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Illuminating the spirit of Christmas

Numerous American households have called a timeout regarding their traditional extensive Christmas holiday lighting displays this year or have reduced the number of hours those lights and displays are projecting the brightness and joy that this season represents. Those decisions come as no surprise, considering the uptick in energy costs and the challenges that inflation otherwise has inflicted on their daily lives. As past years have shown, however, this year’s more subdued decorations scenarios, where they exist, are destined to give way to the brighter, more prolonged displays ...

Balancing budgets challenging

For all county units of government, as well as municipalities, the most important end-of-year activity is finalizing a budget for the coming 12 months. The budgeting process analyzes and allocates anticipated incoming revenue, outgoing financial obligations and debt service requirements, plus decides how remaining funds can be put to the best use, including possibly saving some money for a major project planned for the future. Knowledgeable leaders are cognizant of their important role on all of those fronts. In fact, knowledgeable leaders keep those categories of responsibility in ...

Clean up junk orbiting earth

In these days leading up to Christmas, some degree of speculation invariably centers on the origin and “composition” of the Star of Bethlehem, which Scriptures say guided the magi to the Child Jesus. Some people believe it was a single star; others believe it was planets viewed as a single body by the naked eye. The length of time it took the “magi from the East” to reach the location where the child and his earthly parents were also is debated by some people. Nativity scenes depicting shepherds as well as the magi standing together where the baby lay, wrapped in swaddling ...

Homeless students worrisome

Anyone who read the Nov. 28 Mirror front-page article “Homeless students a concern in region” had to have felt somewhat troubled about the scope of the problem in Blair County. While that situation does not balloon beyond the size of the problem across the state, most Blair residents probably had, up until then, embraced the notion that a county of Blair’s many positive attributes and circumstances would not be home to a problem of such worrisome dimension. The issue of homeless students — indeed, homelessness in general — demands major worry in all aspects of the Blair ...

Attacks on power supply concerning

The attacks against two power substations serving Moore County, N.C., on Dec. 3 has rightly triggered new concerns of behemoth proportion about security for this nation’s power grid. Pennsylvania, including the Southern Alleghenies region, is not immune from those concerns. But the Dec. 3 incidents also should resurface deep concern about how an electromagnetic pulse could inflict devastation in the United States — even more so than the kind of attack that immediately portended an extended period without full restoration of power for the North Carolina county just northwest of ...

Deserving ‘Feathers’ in his cap

Shining rays of sun on some good news: Randy Feathers has devoted most of his life to law enforcement and the betterment of the Altoona community. Now his efforts are being recognized. The Central Blair Recreation Commission announced Feathers would be the recipient of the prestigious Respected Citizen Award at the annual Community Classic Dinner and Auction on Saturday, Feb. 25, at the Bavarian Hall. Feathers is a former Altoona police officer, former state attorney general agent, ex-president of the Booker T. Washington Revitalization Corp. and current member of the Operation Our ...