Editorials category, Page 83
Laurels & lances: Giving, feeding, showing
Laurel: To the right prescription. Match Day is something medical students look forward to from their first day of class. It’s the day they find out the hospitals where they will do their residency years. It’s a celebratory day, with students getting their assignments all together. At Pitt, it’s a...
Editorial: Creativity can save pandemic economy
The Pennsylvania economy is a butterfly in a jar, held in place but still fluttering. The jar is the shutdown ordered by Gov. Tom Wolf in response to the coronavirus pandemic. They’re an effort to mitigate the risk to human life posed by a disease that the latest federal estimates...
Editorial: Mixed mask messages for covid-19
When the chips are down, you listen to the people who know what they are talking about. The firefighters say this is the way out of the fire? Go that way. The police say get down during a bank robbery? Lie on the floor. So what do you do when...
Editorial: 30 more days of pandemic distance
Another 30 days. As we sit in our homes or in our eerily empty offices or in stores that are long on lines and short on basics, it might be hard to imagine. As we deal with kids doing classwork via conference calls or visit our doctors on video chats,...
Editorial: Helping each other in pandemic
Bad situations can bring out the best in people. It can also bring out the worst. People are scared and unsure in the coronavirus pandemic. They don’t know what’s coming next on the economic roller coaster, and they are nervous about grocery shopping and opening doors. And let’s just admit...
Editorial: Tracking covid-19 spread in Pennsylvania
It’s up to us all now. The Pennsylvania Department of Health is not untangling the webs that tie one covid-19 infection to another anymore. The disturbing thing is that isn’t just happening now. “Contact tracing stopped last week, as the number of cases alone, without doing follow-up contact, became challenging...
Editorial: $2.2 trillion is coronavirus intensive care
Don’t call it a stimulus. The bill passed by Congress and signed by President Trump will pump $2.2 trillion from Washington into the pockets of Americans and the checkbooks of businesses and the coffers of cities and states. For people who have rent to pay and groceries to buy —...
Laurels & lances: Pulling together
Laurel: To reaching out while staying in. Carla Chugani of Dormont isn’t letting social distancing keep her from helping people during the coronavirus pandemic. She’s doing it by creating her own free food pantry on her porch, in the style of Little Free Libraries. Stocked with things like nonperishable foods,...
Editorial: Pennsylvania primary and coronavirus
Pennsylvania was so close to mattering in the presidential primary this year. Things were tight on the Democratic side nationwide, and maybe the Keystone State would be key in making a choice between putting former Vice President Joe Biden or Sen. Bernie Sanders on the ballot for the fall. And...
Editorial: Listening and common sense with coronavirus
A worldwide medical crisis requires you to trust others and use common sense in a way that can sometimes be hard for us. Especially when the two ideas are at odds and it’s up to us all to make smart decisions. If we ignore the good advice — or exercise...
Editorial: Officials’ lack of clarity in communicating is hurting the message amid coronavirus pandemic
Newspapers know the value of having people on the same page. That’s why when there isn’t enough room for a full story on the front, we tell you exactly what page you will find the rest, rather than just letting you hunt around randomly. We give you a key to...
Editorial: Let Pa. businesses fight coronavirus
There are almost 19,000 manufacturers in Pennsylvania. There are more than 570,400 employees who work to package potato chips and create Slinky toys and assemble Zippo lighters. Pennsylvanians work with powdered metals and electronics, chemicals and glass and steel. While Pennsylvania is being shuttered against the coronavirus, with Gov. Tom...
Editorial: When ‘elective’ surgeries are essential to health
“Elective surgery.” The term sounds almost frivolous. It conjures up images of nose jobs and breast implants. There is no reason to get a tummy tuck during a pandemic, right? So when government officials are recommending that hospitals discontinue elective surgery, that may sound reasonable. “This will free up bed...
Editorial: Wolf’s excessive attack on the Pa. economy will hurt lives
There is no business that isn’t life-sustaining. Every business in Pittsburgh, and Greensburg, and the Alle-Kiski Valley, in Pennsylvania and beyond. They all sustain life. Maybe they don’t all serve the food that fuels a body, but they provide the paychecks that put food on the table. And so it...
Laurels (and no lances): Some reminders of goodness
Laurel: To a different kind of greens. It’s nice to know that as some golf courses close down, that doesn’t necessarily mean the landscape will change dramatically — becoming a sea of subdivided homes or vast expanses of pavement. The Timber Ridge Golf Club in East Huntingdon has found new...
Editorial: Faith, the faithful and coronavirus
Three parishioners at one East Liberty church have tested positive for coronavirus. The Eastminster Presbyterian Church’s Pastor Paul Roberts and two other members have covid-19, providing sobering evidence of how even the places we feel safest have to be approached with caution in the midst of a pandemic. It’s also...
Editorial: What are essential businesses in Pa.?
What does “essential” mean? It’s a question everyone needs to ask after Gov. Tom Wolf’s announcement Monday that essential businesses in Pennsylvania need to close in response to the coronavirus pandemic. “We strongly urge nonessential businesses across the commonwealth to do their part by temporarily closing as we work to...
Editorial: Pennsylvania’s handling of school closings gets ‘F’
This is not an editorial about coronavirus. It’s an editorial about questionable government decision-making that just happens to involve coronavirus. The thing is it could be about any big, important issue. Probably a few smaller, more mundane ones, too. For days, there was hemming and hawing about what would close...
Editorial: We will get through this coronavirus pandemic together
We are all in this together. The word “pandemic” is scary. It takes the already frightening “epidemic” and turns up the volume and shines a spotlight. The changes are pouring out faster than we can track, like water from a hose. It’s overwhelming. It’s confusing. It’s relentless. We understand. We...
Editorial: The $100,000 paycheck club
The state of Pennsylvania employs more than 117,000 people. On a 2019 list of the state’s top employers, “Pennsylvania” doesn’t appear, but four individual state agencies do, making it pretty clear that if you piled the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, PennDOT, the Department of Corrections and the Department...
Editorial: Honest info builds trust in a pandemic
Transparency is one of those buzzy kind of words that seem to cluster like flies around government and other like organizations. What is so great about transparency? Maybe we should just call it what it is. Honesty. Transparency is a lack of secrecy. It is opening the door and inviting...
Laurels & lances: Seizing, teaching, tasting and hoarding
Laurel: To doing the right thing — eventually. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has returned $82,373 to an Allegheny County man after confiscating it from his daughter. Rebecca Brown boarded a plane with the cash that had been saved for years in her father Terry Rolin’s South Fayette home. She...
Editorial: Being proactive with coronavirus
This is not about panic. It’s about recognizing reality. The World Health Organization officially designated the novel coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic Wednesday. At that moment, 121 countries were affected, with 124,830 patients diagnosed and 4,585 deaths. Of those diagnosed, 67,050 have already recovered. That is good news and shows...
Editorial: Parents are firewalls to protect kids
There are a lot of names for parents today. Helicopter parents hover. Snowplow parents clear the way. Lawn-mower parents cut down obstacles. Name a piece of equipment you probably shouldn’t operate while on cold medicine, and there’s a metaphor for a parent who spends too much time involved in a...
Editorial: Pitt’s need-based aid is good call
There are two kinds of scholarships in the world of higher education. There are the ones that you get because of merit. You achieved a grade or passed a test or submitted an essay or won a contest. You show real skill as a student or real promise in your...
