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Opinion

Vandalism costly for community

Editorials

Vandalism at Hollidaysburg’s Canal Basin Park was of a deeply troubling category and scope. Unfortunately, it was of a category witnessed too often at other locales across America — over many decades of this nation’s history, not just in the year 2026. One thing is certain about the Canal Basin Park vandalism, nevertheless: It demands a community soul-searching, as well as ongoing reflection about whether there are local elements that would take great pride and pleasure in continuing to undermine everything that’s good about the county seat community. Or, was what occurred ...

US should join ‘country club’ of nations

Opinion

My fellow Americans: This weekend, we celebrate our country’s independence and pay homage to the founders. As we glory in America, however, we tend to overlook the second part of the equation: Great Britain. In declaring independence, we broke from British rule while inventing a nation inspired by British ideas. It was Thomas Paine, an antimonarchical Englishman, who urged the Americans to sever ties with Britain in his 1776 pamphlet “Common Sense.” Just seven months before the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, Thomas ...

Deepfake tech creates a trail of victims

Editorials

Last weekend in this space we focused on the issue of “lunch shaming” — that the practice has no place in our schools. For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the topic, “lunch shaming,” which was the focus of an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal’s June 2 edition, was described in that article as “an insidious bullying tactic ‘creeping into school cafeterias across the country.’” It involves making and sharing unflattering photographs of other students eating. Julie Jargon, the Journal columnist who wrote the column, wrote that “kids are snapping and ...

Clock keeps ticking

Letters to the Editor

Clock keeps ticking In Manhattan, on a wall not far from Times Square, the debt clock ticks higher and higher. After climbing for so many years with no obvious economic fallout, it’s easy to ignore. Indeed, the clock was moved from its location on a busy street corner to a quiet passageway. The reality is that we really don’t have a “debt ceiling.” It’s a political creation with no fundamental economic meaning. No other country has one. But we do need a political solution, and many politicians have been concerned about our growing debt for a long time. They thought they had ...

Officers’ flawless work lauded

Editorials

Anyone who ever has harbored the foolhardy notion of trying to smuggle an illegal substance or item into the Blair County Prison was dealt an “eye-opener” by way of the June 5 Mirror article “Warden commends work to halt smuggling.” The lesson was that, to be successful, it will take a plan much more sophisticated than the one hatched to “funnel” illegal items to an inmate who was at the Station Medical Center on Ninth Avenue in Altoona for an appointment — and that an even-more-sophisticated plan is likely to be doomed to failure, with additional criminal charges being ...

Gabbard doing job by releasing reports

Letters to the Editor

DNI Tulsi Gabbard is stepping down as director of national intelligence at the end of June, but the radical left had better be fearful of what will occur in her final weeks. Gabbard announced her resignation after her husband, Abraham, was diagnosed with what she described as “an extremely rare form of bone cancer.” She said she must “step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle.” Gabbard devoted her time at ODNI to wage a full-frontal assault on the entrenched intelligence bureaucracy, and she’s performed exquisitely. Before ...