Why is the Reading Eagle newsroom run by a man who admits he is so confused by so much?

“Five things I don't understand and likely never will,” writes Reading Eagle Editor Harry Deitz.

The headline alone makes me wonder why this guy is in charge of our local news coverage, the face of our community to people deciding to move here or maybe bring a business to Berks.

I generally wouldn’t waste time with his preachy Sunday banality. If it were written by a wingnut blogger like me, I'd just chuckle. 

But this essay needs to be examined, because Deitz is an opinion leader in Berks County. He seems to be sincerely explaining his world view to help us understand ... what? His news judgment? Why he is the chosen one to run a newsroom? How economic development efforts are failing in Reading?

I hope that in 1550, Deitz would not have been one of those inquisitors arguing that the sun clearly goes around the Earth – all you have to do is look up.

Or in 1850, been one of those many editors who spoke out against abolishing slavery, pointing to the local science of the day that described black people as subhuman. Not to mention the Biblical evidence.

Or in 1920, have written that lynching blacks was understandable to protect white woman. [From “Editorial Treatment Of Lynchings”: “Editorial treatment of lynchings offers an interesting and revealing study of public attitudes toward this peculiarly American custom. … As individuals, they are unanimously opposed to mob violence but, as editors who are caught in the general atmosphere of a given trade territory, they do not reflect their own ideas but those of the people upon whose goodwill their papers depend for revenue.”]

Or in 1965, one of those editors decrying blacks who break the rules and sit in the whites-only section of buses or diners. “As I've grown older, I've come to believe more firmly in laws and rules,” he wrote Sunday.

1. He can’t understand how mentally ill pedophiles don’t just follow the rules.

“I don't understand why adults abuse or take sexual advantage of children.”

No need for the disjunction – taking sexual advantage of children IS abuse!

“How can they take advantage of children, including teens, who are so vulnerable, impressionable and trusting?”

Maybe the answer will come through prayer.

2. How about people who steal?

“There's no way to justify or explain it. It's wrong.”

3. He can’t understand why people oppose requiring ID to vote. I won’t address the pinheaded idea that despite our pathetic voter turnout rates, we need a baseless law that makes it harder to vote.

But I’d hope the editor of an urban newspaper, whose community is full of poor people and which seems gerrymandered beyond hope, supports whatever is necessary to get more people to vote.

4. He doesn't understand why people think smoking marijuana should be legal.

He points out that the American Medical Association declared in November that cannabis is a dangerous drug and as such is a public health concern.

Deitz didn’t mention that at the same meeting the AMA adopted the policy that "federal efforts to address illicit drug use via supply reduction and enforcement have been ineffective" and support for "modification of state and federal laws to emphasize public health based strategies to address and reduce cannabis use." For the crime of pot possession for personal use, the AMA body adopted new language calling for "public health based strategies, rather than incarceration."

5. “I don't understand why an 18-year-old girl in New Jersey would even think about suing her parents to make them pay for her education.” “At 18, she is legally responsible for herself.”

Fact check: In New Jersey, emancipation does not come automatically at 18.

If Deitz smoked some pot, got to know some impoverished voters, examined rather than dismissed patterns of addiction that lead to desperate acts, talked to some Berks detectives who investigate child abuse, and checked with my daughters about the idea of cutting them off at 18, he might understand the world better.