Featured Commentary category, Page 42
Oliver Schilke: Trust in the shadows — how loyalty fuels illicit economic transactions
When you think about economic activities that society tends to frown on — like offering bribes, paying for the services of a sex worker or even selling human organs — “trust” and “loyalty” might not be the first things that come to mind. But these seemingly positive characteristics play a...
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd: College administrators falling into tried and true trap laid by the right
Interrogations of university leaders spearheaded by conservative congressional representatives. Calls from right-wing senators for troops to intervene in campus demonstrations. Hundreds of student and faculty arrests, with nonviolent dissenters thrown to the ground, tear-gassed and tased. We’ve been here before. In my book “Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the...
Mary M. McCarthy: Japan’s diplomatic charm offensive in U.S. aims to keep Washington in committed relationship
April 2024 proved to be a busy month in Japanese-U.S. diplomacy. The month saw a state visit to the U.S. by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida that included a White House sit-down with President Joe Biden on April 10. The next day, both men were joined by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos...
Ariel Kalil: Multigenerational households key to better support for kids of single mothers
Decades of research show, on average, children who grow up with parents who are not married and living together have worse achievement and behavioral and well-being outcomes than children of two-parent homes. Despite this evidence, rates of nonmarital childbearing have risen dramatically in the U.S., especially among the noncollege-educated. What...
Alexandra Paskhaver: Pick of the litter in the suburbs
Just because I think littering should be punishable by death doesn’t mean I’m an unreasonable person. I leave tips at restaurants. I smile when dogs get on public transport. Sometimes, I cry during sitcoms. I also have a freshly oiled chainsaw in my garage. But most suburbanites do. The suburbs...
Danny Tyree: Does your town need renaming?
The venerable comic strip “Gasoline Alley” is wrapping up a storyline in which the dastardly assistant mayor schemed to change the town’s name from Gasoline Alley to the ostensibly more modern Electric Acres (without even offering a compromise such as Hybrid Hollow). Sentimentality saved the day in the funnies, just...
Jeb Bush: What the U.S. can learn from Indiana’s high school redesign
Across the country, most high school classrooms still resemble their 20th-century counterparts despite massive changes in the workforce over the past 50 years. Today’s jobs require advanced skills and education or training, yet many graduates feel unprepared for their next steps. A 2022 YouScience survey found three-fourths of high school...
Robin Abcarian: Criminalizing homelessness is unconscionable, but is it unconstitutional?
Last Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about whether a small Oregon city can cite and prosecute homeless people for sleeping in public places when they have nowhere else to lay their heads. If the case reveals nothing else about the state of our country, it reveals this: We...
Carl P. Leubsdorf: Proof that bipartisanship is possible
For months, supporters of the embattled Ukrainians have contended there was a bipartisan House majority that would back continued U.S. military support if only its Republican leaders would allow a vote. Their contention was proven correct last weekend when the House passed a $95 billion package of support for Ukraine...
Harry Litman: Will Trump be tried for Jan. 6? After Supreme Court arguments, it’s more uncertain than ever
For those rightly concerned about the timing of Donald Trump’s federal Jan. 6 trial, the oral arguments before the Supreme Court last week gave plenty of reasons for worry. Moreover, the court’s conservative majority seemed inclined to define presidential immunity from prosecution in a way that could undermine some of...
Point: Perverting God’s word for politics is a sin
In March, former President Donald Trump began hawking a “God Bless the USA” Bible online for $59.99, a King James Version that also includes the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance. “Let’s make America pray again,” he said. “We must defend God in the public square...
Counterpoint: Bible blasphemy or act of godliness?
Donald Trump was recently accused of “Bible blasphemy” for selling a version of the Bible, which prompted me to write this article on his motivations for such an act. Is this truly blasphemy? Or is it a way to encourage his followers to study the Holy Scriptures to “Make America...
Stephen L. Carter: Should Donald Trump’s jury really remain anonymous?
