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Editorials category, Page 68

Pope Francis, first Latin American pontiff, dies at 88
Editorial: Schools need laptops — and answers
Sometimes problems are theoretical. They involve big-picture concepts and abstract ideas and a lot of what ifs and few concrete answers. So far, 2020 has been a year filled with those, from the coronavirus pandemic and its precarious balance with the economy, plus the added challenge of widespread protests and...
Editorial: Utility bills will come due
How long can you put off bad news without making it worse? Pennsylvania utility customers will have to find out eventually. In March, the Public Utility Commission put a moratorium on shutoffs due to the coronavirus pandemic. It made sense at the time. Gov. Tom Wolf was instituting lockdowns at...
Editorial: College quarantine behavior no surprise
College is not just a place to learn. It’s also a place to show how you’ve applied what you’ve learned. If it wasn’t, colleges wouldn’t ask for high school transcripts and class rankings and test scores. No 16-year-olds would take AP chemistry. Eighth grade math class wouldn’t matter. But it...
Editorial: Journalism’s revolution against big tech
We need our news. Communicating information about what is happening in our world and in our government, around the globe and around the corner, has been critical from the start. The first newspaper in America was printed in Boston in 1690. The Hartford Courant is the oldest newspaper in the...
Editorial: In West Deer, deferred property taxes demand oversight
Is delaying a bill the most efficient way of paying it? Not usually. If you refinance your mortgage, it might save you money month to month, but you are spreading your interest out over a longer period of time. If you pay the minimum on your credit cards instead of...
Editorial: Does state’s ‘guidance’ open schools to liability?
There are lots of things to worry about as the 2020-21 school year gets education back into gear. Do we send the kids back into the classroom in spite of covid-19? Does the coronavirus caution us to keep them at home? Do we do both? Do we strike a balance...
Editorial: Affordable housing is good investment
Ask someone whether they want to live next to “low-income housing” and you may get push back. It’s an idea President Trump has brought up recently, tweeting about stopping those developments from invading other neighborhoods. While the president took heat from opponents about the topic, proposed low-income housing is often...
Laurels & lances: Podcast, protest, profession
Laurel: To a new act. For some people, Andy Warhol was right about that 15 minutes of fame. But other people do get another bite at the celebrity apple. A local couple is getting that shot. It comes via a podcast for Shannon Edwards and Jesse Sally. Do those names...
Editorial: Amazon’s big paydays mean Pittsburgh paychecks
No one is making money during the coronavirus pandemic like Amazon. While people were staying home amid lockdowns in recent months, the world’s largest retailer has been sitting pretty by filling the voids of in-person shopping. Can’t run out and buy a new video game? Amazon can have it to...
Editorial: Keeping the U.S. Postal Service an essential service
People talk a lot about what built America. Legislators. Presidents. Soldiers and settlers. Farmers and business, teachers and explorers. None of that is wrong. It does, however, neglect the element that connects them all. Communication. Specifically, the mail. When the original 13 states were just colonies, the first cities of...
Editorial: Low-visibility arrest a high-visibility failure
It was supposed to be a low-visibility arrest. That didn’t really work out. On Saturday afternoon, Matthew Cartier, 24, was in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh as part of the weekly protests for racial justice. Pittsburgh plainclothes police officers apprehended him and hustled him into an unmarked white van, which...
Editorial: Contact tracing scams put all at risk
Some people will try anything to snag a buck. Last week, the Pennsylvania departments of Aging and Health stepped up to warn residents about coronavirus pandemic scams. It starts with a communication about contact tracing. The scammer would like a Social Security number as part of the trace. Or a...
Editorial: Public corruption is everywhere
Public corruption seems like the kind of thing that happens where public service is big business. People almost expect to see dirty politics in Washington — and let’s face it, there is a reason that “drain the swamp” was an easy refrain to encourage. The bigger the city, the less...
Editorial: Wolf has more than one guy’s opinion
No, Tom Wolf. You are not just one man. On Thursday, the governor danced away from questions about the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association asking him to reconsider his statements from last week on delaying fall sports until January because of the coronavirus pandemic. “I’m not sure what they could say...
Editorial: Tranquilli deserves judicious hearing
There are several things that a judge is supposed to be. Fair and patient. Respectful and understanding. Measured and firm. Judicious. We need the people who evaluate the law to do it without preconception or prejudice. It should definitely be without bias, racism and harassment. Sadly, those are the qualities...
Editorial: Pa. needs more community colleges
The coronavirus pandemic has complicated so much about education. Is it possible it might actually help solve a problem instead of creating one? It might. Higher education has struggled in recent years to balance the roles of universities as economic engines and research powerhouses with the costs that support them...
Editorial: Who answers for Brighton Rehab?
Death is not an unfamiliar visitor at a nursing home. For some, the point of such a facility is to recover from a disease or an injury that is hard to manage at home without constant assistance. For others, the support is both more long-term and less transitional. It is...
Editorial: Mental health must be pandemic priority
It is not surprising that people are having some trouble dealing with things since the coronavirus lockdown. The data suggest we have more than one pandemic going on. One is covid-19. The other is its impact on our mental health. And that’s a disease we can’t overlook. In her podcast...
Editorial: Wolf needs to stop playing chicken
And the can gets kicked down the road again. On Friday, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association took a tepid fake-out from Gov. Tom Wolf and didn’t try to make a play for the end zone. On Thursday, Wolf made an unexpected drop-in comment at a news conference, saying sports should...
Editorial: Sit-down could serve Wolf solutions for restaurants
Gov. Tom Wolf needs to make a reservation for dinner. He needs to sit down at a nice big table and have a conversation with the people who own and run and work in Pennsylvania restaurants. Earlier in the week, members of the newly created Southwestern Pennsylvania Restaurant and Tavern...
Editorial: Words matter with covid-19 message
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. It’s a good rule of thumb for everyone, but it’s especially important for elected officials. Politicians get — and keep — their jobs by what they say. Their words shape laws and policies. They send us to war and broker peace. In...
Editorial: Rivera and Lechman — a tale of two departures
The coronavirus pandemic has created all-hands-on-deck situations in areas like medicine and the economy, government and manufacturing. But we are now staring down a deadline for two arenas: education and elections. So what happens when longtime leaders step away from those responsibilities? On Monday, Westmoreland County officials confirmed elections bureau...
Editorial: The New Ken-Arnold school board should have seen the severance agreement
The people have a right to know what the government is doing in their name. And how much it’s going to cost them. Last week, the New Kensington-Arnold school board accepted the resignation of superintendent John Pallone. That was followed by a 7-0 vote to accept a severance agreement with...
Editorial: Freedom of press and coronavirus
A pandemic can affect a lot of things. It can change how we work, how kids go to school and how we shop. It can screw up baseball and bingo. It can complicate weddings and funerals. But it doesn’t change the Constitution. It hasn’t changed the freedom of speech of...
Editorial: PIAA and WPIAL set good examples for playing by coronavirus rules
Are you ready for some football? Well, you have to wait. Thanks, covid-19. And even when it starts, you probably won’t get to see it in person. At least not for high school games. The same goes for other fall sports like soccer and cross country. This week, the Pennsylvania...


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