Schroeder Update 13

I continue to work with my rescue cat, Schroeder. Schroeder was not particularly animated at first. He now seems much more like a normal cat. He plays with toys. He responds to catnip. He uses a scratching post. (A post my other two cats never used has been happily adopted by Schroeder.)

Schroeder shows no inclination to become a lap cat. But whenever I walk into the room, though, he walks up to me to get head scratches and other pets. He is an amazingly quiet cat and seems to have more of a quiet squeak than an actual meow.

This cat is amazingly adept at avoiding being photographed. I’ve tried to get video of him playing with a little ball, which he does with great enthusiasm. The moment I point a camera in his direction, he stops doing whatever I was trying to capture in a picture. Here is one picture I did manage to capture; Schroeder is enjoying a catnip cigar:
 

Schroeder with catnip toy

 
When I first brought Schroeder indoors, I confined him to a single room, a home office. He adopted two cozy corners where he tended to hang out. He gradually spent less and less time there, spending more time out in the open or on the back of the couch, where he can look out the windows.
 

Schroeder by office couch

Schroeder at office window

 
Lately, I have been leaving the office door open, giving Schroeder the run of the first floor. (My cats Linus and Charlie are downstairs.) He was at first reluctant to venture out into the hallway, and when I followed him to see where he would go, he immediately ran back to the safety of the office.

Happily, Schroeder has not only become more comfortable outside the office, but he has even adopted a new favorite place. I now often find him on a chair facing the glass doors to the back deck. I once tried to sit next to him on the chair, but he jumped down from the chair as soon as I sat down. 

Schroeder on his new favorite chair

Schroeder in the living room

 
Apparently, I’m not going to make Schroeder into a lap cat anytime soon. He is charming in his own way, however, and I think it’s about time to find him a forever home. Once I realize I could not simply return him to the outdoors, that has been the plan.

Note: Schroeder’s story to date can be followed here.

Urging the President to Action

I wrote to President Biden today. My message may be read below.

 
Dear Mr. President:

Our democracy is rapidly being dismantled, engineered by a rogue Supreme Court, a feckless Senate, and aided by undemocratic structural features of our Republic. The court has undermined the wall separating church and state, gutted Miranda rights, favored gun “rights” over concerns for public safety, and, most disturbingly, consigned women to second-class citizenship. The court has not completed its reactionary program, and Congress seems unable to come to the aid of our democracy.

The upcoming midterm elections have the potential to make democracy’s plight considerably worse. History presages significant Democratic Party losses in the fall, and your personal approval rating hardly suggests otherwise.

On one hand, your anemic approval rating is unfair. Your administration can claim real accomplishments and cannot logically be blamed for high inflation. But people are justifiably dissatisfied with the status quo. They cannot banish COVID, fix supply chair problems, or roll back price increases posted primarily to increase profits. The party in power invariably takes the hit for the sort of dissatisfaction people are now feeling.

You have acted decisively in the foreign policy arena, but it is a rare voter who is much influenced by that. Alas, you have been less than resolute regarding your domestic agenda. Now, however, is the time for forceful action. Not only will that strengthen the Republic, but it will also, I suspect, increase Democratic prospects in November.

The most obvious issues to address are gun laws, abortion, and the Supreme Court itself. Having just enacted mild gun legislation, Congress is unlikely to want to revisit the matter. I urge you to lean on Congress—essentially, that means on certain Democratic senators—to pass a bill creating federal abortion rights and overriding the many restrictive laws being enacted by Republican state legislatures. This is urgent! If doing this means the filibuster must go—it does—then so be it. If serious arm-twisting is required, by all means, employ it. A majority of Americans will applaud you and may even rethink their voting for Republicans—any Republicans.

An out-of-control Supreme Court drunk with newly acquired power is a more difficult problem and a more concerning one. The most obvious corrective is to pack the court. A nine-justice court is not sacrosanct. Impeachment of some of the justices should also be considered. The charges: misleading senators about their willingness to overturn Roe and having voted to extinguish a human right acknowledged for half a century, and not enjoining laws that were clearly unconstitutional as long as Roe was still the law of the land. Given his own actions and those of his wife, there are independent reasons to want to impeach Justice Thomas.

Even if the impeachment of certain justices fails, the shot across the bow of the Good Ship Supreme Court could have a corrective effect, at least in the short term.

Please, Mr. President, show yourself to be a strong chief executive willing to take strong action to preserve our democratic Republic.

