Featured Commentary category, Page 24

For more than 50 years, we have known that lead poisoning can have devastating effects on children’s developing brains. Lead is a neurotoxin, and there is no safe blood lead level for children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), lead exposure in children can result in...

Believe it or not, Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” makes me think of Mother’s Day. Remember the scene where Allen’s character Alvy was stuck in line at the movies, subjected to the pompous blathering of a pseudo-intellectual? When the topic turned to media philosopher Marshall McLuhan, Alvy handily produced McLuhan himself...

Artificial intelligence is already affecting our lives in many positive ways, automating tasks, helping to diagnose medical issues and acting as a voice-controlled virtual assistant for many. Still, there is a very real danger of misuse and unintended consequences of the technology, as we saw recently in Maryland, with the...

“For sure in this township … if it was Blacks that did this there would be no hesitation … they would already at DCP (Dauphin County Prison).” That’s only one of a slew of angry comments on social media following the death of 16-year-old Justin Johnson. It’s reminding many of...

When its six-week abortion ban went into effect on May 1, Florida joined nearly two dozen other U.S. states that ban abortion or greatly restrict it. These laws came into effect after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade ended nearly 50 years of the constitutional right...

Last month, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., unveiled a rare government feat: a bipartisan bill that has lawmakers feeling “optimistic” and “fired up.” It’s the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA), and it’s long overdue. The U.S. lags far behind the rest of the world on...

University campuses nationwide have long been the focus of political debates and battles in the form of protests and demonstrations. In recent weeks, students galvanized by their consciences have been leading an anti-war movement that our nation hasn’t seen the likes of in decades, and it is spreading like wildfire....

The protesters taking over college campuses are not antisemitic, so we’re told, but they want to destroy the only Jewish state. They just want all of the Jews to go … somewhere else. They chant for the creation of Palestine “from the river to the sea,” an explicit call for...

In Southwestern Pennsylvania where I live with my family, the Keystone and Conemaugh power plants have been burning coal for more than 50 years, filling the air with potentially life-altering pollution and fouling the region’s water and soil with mercury-laced waste. Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency took action that...

The Federal Reserve reports inflation is down, though it continues to remain above its 2% target level. The most recent report showed inflation was hovering around 3.5% (year-to-year), from a high of 9.1% in June 2022. Yet many people do not feel good about their financial situation, with inflation one...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...