Opinion category, Page 702
Letter to the editor: Our environmental debt
We are leaving coming generations a very heavy burden of debt. At some point in the near future this debt will come due and they will be forced to pay. I am not talking about dollar debt. I am talking about carbon debt. I am talking about the way we...
Letter to the editor: Who wants self-driving cars?
Some folks, somewhere within our consumer-driven economy, have decided to spend a major effort to develop self-driving vehicles. The idea of being able to sit back in your own automobile and head out onto the open road and have the driving taken care of by some automated system and not...
Letter to the editor: America needs God’s grace
The anger and rage are palpable. The divisiveness is nearing civil unrest. Our moral depravity is of biblical proportions. America the beautiful is turning very ugly. Vitriol spews from television, radio, newsprint and social media as if from the mouth of a serpent. We vainly attempt to change the meaning...
Walter Williams: Camille Paglia, intelligent radical feminist
Camille Paglia is a professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she has been a faculty member since 1984. Paglia describes herself as transgender, but unlike so many other transgender people, she is pro-capitalism and hostile to those who’d restrict free speech....
John Stossel: Oceans new frontier for seasteaders
When political arguments aren’t getting you anywhere, what can you do? Start your own country! Unfortunately, most of the world’s land is controlled by rapacious governments unwilling to let others experiment. But fortunately, that still leaves oceans. If people move 12 miles offshore (or 24 miles in the case of...
Editorial: Take it slow on marijuana legalization
“Legalize marijuana” is not a new refrain in Pennsylvania. You could hear it on college campuses. You could hear it from libertarian groups. It came more and more as other states made lighting up permissible. The old song has been sampled often as medical marijuana has been OK’d and the...
Letter to the editor: Legalize Sunday hunting
Regarding the article “Sunday hunting push faces obstacles in Pennsylvania,” Sept. 14, TribLIVE): It is time to take the Pennsylvania Farm bureau out of the mix altogether. Legalize Sunday hunting in state forests and on state gamelands and be done with it. The bureau claims written permission from landowners is...
Letter to the editor: Reasons to be Pittsburgh proud
There are many reasons why I am proud to be from Pittsburgh and its surrounding suburbs. Inventions from Pittsburgh include the polio vaccine, the first radio broadcast from KDKA in 1920, the first Ferris wheel, the first movie theater, the first baseball stadium (Forbes Field), the Big Mac (on McKnight...
Paul Kengor: Divine plan of John Paul II — and Reagan
Fifty years ago, Sept. 20, 1969, a Polish cardinal unknown to Americans and people in our region quietly slipped into historic St. Stanislaw Kostka Church in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. The kneeler where Cardinal Karol Wojtyla paused to pray is now marked at that church. It commemorates not just a Polish...
Laurels & lances: Habeas corpus, handshakes, hard topics
Laurel: To pursuing the law despite the obstacles. Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. has charged Douglas Berry with homicide in the case of Elizabeth Wiesenfeld despite the fact that the 67-year-old Baldwin woman’s body has not been found. The law may be built on a premise of...
Lori Falce: We all need more team players
This week, I was reminded of how old I am because of a football player. Jon Condo retired. You might not recognize that name. Condo is a Pennsylvania native, a graduate of my own high school, Philipsburg-Osceola, that straddles the line between Clearfield and Centre counties. And he was a...
Letter to the editor: Bills would work to end gerrymandering
Let’s work together to stop partisan gerrymandering. Gerrymandering puts power in the hands of a few — the politicians — at the expense of the rest of us — the citizenry. We can stop this crooked process by telling our state reps that we support House Bills 22 and 23....
Letter to the editor: Democrats deceitful, deranged
Impeachment inquiry: Disgusting, deceitful, deranged, demented Democrats. ‘Nuff said. Frank Novotny Unity...
Letter to the editor: Undermining our freedom of self-defense
For hateful rhetoric like Robert Jedrzejewski’s letter “NRA’s terroristic ways” (Sept. 10, TribLIVE) to be spewed out on your pages on 9/11 — a day reminding us that we are victims in the face of oppression unless we mass and fight to overcome our assailants, as those on Flight 93...
Letter to the editor: Youth, vaping & climate
Regarding two prominent topics in the Sept. 20 edition (“Vaping defense is up in smoke”; “Greensburg joins in Global Climate Strike”): Our youth are not educated, enlightened and mature enough to grasp the fact that sucking an unknown foreign substance directly into their little pink lungs is dangerous (basic anatomy/physiology),...
Tom Richard & Justin Schwartz: Universities must lead on climate solutions
Headlines from around the world increasingly reinforce a sobering point: Climate change is the defining crisis of our time. A new poll shows the number of Americans who see climate change as a crisis is growing — just after the strongest hurricane on record. For the sake of the planet...
George Will: Time is on Taiwan’s side — but it needs U.S. support
TAIPEI, Taiwan Now only 15 flags in the Foreign Ministry’s foyer represent the nations that have not yet succumbed to Beijing’s financial blandishments — targeted at governments and individual politicians — and other pressures to sever diplomatic relations with this island nation. There were 17 flags a few weeks ago....
Editorial: Conversion therapy proposals pure politics
Conversion therapy is a grab bag of practices that utilize psychological, emotional, spiritual or physical techniques to try and remake someone who is gay or bisexual into a heterosexual. The practice also has been used on people identifying as transgender. Subjects are often minors. So kudos to the Allegheny County...
Letter to the editor: NRA not terroristic
I disagree with letter-writer Robert Jedrzejewski’s view of the NRA ("NRA’s terroristic ways," Sept. 10, TribLIVE). He is pro gun control. I am pro responsible gun ownership, which the NRA promotes. Guns are inanimate objects. They do not, cannot and never will be able to shoot themselves. They need an...
Letter to the editor: Society needs love & laws
At a time in our lives where everybody seems to be at each other’s throat, the simple truth is that love is the defining difference in a society. That love comes from God. Here’s the simple truth as to why we have so many problems. We kill our young before...
Letter to the editor: Tom Wolf right to act on charter schools
I am writing to inform op-ed writer Colleen Cook (“Tom Wolf’s attack on charter schools unfair”) that Gov. Tom Wolf’s attempt to fix the problems with the state’s charter schools is spot on, particularly those that are cybercharter schools. While your son has benefited from taking his classes this way,...
Pat Buchanan: Can Trump still avoid war with Iran?
President Trump does not want war with Iran. America does not want war with Iran. Even the Senate Republicans are advising against military action in response to that attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities. If neither America nor Iran wants war, what has brought us to the brink? Answer: The...
G. Terry Madonna & Michael Young: Election reform standoff
Lawmaking has often been compared to sausage making. One may relish eating it but not want to know how it is produced. Never has this been truer than watching the Pennsylvania General Assembly tackle modern election reform. The Legislature has a precious few weeks left in 2019 to decide a...
Editorial: How much surveillance is too much?
Someone is always watching. That might sound a little crazy, but you’re only paranoid if it’s not true. These days, everything is being monitored all the time. It’s not that someone can swoop in and stop you from doing something illegal or saying something inciteful. It’s that if something does...
Letter to the editor: Can’t forgive Jane Fonda
On page A4 of your Sept. 15 edition, you reported that Jane Fonda was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. As a Vietnam veteran, I cannot begin to tell you how much this upsets and disrespects me and every one of my brothers and sisters in arms who...
