Opinion category, Page 317
S.E. Cupp: Gun massacres and the collapse of American values
My phone buzzed with a news alert, which happens numerous times throughout the day. This one, at 1:45 p.m. on Monday, was yet another mass shooting. My stomach turned queasy anticipating the details. I knew they would be horrifying — they always are. But I feared the worst … and,...
Philip J. Lazarus: ‘Closure’ after a school shooting is a myth
Whenever a school shooting takes place, such as the one that claimed the lives of three adults and three children at a Christian school in Nashville March 27, school officials often arrange for grief counseling services to be made available for whoever needs them. But what exactly do those services...
Sheldon H. Jacobson: Why has this year’s men’s basketball tournament been so mad?
The Final Four is set, with San Diego State (No. 5 seed out of the Mountain West), Florida Atlantic (No. 9 seed out of Conference USA), Connecticut (No. 4 seed out of the Big East) and Miami (No. 5 seed out of the Atlantic Coast Conference) ready to battle for...
Letter to the editor: How about grocery and gas benefit managers, too?
Regarding the op-ed “Pharmacy benefit managers help keep drug costs down” (March 20, TribLIVE): If pharmacy benefit managers do keep the price of prescription drugs down, it would be good to understand examples of several specific actions that allow them to do that. Then we could add a layer of...
Letter to the editor: Jeannette seniors deserve better
After reading the article “Federal grant to pay for security upgrades in Westmoreland public housing” (March 24, TribLIVE), I wanted to give my perspective as a city council member. Yes, Jeannette is the only municipality that rejected payment for extra police patrols. These patrols would be overtime for our officers...
Lori Falce: In the game of life, we keep swinging and missing when it comes to gun violence
I wanted to write about the Pittsburgh Pirates today. That was the plan. I was going to take the opportunity to poke the management of the hometown team with a sharp stick as we prepare to embark on what I predict now, at the end of March, will be yet...
Laurels & lances: Service and sentencing
Laurel: To honoring the past. Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary of the last American troops leaving Vietnam. In Pittsburgh, that date was remembered with a Vietnam Veterans Day service at the memorial on the North Shore. It was a reminder of not just a date in the past but of...
Letter to the editor: Sheriffs, not DAs, chief law enforcement officers
Sheriffs are the chief law enforcement officers in Pennsylvania counties, not the district attorneys. We are constantly told (particularly by attorneys and judges) that the district attorney is the “chief law enforcement officer” in the county. But this statement is simply not true. The DA is the chief prosecutor in...
Paul Kengor: Cancel culture descends on Pitt
Readers of my column know how I detest cancel culture, especially its ugly spread to speakers on college campuses. Universities ought to be bastions of genuine diversity and the free exchange of ideas. In my days at Pitt, liberals and conservatives were united in supporting one another’s right to bring...
Letter to the editor: Sue over guns? Why not killer cars and food, too?
President Biden wants to let people who have had loved ones killed by guns be able to sue gun manufacturers and gun dealers because they should have known that the guns will kill people, rather than the buyer who is using them being responsible. What about those killed by cars...
Letter to the editor: We can all be ‘climate activists’
There is a disconnect between “regular people” and “climate activists.” I’ve heard far too many times that there’s no point in “regular people” trying to do anything to fight climate change, and this mentality isn’t all regular people’s fault. Climate activists are often very proud of what they’ve worked for,...
Editorial: Pain, panic and fear: the fallout of a faked school shooting report
How dare you? This short sentence — equal parts earnest question, alarmed utterance and angry interjection — is directed at the person or persons, organization or movement behind computer-generated “swatting” calls made Wednesday reporting active shooter situations. Allegheny County 911 received calls about Central Catholic and Oakland Catholic. Both schools...
Letter to the editor: Legislators urged to protect animals
I urge Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, to support Goldie’s Act, H.R. 6100, which would impose stricter professional practices on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to uphold the Animal Welfare Act, which has oversight on puppy mills. Generally, “puppy mill” is another term for a dog producing factory, where female...
