Nov 15, 2024 3 min read

Cheers: Cheers to the Bentworth boys soccer team for managing to top last year’s landmark season with another stellar campaign. The Bearcats finished 20-3 a year ago, won the WPIAL Class A championship by defeating section rival Charleroi, then advanced to the PIAA semifinals before losing to the Cougars. How do you top that? You come back with a perfect regular season and keep that record spotless throughout the postseason, which will end Friday in the state championship match against Lancaster Mennonite at 4 p.m. at Eagle View High School in Mechanicsburg. Bentworth takes a 22-0 mark into the match after defeating McConnellsburg, 2-0, Tuesday in the PIAA semifinals. This will be Bentworth’s first appearance in the PIAA final. Defense has been the name of the game for the Bearcats and goaltender DJ Hays. Bentworth will take a streak of 11 consecutive shutouts into the state final. The last team to score a goal against the Bearcats was Greensburg Central Catholic on Sept. 26 in a game Bentworth won 7-1.

Jeers: As of September, there were 385 mass shootings in the United States this year, which is defined as an incident where four or more people are injured or killed. Students must go through active-shooter drills at the schools they attend, and the names of some of the most horrific mass shootings don’t need much more identification beyond the names of the communities where they took place, such as Uvalde and Newtown. It’s against this grim landscape that individuals and organizations could learn about how to prepare themselves at an “active shooting community educational night” that happened Tuesday at the North Strabane Fire Department. The seminar was put together by the Pennsylvania State Police, and the fact that they did so is commendable. What is unfortunate is educational events like these have to happen in the first place. Elizabeth Davidson, a Washington County sheriff’s deputy, said, “When you signed up to be a teacher, you probably didn’t think you’d have to do this. But you have to be prepared for it, train for it.” And that is a terrible fact of American life.

Jeers: Conspiracy theories have long been part of American life and usually infect people on the outer fringes of American culture and politics. Of course, in 2020, a whole menu of conspiracy theories was served up to explain Donald Trump’s loss in that year’s presidential election. Following Kamala Harris’ loss in the election that was just completed, a conspiracy theory is being served up that Trump won fraudulently, Harris is aware of it, and is waiting “quietly in the shadows ready to pounce.” Newsweek reported that a video outlining this conspiracy theory received 285,000 views on TikTok, 60,000 likes and 6,000 comments, most of them positive. Some of the commenters believe Elon Musk and his Starlink internet service were somehow involved. The reality, however, is that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, fair and square. And he won the 2024 election, fair and square. Everyone, no matter where they land on the political spectrum, needs to deal with these facts, whether they like them or not.