Very truly yours,

Lionel E. Deimel, Ph.D.
Indiana, Pennsylvania

Dashboard

I ran across a draft poem the other day that I never did anything with. I’ll clean it up a bit and post it below. It probably is not one of my better efforts. I have no idea when I wrote this.

Dashboard I’m a fine chap, really— Friendly, a good conversationalist, Articulate, but not garrulous. When I start the engine, Why does my car confront me And call me “Airbag”?

A First Reaction to Dobbs

I am extremely upset by the Supreme Court’s having overturned Roe v. Wade yesterday in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. I need time to read the opinion—opinions, actually—carefully and spend time developing a response that goes beyond fear and outrage. For now, I can only offer a few off-the-cuff observations with the promise of a future more thoughtful response.

What was published by the court lacks a table of contents, and the fact that the file is 213 pages long makes it difficult to find individual items within it. For the benefit of any reader who wants to navigate to particular sections, I offer a high-level table of contents below. Note that the page numbers refer to the pages in the PDF file, as sections are individually numbered beginning at 1.

Section	Page No.
Syllabus	1
Opinion of the Court (Alito)	9
Appendix A	87
Appendix B	109
Concurring (Thomas)	117
Concurring (Kavanaugh)	124
Concurring in Judgment (Roberts)	136
Dissenting (Breyer, Sotomayor & Kagan)	148
Appendix	208

The Dobbs decision was not unexpected, given the leaked draft opinion from Justice Alito. The appearance of the actual decision was nevertheless more shocking than I was prepared for. Most upsetting was the explicit suggestion by Justice Thomas that the court may not be done with extinguishing established rights. The court has sent decisions about abortion law back to the states. Will the same be done by this court for sodomy law, contraception law, miscegenation law, and sex-neutral marriage law? (Will Thomas ultimately have to divorce his white wife?) Buckle your seatbelt!

The trajectory of this court is frightening. We must do something to interrupt its retrogressive program. I’m not sure what that something might be, but Democrats need to figure it out. I hope that enough American voters will pass up voting for Republicans and instead elect more Democrats.

Many have observed that Roe was not a strongly argued opinion. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was uncomfortable with it. The current court apparently took that opinion at face value and had no interest in finding a firmer constitutional basis for a right to abortion. My suspicion is that the justices had an agenda of killing Roe, and no reasoning, logical or legal, really mattered. After all, Donald Trump promised to put justices on the court who would overturn Roe. He fulfilled that promise three times.

I believe that the Supreme Court has made women permanent second-class citizens. Rather than writing more about this, I refer readers to a post I wrote back in May, A Comprehensive Examination of the Abortion Question. Perhaps in better times, my arguments will be availing.

For now, I have just one more observation. In the future—I hope not the exceedingly far future—Dobbs will be forever linked to Dred Scott v. Sandford and other disastrous Supreme Court decisions.
 

Two Rediscovered Limericks

I’ve been going through old papers and came upon some poems I have never made public. The poems—limericks, actually—were written in April 2006.

The two poems below were written by me with the help of a friend. A decade and a half later, I cannot remember just who contributed what to them.

Robert W. Duncan

Some context: The poems refer to Robert W. Duncan, who was the Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh in 2006. Duncan had been plotting the removal of the diocese from the Episcopal Church. Two years later, he partially succeeded, separating a majority of its parishes from the diocese but failing to abscound with the diocese itself and a smaller number of its parishes. The schism was effected only after the Episcopal Church had already deposed Duncan a few weeks earlier.

For readers unfamiliar with recent Episcopal Church history, I should explain that “a canon named Vicky” in the second poem refers to Vicky Gene Robinson, a canon and gay man who was elected Bishop of New Hampshire. (Why Bishop Robinson has an odd Christian name is another story.) Bob Duncan opposed homosexuality and the ordination of homosexuals. The church’s stance regarding homosexuals was a major rationale Duncan cited justifying his schismatic actions.

Finally, the word “nawab,” also in the second poem, is likely unfamiliar to most readers. It is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable. It is a synonym of “nabob,” a more common word but one that would have created an inferior rhyme.

The poems—

Bishop Bob #1

There once was a bishop named Bob
Who was unfulfilled by his job;
To be a big fish
Was his passionate wish,
So he’d lie, cheat, deceive, plot, and rob.

Bishop Bob #2

There once was a bishop named Bob
Who yearned to become a nawab;
Soon a canon named Vicky,
Whose sex life was icky,
Spurred the bishop to seek a new job.

