Letters: Penn State’s TikTok puzzling; Wrestling benefits young athletes
Penn State’s TikTok puzzling
Why is Penn State establishing a TikTok account? This goes against the growing number of universities and governments banning its use.
The U.S. has banned its use on government-issued mobile devices. Canada has done likewise. Legislation has been proposed in the U.S. Senate to ban TikTok nationwide. More than 25 universities, including Auburn, Arkansas and Texas, have banned its use from university devices. Over 25 states, including Pennsylvania, have banned TikTok on state-owned devices. Pennsylvania’s State Treasurer said that TikTok is a clear danger due to its “close connection to the communist Chinese government.”
Penn State has said that TikTok is yet another way to reach current and prospective students. Given the number of existing methods is yet another necessary? Especially one with connections that have raised so much concern by so many?
After changing direction on confronting diversity problems, and back-tracking on oversight of fraternities, is the plan to sponsor TikTok yet another step away from truly caring for the well-being of the Penn State family?
Wrestling benefits young athletes
Parenting is never easy. The most we can hope for as parents is to guide and direct our children to the best of our ability based upon our life experiences. Who we are as parents is based upon the struggles that we faced in life to which our character is bound. It is the struggles and challenges that made us who we are. This “we are” provides the borders to within which we can guide our own children. It is our responsibility to ensure our children’s borders are more expansive, more encompassing, and more diverse than ours — so that they may be more successful than we were as parents.
Do you as a parent: try to find challenges and struggles?
If you protect them, then do your kids become “soft” or “entitled”? Nobody looks for a struggle, but through struggle, that is when the biggest changes within our children happen. They grow as a person.
Wrestling is both a team and individual struggle. Wrestling requires you to go 100% every day. You’re competing with another individual who will not give you anything, who is also trying to win, who also wants to get better.
In wrestling you are tested and struggle on an individual basis every day. In the iron sport of wrestling, one wrestler sharpens another. Wrestling practice involves going live against another person — in no other high school sport do you compete individually every day.
Freedom’s role in democracy
What is freedom’s role in democracy? What is democracy? Our political parties constantly compete over who is the true defender of “freedom.” Republicans fall back on “gun rights” and tax “loopholes.” Democrats focus on managing “the economy.”
Politicians, at one time, seemed to be preoccupied with how to educate citizens to be capable of self-government. That was recognized as “freedom.” Now, government is a “business.”
In New Hampshire, where I was raised, all political candidates must answer the question, “what specific reforms will you advance to end the corruptive influence of big money in politics?” N.H. has 400 elected state representatives in its 24 districts (each represents 3,000 citizens). Seventy-five percent of registered voters, vote. I recall the state motto on my license plate: “Live Free or Die,” and the motto on the state flag: ”Don’t Tread on Me.” Perhaps overly dramatic, the point is made: leave me alone. We care and we participate in “government.”
Our “government” should encourage the freedom of competition and participation. We can learn how to do that.
Overdue corrections to monument
March 29 is Vietnam Veterans Day. It was first proclaimed by President Obama and then made a national holiday by President Trump. It is not “Vietnam Era Veterans Day.” The reason why is there is a difference between an era veteran and an actual Vietnam veteran. Era veterans were in the military during the time the Vietnam War was going on. They did their part and served in areas not in danger or harm’s way and far away from any fighting. They did serve their country in the position they were ask to serve. Vietnam veterans were in harm’s way daily. Many lost their lives there and in Laos and Cambodia. Many came back broken and still hold the scars to this day. I am openly asking Miles Township to replace the etched stars that were not replaced that were beside the names of all the townships “Vietnam veterans.” It has been over ten years since a pillar was replaced and a mistake made. In two years it will be the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Many people will go see the Miles Township veterans monument to pay respect. How can they ever know who actually served in Vietnam and earned the title Vietnam veteran if there is no way for these fine heroic Veterans to be separate from the Vietnam era veterans? One would think tat the township would want to make this correction. Apparently they don’t?