Damon Cain

Chances are better than good that if a governmental body could steer clear of poisonous politics, special interests and self-serving considerations, if our elected leaders and appointed officers would pay less attention to status and burnishing their own résumé, if they were more concerned with results, if they could keep an open mind to ideas that were not their own nor in their comfort zone, if they could see their way through challenging times by staying focused on the end goal and pay no heed to distractions and a good-ol'-boy network that works to the benefit of a few, then progress – too long a dirty word in these hills and hollers – on a whole host of issues could be, would be, realized. Even celebrated.

President Joe Biden woke up about 12 hours late for his Thursday night debate in Atlanta against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. He was in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday and was his old self – no pun intended. He was, for starters, awake, coherent and talking in complete sentences. He was energized, standing with fist clenched, rallying his supporters as a coach might do with a half-time pep talk. Indeed, the Biden team will need a big second half comeback to pull this one out. But on Friday, in the ol' North State's capital city, the crowd of admirers was loud and enthusiastic.

Did you get all of that? While Donald Trump rambled throughout his acceptance speech deep into Thursday night, turning his time on stage

The longer I hang around this business and read the political headlines and stories composed, edited and delivered from various feeds all throughout the day, my cynicism grows – and I laugh a little louder. Yeah, I know. A good many politicians lie through their teeth because the truth runs contrary to their narrative and plays to the advantage of their opponent. Or they just want to cast their opponent in a bad light – even if the story is made up, fabricated, a colossal deception.

The good news, if you scratch for it here in the southern coalfields when talking about substance use disorder and its all-too-common eulogy, is that the number of drug overdose deaths in West Virginia has fallen the past two years. Not much, mind you, and perhaps the trend is only plateauing. But in 2021, OD deaths set a record of 1,537 before falling to 1,410 in 2022, and then further to 1,383 in 2023, the latest reporting period.

So, anyone else wondering what happens to the Republican Party if its presidential nominee, Donald Trump, loses this fall? If the Democrats hold the Senate and – clutch your pearls – retake the House? If, in effect, Republicans are boxed out from governing – and Trump was the Pied Piper leading them to that dark place?

In “Bull Durham,” a baseball movie from 1988, the character Annie Savoy is explaing the ground rules of how she will decide which minor league player she will hook up with for the season to the character of a grizzled old veteran Crash Davis, played by Kevin Costner, and the new hot-thing rookie, Ebby Calvin LaLoosh, played by Tim Robbins.

Gov. Jim Justice, as he does, was acting like he did us all a big favor on Thursday when he announced that the state would increase funding for state programs that help pay for in-home care of those who have a difficult time caring for themselves, primarily lonely and homebound seniors and people with disabilities.

The tumblers, plural because they come with different glazes, textures and a mix of colors, feel just right in either hand, each distinct but a perfect and comfortable fit as if they were made just for me and my hands, my fingerprint, as it were, even though I am fully aware that they were not. What may be most important and quite magical in this is that they are not mass manufactured but created one at a time, no two the same, each unique in that way, each with its own texture, but all a perfect fit, in my hand and other hands as well.

Neither of my grandmothers had a hand in raising me – not that they lived next door or in the same town. Nor did I spend a single day in child care. As such, my experience in these matters differs from what many here in the Mountain State have gone through in the past couple of decades. I did not become more fully informed until much later in life.