Featured Commentary category, Page 126
Philip Gasiewicz: 1918, when another pandemic struck close to home
In 1998, the 80th anniversary of the Spanish flu pandemic, I was fortunate to hear two survivors from Western Pennsylvania relate their indelible experiences. Marian McConkey and Lois Monahan were schoolgirls then, old enough to grasp the reach of the Reaper as the Spanish flu swept across the nation. It...
Abby Foster: Chemical manufacturers key in covid-19 fight
As many of us adjust to working from the couch, with daytime television in the background and a confused dog at our side, it’s business as usual or double-time for the majority of Pennsylvania’s manufacturers and their supply chains. Critical to our ability to contain covid-19, flatten the curve and...
Rep. Dan Frankel: Congratulations on your new gun. Now lock it up.
So many Pennsylvanians bought guns last week that our state background check system crashed. Twice. In fact, 4,342 of you bought or transferred a gun or applied for a license to carry a gun on March 17 alone, according to a press release from the Pennsylvania State Police. Of course,...
Scott Brady & Josh Shapiro: Task force targets covid-19 fraud
During these difficult times, the last thing the people of Pennsylvania need are individuals, retailers or wholesalers taking advantage of them. Gouging prices of household essentials or scamming people out of money for “at home” coronavirus kits that don’t exist isn’t just a disgusting practice — it is illegal. In...
Pat Buchanan: Are Americans all-in for a long coronavirus war?
“It’s a war,” says President Trump of his efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic, and likening his role to that of “wartime president.” Some measures already taken do call to mind actions in wartime. Commercial airline flights have been reduced or canceled. Schools have been closed. Universities have shut their...
Dr. David Dausey: America, brace for impact
David Dausey, Ph.D., an epidemiologist, is provost and vice president of academic affairs at Duquesne University and a professor in Duquesne’s John G. Rangos School of Health Science. He is also a distinguished service professor of health policy at Carnegie Mellon University. If Italy is any guide, in the upcoming...
Jonah Goldberg: Coronavirus more fodder for Chinese propaganda campaign
If there’s one thing worth knowing about China — in terms of geopolitics and American national security at least — it’s that its rulers are almost as afraid of the people as the people are afraid of them. Think about it. Why would a government place secret cameras everywhere? Censor...
Dr. Paul Carson: Why coronavirus pandemic is worse than the film ‘Contagion’
Paul Carson, M.D., is a Pittsburgh physician. I rewatched Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 film “Contagion” last night starring Gwyneth Paltrow. The film goes like this: When Paltrow returns to Minnesota from a Hong Kong business trip, she attributes the malaise she feels to jet lag. However, two days later, she is...
Jeremy Fryberger: Can knowledge & unity save us … again? Yes.
For humankind, courageous understanding is always the path forward. Every day, despite our world’s countless political and societal rifts, fresh new waves of people recognize that such disunity is not only unhelpful, but enormously destructive — and that humanity’s real, enduring progress stems almost entirely from inclusive good will; if...
S.E. Cupp: It’s time for Bernie Sanders to do what’s right for America
The headlines Wednesday were blunt and scathing. In The New York Times: “Biden Gets Out the Broom.” New York Magazine: “Why Is Bernie Sanders Still Running for President?” New York Post: “Biden Just Made Bernie Nothing More Than a Two-Time Loser.” And after the third Super Tuesday trouncing by Joe...
Lowman Henry: Remembering Don Bailey
With attention riveted on the unfolding efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus, little note was made of the passing of former congressman and Pennsylvania Auditor General Don Bailey. Bailey had been out of the spotlight for many years, but he was a major political player for much of...
Dr. David Dausey: Covid-19 thoughts from an epidemiologist
I am a Yale-trained epidemiologist who spent years working around the world to help countries prepare for pandemics. Coworkers, friends and family have asked me for my thoughts and advice on what is happening in the world right now. Here is what I tell them. The threat from covid-19 is...
