Breaking News

Opinion

No price too high for evading school shopping

Opinion

In the pantheon of parental duties, shopping for school supplies stands alone. At the tripart crossroads of “least enjoyable,” “most expensive” and “least negotiable,” it is an intrinsic part of life in late summer, and it has been since I was a kid in the Cretaceous era. I remember it much more fondly from that perspective — being the receiver of shiny No. 2 pencils, folders, composition notebooks and a Trapper Keeper to hold it all together. I’m certain my parents found the experience annoying and expensive, but with all due respect, they had absolutely no ...

Encouraging children to read is crucial

Opinion

As we approach the forthcoming college fall semester, much discussion has centered on the difficulties a lot of Gen Z students are having with reading and critical thinking. One Chronicle of Higher Education article that many of my colleagues at Ohio State University’s Lima campus recently read delves into students’ struggles with literacy. This review essay, “My Students Can’t Read,” was written by Tyler Jagt, an adjunct professor of liberal studies at Mercer University. Jagt discusses what I now like to call the “usual tech suspects” when it comes to students being ...

Legalized pot plan a reason for concern

Editorials

There are destined to be many “consider this” calls in response to Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. John Fetterman and more than a dozen of his Democratic colleagues’ calls for ending the federal ban on marijuana. The senators are supporting the reintroduction of the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, which, according to Fetterman, would remove cannabis from the list of federally controlled substances and, thus, empower states to prepare and pass their own marijuana-legalization measures, if they choose to do so. According to an article published in the Mirror’s July 24 ...

Thankful for Fauci

Letters to the Editor

I don’t care if Dr. Anthony Fauci had a monetary investment in the Wuhan Institute. Here is what I do care about. Between my family members, friends and neighbors, I knew 13 people who perished from COVID-19. I am certain that not one of them was vaccinated — not one. And, totaling all my other acquaintances who were vaccinated, not one died because of the disease — not one. You may personally know someone who did succumb to that horrific disease, and they may have been vaccinated. I can only state what I know for sure concerning those people that I was acquainted with. Dr. Fauci ...

Noise standards should be policed

Letters to the Editor

For several years now, I have lived in an apartment facing the very busy Route 220 in Altoona. My residence is bracketed by stop lights located on the highway which, of course, result in red lights that slow the high speed traffic to a stop. Therein lies the issue. The noise created by loud after-market mufflers from some of the automobiles and large cruiser motorcycles is deafening. Then there are wolf packs of crotch rockets devouring silence as they race to the next red light. Adding to this mix is the noise created by truckers engaging their jake brakes on their diesel engines. It ...

Being fiscally responsible is now costly

Editorials

Saying that fiscal responsibility can “rear its ugly head” seems incongruous or nonsensical. In most cases that’s true. But Blair County taxpayers are being dealt evidence again that that statement is not as preposterous as it might seem. Those individuals too young to know, or those older taxpayers who have not allocated enough attention to county government business over the decades of their adult lives, might express puzzlement about how “fiscal responsibility” and “rearing its ugly head” can be used correctly in the same sentence. However, increasingly, that ...