Columns

Using a mask to mask your feelings

I have been trying to do my civic duty. I stay more than 6 feet away from most people. I live alone, so my trips to the store are surgical strikes. I have social distanced from vulnerable friends and relatives, mastered the art of Zoom and Facetime, and learned to make my own damn coffee.

Are you ready for the murder hornets?

Murder hornets. (Not to be confused with their close relatives: accessory-to-murder hornets, involuntary-manslaughter hornets, justifiable-homicide hornets and turning-state’s-evidence hornets.) Killer hornets. Asian giant hornets.

Life during pandemic puts a strain on all of us

My brother Jon was an exceptional human being. He had a sense of the world and life that alternated between skepticism, passionate embrace, disappointment, and hope that things would always move toward improvement, toward the light.

There’s room for compromise, if we look for it

Over breakfast the other day, my wife, who happens to be a physician, asked, “Whatever happened to compromise?

Where’s #MeToo on Joe Biden allegations?

To say that I am notoriously skeptical of the #MeToo movement is an understatement. I have railed against a movement that has always struck me as extreme, partisan, and motivated more by vindictiveness than by a search for clarity and justice. From Bill Cosby, to former Sen.

Little Sisters of the Poor meet pandemic with grace humility

In the outside world, the COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting our divisions. Inside the Little Sisters of the Poor retirement residence in Pittsburgh, it’s revealing the power of grace and humility.

Elective procedures banned, abortion protected

Gov. Tom Wolf closed the schools in Pennsylvania for the rest of the academic year. That’s his prerogative, I suppose, and I know there are legions who support his decision.

COVID-19 aid poses fiscal danger to Louisiana

New details have recently emerged in a new Foundation for Government Accountability Report (FGA), “Extra COVID-19 Medicaid Funds Come at a High Cost to States”, which indicate that Democrats in Washington are once again not letting a good crisis go to waste.

Is it our health or financial ruin? Or both?

So, now it’s meat. Just as I was celebrating my latest acquisition — the last four-pack of generic bathroom tissue — I rolled my way over to the meat aisle, only to find a few sad, lonely leftovers. There was a butt roast, a package of sausage and a pair of pork chops. That was about it.

Charlotte’s Web: An awful price of this pandemic

The pandemic has turned our world upside down. We work from home. School is cancelled indefinitely. Weddings, graduations, baptisms and all of the other indicia of the normal trajectory of a human life are suspended.