Joseph Sabino Mistick stories, Page 5
Joseph Sabino Mistick: FDR and faith in America
As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was preparing for his inauguration in 1933, he faced calls for him to assume extraordinary powers. The nation was at its lowest point since the beginning of the Great Depression. In his 2006 book “The Defining Moment,” Jonathan Alter calls it our “gravest crisis since...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: George Westinghouse knew how to take care of people
Westinghouse Air Brake was more than just another industrial plant in the Turtle Creek Valley east of Pittsburgh, and the recently announced plan to close the 134-year-old Wilmerding factory now known as Wabtec reminds us of an earlier corporate philosophy that we need today. If you grew up in that...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Resolve to pay attention in this new year
Anyone who writes a newspaper column welcomes the holidays as good column fodder. New Year’s Day is an opportunity to write about new beginnings, leaving the tough parts of the past year behind and starting fresh with the turn of the calendar page. It’s almost formulaic. My 2021 New Year’s...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: People who care keep Christmas alive for those in need
“Santa isn’t coming to certain homes because they’re poor? I don’t think so. Santa’s sleigh stops here first,” according to the Rev. Tracy Hudson, the manager of volunteers and the holiday coat and toy drive for Pittsburgh’s East End Cooperative Ministry (EECM). That’s the Christmas spirit that will make the...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Courthouse holiday displays spread cheer, hope
The return of a holiday display — a Christmas tree and a framed depiction of a menorah — in the public square outside the Westmoreland County Courthouse is a small thing when compared to the big events of the day, but if it helps spread the holiday spirit, it may...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Mike Johnson needs to tell the truth
If you are raising kids and hope to teach them that it is important to respect and obey the law, your job got harder last week. On Tuesday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson disclosed that the Republican caucus will not release the raw footage of the Jan. 6 insurrection...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Celebrating the holidays in time of war
As many Americans struggle to find the holiday spirit this year in the midst of war abroad and turmoil at home, Henry Kissinger’s death last week is a reminder that we have been here before. When Vietnam War peace talks collapsed in December 1972, President Richard Nixon and Kissinger —...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Remembering Rosalynn Carter and more gracious times
The letter is faded now, but the name “Rosalynn Carter” at the top, embossed in robin’s egg blue, still catches the eye. It was sent in April 1980 after the first lady visited Pittsburgh and attended a community meeting at the 12th Street Market House on the South Side. I...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Bar fights holding Republicans back from helping America
The philosopher George Santayana captured the essence of bar fights when he wrote, “… if men have nothing else to fight over they will fight over words, fancies or women, or they will fight because they dislike each other’s looks, or because they have met walking in opposite directions.” But...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Voters want public officials who govern
Our local political fever may have broken last Tuesday in Allegheny County’s general election. In both the county executive and district attorney races, after a string of recent successes by progressive candidates, the voters brought local politics back toward the center. That may be good for the entire region. Democrat...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Focus on the local in Allegheny County races
Even local elections can generate national interest these days. If the races for Allegheny County executive and district attorney are close, they could turn on issues with no connection to the jobs that are on the ballot — or be decided by people far beyond this part of southwestern Pennsylvania....
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Public servants serve the public
Sometimes a plastic bag is more than just a plastic bag. If you were around during the administration of Pittsburgh Mayor Sophie Masloff, the news that those small plastic grocery bags are now banned in the city reminds you of a time when simple solutions reigned over needlessly complex solutions...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Politics is still a people business
The race for Allegheny County executive may still be Sara Innamorato’s to lose because of the heavy Democratic registration edge here, but her Republican opponent, Joe Rockey, appears to have a shot. There seems to be a lack of enthusiasm for Innamorato among traditional older Democrats, including many Democratic committee...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Progressing backwards
Many of my friends and I used to call ourselves progressives. Our parents, labor union members and World War II veterans who had fought for social justice overseas, raised us to believe that it is a citizen’s duty to use the political process to improve the lives of all Americans....
Joseph Sabino Mistick: We should honor, not disparage, America’s best
When it comes to being a real American patriot, Donald Trump would not make a patch on the seat of Gen. Mark Milley’s pants. But that didn’t stop Trump from recently suggesting that the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff committed a “treasonous act” by assuring his Chinese...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Biden takes stand for striking workers
I was in grade school when I walked my first United Auto Workers (UAW) picket line at the factory gate of the Fisher Body plant in West Mifflin. I can’t remember if it was a contract strike for better wages and benefits or a wildcat strike over a safety issue...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Fetterman, incivility and broken windows
When Sen. John Fetterman was given permission by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to wear his signature baggy shorts and hoodie on the floor of the Senate, some Republicans were predictably outraged by the break with tradition. Maybe that was the whole point. Fetterman responded to their indignation with a...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Yan Carlos Pichardo Cepeda, justice and common sense
If you want to know why some communities are pushing back against progressive criminal justice reformers, consider the case of Yan Carlos Pichardo Cepeda, who was recently arrested and then released by Pittsburgh District Judge Xander Orenstein. At the time this column was filed, Cepeda was “in the wind,” having...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Remembering Johnny Fusilli, faith and friendship
It might be Patsy’s, Sinatra’s old joint, if you’re from New York City. In Philadelphia, Dante & Luigi’s or one of the other old-time places scattered among the neighborhood rowhouses and apartment buildings might be your go-to joint. But if you are from a certain part of Pittsburgh, Johnny’s in...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Allegheny County executive race — looking for real change
When you are swimming upstream, it is best to get an early start, and Joe Rockey, the Republican nominee for Allegheny County executive, has run the first television ad in his race against Democrat Sara Innamorato. Innamorato is favored to win in the heavily Democratic county, but Rockey is defining...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: And they’re off, as specter of Trump looms over debate
A viewer needed only one image from the Republican presidential debate last week to see how completely Donald Trump has taken over the Republican Party. There were eight men and two women on the stage. And every single one of the men — the seven male candidates and one male...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Threats by Trump supporters should not go unpunished
There is one sure sign that Donald Trump is in trouble again, and that is this: American citizens — whether they are public officials or simple folks who are in the wrong place at the wrong time — will now have their lives and their families’ lives threatened by Trump...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: A century celebration for Johnny Vento
Zigzagging across the Pacific Ocean, farther than he ever imagined being from his home in East Liberty, 19-year-old Johnny Vento played pinochle with his fellow soldiers, still oblivious to what awaited them in Australia if they managed to avoid enemy torpedoes. Once they landed and Vento continued his training as...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: A good lesson on Pittsburgh violence from Earl Buford
It was a warm summer night in 1990, and I was sitting with Pittsburgh Narcotics Chief Earl Buford Jr. in an unmarked police vehicle on the edge of an open-air drug market. As the mayor’s chief of staff, I had asked Buford to help us understand the wave of drug-related...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: The good life of Tony Bennett
On the death of 96-year-old Tony Bennett on July 21, the media was filled with stories of a remarkable guy who was still a regular guy. Born Anthony Dominick Benedetto in Queens, this Calabrese son of a grocer and a seamstress led an authentically American life, with all its ups...