Texas Republicans on Dismantling America

Nearly two weeks ago, I posted “A Democratic Platform for 2022.” This was a minimalist list of policy positions intended to appeal to voters who, in large numbers, are in sympathy with them. I remarked that Democrats “should be dismissive of other matters raised by their opponents and avoid being dragged into complex arguments they are unlikely to win.”

I stand by what I wrote in my Platform, but I was perhaps naïve regarding the range of “other matters” GOP candidates might raise or be tempted to raise. I was astonished and horrified when I read a description offered by Heather Cox Richardson of platform planks recently adopted by the Republican Party of Texas. In her June 18 essay, she wrote

[D]elegates to a convention of the Texas Republican Party today approved platform planks rejecting “the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and [holding] that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States”; requiring students “to learn about the dignity of the preborn human,” including that life begins at fertilization; treating homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice”; locking the number of Supreme Court justices at 9; getting rid of the constitutional power to levy income taxes; abolishing the Federal Reserve; rejecting the Equal Rights Amendment; returning Christianity to schools and government; ending all gun safety measures; abolishing the Department of Education; arming teachers; requiring colleges to teach “free-market liberty principles”; defending capital punishment; dictating the ways in which the events at the Alamo are remembered; protecting Confederate monuments; ending gay marriage; withdrawing from the United Nations and the World Health Organization; and calling for a vote “for the people of Texas to determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation.”

The Republicans responsible for these policy positions seemingly take no arrangements in society as given. They have no right to suggest that raising the minimum wage or forgiving student loans is in any way “radical.” These Texans seem to have cornered the market of radical. Their platform, I suggest, would find favor among few American voters.

It is unlikely that Republicans nationally will espouse the sort of platform articulated by their Texas colleagues, but it would be unwise to assume that the views of Texas Republicans are confined to the Lone Star State. I have suggested that a vote for any Republican is a vote to dismantle our democracy. It may actually be a vote to dismantle our entire civilization.

Of late, I have heard many questions regarding what Democrats actually stand for. They stand for, among other things, the negative of every plank adopted by GOP Texans. Well, perhaps Democrats would support the last plank Heather Cox Richardson mentioned. 

Hard-Boiled Eggs

I have read many instructions for making hard-boiled eggs. Any method that works for you is fine, of course. Most importantly, your technique should produce eggs cooked perfectly. The eggs should be thoroughly cooked but not overcooked, which is usually indicated by a green ring around the yolk. An ideal procedure should be

1. Easy
2. Fast
3. Effective
4. Reproducible
5. Scalable (works for one egg or many)
6. Yields easily peeled eggs
7. Offers easy cleanup

I’m not sure my technique checks off all these desiderata—it involves two pans and a cover—but it does the job well and predictably.

My procedure is as follows:

1. Begin with eggs at room temperature. This is perhaps the least attractive step, as it requires some forethought.
2. Boil water in a saucepan.
3. Place the eggs in a steamer insert. Place the insert over the saucepan and cover.
4. Maintain the water at a boil.
5. Remove the steamer after exactly 13 minutes, and plunge it into cold water to stop cooking.

If you don’t have time to bring the eggs to room temperature, omit the first step and cook the eggs for about 14½ minutes. (This is a bit of a guess, as I haven’t determined the number experimentally.)

In general, my timings may depend somewhat on the equipment used and your elevation. At higher elevations, your cooking may need to be longer. The equipment I use is shown below.

Saucepan, steamer insert, and cover

I have always peeled hard-boiled eggs by first tapping the top and bottom of the egg on the counter to crack the shell. I then peel away the shell under running water. This works, though not especially well.

The other day, I accidentally discovered a better technique. I take a cold hard-boiled egg and place it on the counter. I then roll it back and forth under the palm of my hand. This results in the shell being cracked all over, after which it is easily removed from the egg. Be sure that no small fragments of shell remain on the egg.

This technique works really well. Give it a try.

A Democratic Platform for 2022

In 2012, I wrote a post titled “A Preëmptive Political Post.” My intention in doing so was to head off feeling the need to write individual posts on a variety of issues likely to surface in the 2012 presidential campaign. The post did not set out a platform for the Democratic Party. Instead, it offered a series of assertions about the way things are and about how they should be. The post has attracted many visitors, but I cannot say how much those visitors read.

Anticipating the 2020 presidential election, I wrote a somewhat similar post, “A Litany for the Democratic Presidential Candidate.” The items on my list this time looked more like conventional planks on a political platform. The list was very long, however, and it was more wish list than platform.

