Hits and Misses
With the exception of online shows and classes, Little Lake Theatre had to sit on the sidelines last year due to COVID-19. It was hardly alone – theater companies and other performing arts groups around the world were also forced to shut down. The highly regarded North Strabane community theater company will launch its 2021 season next week, with the British one-woman production “Shirley Valentine,” though with some revisions to the way it usually operates. Through September, all productions will unfold in an outdoor performance space, which will keep patrons, staff and performers safe. It’s encouraging to see Little Lake move forward with a new season at this strange crossroads we are all at, where the coronavirus is loosening its grip, but the pandemic is not over.
We’ve gone in just a couple of months from vaccine scarcity to vaccine abundance, and the challenge now in many states is coaxing reluctant people to get the shots so we can stop the spread of COVID-19 and get on with something resembling our pre-pandemic lives. In Mississippi, for instance, only 41% of adults aged 18 or older have been vaccinated. That’s the lowest rate in the nation. At a White House confab earlier this week, Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, offered a novel idea for getting his vaccine-reluctant critics on the right to get their shots. He said, “Go get vaccinated so you’re alive to vote against me in the next election. My message to folks is there’s a lot of good reasons to get vaccinated, but for some of them, you know, if you need another one, go get vaccinated so you’re alive to vote against me in the next election. I don’t care. I just want to get it done.”
Pennsylvania voters will be heading to the polls next week to cast ballots in this year’s primary. Well, in reality, a small slice of the state’s voters will be weighing in, since off-year primary elections tend to be low-turnout affairs. But voters should take the time to get up to speed on all the candidates and issues on the ballot. In the internet age, voters have the advantage of being able to go to the web pages or social media accounts of judicial candidates or individuals vying for seats on school boards or borough councils and find out in detail how deep their knowledge is on the issues they will confront if elected, and their depth of experience. An off-year primary might not offer the fireworks of a presidential election, but Pennsylvanians shouldn’t sit out next week’s vote.
As widely expected, the GOP leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives voted Wednesday to boot U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, from her leadership post. Her offense? Refusing to whitewash what happened in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the continuing falsehoods emanating from Mar-a-Lago about the 2020 election. Before being ejected as the chair of the House Republican Conference, Cheney said, “As the party of Reagan, Republicans championed democracy, won the Cold War and defeated Soviet Communists. … Attacks against our democratic process and the rule of law empower our adversaries and feed Communist propaganda that American democracy is a failure. We must speak the truth. Our election was not stolen, and America has not failed.”