Featured Commentary category, Page 88
Students: Mayor Gainey, please focus on environmental justice
Dear Mayor Gainey: We are high school students concerned about climate change and the environment. Through our firsthand experiences and the stories that we have heard, we believe that it is essential to share our voice for the future of Pittsburgh and the world. We urge you to fulfill and...
Andrew Shubin: Statute of limitations reform will enable justice to be served
Thank you, Gov. Tom Wolf, for pressing the Pennsylvania Legislature to immediately enact civil child sexual abuse statute of limitations reform so that thousands of middle-aged and older survivors can bring predators and their institutional enablers to justice. For far too long, perpetrators and the religious institutions, schools, summer camps,...
Henry Bial: Best Easter pageant ever? Half a century of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’
In the days leading up to Easter Sunday, Christians around the world participate in retellings of the story of the last days of Jesus’ life, from his entry into Jerusalem to the Last Supper and to his trial, crucifixion and resurrection. They may walk the Stations of the Cross, a...
Reps. Mike Puskaric and Frank Burns: Energy freedom in Pa. would help support our European allies
As the Ukrainian people fiercely defend their nation and fight for their freedom, Pennsylvanians are eager to do what they can to weaken Russia and help Ukraine’s freedom fight. To be sure, Pennsylvania has already taken important steps to help Ukraine in this fight — pulling Russian-made products from the...
Harriet Ellenberger: What’s a woman?
I can honestly say I was not particularly surprised by the question Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., posed to Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson at her confirmation hearing: “Can you provide a definition of the word ‘woman’?” I am not perplexed because it is obvious to me certain members of...
William Haupt III: Biden hides border moves behind Russia-Ukraine crisis
“The best way to conceal the truth is to hide it behind something of less significance.” – Confucius In 2008 during the Great Recession, Barack Obama hammered an $800 billion stimulus bill though Congress. Those who actually read it found it was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It had little...
Christopher Redding, Allison Gilmour, Elizabeth Bettini and Tuan Nguyen: Why most teachers won’t leave the profession
Every spring, school and district leaders ask teachers about their plans to return to teaching in the fall. They need to know how many teachers to begin recruiting for the next school year. These career conversations are currently taking place under the unprecedented circumstances brought on by the covid-19 pandemic....
Eric Pauley: Mismanaged cloud services put user data at risk
Organizations’ failure to properly manage the servers they lease from cloud service providers can allow attackers to receive private data, research my colleagues and I conducted has shown. Cloud computing allows businesses to lease servers the same way they lease office space. It’s easier for companies to build and maintain...
Rebecca Oyler: Truck drivers are vital and deserve respect
A couple of years ago, it was toilet paper. But now, it’s more sporadic — maybe you’ve had to buy a different brand of coffee or forgo your favorite candy. But as supply chain disruptions continue, imagine what it would be like with no options on the shelves: no fresh...
David Thornburgh: High stakes in Pa.’s primary races
Pennsylvania, where deep-blue and deep-red politics collide, is in the midst of an unprecedented primary election season. The May primary is the first one in the commonwealth’s 235-year history in which voters — except registered independents — will have the chance to vote for candidates in open gubernatorial and U.S....
Jennifer Miller and Heather Taylor: Congress must continue work to feed hungry children
Late last summer, the dedicated staff and volunteers who run church food pantries across our region noticed something was missing: families with kids. The parents and grandparents who had relied on these pantries to feed their children throughout the pandemic had disappeared. They weren’t dropping in for bags of macaroni...
Robert Peacock: Lessons from Ukraine on cyberattacks
In 2014, as Russia launched a proxy war in Eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea, and in the years that followed, Russian hackers hammered Ukraine. The cyberattacks went so far as to knock out the power grid in parts of the country in 2015. Russian hackers stepped up their efforts against...
Clara Ferreira Marques: Bucha’s atrocities are not Russia’s first. They must be the last
It’s hard to read the reports emerging from Bucha and other Kyiv suburbs, and nearly impossible to look at the images. Retreating Russian soldiers have left evidence of unthinkable brutality. Ordinary men and women lie dead on the street, in the dark mud and dirt, many shot, some with hands...
