Berks voters should elect lawmakers who rely on reason, not belief

by Steve Reinbrecht

All of the state representatives who represent Berks County in Harrisburg voted to encourage public schools to post “In God We Trust” in public school buildings – except Mark Rozzi, a Democrat who represents part of Reading and communities just north of the city.

Rozzi was brave to vote against House Bill 1640. The vote in the state House was 179-20. The Senate hasn’t considered it.

But if you don’t want God-Squad politicians making your rules in Harrisburg – tough luck. None in the Berks delegation faced opposition in the primary nor will in the general election in November. 

The voting tally shows that the American Taliban is strong in Berks County – people who think only their beliefs are correct, and want to punish you for believing differently. That sort of intolerance is rampant in the world’s trouble spots – where women are second-class citizens, sexuality and procreation are governed by men, individual expression is prohibited, science has no place, and unbelievers – if not stoned or banished -- are punished by persecution and exclusion. Berks isn’t at the level, of course, but it’s on the spectrum.

Many atheists, Buddhists and Hindus -- fine, moral people who may believe in no or many gods -- live in Berks County. They don’t want their children to go to school and see a sign on the wall that speaks to the majority group but not to them.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s TribLive interviewedElizabeth Cavell, staff attorney with Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis.

“It [the act] equates God-belief and religious piety with patriotism, and that's wrong to do in public schools where students are of all religions and of no religion, and they are young and impressionable,” she said.

“Religion is divisive,” Cavell said. “It's something that makes insiders of the majority-students — the god-believers who understand themselves to be included in the ‘we' of ‘In God We Trust' — and that's not all students by any stretch.”

Why promote the supernatural in our schools? We must trust in reason and action to improve society, not simply prayer, worship and tithing. If you want to inspire good behavior and moral self-reflection, why not post Immanual Kant’s moral imperative: “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.”

You’d have to explain that to the children who read it on the school wall. But isn’t it better that children come to their sense of right and wrong through reflection and understanding rather than through blind authority?

As a sort of sop, I guess, the act also calls for “providing for the display” of the Bill of Rights in classrooms and other areas in public school buildings.

I have no problem with that.

Religion and politics have always been connected, which is why the guys who wrote the Constitution said government should stay away from religion, although they could have been clearer. The Old Testament and the Koran are all about laws and ruling. The New Testament is suddenly different, catching humanity’s eye. Now the divine message is unconditional love for all other human beings. Treat others as you would have them treat you, so similar to Kant’s rationally derived categorical imperative. A way to negate ego and find the meaningfulness of serving others, as Buddhism had and Islam would. But then Paul took charge, recognizing the power of leading an evangelical organization, comandeering Jesus to start a church that for more than 1500 bloody years inflicted crusades, inquisitions, forced conversions, wars over schisms and reformations, and the repression of science [not the Muslims], generally known as the Dark Ages, on much of the world.

This connects darkly with today's national politics, not with Donald Trump's questionable religiosity, but with his recognition that people who seek power can stimulate the fear and yearning for authority so prevalent in people not properly educated.

As the national motto, “In God We Trust” replaced “E pluribus unum” – “out of many, one.”

According to the infallible Wikipedia:

The change from "E Pluribus Unum" to "In God We Trust" was generally considered uncontroversial at the time, given the rising influence of organized religion and pressures of the Cold War era in the 1950s. The 1956 law was one of several legislative actions Congress took to differentiate the United States from atheistic Communism. Earlier, a 1954 act added the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.”

New Wilson schools chief should answer to public

by Steve Reinbrecht

If Wilson School District’s last superintendent, Rudy Ruth, was a paragon of longevity, working for the district for more than 30 years, the new one is a job changer, working at four districts in the last 10 years.

I’m glad newspapers have reported about this important man, the new Wilson schools chief, Curtis Baker. I’m betting he might like to stay in Wilson and has answers to our questions.

Baker worked at his last job, as superintendent of the Moon School District, near Pittsburgh, for two years.

The Moon School Board voted to put him on paid leave in December.

Funny the Reading Eagle hasn’t mentioned that.

In any case, reading between the lines of coverage by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it seems a newly elected majority tossed Baker out because they didn’t like his ideas.

