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Letters to the Editor

Support urged for the Clean Streams Fund

Our state legislators should support the Clean Streams Fund in Pennsylvania’s Fiscal Year 2026-27 budget. Since its inception, this program has led to water quality and habitat outcomes throughout the Commonwealth, and continued support will benefit all Pennsylvanians, and perhaps most notably hunters, anglers and farmers. The programs funded by the Clean Streams Fund directly improve water quality through the implementation of practices like riparian forest buffers, streambank fencing, cover crops and manure management structures. These practices prevent pollutants like excessive ...

Altoona’s Wall needs to be saved

Altoona is lucky to have a replica of the Vietnam Wall at the Van Zandt VA Medical Center. Recently, I made a trip to the wall to visit with my cousin and friends who are always there on the wall. I could not find my cousin’s name, so I asked a man who was working on the Wall. He brought me to the office and searched panels stacked in a corner. He found the panel, one of a number that had been removed for repairs and re-cementing. We talked and I found out the VA provided the ground for the Wall, but no funds for upkeep or improvements. With all the American Legions and VFWs in ...

UPMC Altoona deserves recognition

Recently my family and I spent way more time at UPMC Altoona than we would have wished. Our beloved mother spent time in the ER, ICU, 7th Floor, and finally Palliative Care on the 14th floor. During the many weeks she was there, we encountered nothing but the most excellent medical care. Along with that, we never dealt with one single person who was not kind, considerate, empathetic, patient and skilled. The aides, the nurses, the doctors, even the people who cleaned the room, never saw us without asking if my mother needed anything or if WE needed anything. The security guards, ...

Mental health must be addressed

A never-ending calamity in progress: this is my view of our country’s rather pitiful address to mental health. How many more mass shootings, suicides, assaults, etc., will it take for our country to put mental illness completely at the forefront? In my opinion, at least 90% of the gun violence in our country is a result of mental health issues. Every time a television commercial appears espousing a “get quick fix” solution after taking a medicine for clinical depression for a few days, I cringe. The message this sends is that one only needs to take medicine, and nothing ...

Notice the crops

Out my back door are hundreds of acres of fields which annually grow corn and soybeans. Alternating fields of soybeans and corn. Right now every corn field has been planted while grass covers the soybean fields. Meaning our farmers income is likely now cut in half. Not too difficult to assume there is no market for U.S. soybeans, as Brazil is now the top exporter of soybeans to China thanks to Trump’s tariffs. It also means that the big corporate farms are getting a lot of our tax dollars as subsidies to offset these losses, but not our smaller family farms. Across the ...

Are we doomed to repeat history?

In A Christmas Carol, the third spectre shows Ebeneezer Scrooge his miserable future, the consequence of his misanthropy and greed. Scrooge posited the critical query; “Are these the shadows of the things which Will be, or are they the shadows of the things that May be, only?” David French’s NY Times dire opinion piece on May 31, 2026, harkens to this existential question. Today, American populist demagogues persuade the vulnerable that democracy, decency and constructive compromise are weakness; tyranny, cynicism and brutality are strength. Ignorance of historical consequences ...