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Celebrate Memorial Day respectfully

No matter what is happening on this nation’s political and economic fronts – and much is happening – Memorial Day, the holiday we are observing today, should not and does not take a back seat. Only something truly catastrophic might cast today’s observance into the background, but even then most Americans would pause in respect to what this day represents. Memorial Day is the day when the nation honors the brave, selfless men and women who gave their lives while in this country’s service. It also is the day each year when Americans put special emphasis on ...

Death rate, sadly, continues to rise among our youth

Young people are America’s future, so the old saying goes. However, they cannot be America’s future if they are dead. “Young Americans are dying at alarming rates” was a headline in the May 18 edition of the Wall Street Journal, below which was the message, “Four main causes pushed up mortality, reversing years of declines.” Judging from the Journal’s research and reporting, new and more intensive school- and community-based strategies to effectively tackle the problem should, without question, be considered mandatory. Meanwhile, parental involvement in implementing ...

Important to balance city outlook

There was much to like about Mayor Matt Pacifico’s annual state-of-the-city report — dealing with activities and accomplishments during 2022 — that the mayor delivered at the Railroaders Memorial Museum on May 15. City residents can feel a sense of pride over all that was achieved during those 12 months. From the least significant item to the most significant, the items presented were deservedly upbeat and represented a building block for continued progress this year — even beyond. But there is an alternative conclusion that Pacifico’s report can justify, despite all of ...

Looking closer at (white-collar) work force

White-collar workers are not going to disappear totally from the Southern Alleghenies region, nor probably from anywhere else in “Business America.” But evidence continues to mount that white-collar jobs across this country are going to decrease markedly over the next several years, perhaps decades, and the long-held security of white-collar job status might already be a relic of the past in much more than a few places. How white-collar status in the Southern Alleghenies is holding up amid evolving new pressures has gotten little, if any, serious noticeable discussion, but ...

City’s annual crime report is troubling

Altoona residents had cause for feeling somewhat optimistic when they began to digest the information in Police Chief Joe Merrill’s annual crime report to the city council on May 8, focusing on 2022. However, about three months earlier — in February — the news was hardly settling when Blair County Coroner Patricia Ross released her annual report covering the same year. A better description is that the Ross report contains information nothing short of deeply troubling, with a worse prospect potentially looming for 2023. People of the city and outlying areas need to ...

Mothers deserve to enjoy their most special day

In 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson, acting on a joint congressional resolution, signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day, the daily lives of women were world’s apart from what they are in 2023. At the time of Wilson, most mothers’ lives were virtually cemented in the home environment as fathers toiled in the workplaces of that era, earning “pennies” compared with the paychecks of today. But this weekend — the special weekend each year when moms deservedly are being honored with cards, meals at restaurants, jewelry and flowers — some ...