Cheers & Jeers
Cheers: Five years in the making, Brownsville is restoring a piece of its history with a Coca-Cola mural project in the heart of its downtown area overlooking the Monongahela River. The brainchild of Mayor Ross Swords, the mural at 25 Market Street was originally painted in the early 1900s and has faded over time. The soft drink company agreed to pay for Pittsburgh artist Randi Stewart to restore the advertisement in a project that began this week. Swords said borough officials are hoping to hold a fundraiser with Coca-Cola, selling 8-ounce bottles of Coke for the sale price listed on the historic ad – 5 cents. Proceeds would help pay to install lighting for the mural. “I think it will bring people who want to take pictures with it or of it, and the same people will stop and shop in town or eat in town or get gas in town,” Swords said.
Jeers: The movie classic “Citizen Kane” was released 80 years ago this month, and it contains a scene where two newspaper front pages are unveiled as the gubernatorial campaign of press magnate Charles Foster Kane goes down in flames – one says “Kane Elected” and the other says “Fraud at Polls!” That increasingly seems to be the approach of Trumpian Republicans who lose at the ballot box. Even before an effort to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom was handily defeated at the polls earlier this week, Republican candidate Larry Elder had started pushing voter fraud claims on his website. Of course, claiming voter fraud is a way to keep supporters riled up, and to soothe the bruised egos of losing candidates. Philip Bump of The Washington Post summed it up: “It’s easy to laugh at all of this, given that it is ridiculous. … But we can’t simply sit back and marvel at the gall of claiming fraud in a race that a candidate is likely to lose. It can’t become normal to treat elections as something that serve only as a jumping-off point to legal fights or brute-force attempts to wrest power away.”
Cheers: Organizers of the Washington and Greene Counties’ Covered Bridge Festival recently announced that this year’s event will be held again. The in-person festival, which was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will be celebrated Sept. 18-19 at various covered bridges throughout the two counties. In Greene, festivities will be held at the Carmichaels Covered Bridge and the White Covered Bridge in Garards Fort. The festival – which was supposed to marks its 50th anniversary last year – unofficially serves as a kickoff to the fall season and is a very popular event. We commend the festival’s organizers and coordinators for bringing back the traditional festival, and we hope residents visit the covered bridges during the celebration while adhering to safety protocols.
Cheers: In Pennsylvania, the rate of suicide among veterans is a little more than 31%, a staggering and disheartening number. But a program has been established in Greene County that will offer help to veterans facing crushing personal difficulties. Together With Veterans (TWV) Rural Suicide Prevention Program is designed to help connect veterans with resources that might prevent them from taking their own lives. The program in Greene County is one of two in the state and one of about 30 across the country. The group includes veterans and laypeople. According to Chris Clark, the co-coordinator of the TWV program, “People don’t fake needing help, they fake being OK. There is that stigma that goes along with asking for help for something like this. We’ve got to try to normalize things … lift some of that stigma.”