Lori Falce stories, Page 6
Lori Falce: Jon Stewart, bothsidesism and asking not-so-tough questions
Last week, comedian Jon Stewart returned to his chair at “The Daily Show.” He will occupy it again one night a week leading up to the November elections. It’s a move that was championed by fans and by many on the left. Stewart has long enjoyed skewering conservatives, and Trevor...
Lori Falce: None of us are marked safe from shootings like Kansas City
My friend Caroline lives in Kansas City. She was excited leading up to the Super Bowl. She has three boys and a husband, and she’s an enthusiastic supporter of her community, so a giant football event with her crowd on the national stage was right up her alley. Throw in...
Lori Falce: Crumbley verdict and respect for guns
On Wednesday, a Michigan jury found Jennifer Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of four students at Oxford High School in 2021. She was found guilty despite never firing a shot. She didn’t load a weapon. She didn’t aim. She wasn’t even at the school when it happened....
Lori Falce: What is opinion journalism?
Opinion journalism is sometimes dismissed as not actually being journalism. Sometimes it’s reviled as the problem with today’s news consumption. There is fair criticism there. There certainly is a lot of opinion out there, and a lot of it fills the most prominent spots on cable news channels or the...
Lori Falce: What is the best way to spend $65 million? Let us count the ways
Pittsburghers — like most Pennsylvanians and, well, people in general — are not really fond of change. Ask for directions, and you are likely to be given turns based on businesses that aren’t there anymore. A fair number of people still talk about Three Rivers Stadium, let alone Heinz Field,...
Lori Falce: Why do we care about Iowa caucuses?
I am not a fan of Iowa. I’d like to say it’s nothing against the state of Iowa, but that would be a lie. As someone born in Minnesota and raised in Pennsylvania, I hold both Iowa and New Jersey in the same kind of thinly veiled contempt. Very thinly...
Lori Falce: Minimum wage, self-worth and pizza
My first job was babysitting. In 1983, at 12 years old, I made $5 an hour. Minimum wage in Pennsylvania was $3.35 at the time. By the time I was 15, I had a regular client that paid $10 an hour plus pizza. Minimum wage hadn’t budged. When I had...
Last-minute appetizers can still be fancy and fun
It’s the holiday season and you have people coming to visit. It’s an impromptu get-together: You need party food, and you need it now. So what can you do when you barely have enough time to get in the kitchen let alone run to the store? It’s time to get...
Lori Falce: What’s in your stocking?
The question of Christmas stockings has been quite the topic on social media lately. They have become more than just big, fake socks that hang over the fireplace, or from the railing by the stairs, or are placed artfully by the tree. For some, they have become a symbol of...
Lori Falce: The cost of Christmas presents and respect
I am thinking a lot about my holiday budget right now. My son’s gift pile will look smaller than it has in Christmases past. That’s not necessarily because the amount I have set aside for presents has gotten smaller but because the individual cost of his gifts has gone up...
Lori Falce: Feeding into fatphobia
My inbox is jammed with emails about Ozempic. The drug, generic name semaglutide, is an injectable used to treat Type 2 diabetes. Combined with diet modifications and exercise, it has seen effectiveness in lowering or stabilizing blood sugar for those patients. That’s important to me. I’m not diabetic, but my...
Lori Falce: Language behind latest Santos expulsion vote is troubling, Mr. Speaker
On Wednesday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson spoke about his misgivings over efforts to expel U.S. Rep. George Santos, R-New York. It’s been a complicated line for the Republican Party, Johnson and former speaker Kevin McCarthy to walk since the Santos saga of untruths and criminal charges has unspooled...
Lori Falce: Black Friday and the importance of a capitalist Christmas
Black Friday is the start of the holiday shopping season. It is an all-out assault on gift-giving that begins before the turkey is even cold. Actually, it often starts when the turkey is downright frozen as Black Friday deals start to be shared online weeks early and some stores give...
Lori Falce: The Supreme Court, George Santos and the vanishing art of ethics
There is a difference between ethics and the law. But that doesn’t mean the two don’t coexist. Laws are codified rules that spell out what can happen, what should happen, what circumstances might change that and what the consequences are for stepping outside those lines. But ethics? Ethics are trickier....
Lori Falce: Rick Santorum and the secret sauce of democracy
On Wednesday, after the dust had settled on the 2023 general election and people were analyzing the ups and downs and wins and losses, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania went on Newsmax to discuss his disappointment. Republican Rick Santorum once was a leading voice in the party and had...
Lori Falce: Time to fall back, but let’s move forward
We get the reminders around this time every year: Don’t forget to turn your clocks back. They come, of course, because Sunday is the end of daylight saving time, that effort to trick ourselves into having longer functional days. Benjamin Franklin first proposed it in 1784 as a way to...
Lori Falce: Lighting candles for the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting
I am known among my friends for my common response to times of pain and trouble. I will cry with them. I will hold their hands and hug them close. But, more than anything, as my friends are scattered across the map, I light candles. As the product of a...
Pot pies can be quick and easy comfort food
Pot pies have a split personality. On the one hand, you have the old-fashioned kind that speak of Sunday dinner at Grandma’s house: thick gravy, rich roasted chicken and tender vegetables all tucked into a pan under the delicious blanket of some buttery crust. It is the very definition of...
Lori Falce: Words matter, but actions behind their meanings don’t
I often lament the way people try to harness language like a horse that just needs to be broken in an attempt to solve a problem rather than addressing the problem. Take the vocabulary surrounding people with developmental delays and other challenges. The words we have used over the years...
Lori Falce: Israel, Hamas and object lessons for America
The conflict between Israel and Hamas is not new. The bombs falling and the hostage taking and the outright murder are this week’s problem, but the enmity is as old as the sands in this disputed land, despite Israel being just 75 years old and Hamas only 35. Could we...
Lori Falce: Lessons from the first Speaker of the House
The first Speaker of the House of Representatives was the son of a German immigrant. Frederick Muhlenberg was born in what would later become Montgomery County. He was a theologian and statesman. He served as speaker of the Continental Congress in 1780. He signed the Bill of Rights. And in...
Lori Falce: Chuck Schumer is no Neville Longbottom
At the end of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” the benevolent wizard in charge of the magic school took the opportunity to deliver an object lesson. He upended the annual competition between the school’s four houses by delivering a few last-minute points to the main characters for saving the...
Lori Falce: Group shot spoiled picture-perfect ending to manhunt
For almost two weeks, Pennsylvania State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, U.S. marshals and other law enforcement were combing Chester County for one man. Convicted murderer Danelo Cavalcante spider-walked up a wall in the county prison like a spy in an action movie. The man who brutally stabbed his...
Lori Falce: Chilly Billy and the real Hollywood scare
For some kids, their childhood heroes were sports figures. For others, they might be actors or pop stars. For me? Well, mine was a local television host. I couldn’t get enough of Bill “Chilly Billy” Cardille. His Saturday night film fest on WPXI wasn’t the beginning of my love affair...
Lori Falce: Hey, Big Pharma, negotiation isn’t tyranny
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America really doesn’t back away from its reputation. Do you want to call the coterie of companies it represents Big Pharma? Fine. The trade group that lobbies for those companies leans into the name using its cheeky initials — PhRMA. The organization is so forthright...
