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Featured Commentary category, Page 80

Pope Francis, first Latin American pontiff, dies at 88
Kim Stolfer: Time to restore gun freedoms
Last month Gov. Tom Wolf railed against two commonsense pieces of legislation, Senate Bill 565 (improves citizen safety) and Senate Bill 448 (stops illegal actions by local municipalities). He then went on to show his connection to the well-financed anti-gun community by advocating for their unsafe and unrealistic agenda which...
Tim Mak: Disbanding the NRA won’t be a magic bullet for gun control
On Aug. 6, 2020, following numerous scandals at the National Rifle Association, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit seeking to shut down the group. In the suit, James accused Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s chief executive, and a number of senior officials, as well as the organization itself,...
Ed Gainey: Fight to lower prescription drug prices continues
Over the past year and a half, not only have Pennsylvanians had to struggle with the everyday stress of living and working during a global pandemic, they’ve also had to worry about the ever-increasing price of their prescription drugs. As the covid-19 pandemic ravaged Pennsylvania, predatory drug companies took the...
Ernie Hogan: Mayor-elect Gainey, invest in neighborhood development
Last May, Pittsburgh voters decided it was a time for change, giving state Rep. Ed Gainey a Democratic primary win over the incumbent mayor. With Tuesday’s general election, Gainey became the first Black mayor of Pittsburgh. As the Gainey transition begins to unfold, Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group (PCRG), a coalition...
Gabriela Maradiaga Panayotti: I’m a mother and a pediatrician. My kids are getting covid vaccines right away.
Dear fellow parents: Please get your kids vaccinated. I’m doing so this week. As a pediatrician at Duke Health, I’ve seen many children and families suffer from covid-19 over the last 20 months. The parents of my patients tell me about the fevers, body aches, headaches, and loss of smell...
Dr. Mona Gahunia: Don’t wait to vaccinate kids
On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that all children 5-11 receive the low-dose covid-19 vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech, clearing the way for shots to begin immediately. Yet a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study indicates that one-third of parents plan to take a wait-and-see approach for their...
Craig Garthwaite: If we want cures to diseases like covid, we should stop vilifying drug companies
Drugmaker Merck just shared stunning data on molnupiravir, an oral antiviral it developed to combat covid-19. In molnupiravir’s phase three clinical trial, it cut covid-19 patients’ risk of being hospitalized or dying by 50%. The company is now seeking emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. The medicine...
Dr. Denise Johnson: Urgent need to expand syringe services programs in Pa.
Drug overdose deaths remain one of the greatest health crises facing our state, with drug overdoses increasing in 46 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties in 2020. At the same time, Pennsylvania is facing the related public health challenge of rising rates of HIV and Hepatitis C. Our families and communities are...
Dr. Andrew Smolar: Why telling the truth matters
When I attended college in the 1980s, cheating on tests was forbidden. If you were caught, your reputation and record were ruined. Since then, academic cheating has become more common. Patients who are college students tell me that “only suckers” avoid shortcuts or won’t skirt the rules for A’s. I’ve...
Mark St. Cyr: In opioid crisis, guilty must be held accountable
You might have heard of Pittsburgh native Michael Keaton’s new Hulu series “Dopesick.” The series follows Keaton’s Dr. Finnix, a doctor coerced by a pharmaceutical salesman to prescribe more opioids to his patients in a rural Virginia mountain town. Sound familiar? The series is based on Beth Macy’s 2018 book...
Maryann Gray: The anguish of unintentional killing — and how Alec Baldwin can learn to cope with it
Even as he is surrounded by loving friends and family, actor Alec Baldwin may well feel all alone in the world. In a split second, he learned how capricious life can be, and how we have far less control over ourselves and our world than we like to believe. By...
Emily Howe and Laura Chu Wiens: 4 ways Pittsburgh’s mayor must improve public transit
Pittsburgh depends on public transit. Recent Census numbers tell us that more than 50,000 Pittsburghers — more than 17% of our city’s population — use public transit to commute to work every day. Add students, the unemployed and other noncommuters, and the number of transit riders is much higher. In...
Jane Liebschutz, Jean FitzGibbons and Mary Sligh: Much work needs to be done to prevent overdose deaths
The overdose crisis has not gone away, and overdose deaths are, once again, on the rise. Sadly, 2020 marked a grim milestone in the United States: More than 93,000 people died from accidental drug overdoses, the highest annual death toll yet. Fatal overdoses are the leading cause of injury deaths...