Twenty twenty-two is not a presidential contest year, of course, but the fall elections could have monumental significance. Democrats fear that they could lose their majority in the House and their at-least-theoretical majority in the Senate. Such an outcome would further cripple the legislative process and provide a ready excuse for electing a Republican president in 2024. How can Democrats fashion a campaign strategy to engage their base and attract the votes of independents and sane Republicans?

My purpose here is to suggest such a strategy. In constructing the list below, as opposed to the long enumerations I offered in 2012 and 2020, I was guided by these principles:

1. Democrats should campaign on relatively few issues. They should be dismissive of other matters raised by their opponents and avoid being dragged into complex arguments they are unlikely to win.
2. Democrats must all run on the same platform, even if individual candidates are personally opposed to certain planks or believe voters in their district are.
3. Democrats should avoid issues seen by many as far-left.
4. Democrats should embrace issues for which there already is broad support.
5. Democrats should make promises that seem reasonable, practical, and achievable.
6. Democrats should emphasize that not only their program but democracy itself is contingent on electing Democrats and displacing Republicans from office.

Item (2) will be a hard sell for some candidates, perhaps even for most. Many voters seem uncertain about what Democrats stand for, and having all candidates singing from the same hymnal will send a strong and coherent message. Arguably, item (3) is entailed by item (5), but it seemed worthwhile to make it explicit. Item (6) represents more of an attitude than a policy. It is a message that candidates must send at every opportunity. Implicit in all the proposed policies is the notion that government can and should make life in the United States better for its citizens.

My list of campaign issues for Democrats follows. It is a list of what a candidate promises to support. Even this list may be too long and may need to be pared down. The list is intended to be in order of importance, with the more urgent issues at the top. My ordering is a best guess, and individual candidates (and even the party at large) may need to adjust the emphasis to better appeal to the electorate. Perhaps each candidate may be allowed to advocate one or two measures not on the list, as long as they are compatible with other positions. Such measures could include tax reform, support for children, and more aggressive antitrust measures.

 

My Proposed Democratic Platform

1. Enact reasonable gun regulations. This would include effective background checks for all sales and transfers, however made. Sale or possession of assault weapons, defined by function rather than by model number, will be prohibited to anyone under the age of 21. How candidates should treat this issue will depend on what, if anything, Congress does in this area before or during campaigning.
2. Protect the right to abortion. What this looks like depends upon the forthcoming decision from the Supreme Court. It is important to not get carried away here, even though one can make a rational case for a very expansive right. Following Roe and clarifying Casey seems like a good approach.
3. Enact legislation regarding climate change: work to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and provide funds to mitigate damage caused by climate change.
4. Continue to support Ukraine in its war with Russia. If the war concludes, support reconstruction for Ukraine. This and closely related issues are probably enough of foreign policy for Democratic candidates.
5. Improve availability and affordability of prescription drugs. It is important to not make this sound too complicated, but the general idea is bound to be popular. The government can negotiate the prices it pays for drugs, subsidize low-margin drugs that companies are reluctant to make, change patent policies that have resulted in patents being issued for trivial variations of drugs that are losing patent protection, and outlaw drug prices significantly higher than those for the same pharmaceuticals sold overseas.
6. Work for comprehensive immigration reform. What this looks like will have to be negotiated, and it is difficult to know how legislation should look. We can suggest useful principles. Dreamers should be given a path to citizenship. Long-time unlawful residents should be required to pay a penalty but should be allowed to stay. (We cannot deport them all.) Those wanting to enter the country (and particularly those with an asylum claim) deserve to have their cases adjudicated in a timely manner. Such changes will require more personnel and more money.
7. Expand voting rights. The franchise should be automatic with citizenship. Voting law changes in all states should be subject to Department of Justice review to assure fairness. Apparently, this would pass Supreme Court muster.
8. Senate candidates should promise to vote to eliminate the filibuster, a major impediment to democratic government.

N.B. Candidates will no doubt have to respond to complaints about the Biden administration. To this, one can respond that (1) at long last, an infrastructure bill was passed, (2) COVID relief was passed, (3) the COVID vaccine rollout was successful, and (4) President Biden built up foreign alliances neglected or damaged by his predecessor. To complaints about inflation, one has to say that it was caused largely by events beyond the president’s control—supply disruptions caused by the pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine. Perhaps the Federal Reserve did too little too late, but the Federal Reserve, by design, is insulated from political influence. Simply because bad things happen while a person is president does not necessarily mean that they were caused by or could have been avoided by the president.

