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War on drugs is ‘abysmal failure’

What is most troubling is the biases on display with the Altoona Mirror editorial on April 18 (“Overdoses at prison troubling.”) It reinforces common but erroneous beliefs about substance abuse. It lays the burden of this terrible occurrence at the feet of those who suffered because of it. I understand general consternation about hospital waits, but it was directed at the sufferers (worded as the irresponsible paying their debt to society). The consternation was about being inconvenienced by the priority given to the potentially life threatening situation of those overdosing. ...

Hunting’s ‘us vs. them’ culture must end

The Pennsylvania Game Commission comes under scrutiny for many decisions. The simple truth is their Board of Commissioners are unpaid political appointees devoting their time to managing hunting and wildlife resources. The decisions they make can be thankless and not without scrutiny by all parties. Certainly, some of their decisions are right, some arguable, and yes, some wrong. But like most things, you hear little when things go right, and a lot when things go wrong. They have had recent questionable expenditures and hired and later fired a lobbying firm due to legislative ...

Be an astute consumer of election info

When I became Secretary of the Commonwealth, I vowed to visit all 67 county election offices to hear firsthand about the challenges they face when running elections. Although I ran elections in Philadelphia for 10 years as a city commissioner, I knew that other counties face far different challenges, and no two counties are alike. For example, in Philadelphia, a staff of about 125 people administer elections. But some rural counties may have only one or two employees to register county residents to vote; manage the mail ballot process; test the voting equipment; assign polling ...

Local bar association seeks new verdict

The Blair County commissioners recently decided to terminate their relationship with the local law firm of Evey Black Attorneys, LLC, a relationship which spanned over five decades. In an Altoona Mirror article dated March 13, 2024, Commissioner Board Chair Dave Kessling is reported to have said the switch to a Pittsburgh-based law firm is to save money and because he felt no local firm could handle the work. The Blair County Bar Association takes issue at the way in which the decision to outsource legal services to an out-of-county law firm was made and the perception that local law ...

Separating education from teaching

A colleague of mine, Dr. Danny Anderson, recently wrote an essay in which he argued that he is a teacher, not an educator. I wholeheartedly agree with him. Call me teacher or professor, but please don’t use the term educator. These days, educators are those who follow political trends like assessment and global initiatives. As Danny says, the term “educator” stinks of the “professional machine.” To me the term brings up images of box checkers and, frankly, politicians. I am neither a box checker nor a politician. I teach students, and hopefully they are better for ...

We joyously transition into spring

The storied neo-noir film director Samuel Fuller observed, “Life is in color, but black and white is more realistic.” This sums up the problem with winter: too realistic. When photographing a winter landscape, you must scrutinize the resulting image to detect any trace of color. Occasionally, a shrub’s foliage, berries, or a foraging robin will obligingly infuse the Beckettian void with a discreet jolt of color. The winter sun finds all things and dapples them with light. Now, in the first week of spring, we joyously transition into a suddenly more vibrant realm and ...