In response, Baker has sued the district and seven school board members, claiming a broken contract.

“Curtis Baker claimed "he has been subjected to verbal abuse, sabotage of district image and administration performance, and micromanagement by members of the School Board of Directors and the Board as a whole,"” according to the Post-Gazette.

“Mr. Baker also said in the lawsuit that he had done nothing to warrant termination, was not given written notice of the allegations against him and was not granted a due process hearing, in violation of the Pennsylvania School Code.

“In addition to breach of contract and violation of due process, Mr. Baker is alleging a violation of the state Sunshine Act, tortious interference with contract and wrongful use of civil proceedings.”

That Baker carried out a decision by the previous board to close an elementary school was “a major flash point,” the Pittsburgh paper said.

The Moon district had hired Baker in December 2013 from the Roanoke School District, where he was deputy superintendent for operations, according to an article in the Roanoke Times.

Discussing the re-organization in the Virginia district as Baker and others departed, the article said that Margaret Lindsay would become executive director for fiscal services in Roanoke as the district reorganized as Baker left.

But it appears she followed Baker to Moon – the Post-Gazette says she resigned as that district’s chief financial and operating officer in December.

Before working in Virginia, Baker was the chief financial officer at the Lancaster School District from November 2004 to November 2007, according to his Linkedin résumé.

Why doesn't the Reading Eagle write about politics in BERKS?

by Steve Reinbrecht

Reading Eagle reporter Karen Shuey wrote an 800-word front-page story that ran Monday about the upcoming state Senate race in Pennsylvania between Katie McGinty and Pat Toomey.

That’s bound to be an important race. But we can get that news and analysis from many sources.

And then we get almost a page’s worth again of state politics on Page B3, more political words – “10 takeaways from the Pennsylvania primary” -- from News Editor Ron Southwick, who provides insights such as this:

“The Reading Eagle interviewed voters at polling places across Berks County on Tuesday. They have different ideas about who would be best to lead the nation. But voters expressed a shared sense that things need to change.”

Instead of writing stuff we can read in many other places, why not write something valuable, that no one else knows? 

Why doesn’t the Eagle publish some big, long stories about politics in Berks?

Especially, why did no Democrats oppose any of the Republican state representative incumbents in this primary? There are more registered Democratic that Republican voters in Berks.

Some people are not happy with how our state government is working. But nobody ran against these incumbent Berks GOP state politicians:

David G. Argall

Barry J. Jozwiak

John C. Rafferty Jr.

Jerry Knowles

Mark Gillen

Jim Cox

David Maloney

Ryan E. Mackenzie

Gary Day

Of course, no one ran against the incumbent Democrats, either:

Judy Schwank

Tom Caltagirone

Mark Rozzi

Isn’t that a big story? That, on the state level, democracy has ceased in Berks County?

Maybe exploring this issue would demand original thinking and cultivating new sources. But it would be news worth reporting. News-gathering resources are too short these days to waste them following the herd.

I'd also be happy if I heard Harry Deitz say, just once, "You're right, Reinbrecht. We're just playing at being journalists, for the easy jobs and status, and because we do what we're told."

Does politics, not medicine, control addiction treatment in Berks County?

by Steve Reinbrecht

I think I finally understand why the Reading Eagle is having such a hard time telling its readers about how opiate addicts get treatment in Berks County.

The rest of the world is using medications to treat opiate addicts. 

But the Berks County establishment, which includes conservative politicians, the newspaper, the Caron Foundation and the generously public-funded Council on Chemical Abuse [humorously known as COCA], is stuck on the 12-Step Alcoholics Anonymous model for ending addiction. That works for drunks, maybe, but not so much for pill poppers.

That means the Eagle can’t search for the truth on the matter without stepping on important toes.

Since its newsroom noticed that Big Pharm’s drenching of America in opiate-based painkillers had led to more overdoses, including of white people, the Reading Eagle has been struggling to tell a story so far from the sensibilities of newsroom leaders that the results have been troubling.

The Eagle’s 1,700-word, front-page story Sunday is another example of faulty understanding at the deepest level. The rest of the world has awoken to the fact that addiction is a health story, not a crime story.

