Paul Kengor Columns category, Page 6
Paul Kengor: Freedom to be ripped off by sports gambling
My previous column focused on the mass public rip-off scheme known as the state lottery, particularly the audacity of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania every Christmas bearing false gifts of lottery tickets. Every holiday season, Harrisburg officials assume the role of anti-Santa, duping gullible citizens with dubious promises of riches they’ll...
Paul Kengor: The ‘gift’ of the lottery
Another Christmas season has ended, and so has, mercifully, another season of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania bearing false gifts of lottery tickets. It’s a perennial promise, with jolly state officials assuming the role of Anti-Santa. It starts every year with those annoying commercials, usually around Black Friday. If you search...
Paul Kengor: Remembering Christmas 1945
No Christmas in American history compares to that of 75 years ago: Christmas 1945. For the first time in several painfully long years, a nation at war was a nation at peace. Germany had surrendered in May and Japan in August. World War II was finally over. “Home for Christmas!”...
Paul Kengor: Truth and the 2020 presidential vote
“Where has the truth gone?” asks my Grove City College colleague Jim Thrasher. “Truth and reality, have they gone away? Most journalists in the media seem to ignore the facts and create and advance myths and fables. They have become propaganda machines.” And yet, notes Thrasher: “God-given truth has not...
Paul Kengor: Is Western Pa. home to a new Republican coalition?
“Has Trump launched a ‘second wave’ of the Reagan revolution — attracting blue-collar voters with his appeal that he and the Republican Party will do a better job of fighting for them than the Democrats, as well as representing their social values, including a pro-life stance?” A Pittsburgh reporter asked...
Paul Kengor: Why Pennsylvania isn’t over
CNN and Fox tripped over themselves to be first to claim presidential victory for Joe Biden. Fox put itself in a bind by prematurely declaring Arizona for Biden on election night. As I write, the vote difference in Arizona has shrunk to 12,000, which is closer than Pennsylvania (nearly 54,000)...
Paul Kengor: Why Trump will (likely) win Pa.
Let me begin with an honest admission of my predictive abilities: In 2016, I forecast a Hillary Clinton win in Pennsylvania and nationwide. That’s not a reassuring way of convincing Trib readers to take me seriously in 2020, but here it goes: I think Donald Trump will win Pennsylvania (and...
Paul Kengor: Why did steelworkers union ditch Donald Trump?
I wrote here two weeks ago about the steelworkers union’s unique form of political campaigning for the Biden-Harris ticket. It was a shocking display whereby the union leadership ran a so-called “batlight campaign” illuminating Pittsburgh landmarks with massive “Biden-Harris 2020” images, from Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning to other spots, including...
Paul Kengor: Steelworkers union aglow for Biden-Harris
“Did you see what they did to the Cathedral of Learning?” So asked one of my students, Aaron. I’ve been in Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning countless times — studying, writing, even a touch of romance. My wife and I smile at the memory of my getting on the elevator one...
Paul Kengor: The new activists — no criticism, no dissent
I’m experiencing from some leftist supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement something I’ve gone through with LGBTQ advocates, namely a refusal to permit disagreement, even when offering support for other elements (arguably the most important elements) of their agenda. Sure, that doesn’t include everyone in the movements, but it...
Paul Kengor: Covid-19’s devastation of small-town theaters
We’ve all witnessed covid-19’s terrible impact on the economy, especially restaurants, bars, and, well, you name it. One thing uniquely hit, literally silenced, are small-town movie theaters that have long struggled to stay in business. People in my community are feeling this. The Guthrie Theatre, which has operated in downtown...
Paul Kengor: How Biden’s pick of Kamala Harris hurts him in Pa.
I was really surprised that Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris as his running mate. I thought he would choose Susan Rice, a safe pick, genuinely moderate, measured, considerable experience in foreign policy, not a lightning rod. Harris is divisive and elicits anger. She hurts Biden where he needs help the...
