Hits and Misses
Former Vice President Joe Biden was in Pittsburgh Monday. President Trump was in Latrobe Thursday. Vice President Mike Pence visited Pennsylvania this past week. The attention the Keystone State is receiving from the two presidential campaigns is understandable, since polls of the state show a reasonably close race between Biden and Trump. The votes of Pennsylvanians will count for a lot in the November election. But what about other states that are not battlegrounds? States that Trump will almost certainly win, like Alabama and Idaho, will not see a visit from either candidate or their surrogates. The same goes for solid Biden states like Rhode Island or California. The Electoral College is the reason why most of the country will be on the sidelines for the election, and illustrates why it needs to be reformed or scrapped.
For the first time in decades, a Kennedy lost a primary election in Massachusetts this week. On Tuesday, incumbent Sen. Edward Markey decisively swatted away U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy’s bid to unseat him in the state’s Democratic primary. Democratic voters in the Bay State decided there was no valid reason that Markey needed to be replaced and that Kennedy never offered a compelling reason for doing so. Also, some voters were almost certainly turned off by the perception that Robert Kennedy’s grandson was possessed of more than a little bit of hubris and ambition, and needed to wait his turn before seeking higher office. The Kennedy name may still have some vestigial magic, but six decades after John F. Kennedy won the presidency, it is clearly not as potent as it once was.
On Sept. 1, 1945, the cartoon “Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger” appeared for the first time in The Pittsburgh Courier. This is notable because it was the creation of Jackie Ormes, who was raised in Monongahela and ended up becoming the first female, Black cartoonist to have her work syndicated in the United States. On the 75th anniversary of the debut of “Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger,” Ormes was honored with a Google Doodle on the Google’s home pages. An accompanying slideshow illustrated by Philadelphia-area artist Liz Montague highlighted Ormes’ accomplishments. Montague described Ormes as “a genius and paved the way for so many of us a pioneer in the cartoon and illustration world.”
The American singer Julian Casablancas is credited with saying, “Vanity can easily overtake wisdom,” and that seems to have been the case with U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi was caught on camera visiting a San Francisco hair salon even though the city does not yet allow indoor beauty services. Pelosi claims she was “set up” by the salon owner who told her they could take customers one at a time. One clip from the video also shows Pelosi not wearing a face mask, though the House Speaker said it was just after her hair had been washed. Jessica Levinson, director of the Public Service Institute at the Loyola University School of Law, told the Los Angeles Times, “For all we know, she had her mask down for 15 seconds and 4 feet, but the damage it does is enormous. It gives us all the great/horrible visual to look at and say, ‘Nancy Pelosi is an elitist who is totally unconcerned for working people and just cares about how she looks on national TV and Democrats don’t feel your pain.'”