I have been a Penn State season ticket holder for 49 years, so I’ve experienced the good, the bad and the ugly, both on and off the field, while attending more than 300 games. Despite the tone of recent Altoona Mirror articles and social media postings, I would like to applaud the ...
Pennsylvania has a rich history of higher education, including some of the best independent nonprofit colleges and universities in the nation. Apart from their mission as centers of learning — preparing students for their careers and for the world — these institutions are economic ...
Three Democratic candidates for president, and perhaps more, are hoping to gain votes by proposing all-out prohibitions on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, used in the oil and natural gas industries. Sens. Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have all proposed the bans. Look ...
I felt compelled to write this letter concerning the actions of the three Altoona Area School members — Ed Kreuz, Ron Johnston and Sharon Bream — who walked out of a training presentation. Why did these three members leave? Because, in my view, their previous votes were in the minority ...
As the parent of two Hollidaysburg Area School District students, I know how important it is to have a school board that understands the importance of a K-12 education that prepares our children for the future and that respects its students and faculty. The board members must operate without ...
Let us hope and pray the world is not about to witness something like what happened 30 years ago in Beijing. If it happens again, this time in Hong Kong, there will be absolutely nothing the United States or anyone else can do to stop it. During late spring and early summer in 1989, an ...
Altoona isn’t alone among the cities of America in being home to substandard curbs, including curbs that are in violation of the federal Americans With Disabilities Act. Some cities are engaged in the process of installing curb ramps that allow people in wheelchairs to get on and off ...
Pennsylvania is one of only eight states that allow straight ticket (party) voting. A total of 54 percent of Blair county voters choose this option. While it simplifies voting, it reinforces party affiliation as the driving force behind your vote. Elections such as judicial contests would ...
I’m supporting Jesse Ickes for Altoona City Council. I’ve gotten to know him and have worked with him through our church and have witnessed him take on leadership roles within our church. Ickes is dedicated to his profession, his family and his faith. He’s exactly the leader that ...
The three Altoona Area School Board members who walked out of a meeting on Sept 9 rather than hear a presentation from a representative of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association did not enhance the board’s image. That should be the conclusion of both the district residents who oppose the ...
I am writing to express my concern about the imminent threat climate change poses to our world, our country and our children’s future. More than 2,000 scientists contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that climate change is occurring much faster than ...
It was disappointing to read the recent news about Norfolk Southern laying off 100 workers at the Juniata Locomotive Shop. I’m sure the Norfolk Southern PR people will call it “right sizing.” Got to keep Wall Street happy. It was enlightening, however, to read the 2018 Norfolk ...
A new — albeit limited in scope — pilot program being launched by the New Jersey Department of Education is worthy of being watched by educators in Pennsylvania and other states, even if it doesn’t spur widespread change outside of Pennsylvania’s neighbor to the east. Anyone ...
The population of Altoona in the 1930 census was 82,000. The 2017 population estimate was 44,000. The population has decreased since that 1930 census. What will the 2020 census reveal? Some have observed that Altoona is just not business-friendly. There are just too many hoops and too much ...
Justice Elena Kagan, dissenting in the U.S. Supreme Court’s gerrymandering decision in June, unearthed a marvelously descriptive word: Dummymandering. Gerrymandering is a made-up word, drawing on Elbridge Gerry and his drawing of a Massachusetts voting district that looked like a salamander ...
State Rep. Frank Ryan, a Republican from Lebanon County, has proposed House Bill-13, which is a good number for its potential. He wants to replace our Pennsylvania school tax with revenue from a new tax on retirement income and local sales and personal income taxes. Ryan defines taxable ...
A couple of my children get agitated with me because they say I live in the past too much. But most of my generation is like that. There were a lot of simple, decent times then. Life really is simple; it is certain people who have made it more dramatic than is necessary. There really is ...
It seems as though Sen. Rick Scott, President Donald Trump and others have the same solution to all the mass shootings in the U.S. They want to blame these shootings on people with mental health issues. My question is, has anyone, anywhere, done any investigative research into the lives of ...
The images of the two horrific assaults-by-air against the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, remain as vivid today as during any time in the last 18 years. Many Americans still feel shaken by the realization of how unprepared this country was in terms of quashing the terrorist ...
Has the enjoyment died? Is it just me, or has the joy of singing in a group died around Altoona? It used to be that just about anywhere you went people could be heard singing. There were singing groups everywhere. There were church choirs that were well attended and clubs that had their own ...