Letters to The Derrick (Oil City, PA) - The News-Herald (Franklin, PA), September 26, 2025

Betty M, Hepler, Letters to The Derrick (Oil City, PA) - The News-Herald (Franklin, PA), September 26, 2025; Tax proposal needs to 'die' with the library

[Kip Currier: The following is my response to a 9/26/25 Letter to the Editor (see transcribed letter below) in The Derrick and The News-Herald newspapers that serve the Oil City and Franklin areas in Northwestern Pennsylvania.

"Libraries support all of us -- and need our support too!"

The "Letter to the Editor" transcribed below could not be more wrong or misguided about the state of American libraries and the incredible value they contribute to our lives and communities: libraries are a vital necessity and community anchor in towns and cities throughout this entire nation. (See https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/06/21/millennials-are-the-most-likely-generation-of-americans-to-use-public-libraries/) :

1. Libraries provide information and resources that help to educate citizens at all levels of our communities -- from blue collar to white collar workplaces and everything in between. See https://www.ala.org/pla/initiatives/workforce 

2. Research studies demonstrate that libraries are economically beneficial to businesses that are located nearby. See https://www.imls.gov/research-evaluation/evaluations-research-studies/public-libraries-role-workforce-small-business-development

3. Research studies also show that libraries are a very good "return on investment" (ROI): 

for every dollar of support to a library, users of libraries are able to save hundreds of dollars by being able to check out and use thousands of books, movies, songs, videogames, and more that a library provides to users at no charge. See https://slol.libguides.com/LibraryStatistics/PublicLibraryROI

4. Today's libraries offer all kinds of life-enhancing activities and services -- like storytime for kids; book discussion groups for teens, adults, and seniors; access to free WiFi and computers; and in-person classes and virtual webinars on topics like “where to find jobs”, "starting your own business", and “how to use AI chatbots”. See https://action.everylibrary.org/creative_library_programs_you_don_t_know_about

5. Libraries have been a part of human life and history for thousands of years. They are essential tools and places that can benefit our lives, enable us to think, learn, and grow from our yesterdays, and fuel our hopes and dreams for better todays and tomorrows.

Libraries continue to change and evolve to better suit and meet our needs, just as humans and societies must change, adapt, and evolve in order to survive and thrive. Each of us knows that we need to take good care of ourselves to live the best lives we can. Let's take good care of the libraries that support and serve us too. See https://www.ala.org/future/trends

Long live the library!]

[Letter transcribed (under a copyright law fair use rationale of commentary purpose) because newspaper paywall prevents access without a subscription]

Betty M. Hepler, Cranberry

Editor, I am amazed that we are trying to keep alive a mostly dead memory -- the library. We have been propping them up for decades.

The Encyclopedia salesman has lost his job; books are not being sold at the same rate as before, being available on tape or kindle now; libraries and bookstores have fallen to the side of the road.

Wake up! Most things have a time to shine but lose out to progress. Now we are trying to keep alive something that needs to admit its death.

The overburdened taxpayers of the country are having the blame and responsibility thrown on their shoulders.

On the front side, one may think it is a charge of $12.50. But my understanding is the cost is $12.50 per every $50,000 in assessment. All properties for the most part, have seen a dramatic rise in their assessment; so this is a lot of money for something that is dead.

Let it die!

Turn it into a museum. No more taxes.

'The Calculator Mistake': Denial, hostility won't help lawyers deal with emergence of AI; ABA Journal, October 23, 2024

TRACY HRESKO PEARL , ABA Journal; 'The Calculator Mistake': Denial, hostility won't help lawyers deal with emergence of AI

"There are two ways to deal with this kind of uncertainty. The first is denial and hostility. Legal news outlets have been filled with articles in recent months about the problems with AI-generated legal briefs. Such briefs may contain fake citations. They miss important points. They lack nuance.

The obvious solution, when the problem is framed in this way, is to point lawyers away from using AI, impose strong sanctions on attorneys who misuse it, and redouble law school exam security and anti-plagiarism measures to ensure that law students are strongly disincentivized from using these new forms of technology. “Old school” law practice and legal teaching techniques, in this view, should continue to be the gold standard of our profession.

The problem, of course, is that technology gets better and does so at an increasingly (and sometimes alarmingly) rapid rate. No lawyer worth their salt would dare turn in an AI-generated legal brief now, given the issues listed above and the potential consequences. But we are naive to think that the technology won’t eventually overtake even the most gifted of legal writers.

That point may not be tomorrow; it may not be five years from now. But that time is coming, and when it does, denial and hostility won’t get us around the fact that it may no longer be in the best interests of our clients for a lawyer to write briefs on their own. Denial and hostility won’t help us deal with what, at that point, will be a serious existential threat to our profession.

The second way to deal with the uncertainty of emerging technology is to recognize that profound change is inevitable and then do the deeper, tougher and more philosophical work of discerning how humans can still be of value in a profession that, like nearly every other, will cede a great deal of ground to AI in the not-too-distant future. What will it mean to be a lawyer, a judge or a law professor in that world? What should it mean?

I am increasingly convinced that the answers to those questions are in so-called soft skills and critical thinking."

Harvard's Drew Gilpin Faust says history should make us uncomfortable; Fresh Air, NPR, August 22, 2023

 Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR; Harvard's Drew Gilpin Faust says history should make us uncomfortable

"Drew Gilpin Faust is known as a historian, a civil rights activist and the first woman president of Harvard — but she was groomed to become a proper Southern lady...