Mary Schmich: It’s OK not to feel OK right now. But here’s how to feel better
Mary Schmich is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune and winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. It’s OK to be scared. It’s OK to be confused, anxious, angry, lonely. Whatever emotion you’re feeling in this coronavirus craziness, it’s OK. Try not to dwell in the worst of it,...
John Stossel: Price ‘gouging’ saves lives
“We don’t have any …!” Fill in the blank. People are stocking up on things, fearing that we will be stuck in our homes, under quarantine, without essential supplies. Some hoard toilet paper. A popular internet video features someone driving up to what appears to be a drug dealer but...
Walter Williams: Bernie Sanders’ fans should look at socialism’s past
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ call for socialism has resonated among many Americans, particularly young Americans. They’ve fallen prey to the idea of a paradise here on Earth where things are free and there’s little want. But socialists never reveal what turns out to be their true agenda. Let’s look at the...
Donald Boudreaux: Globalization, wealth & health
Public emergencies are not opportunities for making permanent changes in public policies. Politicians under the best of circumstances naturally pander to people’s commonplace fears, such as alarm over imports, immigrants and income inequality. But emergencies, by shortening voters’ time horizons and intensifying sensations of individual helplessness, increase voters’ fears and...
E.R. Shipp: America has survived other calamities; we can make it through coronavirus, too
Every day in this covid-19 time brings new urgencies, new revelations, new insights. The most stunning for me, believe it or not, was realizing that I am one of those people all the health officials and journalists are talking about when they mention vulnerable populations. When they used the word...
Doris DelTosto Brogan & Steven Chanenson: Get politics out of public defender system
Recently, Montgomery County, Pa. fired its top two public defenders, Dean Beer and Keisha Hudson, immediately escorting them from their offices with no explanation to their stunned staff or the public. We join the lawyers, academics and other stakeholders who have spoken out because this matters. If the motivation for...
Susan Crawford: Maybe covid-19 will remind us why government is not the enemy
After the stock market collapsed in late 1929, many people in the United States lost their jobs. By 1932, 1 in 4 Americans was suffering from lack of food. President Hoover, enamored of the efficiency of the private market and suspicious of all foreign countries, raised tariffs and waited, confident...
Caleb Verbois: How to talk to your children about coronavirus
My wife and I homeschool our children, so we did not have to suddenly tell our children “no school for the next month,” as we will still be having it. But we did have to talk to them about why we will not be able to do other normal activities,...
Ted Anthony: Americans need a coronavirus hill to charge
When Americans are summoned to deal with an attack or defy overwhelming odds, the response typically goes something like this: Fight. Hold the line. Stand together. This won’t stop us. Keep on living your life. We will prevail. Some of the coronavirus language from leaders has mirrored this imagery. “An...
Pat Buchanan: Will coronavirus kill New World Order?
Dr. Brian Monahan, attending physician of Congress, told a closed meeting of Senate staffers last week that 70 million to 150 million Americans — a third of the nation — could contract the coronavirus. Dr. Anthony Fauci testified that the mortality rate for covid-19 will likely run near 1%. Translation:...
Laura K. Murray: How to cope with stress over coronavirus — it’s as important as hand-washing
I recently returned from Zambia, where I am leading a study focused on implementing strategies to build leaders and scale up treatments known to be effective for coping with the mental health effects of violence and substance use. But like everywhere in the world, coronavirus was a major topic of...
Jonah Goldberg: Debating virus terminology waste of energy
Amid all of the well-placed urgency and occasionally misplaced panic of the covid-19 pandemic, many have decided there’s a pressing need to debate whether terms such as “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese coronavirus” are racist. On one side is a broad coalition that includes liberal pundits, Democratic politicians, the World Health...
Colin McNickle: Pittsburgh Mills TIF comes home to roost
The boomerang that tax-increment financing (TIF) can be has come back to hit some Frazer Township taxpayers square in the wallet, finds an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “Yet again, the risks of TIF for retail have been laid bare,” says Eric Montarti, research director at the...
