Editorial voices from elsewhere
Editorial voices from newspapers around the country as compiled by the Associated Press:
Cheers to Gov. Tom Wolf for – so far, at least – exercising restraint in his use of the state plane.
A recent Pennsylvania Independent report noted the new governor used the aircraft less than his predecessors. That’s a good thing, because it costs a lot to operate the Beechcraft twin-engine King Air – about $1,000 an hour. According to the report, Mr. Wolf’s flights have cost about $25,000 so far. In 2014, Gov. Tom Corbett made 48 flights that cost more than $108,000. Gov. Ed Rendell also made extensive use of the plane.
Critics argued Wolf is wasting tax dollars because some of his plane trips were part of his campaign to drum up public support for his state budget. Fair enough, but that is arguably a legitimate part of the governor’s job. Still, he should try to drive to events as much as possible. If nothing else, that will give him a real sense of how bad our state’s roads are, and how congested they are in many areas
The worst natural disaster to hit the Mahoning and Shenango valleys lasted less than an hour and killed 10 people in Ohio and eight others in nearby Pennsylvania. That was May 31, 1985, when a rash of tornadoes came to the region.
That was 30 years ago, and we still remember the loss and pain of that day. But it pales in comparison to the natural disaster that struck the Gulf Coast 10 years ago.
Hurricane Katrina didn’t strike once or do its damage in a matter of hours. It struck Florida’s east coast Aug. 25, 2005, then moved into the Gulf of Mexico, where it built strength before making multiple landings in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Katrina made landfall at New Orleans Aug. 29. The city of 500,000 people – many of whom lived below sea level, presumably protected by levies – suffered the greatest losses in property and lives.
Katrina wiped out hundreds of years of architecture and culture in the relative blink of an eye. It would be unrealistic to expect the rebuilding to be complete in a decade. But pausing at this 10-year mark provides an opportunity to assess what worked and what hasn’t and to set goals for where New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast should be when the 25th anniversary rolls around.
America has seen this before. This anti-immigrant sentiment being churned up by Donald Trump and others? It’s not new.
A similar kind of xenophobia once swept the country under the banner of something called the American Party.
“As a national political entity, it called for restrictions on immigration, the exclusion of the foreign-born from voting or holding public office in the United States, and for a 21-year residency requirement for citizenship,” according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Membership in the American Party was also restricted to Protestant men. American Party members weren’t targeting Mexicans. Rather, they were worried about the influx of Irish-Catholics and Germans.
Their brand of intolerance allowed them to gain control of the Massachusetts legislature, win congressional elections and carry some big-city mayoral races, including Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago. Party members were blamed for burning a Catholic church in Maine and giving the tar-and-feather treatment to a Catholic priest in that state.
Welcome back to the 1840s and 1850s, when the American Party flourished before eventually breaking up over the issue of slavery. You can still read about the party in the history books, though its members were better known in the press by another name.
They were dubbed the “Know Nothings.”
It’s a name that still fits in some quarters.