Featured Commentary category, Page 110
Dr. Jacob Appel: Why call anyone ‘Dr.’?
The controversy over incoming first lady Jill Biden’s use of the title “Dr.” — spurred by essayist Joseph Epstein’s recent jeremiad in The Wall Street Journal against holders of nonmedical doctorates who embrace the label — largely has focused on the sexism confronted by female Ph.D.s and Ed.D.s (such as...
Mary Schmich: Light returns after dark year
And now the light comes back. On Monday the winter solstice arrived, marking the moment we begin the slow climb out of the darkness, like weary miners exiting the pit. This year more than ever, the shift feels psychological as well as astronomical, so it’s a good time to take...
Eric Epstein: Three Mile Island cleanup must be fully funded
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently granted approval for the transfer of the license of Three Mile Island Unit-2 (TMI-2) from FirstEnergy, a public utility, to TMI-2 Solutions, a limited liability corporation based in Utah. The NRC approved the license transfer without holding a hearing. TMI-Alert speaks in opposition to...
Mary Carney: Vital rural access hospitals need support
As we brace ourselves for another wave in covid-19 cases, we are reminded of the gratitude and overwhelming need for health care professionals. The rollout of the vaccine is giving us a sense of hope for the future, but Pennsylvania is still grappling with the state’s confirmed 577,000-plus covid-19 cases...
Frasat Ahmad: Muslims don’t celebrate Christmas, but still commemorate Christ
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, right? Christmas has come. The Christmas trees, filled stockings, mistletoe and bright lights are spectacular. What’s not to like? So how come Muhammad down the street is not soaking up the holiday joy? I don’t see his house decorated with lights, or...
Michael Carnahan: Mill 19 solar project step toward clean air — if expiring tax credit is renewed
When the switch flipped on for Mill 19 at Hazelwood Green last month, I felt a rush of gratitude for the union workers who had stood on netting hammocked between steel beams 85 feet off the ground. Slow, steady and with great skill, they’d clamped on each of the 4,968...
Glenn Marsch: Triumph of the vaccine — the swift rescue
In the first month or two of 2020, we had the first hint of a new, strange disease that originated in Wuhan, China. By March, we were locked down in our homes and have lived unprecedented disruptions of normal life since then. All along we have looked to science for...
Cole Schenley: Local government should decide minimum wage
Voting for President Trump while also supporting a law that raises the minimum wage? At first glance, you might think it impossible. Trump’s campaign platform made no mention of increasing the minimum wage. Though he often claims to be on the side of American workers, many of his trade and...
Nathan Lents and Dr. S. Joshua Swamidass: Science bridges divides for a better world
Fifteen years ago Sunday, U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones delivered his landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District ruling: Intelligent design is not scientific, is religious in nature and therefore should not be taught as a scientific alternative to evolutionary theory in public schools. This was a big...
Steven Chanenson and Jordan Hyatt: Vaccine decisions for the incarcerated
After a powerful fall resurgence, covid-19 has left no aspect of life untouched, including in Pennsylvania’s state prisons and county jails. Now that the first shots have been given, doctors, ethicists and politicians have begun to consider who should be vaccinated next and in what order this should happen. One...
Robert Smith: The nature of environmental quality
We have all heard the ongoing allegations of toxic pollution spewing from big business destroying our environment and killing us, cancer rates and respiratory diseases on the increase because of big businesses polluting for profit. These are some of the many emotionally charged allegations leveled by environmental groups. These types...
Peter Morici: Once vaccines roll out, Biden must get millions back to work
President-elect Joe Biden ran on a platform to address climate change, remedy inequality, resurrect the economy, and implement a more focused covid-19 strategy but he faces some tough challenges delivering. It appears that Pfizer and BioNTech and Moderna should be rolling out vaccines soon, but it will take months to...