Stopping a Bad Guy With a Gun

Chastisement from Church Not Deserved

The title of this post was not of my choosing. It is the headline that The Indiana Gazette gave to a letter to the editor I submitted and which was published on June 2. It will suffice here, however.

My letter was in response to a column by Cal Thomas. His columns appear in the Gazette with alarming frequency, and letters to the editor arguing with his assertions are also common. The essay I responded to in this instance can be read here.

My letter follows. The published version got a bit mangled—“edited” is not the right word—so I have corrected the text below. I don’t think I need comment further.

Cal Thomas asserts in his column, “Theology, politics and abortion” (Indiana Gazette, May 24, 2022) that Roman Catholic politicians such as President Biden and Speaker Pelosi should knuckle under to church abortion dogma. He identifies opposition to abortion as a “central tenet” of the church. Despite his attempts to argue otherwise, however, the Bible is silent on the matter, and the church teaching is a modern one.

I was always led to believe that the central tenets of Christianity involved loving God and one’s neighbor, feeding the poor, comforting the afflicted, and so forth. If Mr. Biden and Ms. Pelosi support a woman’s right to control her own body, that is no reason to believe they are not sincere followers of Jesus Christ. In reality, they are in good company among Catholic laypeople and the majority of citizens of whatever faith.

Mr. Biden and Ms. Pelosi have sworn an oath to the Constitution, a document setting forth rules for a secular nation. As free citizens themselves, they may advocate for or against a policy supported by their church. The Catholic Church, however, has no privileged position in American politics; it is simply another lobbying organization advocating an unpopular policy. The president and speaker do not deserve the chastisement of archbishops and sanctimonious columnists.

A Diane Duntley Album

For her funeral, I prepared an album of pictures I had taken of Diane Duntley. I had no access to photos taken before I knew Diane, so the album only includes pictures from her later life. Nevertheless, I hope that friends of Diane will appreciate seeing the pictures I selected.

The photo below is one of those in the album. Click on it to see the whole album, which is in the form of a PDF file.

 

A Diane Duntley Tribute

The funeral for Diane Duntley was held in Christ Episcopal Church in Indiana, Pennsylvania. I paid a personal tribute to her, which I have reproduced below. (Her newspaper obituary can be read here.)

The Episcopal Church brought Diane Duntley and me together. Twenty years ago, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh faced a split over issues of sexuality. I became involved with Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh, eventually becoming its president. I have no idea how Diane came to be involved with PEP, but I began seeing her at PEP meetings and getting to know her. When she had diocesan meetings in Pittsburgh but needed to wait for her ride back to Indiana, I drove in from Mt. Lebanon to join her for dinner. She liked to try new restaurants.

We both enjoyed concerts, and Diane often invited me to Indiana to accompany her at events at IUP.

When I was faced with a large rent increase, Diane decided that I needed to move from Mt. Lebanon and into an apartment in her basement. I resisted her entreaties, but she showed up with a student helper, boxes, and, eventually, a moving van. As her health deteriorated, what began as a post-retirement project became a deeper friendship with a live-in caregiver.

I learned that Diane had grown up on a dairy farm in the small Pennsylvania town of Corydon, a town eventually obliterated by the reservoir formed behind the Kinzua Dam. Her mother played a reed organ in the local Methodist church, and Diane took on various church duties. Her first few years of school were in a one- or perhaps it was a two-room schoolhouse. She graduated from Allegheny College, taught in two New York school districts, and eventually earned a doctorate in reading from the University of Buffalo.

She was recruited by IUP to help prepare disadvantaged students for the rigors of college. She didn’t expect to spend her professional career in Indiana, but that’s what happened. Her university work involved little teaching. Instead, she was tasked with a succession of special projects that no one else at the university seemed to want to handle, a role she continued to fill because she always seems to have completed them successfully. As I discovered when I was snatched off to Indiana, Diane was a planner and a force to be reckoned with.

Diane’s parents and her younger sibling, Kevin, died years ago. Diane never married, though she seems not to have had philosophical objections to the institution. Having no children of her own, she devoted her attention to her three nephews and, later, to their sons and daughters. She loved to entertain children and to find engaging things to do with them, whether it was visiting tourist attractions in Pittsburgh or sponsoring a seed-spitting contest off her deck after serving watermelon.

