Hits and Misses
MISS: Fewer and fewer Americans alive today remember the presidency of John F. Kennedy, and the hopes that the optimism and glamour of Camelot could somehow be restored if another Kennedy reached the White House. For the first time in more than 40 years, a member of the Kennedy clan has become a declared presidential candidate, but it has generated barely a whimper of interest, and deservedly so. Robert Kennedy Jr. has said he is challenging President Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, even though he has never held elected office before. And while he has done commendable work as an environmental activist over the course of his career, Kennedy has in recent years become a crank. He has peddled conspiracy theories and spread misinformation about vaccines, earning the condemnation of members of his own family. Predictably, he also spoke out against the COVID-19 shots that have done so much to prevent serious illness and death. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told the Huffington Post that because of Kennedy and other anti-vaxxers sowing doubts about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, “you had to watch children suffer and occasionally die. That is Robert Kennedy Jr.’s legacy.”
MISS: The other morning on the MSNBC program “Morning Joe,” the host Joe Scarborough, a onetime Republican congressman from Florida, highlighted a sobering statistic – there have been more than 11,000 deaths due to firearms in the United States since the start of 2023. That’s enough people to fill a sports arena in a mid-sized city. As Scarborough pointed out, it also exceeds the number of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan over a 20-year period. The number comes from the Gun Violence Archive, which can be found at gunviolencearchive.org. As of Wednesday, there were also more than 9,000 Americans injured as a result of guns, 147 mass shootings, and 73 children under the age of 11 who died due to gunplay. More than 400 teenagers have died due to gun violence since Jan. 1, and almost 1,000 have been injured. To put this in perspective, Canada notched a total of 297 homicides where guns were used in all of 2021. Granted, Canada has a smaller population, but it also has stricter gun laws. To paraphrase a line from a long-ago Pete Seeger song, when will we ever learn?
HIT: Residents of Bridgeville and South Fayette Township are going to be enduring some rough weekends this month as far as traffic goes. A bridge on Route 50 that passes over Chartiers Creek and is used by thousands of vehicles every day is going to be replaced in phases, the first of which got underway last night, and the second of which is set to begin next Thursday. Anyone who lives or travels in the area can attest that navigating traffic there can be an ordeal even in the best of circumstances, and the bridge replacement will not make any driver’s life easier. Teeth will be gnashed. But the pain will come with considerable gain. The new bridge will have seven lanes and is part of a $10 million improvement plan. Enduring some inconvenience will be worth it in the long run. In the meantime, for those who must drive in that area, patience will most definitely be a virtue.