Hits and Misses
Pennsylvania has been known for its coal mines and, more recently, its natural gas output. If Gov. Tom Wolf has anything to say about it, it will also be known for clean energy. This week, the administration announced what it characterized as the largest government commitment to solar energy in the United States. According to the plan, seven solar array projects will be constructed in six counties and produce half of the state government’s electricity. The arrays will be built on farmland, and not require any form of remediation afterward. It’s estimated the project will create up to 400 jobs as it reduces carbon emissions. Some might be quick to sneer at clean energy as the stuff of hippy-dippy dreams, but it’s a job generator and should be embraced.
There’s a National Awkward Moments Day, a National Covered Raisin Day, and a Talk Like a Pirate Day. So why not a National Each Person is a Person of Worth Day? It happened this past Wednesday, and its the brainchild of Dr. Mary Jo Podgurski, the founder of the Academy for Adolescent Health Inc., in Washington, and a longtime advocate for teens and young people. Wednesday was also Podgurski’s birthday, and she registered the National Each Person is a Person of Worth Day last year. Its purpose? To celebrate each person’s unique contribution to life. Podgurski said, “It’s so easy to say things that really hurt kids because we judge so quickly. But if we take the time to say something positive, it echoes and ripples.” She added, “Don’t say anything that doesn’t uplift and help (young people) in their worth.”
Every couple of months or so, it seems like there is a wrong-way vehicle collision on a Pittsburgh-area road that ends up taking lives or severely injuring drivers or their passengers. Some of this can undoubtedly be credited to the fact that roads in the area can be a confusing tangle even for lifelong residents or people who have lived in the region for a considerable amount of time. But, according to the American Automobile Association and the National Transportation Safety Board, wrong-way crashes are a national problem. From 2015 to 2018, deaths in wrong-way crashes increased by 34% from 2010 to 2014. Both groups are calling for increased efforts to combat drunken driving and refresher courses for older drivers. The organizations are also calling for more-visible signs and signals, something that would be particularly relevant and necessary in this region.
Few of us would like to be judged through our lives by the missteps of our teenage years, but that’s the uncomfortable position that 27-year-old Alexi McCammond has recently found herself in. McCammond was going to be the editor of the magazine Teen Vogue, but was ousted due to racist tweets she sent when she was 17. If she had made these social media posts more recently, then that would be an understandable problem. But when she was a teenager? Graeme Wood summed it up well when he wrote for The Atlantic website, “I suppose a magazine aimed at teens and preteens would strain to acknowledge what every adult knows, which is that the entire point of being a teenager is to make and correct the most mortifying errors of your life.”
There was plenty of reason to criticize the policies of the Trump administration when it came to the U.S. southern border, but at least they allowed journalists to do their jobs there. Reporters and photographers were allowed to accompany border patrol agents on their rounds and had access to detention facilities. The Biden administration has ended that. They have pointed to the ongoing coronavirus as the reason, but couldn’t they allow the media access using safety precautions that have been deployed in other settings? Writing in The Washington Post, John Moore, senior special correspondent for Getty Images, explained, “We have gone from the Trump-era ‘zero tolerance’ policy toward to a Biden-era ‘zero access’ policy for journalists covering immigration. This development is unprecedented in modern history.”