Opinion category, Page 426
Letter to the editor: Double standard in sports’ covid rules
What is happening to our brains? I saw on TV where tennis player Novak Djokovic was barred from playing in the Australian Open because he refuses to get the covid-19 vaccine. He has been barred from playing in other tournaments as well. Then I change the channel and see a...
Letter to the editor: Killing contests must be banned in Pa.
Many Pennsylvanians will be appalled to learn that wildlife killing contests — a bloodsport comparable to dogfighting — occur right here in our state. In fact, Pennsylvania has more contests than almost any other state, with January and February being peak season. In these detestable spectacles, participants kill native wild...
Editorial: Diebold’s prison sentence is deserved
It is hard to argue that you didn’t know how to follow the law when that was how you made your living. Attorneys for Michael Diebold did just that. Luckily, it didn’t work. Armstrong County Judge James J. Panchik sentenced the former Leechburg police chief to 18 to 36 months...
Letter to the editor: Why the world is laughing at us
Recent letter-writers have said “the world is laughing at us.” If the world is laughing at us, here’s why. Sixty courts, including the Supreme Court, said there is no evidence of fraud, yet former President Trump continues to try to overturn the election. Many Republican lawmakers have said in private...
John Stossel: The Woke AMA
The American Medical Association now tells doctors: Use woke language! It’s issued a 54-page guide telling doctors things like, don’t say “equality”; say “equity.” Don’t say “minority”; say “historically marginalized.” Much of the AMA’s advisory sounds like Marxism: “Expose … property rights … Individualism is problematic … Corporations … limit...
Jonah Goldberg: Putin’s wish and the consequences he can’t control
Vladimir Putin announced Monday that he had decided to recognize two regions in eastern Ukraine as independent breakaway “republics” and immediately ordered Russian troops into those territories to carry out “peacekeeping” functions. A better term would be “tornaway republics” since Putin has been waging war there for years. It remains...
Mark Hendrickson: Inflation — who or what is the culprit?
Inflation — defined herein as a widespread increase in the prices of widely purchased consumer goods – has gotten worse since I commented on it last spring. According to the official Consumer Price Index (CPI), inflation is currently running at 7.5% year over year — the highest since 1982. What...
Letter to the editor: Protecting the underperforming
I worked at No. 19 rolling mill for the Jones and Laughlin Steel Co. in 1971. The United SteelWorkers contract specified the number of workers to cover each shift, and I remember some shifts I was assigned to sweeping floors. Sweeping a steel mill floor is like vacuuming a coal...
Letter to the editor: Climate deniers hurting fellow citizens
Jack Bologna’s letter “Facts on ‘global warming’ ” (Feb. 14, TribLIVE) quotes “facts” that are out of date. I also call attention to Bologna’s sick ad-hominum device, attacking right-wing boogeyman Al Gore as foil. Such tricks are signs of weakness. Gore is merely summing up what every science academy in...
Letter to the editor: Moving on from Mon Oakland Connector
Good news overall, but “Focus of Pittsburgh’s proposed Mon Oakland Connector project changes” (Feb. 11, TribLIVE) needs a few corrections. The Mon Oakland Connector drew opposition from a wider range of Pittsburghers than “public transit advocates” and “some Greenfield residents.” Neighbors from Hazelwood, Greenfield, Oakland, Panther Hollow, Four Mile Run...
Editorial: Is marijuana marketing proof it’s the next Big Pharma?
The conversation surrounding marijuana has shifted over the years. It went from being demonized for decades to being suggested as helpful in relieving symptoms of some medical conditions to being touted as all but a miracle cure. In 2016, Gov. Tom Wolf signed the law that made medical marijuana legal...
Letter to the editor: Local governments need power, accountability
Kenneth R. Nath’s letter “Government should start doing more with less” (Feb. 11, TribLIVE) is a valuable comment about local government. Hundreds of elderly patients died in nursing homes during the pandemic. A bridge collapsed after it was inspected and deemed safe to use. These failures were not due to...
