week makes; last Thursday we posted the above photo collage. This week’s the cold weather’s returned.

• New Pa. laws redefine who must report child abuse – The York Dispatch

• Heckuva’ way to run a railroad or a borough! When phrases as these come up in articles or in meetings (“didn’t remember details” and “borough officials couldn’t recall”) isn’tit time to hone in on written (or audio or video recordings) documentation that should be recording the actual actions? If we think about it, why doesn’t local government keep a local version of a Federal Register? Why do citizens accept the slipshod method of listening to people trying to remember what did or didn’t happen? Why not check the records of the conversations or the transactions? Are there records? Why is local government often a collection of “old wives’ tales” and folklore? – Harrisburg Patriot-News

• Search for truth – “The Derry Township School Board will ask its new — as yet unnamed — solicitor to launch an investigation into past practices that some allege include misuse of funds and unwarranted secrecy.” – Harrisburg Patriot-News