Faust's new memoir, Necessary Trouble, takes its name from a quote by the late Rep. John Lewis, who Faust knew and approved of using his words. The book is about growing up in Virginia and coming of age during a period of rapid social transformation...

On the mischaracterization of slavery included in Florida's new standards of Black history education, proposed under Gov. Ron DeSantis

It's preposterous and it's extremely distressing. It's a complete distortion of the past, which is undertaken in service of the present, of minimizing racial issues in the present by saying everything's been "just great" for four centuries. Slavery was not "just great." It was oppressive. It was cruel. It involved exploitation of every sort, physical violence, sexual exploitation. We know that we have pieces of paper where slave owners wrote it down. I did a biography of a South Carolina planter who recorded in detail what his mastery of slaves entailed. And there are dozens and dozens and dozens of studies that show this...

On the notion that students shouldn't be made to feel uncomfortable about history

It's a betrayal of the commitment to truth and to fact. And it so undermines the ability of people in the present to understand who they are. How do we have history that's not uncomfortable? How do we have any kind of education that doesn't make you in some way uncomfortable? Education asks you to change. The headmistress of my girls school many years ago said to us, "Have the courage to be disturbed, to learn about the Holocaust and see what evil can mean, to learn about slavery and think about exploitation that is empowered by an ideology of race that we haven't entirely dismantled. Understand what people did in the past so that you can, in the present, better critique your own assumptions, your own blindnesses, and make a world that's a better world." If we don't acknowledge those realities, we are disempowered as human beings."

‘Sorrow Is the Price You Pay for Love’; The Atlantic, February 5, 2019

Video by Erlend Eirik Mo, The Atlantic;

‘Sorrow Is the Price You Pay for Love’

[Kip Currier: A remarkable short video. Poignant, uplifting, inspiring. A reminder of what matters most, and what's worth striving for and toward.

Watch and share with others.]

"“So much in her story was compelling for me,” Mo told The Atlantic. “It is unique, about a girl doing a male macho dance, and universal, about love and sorrow.”"

Wielding Rocks and Knives, Arizonans Attack Self-Driving Cars; The New York Times, December 31, 2018

Simon Romero, The New York Times; Wielding Rocks and Knives,Arizonans Attack Self-Driving Cars

““They said they need real-world examples, but I don’t want to be their real-world mistake,” said Mr. O’Polka, who runs his own company providing information technology to small businesses.

“They didn’t ask us if we wanted to be part of their beta test,” added his wife, who helps run the business.

At least 21 such attacks have been leveled at Waymo vans in Chandler, as first reported by The Arizona Republic. Some analysts say they expect more such behavior as the nation moves into a broader discussion about the potential for driverless cars to unleash colossal changes in American society. The debate touches on fears ranging from eliminating jobs for drivers to ceding control over mobility to autonomous vehicles.

“People are lashing out justifiably," said Douglas Rushkoff, a media theorist at City University of New York and author of the book “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus.” He likened driverless cars to robotic incarnations of scabs — workers who refuse to join strikes or who take the place of those on strike. 

“There’s a growing sense that the giant corporations honing driverless technologies do not have our best interests at heart,” Mr. Rushkoff said. “Just think about the humans inside these vehicles, who are essentially training the artificial intelligence that will replace them.””

Don’t forget how the movement that changed Hollywood started: With great reporting; Washington Post, March 4, 2018

Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post; Don’t forget how the movement that changed Hollywood started: With great reporting

"The world has changed since last year’s Oscars — and for the better.

So let’s not forget what got us there: great journalism.

Legacy media companies may be under constant criticism, and trust in the press may be at a low point.

But less than six months after the New York Times broke its first story about abusive film mogul Harvey Weinstein in early October — quickly followed by more revelations from the New Yorker magazine — American culture has been flipped on its head.

Nothing is the same: Not awards shows, not the corporate workplace, not national politics."

We will survive this; Washington Post, August 1, 2017

Garrison Keillor, Washington Post; We will survive this

[Kip Currier: Interesting insights from Garrison Keillor about taking a long-view of life, as well as voicing a carpe diem gratitude--embodied in the perfect imperfections of an heirloom tomato.

I first learned about "heirloom tomatoes" from a 2015 radio episode of The Splendid Table (Thanks, National Public Radio!), featuring tomato expert Craig LeHoullier. 

[Aside: Great quote by The Splendid Table host Lynne Rosetto Kasper, after LeHoullier notes that tomatoes are "very perishable": 

"But I think some of the best things in life have to be fragile. We appreciate them more."]

Soonafter, I tried my first heirlooms from the incredible year-round open-air Freshfarm DuPont Circle Market in Washington, D.C.: it was love at first bite.

A week ago I picked up these beauties in DuPont for a killer (Fair Use-transformed!) Caprese Salad:

"It’s a privilege to know people over the course of a lifetime and to reconnoiter and hear about the ordinary goodness of life. By 75, some of our class have gotten whacked hard. And the casualty rate does keep climbing. And yet life is good. These people are America as I know it. Family, work, a sense of humor, gratitude to God for our daily bread and loyalty to the tribe.

If the gentleman stands in the bow and fires his peashooter at the storm, if he appoints a gorilla as head of communications, if he tweets that henceforth no transcendentalist shall be allowed in the armed forces, nonetheless life goes on.

He fulfills an important role of celebs: giving millions of people the chance to feel superior to him. The gloomy face and the antique adolescent hair, the mannequin wife and the clueless children of privilege, the sheer pointlessness of flying around in a 747 to say inane things to crowds of people — it’s cheap entertainment for us, and in the end it simply doesn’t matter."