What are we to make of the anonymous jury in former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York? The practice has long had its critics. First, let’s get technical: Trump’s jury is not actually anonymous. Unlike the practice in some organized crime cases, the parties and their lawyers know...
Sen. Scott Martin and Rep. Jesse Topper: Grow PA plan helps solve economic, higher education challenges
Young people graduating from high school face tough choices about what to do next. For many, college costs too much. But that problem is just one among many that threaten the future of our commonwealth. Higher education is expensive. College enrollment is declining. Kindergarten classes are shrinking. Our population is...
Tom Croner: Conservation funding helps keep family farms viable
I’m an 81-year-old, seventh-generation farmer working with my son T. Richard on a multigenerational grain and hay farm in Somerset County. We grow corn, soybeans, wheat, rye and hay. I’m proud to see him out there by himself at night, and regret that I can’t always join him. As the...
Mark Gongloff: Wildfire smoke is coming for the U.S. again. We’re not ready.
Many Americans were surprised last year when smoke from wildfires hundreds of miles away turned their air toxic. There’s no excuse for anybody to be surprised when it happens again — possibly in just a couple of months. Canada’s emergency preparedness minister has warned repeatedly that an unusually dry and...
Reps. Lindsay Powell and Aerion A. Abney: Bridging Pa.’s digital divide
Covid-19 not only resulted in immeasurable loss of life, it also permanently altered life as we knew it. The base of operations that is home shed its more proverbial association and became the place where business in all its forms got done. Computers and internet access represented a lifeline for...
Fernanda Santos: Stop saying ‘immigrants do jobs Americans don’t want to do’
The deaths of six immigrant workers in the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26 sparked the kind of collective empathy that usually follows tragic events. President Joe Biden was among the many who offered his prayers. In news reports, the men have been called “kindhearted,” “humble”...
Laura Chu Wiens: Shapiro addressing climate crisis head on through good transportation policy
The climate crisis is not coming: it is here now. It is already impacting our communities, our economy and even our national security. The transportation sector is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions leading to climate change in the United States, and so meaningful climate solutions must involve carefully...
Barbara Thomas: Breaking the silence of infertility
Preparing to have children can be a joyous time for many families — hopefully looking at baby clothes, picking out nursery colors, and even rearranging homes and lives to make room for a new little life. But for some, it takes longer than expected to fill that nursery with giggles...
Jason W. Park: The Crumbley case — who else should go to jail?
Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of Ethan Crumbley, who killed four students in a 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Mich., were each sentenced April 9 to 10-15 years in prison, weeks after being convicted of manslaughter. They are the first parents to be held criminally responsible for a mass...
Joanne Kilgour and Alison L. Steele: This Earth Day, let’s work together to build a better future for Pa.
Each year, Earth Day marks a chance to imagine a better, brighter world. Picture a Pennsylvania with bountiful clean water, skies unclouded by pollution, a strong, diverse economy and an equal opportunity for all to be healthy and thrive. Today, that vision is closer than ever to reality. Billions of...
Beau Breslin: Brown v. Board of Education at 70
American history is replete with paradigm- shifting, landscape- altering, game-changing moments. Brown v. Board of Education is one of them. Little of what we knew or understood before May 17, 1954 — 70 years ago next month — resembles what came after. Good thing. Dismantling America’s system of educational apartheid was long...
Elwood Watson: What you might have forgotten about O.J. Simpson and his trial
For those too young to fully remember the O.J. Simpson trial, it was a television spectacle with all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. Sex and violence, interracial relationships and marriage, infidelity, alcoholism, sexual deviancy and a host of lurid details that titillated and fascinated the public. Stories covering the...
Cal Thomas: Needed — regime change in Iran
Every approach to curtailing Iran from its threats and behavior toward Israel and other countries has failed. In 2023, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials accused of planning assassinations overseas. In 2024, it “reapproved a sanctions waiver that unlocks upwards of $10 billion in frozen...