Diane supervised many students in her IUP career, and she hired students to do domestic chores. She didn’t like housework, but she liked working with young people. She was in contact with many of them years later. They sent her notes and pictures of their families

Diane was an active participant in the League of Woman Voters and various university-related groups. Most especially, she was an active Episcopalian. For years, she served on various committees of the Pittsburgh Diocese and was the diocesan representative of Episcopal Relief and Development. At Christ Church, she was noted for preparing food for various occasions, such as Christmas Eve and Maundy Thursday. When Christ Church considered buying and reconditioning a replacement organ, Diane was an enthusiastic supporter and funder. Unfortunately, she never got to hear the organ you are hearing today except on the Web. A dedicatory recital had been postponed by COVID. She complained that the organ sounded bad on Facebook. I assured her that it sounded much better in the church.

Diane’s generosity was prodigious but was pursued quietly. She gave money to her family for various purposes, donated to women political candidates, and supported both Christ Church and Episcopal Relief and Development. I sent $25 to Amnesty International to help Ukraine and suggested that she, too, might contribute to the Ukrainian cause. She immediately wrote a thousand-dollar check to Episcopal Relief and Development for the purpose.

Diane had a temper, and it could be quite frightening. Her anger quickly dissipated, however, and it was as though it never was. Perhaps the angriest I ever saw her was in the hospital after her kidneys had finally failed and her messed-up blood chemistry caused her to be delusional. Diane was convinced that Fr. Bill and I, dressed in tuxedos, had made her the butt of jokes at a party. She hated us with a vengeance for that.

Her sanity returned, but she needed dialysis three times a week for the rest of her life.

Diane’s heritage was English and Swedish, a background that made her a somewhat bland cook. Her culinary repertoire was further circumscribed by some passionate dislikes: pickles, olives, peppers of any kind, herbs and spices she had not grown up with. On the other hand, she liked Swedish cheese and sausage, herring, and, I am told, lutefisk. For legitimate health concerns, she avoided tomatoes (well, mostly), alcohol, and shrimp. Diane was an excellent and imaginative baker of cookies, however. Because I had grown up in New Orleans, when I began cooking for the two of us, meal planning became tricky. She thought of me as a gourmet cook, but this was only relative. I did get her to eat gumbo once.

In her retirement, Diane hoped to travel the world, but her mobility issues made that impossible. Although she transitioned from cane to walker to wheelchair, the two of us were able to take various car trips. We traveled for the Episcopal Church and for her interests and mine. She even won a Caribbean cruise and was determined to take advantage of it. She took no shore excursions, but she rented a scooter and scooted about the ship on her own. We both ate well.

Diane tolerated the years of dialysis well, but she seemed to wind down in her final months. One morning, a few weeks ago, she was not doing well, though it was not completely clear why. Her student helper, a personal care assistant, and I decided that it was time for Diane to go to the hospital. From IRMC, she was quickly transferred to West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh. Diane was treated there for weeks and was never to come home again.

I will miss her, and many others will also.

 

Diane Duntley (a recent photo made for
a church directory)

R.I.P. Diane Duntley

My friend Diane Duntley died recently, and I will be attending her funeral this afternoon. I will have more to say about Diane shortly. What follows is the obituary that appeared in The Indiana Gazette.

 
Diane L. Duntley, 80, of Indiana, died Tuesday, May 17, 2022, at West Penn Hospital, Pittsburgh, after a brief illness.

She was born July 26, 1941, in Warren, to Paul R. and Audrey (Larson) Duntley, of Corydon.

Diane L. Duntley

Receiving her A.B. degree from Allegheny College in Meadville, she earned her M.Ed. and Ed.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Diane retired from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she served as director of academic information systems. She was an active professor involved in numerous university activities. Before coming to IUP, she taught at the public schools in both Wilson and Spring Valley, N.Y., as well as at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Diane was involved in various community activities and organizations. Notably, she served on the board of directors of Family Hospice of Indiana County and the League of Women Voters of Indiana County. She was an active member of Christ Episcopal Church, where she served on the Vestry. She held various positions with the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh and served as the diocesan representative of Episcopal Relief and Development.

Diane is survived by her sister-in-law, Luise Duntley; nephews Steven, Scott and James Duntley; their families; as well as many colleagues and friends.

In addition to her parents, Diane was preceded in death by her brother, Kevin R. Duntley.

At Diane’s request, there will be no viewing. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at Christ Episcopal Church, Indiana, with Father William Geiger as celebrant. The service will be preceded by an organ prelude beginning at 1:30 p.m. in honor of Diane, who was instrumental in the restoration of the organ.

The Bowser-Minich Funeral Home, Indiana, is assisting the family with arrangements.

Online condolences can be expressed to the family at www.bowserminich.com.