Opinion category, Page 412
Laurels & lances: Support and punishment
Laurel: To shining a spotlight. For years, Steven Matto, 54, of Arnold, has taken people into the heart of area emergencies as the official photographer for many fire companies, particularly in the Alle-Kiski Valley. The pictures sometimes gather the attention they merit in print or in broadcast. They always document...
Shelley Inglis: Putin puts international justice on trial — betting that the age of impunity will continue
Images of pregnant women fleeing a bombed maternity ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, raised again the question of how far the Russian military will be willing to go to conquer the country — and whether war crimes are being committed. In just over two weeks of the invasion, the World Health...
Kelly Flanigan: Pa. communities should be allowed to choose clean energy
If we’re going to make headway in the fight against climate change, we must reduce the carbon footprint of our homes and buildings. That’s because buildings account for about 40% of all energy use in the United States. And about 80% of that energy comes from dirty power sources that...
Letter to the editor: Let Ukraine, Russia duke it out
The war in Ukraine will not end well. There’s a lot of self interest among world leaders. Ukrainians cannot win the war without assistance. NATO is involved. Russia may come after European NATO members before they come after us. Joe and Hunter Biden may be subject to Ukrainian blackmail because...
Letter to the editor: Biden a better car salesman than president
Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address that if you buy an electric vehicle (EV), you can save $80 in gasoline every month. Imagine that. In August, the White House held an EV summit, inviting executives from GM, Ford and Chrysler but none from the world’s largest...
Editorial: A gigabyte of prevention is worth a server farm of cure
Prevention is important, whether we are talking about disease or drugs or crime. It is easier to extinguish a match than to put out a house fire. It’s the kind of thing that frequently is said and frequently ignored on a host of topics. The most obvious and timely might...
Letter to the editor: Use ARP funds to fix Westmoreland’s safety net
Ninety-eight people died June 24 when a 12-story condo in Surfside, Fla., collapsed. This tragedy occurred because warnings regarding the building’s crumbling structure were ignored. Westmoreland County commissioners have spent $7 million of American Rescue Plan funding to repair structural defects to a courthouse parking structure. These necessary repairs will...
Jonah Goldberg: Could wedge issues be the cure for polarized politics?
Conan O’Brien recently tweeted: “Well, I’ve officially lived a long life because people are excited Germany is rearming.” I had a similar feeling recently listening to the 538 politics podcast that discussed “wedge issues.” The conversation between the host, Galen Druke, and two prominent political scientists was illuminating, but the...
Victoria Elliott and Rick Seipp: Without action, Pennsylvanians could lose access to pharmacy vaccination care
Together we have sacrificed a lot to get through the covid-19 pandemic. It is understandable that many want to move on. Still, a critical job remains — acting on the emergency’s lessons once and for all so our sacrifices are not in vain. Pennsylvania legislators and Gov. Tom Wolf have...
Andrew Cuff: Progressives sacrifice Pittsburgh’s prosperity for activist politics
The Republican National Committee recently narrowed down its list of cities to host the party’s 2024 national convention to two: Milwaukee and Nashville. But the original list from earlier this year included Pittsburgh. What scared the GOP off the Steel City? Considering its outsize role in U.S. politics, Pittsburgh would...
Letter to the editor: We’re all responsible for keeping our rights safe
Let the sunshine in! That is, let the Sunshine Act intent in our school board and local council public meetings. Everybody needs to know that you have a right to know and an obligation to care about what is right, just, equitable, ethical and fair. More than ever before, there...
Letter to the editor: Money for education not making kids smarter
We have a governor who I believe feels by throwing money at teaching our children, they will become smarter. Or is it because teachers unions give millions of dollars to his party? We spend more per student than any other country in the world. But our students keep falling further...
Editorial: Debates need all candidates to participate
There is a point to primary debates. It’s hard to imagine after the sideshows of the 2016 Republican presidential primary and, not to be outdone, the equally circus-like 2020 Democratic presidential primary. But it’s true. The point of a general election primary is for all of the voters to decide...
Letter to the editor: What about treatment of Brett Kavanaugh?
Letter-writer Robert J. Reiland thinks several Republican senators embarrassed themselves during Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, and that Sen. Ted Cruz made racist attacks on the nominee (“Republicans’ questioning of Jackson embarrassing.” Asking difficult questions, as Cruz did, is not an attack and does not make one a...
Letter to the editor: Educating students about artificial intelligence
While the editorial “Artificial intelligence is not educational taboo” (March 8, TribLIVE) implied otherwise, I am not, in fact, afraid to talk about artificial intelligence and how this topic might fit into schools. AI is not only about Alexa and Siri; it also is used in facial recognition technology, Deepfakes,...
Leonard Pitts Jr.: Getting America to do right by Americans of color
Two hundred times, they failed to get it done. They failed after 1899. That was the year an African-American man named Sam Hose was massacred by a white mob near Newnan, Ga., that castrated him, skinned his face, then cooked him alive over a fire and parceled out pieces of...
Letter to the editor: Defining a woman
The next appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court can’t/won’t define what a “woman” is! I can. Whadahekzgoinonhere?? Huh? Joe Marmo Cheswick...
Letter to the editor: Would Putin go nuclear?
Vladimir Putin has put his nuclear forces on alert. We could do likewise, going from DEFCON 3 to 2 to 1 (defense conditions of readiness prior to all-out nuclear war). To do so would only heighten tensions. The concept of MAD — mutually assured destruction — prevented nuclear war throughout...
Letter to the editor: ARP funds should go to treat substance abuse, mental illness
I am a Westmoreland County physician who has worked throughout the pandemic and witnessed the damage from covid-19 firsthand. Many patients and families are still struggling with depression, addiction or both. Hopefully, our county commissioners will use Westmoreland County’s American Rescue Plan funds to rescue our communities as we recover...
Editorial: The common problem of Pennsylvania bridges
Pennsylvania’s bridges need work. It isn’t just the ones with obvious problems — the ones with crumbling concrete or decaying superstructure. It’s not a question of which. It’s a question of when. The Fern Hollow Bridge spanning a Frick Park ravine collapsed on the morning of Jan. 28, while people were...
Letter to the editor: Will and Toomey’s Ex-Im Bank myth
I read, with disgust, the March 31 George Will opinion piece “Toomey rightly wants to rein in Boeing’s bank.” Sen. Pat Toomey and Will have used only the barest of facts as a matrix upon which they weave a complete myth. I had firsthand experience in obtaining an EX-IM loan...
Letter to the editor: Peace plan could save Putin’s soul
An open letter to Vladimir Putin: Dear President Putin: When first you became president, there were a few of us Americans who may have thought, privately, “Finally, a Russian leader who knows how to get things done.” Frankly, sir, we were wrong about your judgment when it comes to foreign...
Tom Purcell: We must fix the nursing shortage
Where did all the nurses go? One of my family members ended up in the ER for a week after a bad fall. The hospital we chose and its staff were wonderful in every way, but this time, one important thing was missing: an appropriate number of nurses to deliver...
Mark Hendrickson: What is the proper policy response to today’s inflation?
If you get depressed easily, you may wish to skip this op-ed. Our country has suffered inflationary bouts to various degrees throughout our history, with perhaps the most severe having occurred during the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the 1970s. Sadly, we have never found a quick, clean way...
Letter to the editor: Bills should be shorter — and read — in Congress
I would love to see a bill proposed by Congress to limit the amount of pages each new proposed bill could contain — no more than five pages, front and back. In addition, before a vote is taken on the bill, each member of Congress must sign a statement that...