Paul Kengor: Cancel the cancel-culture bullies
“What cancel culture is about is not criticism,” former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss told HBO’s Bill Maher. “It is about making a person radioactive. It is about taking away their job.” Quoting The Atlantic’s Jonathan Rauch, Weiss called it “social murder.” If you haven’t heard of “cancel culture,”...
Paul Kengor: It’s time to thank the cops
We’ve been in the grip of a pandemic that has prompted many people to view our health care professionals as heroes. Unfortunately, we’ve also been in the grip of another sickness since the George Floyd tragedy that has prompted too many people to view our police officers as villains. “As...
Paul Kengor: Tear all the statues down?
Last weekend I overheard two recent grads (both musicians) discussing America’s greatest composers. The usual names were raised: Copland, Gershwin, Bernstein, Sousa … Foster. “Who?” said one. “Stephen Foster,” replied the other. Only one knew who Foster was, and neither knew he was from Pittsburgh. Both, ironically, recently spent a...
Paul Kengor: Welcome back to normal
Looking back at my recent columns, I was taken aback at how many were about the pandemic that has controlled our lives since March. I’m not alone. This has been an ongoing focus and agony, as has the question for everyone: When will we get back to normal? That question...
Paul Kengor: Life in nature amid pandemic
Life in nature, said Thomas Hobbes, is nasty, brutish and short. So is life for many infected by covid-19, the death toll from which is now 114,000. And yet nature can offer refuge, if people seek its best use. Pennsylvania has eased up on social-distancing restrictions. For many people, the...
Paul Kengor: The year they didn’t celebrate Memorial Day
I never miss the annual Memorial Day parade in Mercer. How could I? It’s old school, pure Americana: high-school bands, snow-cone stands, church groups, VFW, rotary club and flags, flags, flags. This year, however, the streets were eerily empty. They were lined with flags, but no people. No one marched....
Paul Kengor: Covid-19’s toll on tollbooths
As anxious Pennsylvanians push the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to open up and return to normal, I wonder about the new normal for state employees who collect tolls for the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It could be a new normal they will not be welcoming. The thought hit me while hopping on the...
Paul Kengor: This isn’t the flu! On covid-19’s virulence & politics
Covid-19 is the real deal — a virulent killer. Unfortunately, that’s not the view of many of my conservative friends, including those protesting in Harrisburg and with megaphones on talk radio and Fox News. I’m not going to call them out by name. It’s not necessary. Everyone is hearing such...
Paul Kengor: On vaccines, will Pitt do it again?
“Polio Is Conquered.” That was the jubilant headline atop The Pittsburgh Press on April 12, 1955 — 65 years ago. The headline was repeated in newspapers worldwide. And where had it happened? In Pittsburgh. The man who did it? Dr. Jonas Salk. Polio was one of humanity’s most malicious scourges....
Paul Kengor: A professor’s coronavirus perspective
“Well, you know I’m graduating this semester. This may be the last time I see you.” So said one of my students somberly at the end of class last week. Typically, that’s a goodbye I hear in mid-May, not mid-March. It came in response to a campuswide email announcing that...
Paul Kengor: Eerie echoes of influenza epidemic
Exhibit 1: Elizabeth Sovel Flinn. Born in 1891, she died about this time 100 years ago, age 29, a victim of the catastrophic influenza epidemic of 1919-20, also known as the Spanish flu. She was my grandmother’s mother (my dad’s side). My grandmother wasn’t even 3 years old at the...
Paul Kengor: Bernie’s millions
“I think … Mike Bloomberg and anybody else has every right in the world to run for president of the United States,” says Bernie Sanders. “But I got a real problem with multibillionaires literally buying elections.” It frosts Bernie Sanders to share the debate stage with Manhattan Mike Bloomberg, New...
Paul Kengor: Love that still loves tomorrow
Once again we embrace that annual cultural ritual known as Valentine’s Day. In fact, you’ve had plenty of warning, dating back to, oh, shortly after Christmas, when Santa displays at stores were replaced with heart-shaped candy boxes. Of course, it’s not just stores. Obnoxious TV ads tantalize guys with images...