Letter to the editor: Jonah Goldberg off base on ‘coup attempt’
Jonah Goldberg’s op-ed “RNC’s idea of ‘legitimate political discourse’ shows how far gone it is” was one of the most vicious, descriptively unpleasant and emotionally raw points of view I have ever read. However, Goldberg’s rage keeps him from seeing certain relevant facts. When the Jan. 6 committee was being...
Leonard Pitts Jr.: Does being a land of plenty make us a land of good?
A week or so ago, it was peanuts. Unsalted, roasted in the shell, to be exact. But lately, it’s always something, some commonplace commodity that suddenly cannot be found at the store. Strawberries. Peppers. Ground turkey. And Lord, don’t even get me started on Ore-Ida Golden fries. I used to...
Christopher Brooks: Supreme Court should revisit history in affirmative action cases
The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina for unconstitutionally discriminating against Asian-American students in its admissions program. As justices revisit the issue of affirmative action, they could learn something from John S. Rock, the first Black attorney admitted to practice before...
James Dillard: Does scaring people work when it comes to health messaging?
In the recent film “Don’t Look Up,” two astronomers learn that a comet is on track to collide with Earth and destroy human civilization. When they try to sound the alarm, all manner of obstacles get in their way. In the end, well, you’ll have to watch the movie to...
Letter to the editor: How can anyone justify abortion?
Abortion is the killing of innocent human beings. Forty-nine years and over 62 million innocent children simply discarded. How can anyone be so heartless and cruel? How can anyone justify such a heinous act? If you do not want the child, please don’t kill it. Give it up for adoption...
Letter to the editor: Bradshaw, not Roethlisberger, the greatest quarterback
I do not like when Ben Roethlisberger is portrayed as our greatest quarterback. Terry Bradshaw has been through more battles than Roethlisberger ever saw, and people keep forgetting he won four Super Bowls. Roethlisberger had great defenses the same as Bradshaw, but he survived before all of the rule changes....
Letter to the editor: Biased media a danger to our country
How do you explain the many extreme, conflicting viewpoints in the pro-Biden and anti-Biden letters in this paper? Are both sides getting the same set of “facts” from their media? For example, I believe that MSNBC and CNN and much of the mainstream media are in the back pocket of...
Letter to the editor: Tired of Fauci’s tactics
Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s covid rule-maker, recently challenged Fox News as a source of covid misinformation. This time, Fauci’s ire was directed at Tucker Carlson and his frequent guest, Alex Berenson. Berenson is an investigative journalist who challenges the “vax everyone” mandates. He reports on vaccine effectiveness, questions the lack...
Editorial: Contractors and government both need good communication
On the surface, it’s kind of funny. Construction equipment is what people use to dig things up. It’s not supposed to be the stuff that gets sucked down into the ground. And yet there they are — two bright yellow excavators sticking out of the muddy ground along the Allegheny...
Letter to the editor: Where’s proof of hospitals’ covid ‘subsidies’?
“Early on, state and federal subsidies were offered to hospitals throughout the nation for administering specific treatments and reimbursing hospitals for deaths classified with covid-19. These subsidies are poor incentives for achieving the mutual goal of minimizing suffering.” This is a quote from Garrett Ringler’s letter “End covid reimbursement policies”...
Letter to the editor: Republicans taking us back to the past
In the past, I thought the Republican Party wanted to return to an idealized version of the 1950s and 1960s. Men were the breadwinners. A much lower number of women were employed outside the home. However, recently I have begun to realize that what the GOP really wants is to...
Tom Purcell: Four-day workweek? I wish.
Three-day weekends sound good to me. According to Business Insider, a movement is afoot for companies to offer employees four-day work weeks — 10 hours a day over four days, rather than eight hours over five days — so they may enjoy three-day weekends. More employers say that a four-day...
Matthew Jordan and Sydney Ford: Canadian trucker protests show how the loudest voices in the room distort democracy
After Canadian truckers upset with vaccination mandates made their way to Ottawa, they parked their vehicles near Parliament and started making noise — lots of it — blasting their air horns day and night, disturbing the repose of citizens at home, work and in school. The local reaction was swift....