Joseph Wright and Abel Escribà-Folch: Calling Putin a ‘war criminal’ could spark even more atrocities in Ukraine
As the war in Ukraine continues, officials in the U.S. and Europe are sounding alarms about alleged war crimes being committed by Russian troops there. President Joe Biden has called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal,” as has the U.S. Senate, on the grounds that schools, hospitals and civilian...
Tyrone McKinley Freeman: How MacKenzie Scott’s $12 billion in gifts to charity reflect an uncommon trust in the groups she supports
Editor’s note: MacKenzie Scott disclosed on March 23 that she had given $3.9 billion to 465 nonprofits in the previous nine months. These no-strings-attached donations bring the total she has given away in the past two years to at least $12 billion. Philanthropy historian Tyrone Freeman weighs in on Scott’s...
Shelley Inglis: Putin puts international justice on trial — betting that the age of impunity will continue
Images of pregnant women fleeing a bombed maternity ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, raised again the question of how far the Russian military will be willing to go to conquer the country — and whether war crimes are being committed. In just over two weeks of the invasion, the World Health...
Kelly Flanigan: Pa. communities should be allowed to choose clean energy
If we’re going to make headway in the fight against climate change, we must reduce the carbon footprint of our homes and buildings. That’s because buildings account for about 40% of all energy use in the United States. And about 80% of that energy comes from dirty power sources that...
Victoria Elliott and Rick Seipp: Without action, Pennsylvanians could lose access to pharmacy vaccination care
Together we have sacrificed a lot to get through the covid-19 pandemic. It is understandable that many want to move on. Still, a critical job remains — acting on the emergency’s lessons once and for all so our sacrifices are not in vain. Pennsylvania legislators and Gov. Tom Wolf have...
Andrew Cuff: Progressives sacrifice Pittsburgh’s prosperity for activist politics
The Republican National Committee recently narrowed down its list of cities to host the party’s 2024 national convention to two: Milwaukee and Nashville. But the original list from earlier this year included Pittsburgh. What scared the GOP off the Steel City? Considering its outsize role in U.S. politics, Pittsburgh would...
Mark Hendrickson: What is the proper policy response to today’s inflation?
If you get depressed easily, you may wish to skip this op-ed. Our country has suffered inflationary bouts to various degrees throughout our history, with perhaps the most severe having occurred during the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the 1970s. Sadly, we have never found a quick, clean way...
Counterpoint: Paying college athletes a bad idea
As March Madness comes to a close, once again we hear that college student athletes are being unfairly “exploited” by being denied salaries for playing sports. Should the NCAA and universities be pressured or forced to change longstanding policy? This notion, while seemingly sensible at first glance, is badly misguided....
Point: Pay college athletes
St. Peter’s University’s run of upsets wasn’t the only storyline from this year’s March Madness tournament. The other is that the Memphis Tigers men’s basketball team is in trouble for allegedly paying its players, in violation of NCAA rules. It is time for the NCAA to do the right thing...
Cal Thomas: JFK, Reagan and Biden
President Biden’s speech from Warsaw Saturday night reminded me of two previous presidents who delivered speeches confronting the autocracy that was then the Soviet Union and is now Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, a man Biden has rightly called a war criminal. On June 26, 1963, President John F. Kennedy...
Joseph Wright: Economic sanctions may make Russians’ lives worse — without stopping Putin’s assault on Ukraine
The economic sanctions levied upon Russia as a consequence of its invasion of Ukraine target the Russian economy and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest personal and business associates. The goal is to alter domestic politics within Russia, ultimately stopping Putin’s aggression. Yet our research into how economic sanctions affect the...
Harold Johnson: After 50 years, Vietnam vets still fight for recognition, treatment
Here I sit, a decorated, combat-related disabled American Vietnam veteran, on the annual National Vietnam War Veterans Day — an annual day of recognition of combat service associated with those who bravely and honorably service in the Vietnam War — and wondering why, after nearly 50 years of waiting for...