Sean Kertes and Doug Chew: Why Excela received $5 million grant
We write in response to the Dec. 4 letter “$5 million grant to Excela wrong.” Transparency in government is important, so we’d like to set the record straight. The basis for a grant to Excela was set as far back as July 6, when Excela’s leadership team met with the...
Cindy Adams Dunn and Stephanie Wein: Celebrating conservation win in year of loss
It seems like more than ever, we’re barraged by a news cycle that’s filled with depressing stories about all the things going wrong in the world, from the divisiveness of the election to extreme weather and destruction, and of course, the pandemic. But there’s some good news that has quietly...
Peter Smith: Community capitalism would strengthen markets and people
Pope Francis recently wrote that “market capitalism” is out of control and that the world needs an alternative. In the United States, we are well aware of the burgeoning economic gap between the top 1% and everyone else that has erupted over the last 30 years. Multiple factors have contributed...
Mark Schwartz: Why no sanctions for frivolous election lawsuits?
Covid-19 has certainly made for an unprecedented situation for lawyers, as well as for our judges who try to maintain a semblance of order amid the overwhelming disorder that covid-19 has imposed. Court proceedings have always been about in-person proceedings, where we are able to personally confront opposing parties, their...
Rep. Austin Davis: Congress must act fast on CARES Act, new plan for Pa. residents
In March, we had to ask the most of our residents: We asked them to stay home. We asked them to forego their financial security, close businesses and have faith in the government to do the right thing. “We’ve got your backs,” we said. “Programs will be available to you...
Eugene Robinson: Trump, GOP causing crisis of faith in our democracy
WASHINGTON Democracy requires faith. President Trump and his unscrupulous enablers — including most Republican elected officials — are cynically destroying that faith for millions of Americans, and I fear the nation will pay a terrible price. I’m talking to you, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and most of your...
Sheldon Jacobson: Effective treatments, not vaccines, are light at end of covid-19 tunnel
We are nine months into the covid-19 pandemic, with many succumbing to face covering and physical distancing fatigue, and pockets of pervasive skepticism about the virus threat and its risk. No one is happy, and everyone has someone to blame for their anger, grief and malcontent. The question people are...
David Dausey: Keep holiday festivities smaller to prevent covid-19 from getting bigger
Americans need to change their behaviors in advance of the holidays unless they want a very grim start to the new year. If we don’t, cases of covid-19 could overwhelm the health care systems in many regions in the country and deaths will continue to escalate. Without significant changes to...
Ron Klink: When addressing drug prices, there’s a right way and a wrong way
In what may have been the last significant action of his presidency, President Trump recently issued two executive orders designed to lower prescription drug spending in Medicare. The first order would eliminate the current system of “rebates” for prescription drugs covered by Medicare Part D. The second order, dubbed the...
Catherine Rampell: The best way for Biden to save money later
There are two main arguments for Congress to provide generous, immediate fiscal relief. One is based on humanitarian concerns; the other, economic growth. President-elect Joe Biden should use both in his continuing efforts to sway penny-pinching lawmakers. On Friday, in response to a particularly “grim” jobs report, Biden made a...
Caleb Fuller: ‘E’ for ‘Excellence: — remembering Walter E. Williams
Walter E. Williams, prolific author, piercing cultural commentator, old school economist (that’s a good thing), devoted husband, loving father and longtime friend of Grove City College, has passed from this world. To the rest of America, Williams, who died Dec. 2, was known as a “suffer-no-fools” commentator on perennial hot-button...
Gene Barr: Gov. Wolf leaves many out in cold with covid liability veto
In a year that’s already been plagued by financial hardships, small businesses, nonprofits, day cares, and the education and medical communities recently received more troubling news when Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed critical liability protections on the last day of the 2019-20 legislative session — effectively leaving these industries out in...
Peter Morici: Biden must make a covid-19 stimulus bill happen now
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” the oft-quoted opening line from “A Tale of Two Cities,” is an apt description of the American economy. And we know how those times ended — in revolution. The stock market booms as if America shines more brightly...
