Dear BOG: WVU’s next president must listen
The WVU Board of Governors has launched a webpage for the upcoming presidential search. It suggests that this summer there will be on-campus and statewide “listening sessions” to seek input on qualities/qualifications/attributes for the next president.
So far, there is not much evidence that the Board of Governors takes listening sessions seriously. They didn’t listen to faculty who, on Sept. 6, 2023, voted 797-100 to express no confidence in President Gee’s leadership, because a prewritten statement of support for Gee was issued as soon as the vote was taken.
They didn’t listen to the faculty, students and alumni who spoke against canceling programs at the BOG meeting on Sept. 14, 2023, because the damaging recommendations of the Academic Transformation were immediately approved, over the no votes of faculty, staff and student BOG representatives.
The only qualification for the next president that matters is that he or she will listen to faculty, staff and students and not act unilaterally with end-of-career recklessness to tear out WVU’s academic heart.
Michael Mays
Morgantown
MCHD should let us smoke in tobacco stores
Last Sunday’s article on the front page of the Local section about the cigar lounge at White Hall Ship and More was a sad reminder that such a place cannot exist in Monongalia County.
In January 2017, the Monongalia Couty Health Department (MCHD) enacted the Monongalia County Clean Indoor Regulation. Pursuant to page 3 of this regulation “[s]moking shall be prohibited in [among other places] tobacco businesses.”
While prohibiting smoking in public places such as restaurants and bars makes sense, expressly prohibiting smoking in cigar shops is a gross overreach.
I call upon the MCHD and/or the county commissioners to repeal this prohibition so that Monongalians can enjoy the same simple pleasures as those who live in neighboring Marion County.
Benjamin Hill
Morgantown
Renewables can help with increased demand
Thanks to the energy experts who provided the Sunday June 16 column in The Dominion Post regarding the potential surge in power demand due to anticipated data centers, AI and advanced manufacturing throughout our region.
These industries would for sure be a dream come true for the economies of states in Appalachia; however, because of their concern about global warming, some companies are known to have a preference for renewable energy, such as wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and bio. For example, in 2023, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai set out the goal to operate its data centers on 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030.
Currently, renewable energy sources can provide more than 80% of demand and are both available and incentivized locally, so they can be added to the list of energy solutions for a potential surge in power demand.
On a related topic, individual families concerned about global warming or an overloaded regional electricity grid may be interested in a recent PSC ruling on net metering. The current rate of one-to-one credit at the retail rate for excess kWh generated on home renewable energy systems and sent to the grid was extended through the end of 2024. Starting in 2025, that credit will be at the wholesale electricity rate — so plan now and save later!
Carl Irwin
Morgantown
Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long history
Many people seem fixated on condemning Israel for its war against Hamas in Gaza, with appalling death rates among Palestinians, especially women and children. Anger has focused on Jewish Israel rather than condemning Hamas for its eternal goal of pushing Jewish Israelis into the sea. The history is more complicated.
By the end of World War I, the whole Middle East was dominated by allies that included England, France and Italy. Oil made these lands increasingly vital to western governments, so the Brits and French created Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Arabia and bits of Iran, with no regard for religious faith or tribal rivalries that have torn these lands apart for millennia.
You can read this troublesome history in David Fromkin’s “A Peace to End All Peace” and “Lawrence in Arabia” by Scott Anderson. Among the sordid details, Anderson quoted the first King Hussein of Jordan that “Palestine is Jordan; Jordan is Palestine.” About 80% of Jordanians today are Palestinians. I have never been able to understand, if the West were going to accept the idea of a Jewish homeland, why they did not decree that Trans-Jordan would be Palestine.
Judaism was the foundation out of which Christianity arose. Jesus and all of his disciples were orthodox Jews all their lives. The word “Christian” did not become common until around 80 CE when the Jews and Jesus-followers agreed to go their separate ways. Want proof? Read John Shelby Spong’s illuminating “Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes.” Early Christian fathers desperately wanted to tie the story of the Christ with the Hebrew prophets that forecast the coming of a messiah.
Fundamentalists and many evangelicals need to get over their unsustainable beliefs about Jews and accept that Jesus and his followers were Jews that were trying to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to mankind, not by pillage, holocaust and war, but by simple, eternal beliefs in the one God eternal, found in the Hebrew and New Testaments.
James Held
Morgantown
