Opinion category, Page 613
Editorial: Pennsylvania should value first responders
On a normal day, Pennsylvanians don’t realize how much they rely on an almost invisible wall of people standing between them and disaster. Some of the disasters are metaphorical. A minor car crash can snarl traffic but isn’t critical to more than the insurance deductible. But others are literal, like...
Sounding off: Wear masks to protect others
Letter-writer George Silowash (“Effectiveness of cloth masks”) brings up an interesting point. That is, his thoughts regarding viral particles remaining in a mask after evaporation of the exhaled respiratory droplets. It’s unclear to me whether the virus would adhere or be readily reinhaled. However, even if they were “free” and...
Letter to the editor: Appreciating Walter Williams’ insight
Walter Williams has to be one of the most insightful and intelligent op-ed writers that I have ever read. His perspective on an appreciation of black history (“Insults to Black history,” June 26, TribLIVE) demonstrates his ability to grasp the American culture and race relations for the last 80 years....
Letter to the editor: Trump’s role in covid-19 spread
A billboard in the Delmont/Export area says, “China lies, Americans die.” China has a history of being secretive, and the government did not quickly inform the world of covid-19. But blaming China alone is dangerous; it promotes antagonism against Asian Americans. This includes President Trump’s constant Asian descriptions of the...
Letter to the editor: Let local government act on single-use plastics
Plastic waste is becoming a massive public cost. According to PennDOT, the state spends $13 million a year just to clean up roadside litter, and that does not include the millions spent to clean plastic bags out of stormwater and sewage overflows. And yet, instead of doing something to tackle...
Letter to the editor: Why band is important to students
To Superintendent Gary Peiffer and the Greensburg Salem School Board: I read with sadness and a great deal of concern that you made the decision to eliminate the elementary band position at Greensburg Salem (“Greensburg Salem keeps taxes flat, cuts librarians and band teacher.”) My sadness is for the harm...
Letter to the editor: Let’s defund high schools, colleges
How do you screen police better and train them better while cutting their budget? Maybe it’s time we defund our radical high schools and colleges. In my opinion, our kids are not educated; they are indoctrinated into communism. Is this what our high-priced teachers and professors are paid to do?...
Editorial: Real solution needed for evictions
You can’t shelter in place if you don’t have a place to shelter. That’s the crux of the rental and foreclosure problem amid the coronavirus pandemic. When Pennsylvania went into covid-19 lockdowns back in March, Gov. Tom Wolf put a moratorium in place on evictions, providing cover for renters and...
Walter Williams: Charter schools and their enemies
Dr. Thomas Sowell has just published “Charter Schools and Their Enemies.” He presents actual test scores of students in traditional public schools and charter schools on New York State Education Department’s annual English language arts test and its Mathematics Test. Sowell gives the results of student tests in charter schools...
John Stossel: Standing up to the online mobs
The online mob came for Harald Uhlig. What terrible thing had he done? He tweeted that Black Lives Matter “torpedoed itself, with its full-fledged support of #defundthepolice.” Instead of defunding, Uhlig suggested, “train them better.” Hundreds of people then signed a petition to demand that Uhlig, a University of Chicago...
Mary Lou Bitar: An Allegheny Ludlum dad’s dream for his daughter
“I want you to go to college and become a teacher because if you marry a steelworker and he goes on strike you’ll have a job to help support your family!” These words were spoken to me in 1959 by my late father, Andrew Suveges Jr., as I was preparing...
Laurels & lances: Slide, shade, view
Laurel: To big fun outdoors. The summer of 2019 passed without one of the best ways to enjoy the great outdoors in Westmoreland County — the giant slide in Mammoth Park. The delightful Mt. Pleasant Township landmark was closed down for a $1.1 million renovation project that upgraded it from...
Luke Popovich: Pandemic, politics threaten Marcellus jobs
To the seriously stricken airline, hospitality and tourism industries felled by covid-19, add Pennsylvania’s less visible but equally vital oil and gas industry. The viral plague that has slashed economic growth has crippled demand for fossil energy. From Texas oil wells to shale fields in Pennsylvania, producers are facing what...
Letter to the editor: Anti-Trump bias on front page
When editors choose news articles for the front page, do they bother to read them? The AP story “Trump rally shows cracks in campaign” (June 22) reads like a hate-filled diatribe written by a left-wing activist. Where was the objective reporting? Where was the rebuttal quote from a Trump supporter...
Letter to the editor: Trump making America great, all right
President Trump campaigned on making ’Merica first with nostalgia for the past, his slogan calling to make ’Merica great “again.” And indeed, he has recreated many of the most notable moments in past American history. He made ’Merica first all right. We’re first in total covid-19 infections and deaths. Here’s...
Lori Falce: Take off the headphones and listen
I have a love-hate relationship with part of my son’s head. His earphones. Oh, sure, you may argue they are not actually a part of his head. You would be wrong. Prying them away is very much like pulling out fingernails or a tooth. It’s dangerous work best done while...
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...
Claudine Schneider: Republicans’ betrayal of principles
I was born and schooled in Clairton, where I learned a great deal about our nation’s courageous founders. They put their lives on the line at Independence Hall to advance the principle of “rule of law.” When I came of age politically in the mid-1970s, the nation was recovering from...
L.E. McCullough: A masked encounter unmasks a glimpse of truth
Last week I stood in a local grocery checkout line in the East End. The store was large with very high ceilings, and there was enough ambient noise to prevent most people from hearing a normal-volume conversation occurring more than a few feet away. I, however, have excessively sharp and...
Letter to the editor: Trafford leader’s cheap shot on Dr. Rachel Levine
Zack Cole took a cheap shot at Dr. Rachel Levine (“Trafford councilman criticized for transphobic joke about state health secretary,” June 24, TribLIVE). As an elected official and a representative of the people, he should have used better discretion. But like he said, he speaks his mind “regardless of possibly...
Letter to the editor: Can’t understand treatment of police
I would like to try to understand the disdain and even hate some socialist Democrats have toward our police. I realize the hate for the cop who put his knee on George Floyd’s neck — who, in my mind, was trying to murder him. Thankfully he was accused of murder,...
Letter to the editor: Look at fracking report for what it is
Before everyone loses their minds over the state grand jury report on fracking (“‘We started getting sores all over us’: Grand jury report blasts DEP, health department over fracking failures in Pa.,” June 25, TribLIVE), let’s remember a few things about how this report was put together. Attorney General Josh...
Letter to the editor: Elizabeth power plant permit should be denied
As a lifelong resident of West Newton, I am concerned about the proposed Invenergy gas-fired power plant along the Youghiogheny River and Great Allegheny Passage trail. This Elizabeth Township facility will impact not only my community but many that border the river and the trail. These communities bear the burdens...
Editorial: Local impact of international students
New rules for students coming from overseas to study in the United States might seem like something that only needs to concern people coming here from China and France and India for their higher education. But it doesn’t. It affects kids going to school in Pittsburgh and State College and...
Harold Kyriazi: Eliminating the ‘dirty’ root of systemic racism
There are many factors underlying “systemic racism” in the United States. One rarely mentioned but surprisingly vital root cause, however, is our system of land tenure. Currently, land is treated as purely private property, with little or nothing owed to the community for excluding all others from use of that...
