Opinion category, Page 527
Lori Dira: Standardized testing should be suspended this year
The Pennsylvania Department of Education recently announced that it would allow individual school districts to decide whether to administer PSSA and Keystone Exams this spring, as would be typical, or to postpone these tests until the fall. While the Biden administration is imploring schools to stick with the usual plan...
Carol Ferguson: Vaccines work — life lessons from polio survivors
We’ve been here before. For half of the 20th century, polio was affecting tens of thousands of children annually. Transmitted by person-to-person contact, polio’s lingering paralytic effects frightened anxious parents so much that people avoided gatherings altogether. Schools were closed, activities were paused. There was no vaccine, no cure, no...
Letter to the editor: What if Andrew Cuomo looked like John Edwards?
If New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo looked like presidential candidate John Edwards, I wonder if there would have been any sexual harassment complaints against him. Just sayin’ … . Maria Maliszewski Brackenridge...
Editorial: Keep a tight spending rein on Pennsylvania’s stimulus share
It’s important to learn to live within your means — especially when a windfall seems to change the arithmetic. You might be approved for a $300,000 mortgage, but you don’t have the spend the whole line. You could spend that $2,000 tax return on the down payment for a new...
Letter to the editor: Tired of Pirates’ promises
Regarding the article “Pirates GM Ben Cherington hopes to follow model set by recent playoff contenders” (Feb. 21, TribLIVE): Shoulda, woulda, coulda! At one point Hamlet laments, “they fool me to the top of my bent.” The fact remains that in the last 10 or 12 years, the Pirates reached...
Letter to the editor: We need eco-friendly legislation
The article “Power failure: How a winter storm pushed Texas into crisis” (Feb. 21, TribLIVE) highlights the cause and effects of this disaster and shows evidence that our country needs dramatic climate reform. This can start with the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, which would assess a fee on...
Letter to the editor: Working to end global poverty
More than a year later, covid-19 is still changing our lives: missed vacations, canceled parties and more. These are changes we wish didn’t happen. However, I hope that the pandemic has also brought good changes, and has turned us into kinder people who care about the most vulnerable and are...
Letter to the editor: How Westmoreland commissioners should lead
While I support Commissioners Douglas Chew and Sean Kertes’ efforts to increase the number of vaccines being sent to our county (“Westmoreland commissioners demand increase in covid vaccine deliveries”), real leadership of our highest electeds requires them to step into the breach at the county level and respond to the...
Letter to the editor: We must keep taking precautions against covid
I was surprised to see event listings recently in the Tribune-Review, when the coronavirus “is not done with us,” according to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky (“U.S. advisers endorse single- shot covid-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson”). Local groups are serving food and drinks, with masks required while not seated....
Jonah Goldberg: Bipartisan dysfunction is fueling reckless spending sprees
After the Senate passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, President Joe Biden came out to take a bow. This measure came “not a moment too soon,” he said. “For over a year, the American people were told they were on their own.” This is the kind of thing presidents...
Sheldon Jacobson: NCAA covid-19 policy demands selective reseeding for March Madness
The NCAA announced policies designed to keep March Madness on track for a safe and successful tournament. These policies include holding all 68 games in the Indianapolis area and limiting the number of people in each venue to 25% of its capacity. These restrictions will serve to limit the spread...
Editorial: The Diocese of Greensburg, 70 years young
On March 10, 1951, Pope Pius XII created the Diocese of Greensburg. If a parish is the spiritual house of a Catholic, a diocese is a kind of religious municipality. It is the governmental unit of the Catholic Church — larger than a city, smaller than a state. Greensburg is...
Letter to the editor: No need to criticize Texas for mask policies
Why are folks “ragging” on Texas concerning its mask policies? There are 16 states that do not have mask mandates and are opened up. Check your facts: Pennsylvania had 190 deaths per 100,000 people and Texas had 156 deaths per 100,000 people — that should tell you something. If you...
