Editorials category, Page 57
Editorial: Open seats are chance to step up
It seems like every day brings a new announcement of the latest person running for governor or the U.S. Senate seat representing Pennsylvania. The ever-enlarging pool of possibilities comes on the heels of two presidential elections with fields of candidates so large they didn’t all fit on the debate stages...
Editorial: Big cases defy change of venue
Robert Bowers still is moving slowly toward trial for the October 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill. On Monday, defense attorneys filed a motion in the case. In nearly 3,900 pages, they detailed the reasons that a federal judge should give the case a change...
Editorial: Pa. Senate shouldn’t be childish with open records
Malicious compliance is a passive-aggressive response to authority. Tell your kids to clean their room, and they shove everything under the bed. Tell your kid to get in the shower, and she does — but doesn’t turn on the water. Tell your kid he can have one bowl of ice...
Editorial: King’s dream is quest for unity
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. Ask most people to name when those words were spoken, and they may say the Declaration of Independence. They are not wrong. Thomas Jefferson did pen them on that historic parchment that was sent to a king...
Editorial: Insurance payment for tests should have better coordination
In a pandemic, things can move quickly. You can see that in the rapidly rising and cresting waves of numbers as new variants of covid-19 cause an ebb and flow of spread. It was obvious in the relative lightning speed of development of testing for the virus and for vaccines....
Editorial: Supreme Court ruling could make hospital, nursing home jobs harder
Hospitals and other medical facilities have been struggling under the weight of competing crises during the coronavirus pandemic. On one hand, there is the need to help the patients. Pennsylvania’s numbers are on an upswing as the state, like the rest of the country, tries to handle the spread of...
Laurels & lances: Christmas, permit and reports
Laurel: To a second chance. Christmas didn’t come just once for Isaiah Olson this year. The Norvelt 6-year-old and his family lost their home on Jan. 5 to a house fire that claimed the life of his great-aunt, Alisa J. Richwine, 62. That’s a lot to disappear in a traumatic...
Editorial: If schools want parents to decide about masks, how do they enforce that?
Let the schools decide, people said. When the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the state Department of Education and Gov. Tom Wolf called for masks to protect from covid-19, there was protest from some parents and community members. This shouldn’t be a state decision. It shouldn’t be an edict from on...
Editorial: PennDOT should have shined a light on traffic signal
Red lights mean stop. Green lights mean go. Yellow lights mean be careful. Use caution. Slow down. Yield. It is probably the one part of learning to drive that no one really needed to learn. It’s a message that we have been taught forever. It’s a shorthand used for diets...
Editorial: Allegheny County Jail should follow the law
Twisting words to avoid following the law is a problem, especially when being done in a jail. In May 2020, almost 70% of Allegheny County voters agreed with a referendum on the ballot that called for radically restricting solitary confinement at the county jail. While often referred to as a...
Editorial: Schools reacting to covid staffing challenges
In March 2020, kids went home from school on Friday and didn’t come back for months. Some didn’t walk through the school doors in person until August 2021. Instead, they found new ways to work that weren’t at a desk next to 25 other students. They used Google Classroom or...
Editorial: Brainstorming winter storm plowing
There aren’t quite enough people to plow the roads this winter. That’s a problem that was identified last year. In November, PennDOT reported it still had hundreds of temporary positions, plus plenty of regular full-time jobs, that needed to be filled to get through the winter. On top of that,...
Editorial: Watch the spending, DA Ziccarelli
When you run for office, it’s all about selling yourself to the voters. You are the product, and the price is a ballot. But after you win, the job becomes only partially marketing. The rest of the time is spent doing the mundane work of the office you have taken:...
Laurels & lances: Hospital, classrooms and a diner
Laurel: To being proactive. As covid-19 numbers in Southwestern Pennsylvania swell with the spread of the omicron variant, UPMC Children’s is taking steps to address the impact on a growing demographic. The variant is contributing to rising cases among pediatric populations. UPMC Children’s already had one unit dedicated to coronavirus...
Editorial: Why can’t Westmoreland hire an elections director?
Greg McCloskey got a $5,000 bonus this week for running the Westmoreland County elections process. This was definitely money he earned. McCloskey already has his own job for the county as head of public works. That’s at least a full-time job doing things like making sure the county’s crews are...
Editorial: Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown and how to say goodbye
Sports figures often are seen as role models — good or bad. In less than 48 hours, two former teammates showed both aspects. Not with what they did on the field, but with how they left it. Ben Roethlisberger’s tenure calling the plays and throwing the ball for the Pittsburgh...
Editorial: Bradford pears show how government policies can stink
Bradford pear trees are beautiful. They are delicate, with slim trunks and plentiful branches. Their flowers are a blizzard of snowflake blossoms. Their glossy dark green leaves turn to warm jewel tones in cold weather. But when it comes down to it, they stink — in more ways than one....
Editorial: New laws show common sense
In 2022, Pennsylvania has a number of new laws going into effect. Some are in response to calls for change from industry. Some are in response to gaps in service. Some are just blatant necessity. What is refreshing is the number of things that reflect cooperation from a body of...
Editorial: Legislating requires thinking several moves ahead
Chess is a game that demands more than just following the rules. To master its art, a player has to develop the ability to look beyond the move being made to the next step and the next and the next. To see how this move affects what happens down the...
Editorial: Same stuff, different year
If you had trouble telling the difference between 2020 and 2021, you aren’t alone. The last two years have been a stressful roller coaster of issues that have required almost constant attention. In 2020, it was the pandemic. It was politics with the presidential election. It was the annual census...
Laurels & Lances: The little highs and lows of 2021
The Laurels & Lances are where we laud or lambaste the kind of good and bad stories each week that don’t quite rise to the level of a full-blown editorial but still deserve to be called out for attention. January: The first laurel of the year went to two area...
Editorial: Nursing home residents deserve protection from sex offenders
On April 21, 1996, Megan’s Law went into effect in Pennsylvania. That made possible identifying sex offenders, keeping a registry of their location and notifying the community if someone with a record of sexual violence was living nearby. The law was named for Megan Kanka, 7, a New Jersey girl...
Editorial: Alcohol use increase is pandemic side effect
Stress can push people to do things that aren’t good for them. They can eat too much. Watch too much TV. They can gamble. Or they can abuse drugs or alcohol. The coronavirus pandemic is exactly the kind of stressor that can make people look for a source of comfort...
Editorial: Departing officeholders leave challenge for new public servants
In Pennsylvania, general elections are held in November. It is done by law, as the Tuesday after the first Monday of the month is named in the U.S. constitution for federal elections and it seemed to make sense to keep it there for the other years. The timing of elections...
Editorial: The opinions of 2021
The editorial is not a 10- to 15-inch space where a newspaper gets to let down its hair and loosen its belt and change the rules that apply to the rest of its coverage. In a news story, the reporters uncover the story and track down the details. The editors...
