Editorials category, Page 83
Editorial: The $100,000 paycheck club
The state of Pennsylvania employs more than 117,000 people. On a 2019 list of the state’s top employers, “Pennsylvania” doesn’t appear, but four individual state agencies do, making it pretty clear that if you piled the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, PennDOT, the Department of Corrections and the Department...
Editorial: Honest info builds trust in a pandemic
Transparency is one of those buzzy kind of words that seem to cluster like flies around government and other like organizations. What is so great about transparency? Maybe we should just call it what it is. Honesty. Transparency is a lack of secrecy. It is opening the door and inviting...
Laurels & lances: Seizing, teaching, tasting and hoarding
Laurel: To doing the right thing — eventually. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has returned $82,373 to an Allegheny County man after confiscating it from his daughter. Rebecca Brown boarded a plane with the cash that had been saved for years in her father Terry Rolin’s South Fayette home. She...
Editorial: Being proactive with coronavirus
This is not about panic. It’s about recognizing reality. The World Health Organization officially designated the novel coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic Wednesday. At that moment, 121 countries were affected, with 124,830 patients diagnosed and 4,585 deaths. Of those diagnosed, 67,050 have already recovered. That is good news and shows...
Editorial: Parents are firewalls to protect kids
There are a lot of names for parents today. Helicopter parents hover. Snowplow parents clear the way. Lawn-mower parents cut down obstacles. Name a piece of equipment you probably shouldn’t operate while on cold medicine, and there’s a metaphor for a parent who spends too much time involved in a...
Editorial: Pitt’s need-based aid is good call
There are two kinds of scholarships in the world of higher education. There are the ones that you get because of merit. You achieved a grade or passed a test or submitted an essay or won a contest. You show real skill as a student or real promise in your...
Editorial: Levin Furniture buy was smart move
There is something deeply satisfying about a happy ending. What happened last week with Levin Furniture is that kind of story. True, a tale of last-minute redemption involving couches and glossy contemporary dining tables is probably not going to be a contender at the Oscars any time soon. (But, Tom...
Editorial: Senate expenses are public records
Nobody has a right to ask how you spent your money. As long as it’s your money. Once you start spending public money, all of that changes. The taxpayers get to know if someone they elected is charging them for nightly lobster and filet mignon dinners. They get to know...
Editorial: Pittsburgh should OK zoo accreditation
If Disney’s “The Lion King” has taught us anything, it’s that everything in the animal world is a vast circle of life. It’s a cycle of prey and predator, birth and death, eat or be eaten. Apparently it’s also about laws and leases, alligators and elephants and accreditation. It started...
Laurels & lances: Statue, saved and Sunshine.
Laurel: To representing the ladies. Nellie Bly was always breaking barriers. When few women were working outside the home, the Armstrong County native was an investigative reporter. Before women could vote, she was forcing the world to take notice of her with record-shattering world travel and undercover tales of insane...
Editorial: Will primary matter in Pennsylvania?
The presidential primary is always an interesting exercise in Pennsylvania. An exercise in futility, that is. For a year, the state has watched the Democratic hopefuls strut onto the stage and have their say. A few acknowledged the general electoral importance of Pennsylvania with announcements and appearances. Homegrown former congressman...
Editorial: Answer distress call for EMTs
If you need help, you call 911. They send a firetruck if something is on fire, or a police car if a crime is occurring. If someone is sick or hurt, they send an ambulance. The emergency medical technicians that staff an ambulance are critical links in the health care...
Editorial: Strip District defined by history
Pittsburgh is not a city that objects to a little industrialism. In fact, there may be no city built on industrialism quite the way Pittsburgh was. It wasn’t just a city where things were made. It was a city that made it possible for things to be made in other...
Editorial: The people have a right to know
Elected officials are still employees. A mayor may not be answerable to a council member. The governor might not have to get the attorney general to approve his vacation. The president doesn’t have to get Congress to approve a sick day. But all of them were elected to do a...
Editorial: The right prescription for pandemic
Coronavirus has a lot to teach us. Or rather, the way the world has responded to it does. There are those who are overreacting and those who are underreacting. There are those in denial and those in overdrive. And then there are those who are controlling the message. We can...
Editorial: Keep a leash on bullying
There is something about voicing an opinion online that can turn a forum of ideas into a kennel. Instead of thoughtful insights, honest questions, legitimate concerns and reasonable critique, it can easily turn to snarling, barking and howling as commenters compete to be heard above the din. It is part...
Laurels & lances: Vandals, cleanup and delivery
Lance: To defacing nature. Over the weekend, vandals spray painted graffiti all over hundreds of feet of the natural sandstone that lies along the Youghiogheny River in Ohiopyle State Park. This wasn’t some underpass or derelict old building where vandalism is still unwanted and makes a city or a neighborhood...
Editorial: A thoughtful, intentional Lent
What did you give up for Lent? The traditionals are things like chocolate and alcohol. Modern, digital Christians who observe the 40-day period leading up to Easter might abstain from things like Facebook or Twitter. Diehards eschew meat the whole time, regardless of Vatican II-era changes. Some gratefully limit that...
Editorial: B. Smith’s story worth remembering
Barbara “B.” Smith was a lot of things to a lot of people. A native of Everson in Fayette County who graduated from Southmoreland High School, she went into modeling and became a groundbreaker for black women in the fashion industry. She was a restaurateur and cookbook author. She was...
Editorial: Tech teaches life lessons
Technology is often demonized in the lives of kids. Too many phones. Too many screens. Kids need to pick up a book. Kids need to try to use their brains instead of relying on a device. Kids have too much technology and not enough creativity. But technology is as creative...
Editorial: Are fewer divorces good news?
For decades, we have heard the troubling statistic about American families. Half of marriages end in divorce. Well, the odds are improving. Especially in Pennsylvania. A 2017 Psychology Today study reviewed those numbers and found a new bride and groom had a 75% chance of staying together. Aw. We knew...
Editorial: Legislation strangled by partisanship
The political landscape is as partisan as a war zone, but “bipartisan” seems to be every politician’s favorite word. If a legislator does something with even one member of the opposing party, you will hear crows of “bipartisan support.” Without that one member, there is a great wailing and mourning...
Editorial: Boy Scouts bend their own laws
A Scout is trustworthy. That is the first point of the Scout Law, the 12 principles outlined by Boy Scouts of America as rules to live by. The organization defines the idea. “Tell the truth and keep promises. People can depend on you.” It will be surprising if at least...
Laurels & lances: Locks, fights and hope
Laurel: To a place in the plan. Infrastructure development is always a popular touchstone with politicians, so it isn’t surprising when it gets brought up. It’s definitely nice to be remembered at budget time, however. And that’s what happened with President Trump’s recent budget proposal. The plan includes $6 billion...
Editorial: Time for Nalani Johnson Rule
Time in a child’s life ticks by fast. A baby grows and changes every day. A week can be the difference between pants that fit and pants that don’t. And an hour can be the difference between life and death. On Tuesday, cellphones across the area blared as an Amber...