Suzanne Ward: Answering questions on Greensburg parklet
Recently several letters to the editor have appeared asking questions about the sale of the parklet in downtown Greensburg, following the article “Greensburg officials questioned over sale of parklet” (Oct. 2, TribLIVE). I can’t answer the following: • Why are these individuals attacking two of four members of City Cribs,...
Chuck Bosetti: Normalization of deviance has caused a cultural schism in public safety
Functional public policy cannot be built on political paranoia. Sociologists tell us that when deviance from truth and humanism has slowly been normalized by prolonged ideological sophistry in our schools, government and interest groups, an inevitable conflict erupts. Can a “Public Witness” (PW), aided by Neighborhood Response Teams (NRT), separate...
Keith Rothfus: Tax increases could hurt Pa.’s economy, workers
President Biden’s and congressional liberals’ and progressives’ proposals to increase income taxes on businesses come at a time when Pennsylvanians are still recovering from the coronavirus pandemic. Because of the pandemic, our state saw nearly one out of three businesses forced to close, the second-highest percentage among all states. The...
Rep. Dan Frankel: Keep the culture wars out of the classroom, and let our teachers teach
House Republicans passed a uniquely bad bill this month, aiming to ensure than anyone, anywhere can scrutinize the educational materials used in your child’s Pennsylvania public school. The bill invites the same folks who have cast doubt on the moon landing and the 9/11 attack, the horrifying tragedy at Sandy...
John Longstreet: Restaurants still waiting for their drinks to-go
After a devastating 18 months filled with uncertainty and loss of business, Pennsylvania restaurants asked state lawmakers to throw them a lifeline. The request was simple: pass House Bill 1154, which would make cocktails to-go permanent and extend outdoor seating in the state. The bill initially garnered broad bipartisan support,...
Kliph Nesteroff: Cancel culture has always been a problem for comedy
Is freedom of speech evaporating from the world of comedy? We hear a familiar mantra whenever someone like Dave Chappelle comes under fire: You can’t joke about anything anymore. PC police. Cancel culture. People are too sensitive. But does this premise hold up to scrutiny? Studying history, it seems clear...
Michelle Naccarati-Chapkis and Britnee Weatherspoon: Time to invest in schools’ environmental health
The back-to-school news cycle has been dominated by the coronavirus delta variant and its impact on school districts, students and families, transportation woes, and the effects of last year’s pandemic-related shifts in learning. The report, “State of Environmental Health in Pennsylvania Schools,” released by Pittsburgh nonprofit Women for a Healthy...
Ron Klink: Let’s rebuild infrastructure and reduce carbon emissions
As Democratic leaders in Congress work to pass President Biden’s $3.5 trillion investment to expand social programs, dozens of House Republican centrists who support the separate $1.2 trillion roads and rails bill are coming under political pressure. We must not lose sight of the single largest bridge investment since the...
Mary Sanchez: The myth of the 1990s ‘crack baby,’ and its pandemic-related lesson
Like crack cocaine, covid can be easily politicized. The deeply troubled lives of “crack babies” thankfully never came to pass. If you missed that era of hyperventilated pronouncements, here is a synopsis. When crack cocaine first swept through American cities, much concern and social anxiety arose about the long-term impact...
Chris Zurawsky: Our Stephen Foster may be headed for LA
While the battle continues around the potential removal of the Christopher Columbus statue in Pittsburgh’s Schenley Park, another controversial piece of historic local public art currently under wraps is set to return to public view … 2,500 miles away. In September, the Pittsburgh Arts Commission unanimously approved loaning a statue...
Kenneth Broadbent: Pittsburgh must work together for success
Business and organized labor leaders formed Pittsburgh Works Together because we believe the best path to sustainable prosperity for all segments of the population is an economy that embraces traditional industries, such as manufacturing, alongside emerging technology companies. The opportunity presented by mobile autonomy — vehicles and robots and other...
Stephen Bloom: Schools shouldn’t be political battlegrounds. Let’s make peace through educational choice.
There’s no misreading the signs waving at protests across Pennsylvania. Health restrictions, curriculum, remote learning — almost everything has become a political battle. Just like our nation, our schools are at an inflection point. The controversies roiling school districts all around the state — seemingly absolute and extreme — leave...


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