Opinion category, Page 498
Leonard Pitts Jr.: Insidious wounds of veterans’ souls
It’s not every day you interview someone who tells you he wants to kill himself. He was a Vietnam veteran named Greg, a man with haunted eyes and a soft voice filled with the horror of his experience in Southeast Asia: the jungle rot, the lost friends, the children rigged...
Pat Buchanan: Does our diversity portend disintegration?
After nine people were shot to death May 26 by a public transit worker, who then killed himself in San Jose, the latest mass murder in America, California Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke for many. “What the hell is going on in the United States of America? What the hell is...
Letter to the editor: Safer with Trump in office
Donald Trump is being blamed for the Jan. 6 “riots” at the U.S. Capitol. Let’s do a fact-check on Joe Biden. Since taking office, the U.S. has seen a huge spike in homicides and mass shootings, as well as police officers struck by gunfire. I believe this is because of...
Letter to the editor: Stunning musical performances at Highlands
It’s the end of the school year, and the various musical, choral and stage productions at Highlands High School have been wrapping up. The results have been stunning, especially given the constraints of the pandemic. The school’s concert band, stage band and jazz ensemble delivered jaw-dropping performances akin to college-level...
Letter to the editor: Time for peace in our country
With the presidential election finally over, I had hoped we were past the lies, name-calling, spreading of hate and other anti- and un-American activities that have been used to attack each other, our Constitution, our justice system and our very lives, as the country has been thrust toward a civil...
Editorial: Be a caretaker for Pennsylvania parks
If you are planning on spending part of your summer camping at Keystone State Park or kayaking at Ohiopyle, you aren’t alone. The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation of Natural Resources issued an overcrowding alert for the Memorial Day weekend, warning visitors that 14 of the 121 state parks including the...
Tom Purcell: The end of the handshake?
After more than a year of strict covid mandates, our state has triumphantly reopened. But, we better think twice before we offer a celebratory handshake. On Memorial Day, Pennsylvania began allowing restaurants, stores, sporting events, schools and other organizations to once again operate at 100% capacity. However, some are telling...
Jonah Goldberg: Anti-Trump sentiment fueled premature dismissal of Wuhan lab theory
A remarkable consensus has emerged in the last few weeks: It’s no longer crazy to think that the covid-19 pandemic was the result of a “lab leak” in Wuhan, China. Just to set the stage, the lab-leak theory isn’t that China deliberately unleashed the virus as some sort of biological...
Letter to the editor: We must love one another, regardless of color
We observe Memorial Day in remembrance of the lives laid down to secure our freedom. Religion and speech are the first two freedoms enshrined in our Bill of Rights. It is proper to emphasize then, that they are not from the hand of government but from the God who makes...
Letter to the editor: Who’s spewing mindless diatribe?
Letter-writer Bob McBride (“Useful idiots of Democratic Party”) argues that those of us who are Democrats apparently have some kind of hive mind where we glean our information from such “socialist” sources as CNN, thus making us incapable of independent thought and action. He also makes disturbing accusations that we...
Editorial: In remembrance of the fallen
For Memorial Day, a classic Trib editorial: On this Memorial Day, be grateful that Americans’ willingness to sacrifice for freedom’s sake, instilled by each generation in the next, remains as strong as ever. Today, Americans honor those most worthy of such gratitude — those who gave their lives in our...
Letter to the editor: Fracking in Murrysville
We urge the Commonwealth Court to reject the misguided request by the Murrysville Watch Committee to overturn the municipality’s 4-year-old ordinance allowing unconventional drilling such as hydraulic fracturing in rural- residential overlay districts (“Citizen group appeals to Commonwealth Court to overturn Murrysville fracking ordinance,” May 11, TribLIVE). As the May 10...
Editorial cartoons for the week of May 31
Editorial cartoons for the week of May 31....
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of May 31
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of May 31....
Jennifer Christman: Improving mental health of our military
Every May, mental health organizations share educational information and provide resources for Mental Health Awareness Month. During this same period, as we approach Memorial Day, we’re reminded to honor the men and women who died while serving our country. However, these two topics share more than space on the calendar...
Mona Charen: Inflation and crime threaten Democrats
The economy is reviving. On the East Coast, the cicadas are singing their love songs. There’s a supermoon on the West Coast. We are at peace (at least with other nations). And yet President Biden’s approval rating remains almost precisely where it was in the first week of his presidency...
Letter to the editor: Killing baseball in Pittsburgh
I am 66 years old and grew up in Pittsburgh watching the Pirates at Forbes Field and Three Rivers Stadium and then PNC Park. Some of the best sporting events in Pittsburgh happened at those venues. The best one I experienced was the 2013 National League wild card game. Since...
Letter to the editor: Let’s judge our children by their character
Borrowing from the sentiments of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., I have a dream that one day our children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by their sexual identity, orientation or gender, but rather by the content of their character. Keith Kondrich Swisshelm Park...
Editorial: An unsatisfactory finding of state incompetence
Sometimes, an investigation can turn up answers. Sometimes, they turn up questions. It would have been nice if the Office of the State Inspector General discovered either in the dive into why a constitutional amendment never made it to the Pennsylvania primary ballot. On May 18, the voters were supposed...
Letter to the editor: GOP’s election plans will take away voters’ rights
In his letter “How about we all make our own mask decisions?” (May 23, TribLIVE), George Silowash said he believed state mask mandates have taken our rights away. I wonder if he feels as strongly about these changes to state election laws being pushed by Republican state Rep. Seth Grove:...
Letter to the editor: Enabling disabled to marry
I am disabled. And this past year, I watched my able-bodied friends struggle with postponing and downsizing weddings, while living with the reality that I can never ,marry without risking loss of life-sustaining health care. Marriage should be an equal option for all, including disabled people. As long as we...
Letter to the editor: A history lesson on slavery
Contrary to statements made by some of our current political leaders, white slavery predates Black slavery in America. The white slaves not indentured, who began to arrive here in 1618, included hundreds of children who had been rounded up from the streets of London. Other slaves came from the ranks...
Editorial: Masks, flu and listening to the doctor
There was a lot of pushback against masks during the coronavirus pandemic. While some people embraced even the simplest homemade fabric coverings for whatever layer of protection they might afford, others rejected them. They sometimes claimed the cloth was useless, stopping nothing and just acting as a prop in a...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Klavon’s wage hike great for business and workers
When Klavon’s Ice Cream Parlor in Pittsburgh’s Strip District recently doubled its starting wage to $15 per hour plus tips, the owners quickly received over a thousand job applications for 16 positions they were unable to fill under the existing minimum wage. This rush to scoop ice cream at the...
Jessie Carmichael: Pediatric shift nurses crucial for fragile children
Every day, thousands of medically fragile children across Pennsylvania rely on the state’s pediatric shift nursing program to stay safe and healthy at home. Since 1993, this program has allowed these children to be cared for at home by skilled, professional nurses. It keeps families together, out of hospitals and...
