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Why should men be given a free pass?

State Rep. Chris Rabb definitely got our attention. Is he serious about forcing men over 40 or with three kids to get vasectomies? That’s a little unsettling. Many of us get really alarmed at talk about forcing a man to do anything with his own body — wear a mask or get a vaccination, let alone control his procreation. That’s why Rep. Rabb’s threat of a bill to force some men to get vasectomies is so over the top. The government telling a man what to do with his own body? Absurd. Rep. Rabb said he introduced the legislation to make a point about the “egregiously gendered ...

Prioritize child-abuse epidemic

Tuesday’s front-page Mirror article “State sees jump in child abuse cases”— a big jump — included mention of Pennsylvania lawmakers’ positive — albeit reactive, rather than proactive — efforts to pass legislation responding to headline-making abuse cases. Yet sooner, rather than later, in this pandemic era, there needs to be a much more intense and wide-ranging focus by the General Assembly — and, actually, society in general — on all aspects of the abuse problem than what the commonwealth heretofore has witnessed. Does one solution include tougher penalties, ...

Central York unifies behind banned books

The Central York school board obviously wasn’t expecting this. For nine months, no one seemed to care that a long list of resources recommended by the district’s diversity committee had been banned from use in classrooms. After all, the board had gotten away with indefinitely tabling the diversity curriculum by saying it was too divisive, didn’t show proper respect for police and taught white children that society doesn’t give people of color the same opportunities they enjoy. Society doesn’t give people of color the same opportunities white people enjoy, but that’s ...

Carriers are the backbone of newspapers

Power outages and press malfunctions are among a newspaper circulation manager’s worst nightmare. Even an hour delay in “getting the newspaper out” wreaks havoc with the process of hooking up subscribers with the latest news that was available at deadline time. When subscribers’ newspapers arrive late, many of those people already have inundated circulation department telephone lines with concerned — and sometimes angry — inquiries. For many people, not having their newspaper available at their breakfast table is as troubling as having run out of coffee or orange ...

Clearly state Altoona’s tax ordinance

Altoona City Council’s current exercise aimed at amending the city’s ordinance covering collection of the business privilege tax is necessary as well as instructive, not only for other Blair County communities but also places beyond. The crux of this Altoona tax situation is this: The city wants to add clarification to the current ordinance that the tax in question applies only to revenues tied to companies’ local operations, not revenues that are earned or collected for business conducted elsewhere. The Altoona ordinance is reminiscent of a time when it was not necessary to ...

Sometimes abstention is right call

People attending a school board or municipal government meeting often are puzzled when a member of one of those elected bodies chooses to abstain from voting on a particular agenda item or issue. Perhaps, most of those people soon learn that the abstention was the means by which the member in question made the correct decision regarding something that would have been a conflict of interest, if he or she had voted. For example, on the school board front, perhaps the board member who abstained did so because a son, daughter or other relative was on the list of people being hired as ...