Letter to the editor: Do your own research on RGGI
Marc Mondor’s letter “RGGI will allow Pa. to be globally competitive” (Jan. 30, TribLIVE), promoting the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which is a tax on power generation in its most basic form, is a ruse in its most basic form. With his imploring of Pennsylvania to join the RGGI, he...
Letter to the editor: Limbaugh’s dangerous propaganda
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida opened the recent Conservative Policital Action Conference with praise for the recently deceased Rush Limbaugh and lamented that Republicans would now enter “battles ahead … without one of our greatest field generals.” DeSantis was right to talk about Limbaugh’s role in terms of combat. He...
Letter to the editor: Struggling to find vaccines
Both of my parents are in their 80s, and my sister and I have struggled daily to get them covid-19 vaccinated. They live in Westmoreland County, which, according to the state map of vaccine locations, has 10 times fewer sites than Allegheny County. Also, this antiquated system of having to...
Pat Buchanan: The emerging existential crisis at the border
During a Democratic debate in 2020, the candidates were asked if their health care plans would cover “undocumented immigrants.” Each raised his or her hand, including front-runner Joe Biden. From that stage, the message went forth: If the Democrats win this election, then it is amnesty for all and open...
Leonard Pitts Jr.: Dr. Seuss has not been ‘canceled’
No, Dr. Seuss hasn’t been “canceled.” Granted, you’d never know it from the ruckus that erupted after Theodor Seuss Geisel’s estate decided to stop publishing six lesser-known titles by the celebrated children’s book author because they contained offensive racial stereotypes. We’re talking Asians with “their eyes at a slant” and...
Ashley Lynn Priore: A chess strategy may help unify Pa.
I’m a proud Pittsburgher. How could I not be? I was born and raised in the Steel City and attended the University of Pittsburgh down the street from my home. In 2014, I founded a nonprofit organization, Queen’s Gambit Chess Institute. I have taught chess in Pittsburgh’s nine districts ever...
Josh Fleitman: We must vaccinate against the gun violence epidemic, too
A sleeping infant struck and killed by a stray bullet during a gunfight in Spring Hill. An elementary school teacher slain in her Westmoreland County home when someone shot into the incorrect house in retaliation over a drug deal gone wrong. A young, Black man, cornerback on his Catholic high...
Letter to the editor: Benz’s ‘Miracle’ piece excellent
All of the Trib’s sports reporters are very good at their jobs, but the recent Tim Benz column “Will America ever allow itself to have another ‘Miracle’?” (Feb. 24, TribLIVE) was simply outstanding. Very thought-provoking. Well-reasoned. Excellently conveyed. Benz and Jason Gay of The Wall Street Journal are two of...
Editorial: When local live music restarts, be there to applaud
Music that reflects the life and love and pain of its people has been a part of Southwestern Pennsylvania from its earliest days. It is the fifes and drums of early settlements and the old standards of Stephen Foster. It is the doo-wop of the Del Vikings, the urbane jazz...
Letter to the editor: Kudos to Allegheny Health Network, Allegheny Valley Hospital
This is a “tip of the hat” to Allegheny Health Network and more specifically to Allegheny Valley Hospital for their incredibly well-organized vaccination events. I’ve had the pleasure of taking several people to AVH for their covid-19 vaccinations, and I’m here to tell you, they ran so smoothly, and we...
Letter to the editor: Trump put America first
To all you folks who suffer from Trump derangement syndrome (TDS): I know you keep clamoring on about the evils of Donald J. Trump, I guess partly because you have nothing to brag about with the current do-nothing, same-old status quo administration. And you won’t for four years. I’m not...
Letter to the editor: Crimes among Trump associates
In addition to President Trump, there may be others who may have committed crimes or malfeasance, or at least acted unethically, while a member of his administration and should continue to be under investigators’ microscope. If any activity is deemed to be malfeasance or corruption, but not a crime, and...
