Columnist -- Opinion columns run three times a week, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, and focus on state and local issues.

DOB 10/1/1938 in Buffalo, N.Y. Married to Yoshiko Yogi, a native of Japan, since 1958; three children and seven grandchildren. Grew up in the Buffalo area and in San Diego, Calif., until finishing high school in Eden, N.Y.; then enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. In the Air Force, became a nuclear weapons technician in the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (formerly known as the Manhattan Project) and later became the editor of various base newspapers in Japan and Oklahoma; honorably discharged in 1965. Attended various colleges and universities, including the University of Maryland, while in the military, but no degree. Worked at various small newspapers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania; worked for The Associated press (1972 to 1980) at Philadelphia and then Harrisburg; was one of several AP staffers assigned to cover the Accident at Three Mile Island, and eventually became the AP's chief reporter for TMI; became an investigative reporter at the AP; hired in 1980 as an investigative reporter for The Pottsville, Pa., Republican newspaper, winning two national awards; eventually became The Republican's acting managing editor; hired by The Morning Call in 1986 as bureau chief in Lehighton, Pa.; have been a full-time columnist at The Morning Call since 1989.

Professionally, often focus on legal and constitutional issues, and play a pronounced adversarial role when dealing with power structures; one hostile critic called me a "cantankerous libertarian," a characterization I embrace.

Personally, raced motorcycles (motocross) for three years while in my 30s; played amateur ice hockey, starting in my early 40s and continuing until I was in my mid-50s; raced bicycles, both road and track (fixed gear, no brakes), in my 40s and 50s; ski; continue to ride bicycles recreationally; now own and ride two road motorcycles, including trips to the Southwest.

Allentown's fiscal problems are bad, but Harrisburg's are even worse 5/23/2013
Allentown has a $200 million red ink problem, which, it seems, is the fault of any city politician not currently in office, and a population of 118,000 as of the 2010 census.        

News media confidential sources are often what expose government wrongdoing 5/22/2013
It took courage for more than a dozen Allentown police officers to divulge what they felt was wrongdoing by their chief, who they said threatened "retribution" on anyone who did so. It also took solid assurances that the chief would never find out who those whistle-blowers were.        

Grandson aims to block Jim Thorpe's reburial 5/18/2013
If officials of the borough of Jim Thorpe are looking for some support in their fight to protect the final resting place of the man who gave their town its name, they might find it on an island in a beautiful lake in northern Wisconsin.        

Gettysburg sesquicentennial battle re-enactment in Whitehall honors the 153rd 5/17/2013
If you walk up the long gravel pathway alongside the spacious grassy fields of Whitehall Township's 110-acre main park, the view from the top of the hill is remarkably similar to that from atop the hills just north of Gettysburg.        

Jim Thorpe ruling portends disturbing questions about Ira Hayes 5/14/2013
There cannot be anything less dignified than a bunch of lawyers fighting over the corpse of a hero who deserves to be honored and to rest in peace.