The Butler County Housing Authority has proposed a commendable idea: building new homes for two disabled military veterans on a vacant lot in Butler.

The housing authority is partnering with Accessible Dreams, a nonprofit based in Washington, Pa., and Northwest Bank with hopes of building a duplex on South Chestnut Street, on a vacant lot the authority obtained through its dilapidated housing removal program.

Perry O'Malley, authority executive director, said the funding is in place and the project is awaiting final approval from the city. The homes could be completed within six months, O'Mally said last week.

The homeless veterans who will live there will be selected before construction begins, and the homes will be designed to accommodate the needs of their specific disabilities. Their names will come from existing lists of veterans.

A $150,000 federal home loan building grant through Northwest Bank will help pay the construction bill of about $320,000, leaving each family with a mortgage of about $85,000 — about $600 per month, which would be partly covered by a monthly Section 8 voucher from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This is a great deal for homeless, disabled veterans. It should be a template for future projects. We owe our veterans at least this much.

The trend is painfully clear.Possession of marijuana has been steadily decriminalized in most states. The manufacture of medicinal marijuana is allowed in places, and in a handful of states Out West you can smoke pot without breaking the law. Attorney General Eric Holder, the highest prosecutor in the land, say he's “cautiously optimistic” about legalizing it nationwide. Holder said he's willing to work with Congress toward that goal.It's only a matter of time before we're awarding blue ribbons for biggest, greenest buds at the Butler County Fair. But we're not there yet, as residents of two households reminded us Thursday that growing pot is still a felony in Pennsylvania.While serving a bench warrant for Maria J. Shriver, Butler Township police found a marijuana growing operation concealed inside her Bessemer Avenue home in Lyndora. Police seized about 70 plants, a rifle and about $5,000 cash. Shriver, 23, was jailed on the bench warrant and her husband, Joseph A. Rock, 30, was arrested on felony charges. Their two children, both under 8 years old, went to stay with grandparents.Also Thursday, Butler police raided a house in the 500 block of West New Castle Street and confiscated 26 plants, all about 2 feet high. They seized growing lights, fans, fertilizer and potting soil. Macklin Haye, 21, and Savannah Blust, 20, who live there, were arraigned on charges of manufacturing a controlled substance, conspiracy and possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia.Maybe someday these defendants will be champion gardeners at the county fair. Maybe. But for now, they're just accused criminals.

Theirs has to be one of most difficult and thankless jobs around.Prison guards endure verbal abuse, a constant threat of physical attack and countless forms of inmate misbehavior, all set in the gloomiest of work environments.Even so, Butler County Prison officers John Prazer and Anita Vicari went above and beyond the call of duty April 6 when they stopped an inmate from hanging herself.At Tuesday's meeting of the Butler County Prison Board, Warden Rick Shaffer reported officers John Prazer and Anita Vicari rescued an inmate after Prazer found the 25-year-old woman hanging in her cell in the female inmate pod.The woman's rope was a tightly wound bedsheet, tied to her bunk, Shaffer said.The officers had to lift the inmate to loosen her improvised noose. They couldn't cut it because it clung too tightly to the woman's neck.The warden said the woman apparently suffers from depression. She recently lost custody of her children, Shaffer said, adding the woman asked why the officers had saved her.Now she has the luxury of time to figure out the answer to her question and she has medical and psychological care at her disposal.Maybe she'll come to the conclusion that human life is precious — including hers, because a person with a messed up life has an opportunity to change — as long as she is alive. And she is, thanks to the work of two prison guards.