Hits and Misses
Anyone with a connection to the region’s nonprofit or cultural worlds will be familiar with Linda Dickerson. Afflicted with muscular dystrophy, she was an advocate for people with disabilities and served on the boards for the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium and Carnegie Mellon University, among other organizations. Her unexpected death two weeks ago at the age of 59 leaves a void that will be hard to fill, but her advocacy will leave a firm and lasting legacy. In the Pittsburgh region, she will not soon be forgotten. Ginny Thornburgh, the wife of former Gov. Richard Thornburgh and an advocate for individuals with disabilities, offered this tribute to the Tribune-Review: “Linda has used a wheelchair to get around since she was a young child, but she never let that stand in the way of accomplishing anything she set out to do. She had too much to do, too many ideas and too many problems to solve to be engrossed in self-awareness and self-pity.”
A few months ago, California University of Pennsylvania was sued by a student who asserted the education she received in the spring semester was substandard due to the school having to shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. She demanded that, in return, part of her tuition be refunded. It was one of a raft of suits that have been filed against colleges and universities since the start of the pandemic. According to several news reports, Point Park University in Pittsburgh is the latest institution to be slapped with a suit by a disgruntled student. We said it before in reference to the Cal U. suit, and we’ll say it again: These suits do not have much in the way of merit. The schools had no choice but to shut down due to the pandemic, but classes went forward online, and students received credit for their work. Sure, there are many intangibles that come with attending a college or university in person, but, at the end of the day, colleges and universities upheld their end of the bargain.
Over the next couple of years, the 7th Ward playground in Washington will almost certainly become a nicer place to play thanks to an agreement Washington City Council has reached with Dreamers Co., a nonprofit organization in the city. The group hopes to spruce up the playground, and has already spent the last two years cleaning it up and carrying out maintenance chores like putting up fencing and installing new lights. Already, $45,000 of the $60,000 that’s needed to carry out this work has been raised. According to Matt Staniszewski, a Washington city councilman, “Resources are stretched thin, and we need these types of collaborations to help us make positive changes in the community at large.”
As of this writing, President Trump is not out of the woods when it comes to the coronavirus infection, and the same goes for thousands of other Americans. This includes not only those who have been infected, but also those who have suffered severe economic setbacks as a result of the pandemic. Maybe they’ve lost a job or a business, or they are on the edge of losing their home. So it’s puzzling that, in the midst of an election season, the president announced via Twitter Tuesday that he was pulling the plug on any further stimulus negotiations until after the election. Perhaps he sees a political or negotiating advantage in this, but it’s created more uncertainty for Americans who are worried about feeding their families or seeing their houses go into foreclosure. No less an authority than Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, said more federal assistance is needed. “Too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses,” he said. Trump and lawmakers on Capitol Hill need to return to the negotiating table, whether there’s an election or not.