But Sunday’s story considers the latest, politician-written chapter in the War on Drugs -- charging heroin dealers as murderers if a customer ODs. Harsher penalties might assuage our thirst for revenge, but won’t solve the problem of helping young people recover from some very bad decisions. We can’t crime-fight our way out of this.

The solution is education to dampen the stigma and then making sure everyone who needs it can afford treatment. Consider: some countries provide clean needles, safe places to inject, and uncontaminated heroin to addicts.

Here’s where the Eagle’s troubles start.

I’ve been wondering when our award-winning newspaper would get to the crux of the issue: Does Berks County have accessible, affordable and effective treatment options for people addicted to opiates?

The Eagle has had stories about how treatment often fails, and that Berks County spends astonishingly more on treatment than any other county, including Philadelphia.

But it has written little about medication-based treatment as opposed to faith in a “higher power.”

For example, why do we have only one methadone clinic, the one in West Reading? Does that one clinic meet the needs?

COCA itself reports in its 2015 annual report that “Berks County’s methadone out-patient clinic [in West Reading] … is at full capacity serving 300 individuals. The expansion of this program has been prohibited in part due to local zoning restrictions.”

The Eagle has trouble seeking the truth on the issue because the Berks treatment scene is dominated by Caron Foundation, outside Wernersville, which prefers to use a 12-step, Alcoholics Anonymous style treatment regime. I know that can work – a good friend of mine who was a drunk turned his life around after 30 days in Chit Chat. But he was addicted to beer, not Oxycodone.

Most doctors these days instead support treatment where addicts take a small maintenance dose of a drug such as methadone or suboxone that quiets their cravings so they can go to work or take care of their children instead of breaking into a car to get money for the next fix.

Buprenorphine, the active ingredient in suboxone, significantly reduces cravings, mortality, blood-borne disease, and illicit drug use. Researchers say users are likely to stay in treatment longer than those who use abstinence based treatment.

It doesn’t seem to be catching on in Berks. The Berks COCA website shows no results if you search for “buprenorphine” or “suboxone." COCA’s 2015 annual report shows that only 16 of its 2,741 “treatment episodes” that year involved buprenorphine. Only about 20 doctors in Berks can prescribe buprenorphine. Each is limited to 100 addicted patients.

In February, George J. Vogel Jr., COCA’s executive director, said in the Eagle “that other than methadone, medication-assisted approaches to treatment were relatively new and unproven.”

Our top county drug-fighting expert is wrong about that.

In fact, buprenorphine was approved in 2002, and the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration says that “buprenorphine represents the latest advance in medication-assisted treatment. … When taken as prescribed, buprenorphine is safe and effective.”

In 2008, according to the National Institutes of Health,

“In the first clinical trial of a medication that was used for an extended time to treat opioid addiction in young adults, participants who received counseling and Suboxone (buprenorphine-naloxone) for 12 weeks had substantially better outcomes than those who received the standard treatment of short-term detoxification and counseling.”

But Vogel thinks it’s unproven, and Caron – the treatment organization outside of Wernersville -- won’t use suboxone.

 It’s website says buprenorphine, the main ingredient in suboxone, is a “a mood altering opioid receptor partial agonist, which has the potential for abuse and a risk of overdose upon abrupt cessation and relapse on heroin or opioid analgesics. If a Caron patient refuses Vivitrol and insists upon Buprenorphine, we make a prompt referral to an appropriate facility and/or treatment provider.”

In April 2015, the American Medical Association suggested how getting better treatment is political as well as medical. [Sorry for the long quote.]

“The regulatory process for becoming a prescriber and the patient limits serve as barriers to increase capacity to treat opiate addiction and the availability of suboxone to opiate-addicted patients, particularly those patients in jurisdictions that have adopted a law enforcement approach (as opposed to a public health approach) to combat prescription drug abuse. The advantages of reducing the regulatory burdens to prescribing suboxone would not only increase the availability of suboxone treatment for patients with opiate addiction, but would also increase clinical identification, awareness, and acceptance of opiate addiction as a disease and reduce the stigma associated with opiate addiction."

[My emphasis.]

The Eagle has barely touched these issues in its tens of thousands of words of “coverage.”