Joseph Sabino Mistick stories, Page 10
Joseph Sabino Mistick: The end of an endless war
Any discussion of the withdrawal of all American troops from Afghanistan must start with the recognition of the troops themselves and the essential duty they have met for the rest of us. They were sent there to protect us from another terrorist attack like 9/11, and they did that. They...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Celebrating our differences
“Ferragosto” is traditionally celebrated in Italy on Aug. 15, and our own Pittsburgh version of the Italian holiday will be celebrated this weekend in the Strip District. As with many customs that we have taken from the old country, we have made it our own, and how we do it...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Vaccines give us choice to prevent more sickness, death
“On the Beach,” the 1959 movie based on Nevil Shute’s novel, is hard to forget if you were a kid when it was released. It’s about a group of people waiting for a deadly radiation cloud to reach them in Australia, the last surviving part of the world, after the...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Truth matters, and it’s worth fighting for
Not long after the end of his second term in the White House, Ulysses S. Grant left for a world tour, during which he was celebrated by kings and political leaders and common folk. In Germany, after being introduced as the man who saved the Union, Grant set the record...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Tough choices for small towns
As Pittsburgh City Council voted on how to divvy up $335 million in covid-19 relief money last week, the people of Wilkinsburg continued to wrestle with a proposal to merge their small town into Pittsburgh. Small towns that are part of a metropolitan area have big-city problems. But they often...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Thanks to vaccine, we’re making sauce again
It was a simple question on social media — and I weighed in with over 700,000 others — but it is a sure sign that many of us are breathing a little easier now that the covid-19 vaccines are taking hold. Here’s what triggered the great debate: Should sugar be...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: J.D. Vance’s political elegy
We are all guilty of a little hypocrisy from time to time, usually when we contradict ourselves or when we are caught saying one thing and doing another. But every now and then someone commits grand hypocrisy, so complete and abrupt that it’s breathtaking. And J.D. Vance, the best-selling author...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: The fight for equality continues
“All men are created equal” may be the most quoted phrase of the Declaration of Independence and the most American notion ever. It is likely that Thomas Jefferson’s words — sharpened by Ben Franklin — were influenced by his French friend, the Marquis de Lafayette, and borrowed from his one-time...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Balancing tough policing and reform
It’s been decades since an off-duty Pittsburgh beat cop shared a few beers and some stories at the neighborhood bar on the eve of his retirement. When a kid asked if he ever shot anyone during his 30 years walking a beat, the cop said, “I only drew my weapon...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: A father’s advice lasts a lifetime
A father’s love and advice last forever. And it seems that we all have a story — a life lesson — that began with a few words of wisdom offered by a father to his child, sometimes at a crossroads in life and often worth retelling. Last week, with Father’s...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Reasons to celebrate Flag Day
William T. Kerr was just a Pittsburgh school kid when he founded the American Flag Day Association of Western Pennsylvania in 1888. Later, he became the national chairman of the association, a position he held for 50 years, and he was at President Truman’s side in 1949 when the law...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Keeping up with Michael Flynn and the rest of the news
Some of us have not been glued to cable news for a few months now, and it has been a welcome break. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, the years leading up to and through the last presidential election were spirited but exhausting, as CNN, Fox and...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Klavon’s wage hike great for business and workers
When Klavon’s Ice Cream Parlor in Pittsburgh’s Strip District recently doubled its starting wage to $15 per hour plus tips, the owners quickly received over a thousand job applications for 16 positions they were unable to fill under the existing minimum wage. This rush to scoop ice cream at the...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Pittsburgh moves forward with Ed Gainey
Last Tuesday, when Bill Peduto became the first incumbent Pittsburgh mayor since 1933 to be booted from office, it was a story both as old as politics and also new again. He never warmed to the essentials of city government, and he missed by a mile the changes in the...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Our best defense is to vote
Since at least 2016 and up until recently, it seemed like there was breaking political news every day, all day long. Maybe you checked your newsfeed first thing every morning or kept your favorite cable news channel on in the background all day long. It became too much, even for...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Broken promises in the Mon Valley
The big steelmakers have been breaking hearts and promises in the Mon Valley since Andrew Carnegie fired up his first Bessemer converter at Braddock’s Edgar Thomson Works in 1875. That’s why, last week, when U.S. Steel pulled the plug on its promise to modernize the mills in the Mon Valley,...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Good Republican ideas
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit,” Democratic President Harry S. Truman said. As the nation wrestles with what it means to “reach across the aisle,” Democrats can start by conceding that they have not cornered the market on good ideas....
Joseph Sabino Mistick: We don’t always need to pick sides
Since the earliest days of warfare and politics, “divide and conquer” has been used by military and political leaders to achieve and hang on to power. Julius Caesar famously used it in Gaul, and Niccolo Machiavelli endorsed it in “The Art of War” as good counsel for despots. At its...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Saying goodbye to Phil Coyne, the Prince of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh buried its own Prince Phillip last week. But Phillip A. Coyne Jr. was simply called Phil or Philly by everybody around here. Phil Coyne had seen a lot, laughed a lot and put a lot of smiles on other people’s faces. And his life was a master class in...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Politics and corporate America
There has not been much to laugh about in politics for a long time now, but last week Sen. Mitch McConnell broke the dire mood when he said corporations “should stay out of politics.” If you follow politics and were having your morning coffee when you heard that, you might...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Georgia’s assault on democracy
Of all the low-down dirty deeds you can do to anyone, denying them a drink of water when they are thirsty is among the lowest and dirtiest. And that tells you everything you will ever need to know about the politicians running Georgia. Among recent election law changes, the Georgia...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Not yet ready to take down the pandemic table
I started to take down the pandemic table last week, but I just couldn’t finish the job. A year ago, in those first days of quarantine, I set up an 8-foot table in the middle of the garage and loaded it with things that our family and friends might need...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: In government, not everybody gets a trophy
In 1832, as New York Sen. William Learned Marcy was defending the spoils system in politics, he used the phrase “to the victor belong the spoils.” In those days, thousands of jobs could change hands every time the political party in charge changed. Civil service eventually eliminated that, and it’s...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Puzzling politics surround Biden’s American Rescue Plan
Now we know what “quid pro quo” looks like. After the $1.9 trillion tax cut that favored Americans in the top 20 percent income bracket during the Trump administration, the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan spends most of its money on middle-class and lower-income American families and local...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Leaders should be leading
Texans like to say “Everything is bigger in Texas,” and lately it looks like mistakes are bigger there, too. Many people love Texans’ boisterous exceptionalism, but there is nothing to love about the way their leaders have been letting them down. Gov. Greg Abbott caught the whole country by surprise...
