Joseph Sabino Mistick stories, Page 12
Joseph Sabino Mistick: On Labor Day, recalling march for social justice
On Labor Day, I think of the valley where I grew up. It was best seen from the middle of the Westinghouse Bridge. As far as the eye could see and the ear could hear, furnaces flared and trains slogged on and machinery clanked and whistles and bells sounded around...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Trump, too, owns what happens on his watch
It was a classic example of Donald Trump at his pugnacious best. During a back-and-forth with Jeb Bush over the Iraq War, Trump bashed Jeb and President George W. Bush by going where no other candidate dared to go in the 2016 Republican presidential primary debates. “The World Trade Center...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: ‘Shoeless Joe,’ Trump and cheating outrage
When “Shoeless Joe” Jackson was indicted for fixing the 1919 World Series, it rocked the nation. Jackson was a star player for the Chicago White Sox, a great hitter in his prime when he was accused of conspiring to throw the series to the Cincinnati Reds for $5,000. “Shoeless Joe”...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Sticks and stones flung at Kamala Harris
When Joe Biden announced that Sen. Kamala Harris will be his vice presidential running mate, Donald Trump and his supporters responded with a barrage of frantic personal attacks. It was as though someone had dropped the flag and said, “Let the hysteria begin!” When you were a kid, you knew...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: What can you do for your country? Wear a mask.
The most tragic problems with this pandemic are the result of Americans who don’t seem to get it or don’t seem to care that they are putting others at risk. Without masks or social distancing, they crowd into bars and onto beaches, and even try to force themselves into stores....
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Pass the Voting Rights Act bill for John Lewis
To many of those watching the horse-drawn hearse take the body of U.S. Rep. John Lewis across the Edmund Pettus Bridge one final time last week, the most remarkable moment came when Alabama state troopers snapped to salute as his casket passed. What a contrast to 55 years ago. Lewis...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Conspiracy theories come to life under Trump
If you thought that those conspiracy theorists were nuts when they ranted about black helicopters and secret paramilitary troops taking over our towns and rounding up Americans without probable cause, you better think again. The so-called militia members who have warned us about this usually imagine an international conspiracy, some...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: We need more than tweets to solve our issues
Presidential campaigns are complicated. Election Day comes after years of political maneuvering, primary elections scattered across the land, late summer nominating conventions and televised debates that are part policy and part showbiz — all ending in November after months of media coverage. While some of that will be different this...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Medicine and science, not politicians, will keep us safe
There must be a reckoning. For some public officials, it may be as soon as the next election, or it may come with the judgment of time and history. But sooner or later, those who have led us away from prevention and safety and toward calamity during the coronavirus pandemic...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: We can do this, a lesson from Stacy Smith
Stacy Smith has seen a lot. The award-winning KDKA-TV news anchor has met the pope, interviewed presidents and reported from the scenes of human disasters. He has covered princes and paupers. When interviewing a Missouri congressman in the U.S. Capitol, Stacy sat in the chair that a stunned Vice President...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Ulysses S. Grant, American champion
This is a good time to talk about Ulysses S. Grant. As president of the United States and commanding general of the Union Army before that, Grant fought for freedom and equality and the end of slavery, giving it his all. That is why it was hard to understand, really...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: One more Civil War battle
The death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer has sparked a national examination of conscience that has Americans marching in our streets and demanding an end to systemic racism. Criminal justice and police practices are the top candidates for immediate change. But so much has...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Voting and justice
In 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson said, “The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.” Congress passed Johnson’s Voting Rights Act then, outlawing any measures that would deny...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: George Floyd, 1974-2020
When Aristotle said, “Towns should be built so as to protect their inhabitants and, at the same time, make them happy,” it was no mistake that he put “protect” first. People will never be happy unless they feel protected and are, in fact, protected. But, since the days of slavery,...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Trump walking the high wire on coronavirus
Lately, Donald Trump has been missing the mark, one that he usually hits without fail. As a brilliant counter-punching tactician, he could take down his opponents with a cutting nickname. He could enflame his supporters’ passions by finding just the right distortion of his opponents’ records and dominate news cycles,...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: On Memorial Day, honor all by providing care for all
Since just after the Civil War, Americans have set aside one day to honor the men and women who died while serving in the military. As our country fought new wars, newly fallen soldiers were added to the day of remembrance, starting with World War I and then World War...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Paupers and kings and coronavirus
The danse macabre was a theme in medieval art that provided some comfort to regular folks during wars and plagues by portraying people from all walks of life dancing together towards their final resting place. It was clear then that death did not discriminate during a catastrophe. Aristocrats and paupers...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: The smart bet on electronic surveillance
“I’ll take Duquesne minus seven for a nickel.” With those words, spoken by gambler Charlie Katz in a phone booth on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles in 1965, Duquesne University’s basketball team came to play an inadvertent but key role in Katz v. U.S., the leading U.S. Supreme Court case...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Feeding bodies, souls in Pittsburgh
There are different types of hunger. Not knowing where your next meal is coming from is what we think of first, and there is a lot of that going on now. But it is just as important to feed the soul as it is to feed the body, and that’s...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: The leader we need
Mr. President, people need your help right now. This is not the time for you to remind us how you “cut off” China at the end of January or how “people are surprised” that you understand the medical issues surrounding the pandemic. You are constantly trying to play catch-up, instead...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Playing politics won’t save Main Street
When the Lake Conemaugh dam broke in 1889 and sent 20 million tons of water rushing into the valley below, the town of Johnstown, Pa., and over 2,200 of its residents were washed away in minutes. The devastation was complete, leaving 25,000 homeless survivors not knowing where their next meal...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Seeing the beauty, keeping the faith in tough times
Out the window of my second-floor home office I can see the magnolia tree at the bottom of the drive, in full bloom now. It is a feathery mass of bright pink flowers, nestled where the trunk meets the ground by a bed of blue star-shaped Siberian squill. Some years,...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Americans deserve better from our leadership
Talking politics at a time like this is tricky, but politics has made the coronavirus more deadly, and it will take politics to bring us back after the death and destruction passes. Until last week, when Donald Trump had to cave and show that he had been wrong all along...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: During crisis, people want information, not false assurances
The people of L’Aquila, Italy, went about their business as usual in the first week of April 2009. It was a city of around 70,000 residents and the capital of the Abruzzo region — a busy center for government, commerce, education and culture. Abruzzo has a history of plagues and...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Solid St. Roch saw Pittsburghers through plague
Here’s a story for our time. In 1849, halfway up the hill that would later become Pittsburgh’s South Side Slopes, the parishioners of a German Catholic congregation turned to a 14th-century saint for help during the cholera plague. And they believed that he came through for them. As the story...
