Joseph Sabino Mistick Columns category, Page 7

Most Pittsburghers are sickened and exhausted every time they turn on the news and see another street killing in our town. There was another fatal shooting Thursday in broad daylight on Liberty Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh. Mayor Ed Gainey, a man who knows the personal tragedy of random gun violence,...

The general public has not heard much about nihilists since “The Big Lebowski” was released in 1998, but during the recent GOP fight to pick a speaker of the House in Washington, D.C., we learned that nihilists now have their own caucus in the Republican Party. In the movie, three...

Police officers have the toughest job in America, and Brackenridge Police Chief Justin McIntire gave it his all while pursuing an armed and dangerous fugitive last week. McIntire was shot and killed doing what we ask our police to be ready to do — protect the public from the terror...

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves,” according to the late William E. Vaughan, author and longtime columnist for the Kansas City Star. It is never that simple. There are always some bad things...

It turned out to be my last chance to shine at Christmas Eve Midnight Mass with the boys’ choir of St. Robert Bellarmine Church in East McKeesport. By the next year, my voice would be changed, one more sign that I was moving along in life, aging out of things....

Everyone has a personal holiday wish list, but we all should have a wish list for our communities, as well. These are not luxury items at all. Those who live in Pittsburgh’s East End or pass through it for work or pleasure or to shop will have one wish come...

The headlines that appeared last week after Republican Herschel Walker lost the Georgia runoff election to incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael G. Warnock struck a common theme. The Washington Post said Walker’s defeat “spurs new GOP handwringing, calls for new strategy.” As The New York Times described it, “After Georgia...

Most Americans have moved on from politics now that the 2022 midterm election is behind us. They voted in record numbers, defied the self-proclaimed political experts and rejected extremism in many places. It raised the hope of a revival of good citizenship. Possibly, Thanksgiving dinner was a little less stressful...

On Nov. 12, 1945, just seven months after the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President Harry S. Truman issued a proclamation to mark the first Thanksgiving since the end of World War II. “We give thanks with the humility of free men, each knowing it was the might of no...

If this is what 80 looks like, America could use more of that. President Joe Biden is celebrating his 80th birthday this weekend, and he was the oldest president in American history when he took office on Jan. 20, 2021. Ronald Reagan was nearly 78 when he left office and...

In the dark hours of election morning 2022, before the polls opened, a rare blood moon total lunar eclipse — a sign of revelation and great change, according to astrologers — was visible across America. It was the first time in our history that Election Day coincided with a lunar...

Whoever wins these upcoming elections, the malignant responses to the recent attack on Paul Pelosi show that we all have reason to mourn the near total loss of decency in civic life. A politically motivated, skull-fracturing hammer attack on an 82-year-old man is not funny. But the public air is...

The long-awaited debate last week between Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Dr. Mehmet Oz in the race to become Pennsylvania’s newest U.S. senator produced far more flash than substance, but each candidate gave one response that defined his performance over the whole hour. Fetterman hesitated for too long and then...

“Every dog has its day” means that sooner or later, everyone will have a moment of great influence. For actual dogs, that moment might be the upcoming election between Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz and Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman for Pennsylvania U.S. senator. A recent ad paid for by the...

When Aristotle described politicians as craftsmen — creating paths to a “good life” for the people they serve — he could have been describing Penn Hills state Rep. Tony DeLuca, who died last week at 85. DeLuca was in his 39th year in the Pennsylvania Legislature, representing Penn Hills, Verona...

Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was on his political tippy-toes last week when Democratic President Joe Biden arrived to inspect the devastation by Hurricane Ian. Biden pledged all the machinery of the federal government to get Florida back on track. This was a common gesture of human solidarity. DeSantis was...

“The world is going backwards. Women are whole human beings, but government is still trying to control us, even here in the U.S.,” according to Fayezeh Haji Hassan. The Pittsburgh lawyer was barely a teenager when her family fled Iran for Afghanistan to escape the political persecution of her activist...

In the peculiar race between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz for a Pennsylvania seat in the U.S. Senate, those voters who proudly say that they vote the candidate and not the party might well be tempted to sit this one out. That would be a mistake. Both...

It’s a well-known story, but it bears repeating from time to time. As Ben Franklin was leaving Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 1787 after the delegates had finished writing our nation’s Constitution, he passed through the crowd that had gathered on the steps hoping to learn what kind of government...

When Jack Bogut was the king of morning radio in Pittsburgh, waking up to your favorite station was not as scary as it is these days. We always seem to be on the brink of something terrible or faced with something terrible that happened overnight — political violence, mass shootings,...

An accidental discovery on social media led to a partnership between New Castle businessman Chip Barletto and Pittsburgh industrial artist Cory Bonnet, and, because of that, our community will always have permanent reminders of why we celebrate Labor Day. Barletto has been visiting old steel mills for 50 years, starting...

As the shortest kid in my fourth grade class, I played the 5-foot-4 Stephen Douglas in our school production of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, and my tallest classmate played the 6-foot-4 Abraham Lincoln. It was the 100th anniversary of the 1858 debates. Our school had no auditions for these nonspeaking roles,...

For most of my life, politicians in both parties have stood for law and order, and Republicans have been traditionally strong in their support. But while my Republican friends quickly denounced the Jan. 6 violence by the far right, a large group of Republicans chose safe reelection over their party’s...

After the legal search of Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago last week, his supporters howled that the actions of the FBI were just what would take place in a banana republic. Author O. Henry first used the term banana republic to describe Central American countries that were exploited by American...

Jim Morton knows a lot about homicide — maybe too much. Morton retired three years ago after 46 years with the Allegheny County Police Department. For 28 of those years, he worked homicides, rising to head the division and finally serving as assistant superintendent of detectives. Even as a supervisor...