Cheers & Jeers
Cheers: Kudos to Barry Couser and Judi Wyndroski, who have turned their morning strolls through Belle Vernon Cemetery in North Belle Vernon into a quest to honor military veterans. A month or so ago, Couser noticed a damaged flag on one of the graves and took it home to fix. Pretty soon, the Webster couple found themselves reshaping metal markers, straightening posts and making other small repairs on the graves. Word of their work spread and others stepped forward to assist. The Westmoreland County Office of Veterans Affairs gave them free holders and markers, the Belle Vernon American Legion gave them replacement flags, and Lowe’s in Belle Vernon offered the couple free materials to make other repairs. “They fought for our country and for us to have freedom, and they deserve this,” said Wyndroski, whose father, grandfather and six brothers and former husband were all in the military.
Cheers: Since the 2020 election, many states have been taking steps to make voting harder, all of it predicated on the false notion that the way Americans vote is somehow rife with fraud. In striking contrast, Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled a plan this week that will bring automatic voter registration to PennDOT centers when residents apply for a new license or ID card. There will be an opt-out option for those who want to sit on the sidelines, but Shapiro believes this will get some of the 1.6 million eligible Pennsylvanians involved in the democratic process. Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt says it will enhance election security, since “the voter is already in a state government facility with their identification documentation in hand, and they will have their picture taken and sign their name electronically. Having all of that happening at the same time means the verification process is extremely secure and makes the registration process more efficient.” Shapiro is right when he says our democracy is stronger when more voters participate; any effort to get more of them to the polls should be applauded.
Cheers: Until recently, the U.S. Senate has had an informal dress code, which included men wearing suits and ties. But Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, announced earlier this week that the policy is no longer to be enforced. Many interpreted the change as an accommodation of Pennsylvania’s junior senator, John Fetterman, who has made the hoodies, shorts and tennis shoes he wears pretty much everywhere his trademark. There was some criticism of the move, including from some members of Congress who are not exactly models of decorum themselves, with Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene being a prime example. But dress codes have been loosening up in all walks of life, and the reality is that Fetterman and his 49 colleagues will be judged on the results they deliver to their constituents, not on what they wear.
Jeers: The 1960s counterculture is recalled in popular memory as a sunburst of color and liberation after the buttoned-down, stultifying 1950s, but the reality is that there were undercurrents of sexism amid all the peace signs, bell bottoms and long hair. Even in many a hippie commune, women were expected to cook and care for children, just like their mothers before them. That being the case, perhaps it shouldn’t be all that surprising that Jann Wenner, the now-elderly founder of Rolling Stone magazine, has been revealed to be something of a chauvinist. In a New York Times interview last week, Wenner remarked that he did not include any women among his rock music “masters” in a new book because they were not “articulate enough” on an “intellectual level” as the white and male figures the book focuses on. The same goes for Black artists, according to Wenner. He later offered an apology, but the damage has been done – Wenner was dropped from the board of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, of which he is a founding member, and has been the object of widespread scorn in the days since. Wenner would have been better off simply saying that the legends his book highlights, including John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger and others, are simply the artists he likes and left it at that.