David Magee: Fentanyl poisoning — coming to a middle school near you
The last six months have been brutal for the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District in Texas. Nearly a dozen students have overdosed on fentanyl between September and March. Three of them died. If you’re thinking, Texas has a problem, the truth is far more sobering. America has a problem, and...
Jonah Goldberg: Congress may be out of touch with technology, but the concerns over TikTok are right
In a remarkable display of bipartisanship, Congress went to war with the social media app TikTok last week. The House Energy and Commerce Committee grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew about its independence — or lack thereof — from the Chinese Communist Party. The five-hour hearing was contentious. Chew did...
Letter to the editor: Saturday deer opener works
Regarding the letter “Time to move deer hunting opener back to Monday” (March 19, TribLIVE): The Pennsylvania Game Commission did the right thing when they moved the opening day of deer season to Saturday. Now, hunters have three Saturdays to hunt and, with the one Sunday hunting day, it goes...
Letter to the editor: Honoring Vietnam vets today
The Vietnam War Veterans Recognition act of 2017 was signed into law by former President Donald J. Trump, designating every March 29 as National Vietnam War Veterans Day. March 29 was chosen because, on that day in 1973, just two months after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords between...
Editorial: Is Zappala holding Kennywood to a higher standard than other shooting scenes?
Gun violence has become common to the point of being mundane. In Allegheny County, the crime level has drawn concern from the community, businesses, law enforcement and politicians. Shootings bleed together, becoming hard to separate from one another. There were 119 homicides in Allegheny County in 2022, most attributed to...
Letter to the editor: Bad logic on Trump’s presidency
The writer of the letter “Why Trump was a great president” (March 7, TribLIVE) cites a number of positive conditions or occurrences that happened while Donald Trump was president as proof that he was a great president, such as low inflation, cheaper gasoline, a favorable stock market and Putin not...
Rep. Jesse Topper: Now is the time for transformational change in Pa. education
“One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.” As I view the educational landscape in Pennsylvania, this paradox, first articulated by Voltaire, is ever-present in my mind. Lawmakers, teachers, administrators, parents and communities are concerned about whether our education system is...
Yassir Yousif: Land bank helps turn a house into a home
Our home in Chalfant sits in a quiet, low-traffic neighborhood. It has plenty of space to raise a family. But it wasn’t always this way. In fact, it stood abandoned for over four years before our family moved here in 2022. Thanks to the help of the Tri-COG Land Bank,...
Letter to the editor: Let us have our sports, Debbie Downer
When I read the editorial “The educational insanity of March Madness” (March 19, TribLIVE), the first thing that came to mind was Debbie Downer from “Saturday Night Live.” The editorial misses the entire point of collegiate sports: They are for fun and entertainment. People study a lot, work hard and...
Letter to the editor: We need qualified candidates in Westmoreland commissioner race
County commissioners receive a base annual salary above $90,000. They manage a budget of $365 million. That salary is attractive to many unqualified people, aspirational for some and just a nice gig for well qualified retirees. Patricia Fritz, former Westmoreland County chief deputy sheriff, seems a good example of unqualified....
Letter to the editor: DeSantis would be better than Biden
In response to Joseph Sabino Mistick’s commentary “DeSantis is no Reagan” (March 18, TribLIVE), I’d like to make a few comments. Mistick accuses DeSantis of flying Venezuelans to Martha’s Vineyard to show he’s tough on immigration. Not so. DeSantis did this to put illegal immigration on the national stage to...
Tom Purcell: Dumbing America down — digitally?
IQs have dropped for the first time in American history, and the experts aren’t quite sure why. According to Neuroscience News, a new Northwestern University study finds that our average IQ scores have decreased in three out of four cognitive measures. The study found that “scores of verbal reasoning (logic,...
