May 24, 2024 3 min read

HIT: Traffic was snarled for a little while in downtown Carnegie Monday, but it wasn’t a typical slowdown caused by an accident or construction. Instead, it was because about 20 coach buses carrying veterans to Washington, D.C., made a stop in the Allegheny County community so they could enjoy a hearty lunch at Cefalo’s Banquet and Event Center. The 400 veterans who were there served in the Vietnam and Korean conflicts, as well as World War II, and were traveling at no cost to Washington, D.C., as part of the VetsRoll program, which was launched in 2010 to honor the service of veterans and allow them to make a free trip to the nation’s capital. This journey also included a stop at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. Given the sacrifices they made, a free trip to D.C. is a small but important way to say thanks, particularly for those veterans who would otherwise be unable to make the trip on their own.

MISS: Way back in 2007, the Pew Research Center found that 40% of Americans believed that the media devoted too much attention to celebrity news, citing endless stories about the travails of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Seventeen years later, Paris Hilton is now “Paris Who?” and Spears has retreated to a Las Vegas residency. But the obsession with celebrity continues, with a prime exhibit being “NBC Nightly News” leading one of its newscasts last week with a story on musician Sean Combs viciously beating up his girlfriend at a hotel eight years ago, and showing surveillance footage of the incident. Sure, this is news, particularly since Combs has a history of legal trouble and assault allegations – the Department of Homeland Security recently raided properties linked to Combs. But should surveillance video that’s almost a decade old involving a celebrity whose problems don’t impact our daily lives get the top slot on a network newscast? Aren’t Gaza, Ukraine, a contentious election year, or what’s happening on Capitol Hill more important?

MISS: Until a couple of weeks ago, all but the most ardent football die-hards were going about life’s daily chores blissfully unaware of who Harrison Butker is. Now, the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs is a ubiquitous presence in the headlines thanks to a commencement address he gave at a conservative Catholic college in Kansas. During his speech, the 28-year-old Butker said that female graduates were “most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world” and that his own wife’s life “truly started when she started living her vocation as a wife and mother.” He also denounced abortion, IVF treatments, “degenerate cultural values” and the “pervasiveness of disorder.” To be sure, those views can charitably be called old-fashioned, and less-charitably be called wildly out-of-step with contemporary views. Most households in today’s America need two paychecks to stay afloat, after all, and IVF has been a blessing to thousands of couples. There have been calls for the Chiefs to fire Butker, but why? The player is allowed to have his own views, and he shared them with a like-minded audience. They don’t reflect the views of the football team. Besides, Butker will likely retire from football before too long and be forgotten. Let him keep kicking.