Cheers & Jeers
Cheers: A former Waynesburg woman is hoping to make a big impact on children in West Africa. Kathleen Nichols, who now lives in Ashburn, Va., is raising money to build a school in Niger. The three-classroom elementary school will benefit children affectionately known as 鈥淜athleen鈥檚 Kids,鈥� a group of youngsters she bonded with while living in Niger. The goal is to raise $35,000 for the Koira Kano School, and Nichols is a little less than $5,000 away from meeting the goal through the Remember Niger Coalition. Southwestern Pennsylvania has produced so many people who are trying to make a difference in the world around them. Nichols鈥� project is the latest to shine a bright light on the good that those who hail from the area work so tirelessly to do.
Cheers: Advocates for increasing voter participation in the United States have long contended that Election Day should be a day off, as it is in France, Germany, Iceland, Mexico and many other countries. The idea doesn鈥檛 seem to have much momentum right now, but the National Basketball Association (NBA) has decided it wants to promote voting and have its fans focus on civic engagement by not scheduling any games on Tuesday, Nov. 8, when Americans cast ballots in the midterm elections. The night before, all 30 teams in the NBA will be playing and having a 鈥渃ivic engagement night鈥� to encourage people to vote. James Cadogan, who leads the National Basketball Social Justice Coalition, told MSNBC, 鈥淲e don鈥檛 usually change the schedule for an external event. But voting and Election Day are obviously unique and incredibly important to our democracy.鈥�
Jeers: The brutal attack on acclaimed author Salman Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institution in New York last week was shocking, even though Rushdie was first threatened with death 33 years ago when his novel, 鈥淭he Satanic Verses,鈥� was published. Back then, the Iranian regime deemed the book an offense to Islam and ordered Rushdie鈥檚 death. He spent several years in hiding, but eventually emerged to resume a reasonably normal day-to-day life. Rushdie has made appearances in Pittsburgh over the last couple of decades, and when he was at the Byham Theater in 2005, there was no more security than you would find for any other appearance by a literary figure. Audience members were freely able to approach him to say hello and get books signed after his talk. The stabbing, from which Rushdie is expected to recover, demonstrated in one of the most horrific ways imaginable that the threats against him had never really gone away, and vigilance in the defense of free speech is a constant necessity.
Jeers: Republicans once proudly stood as a party of free enterprise, a party that wanted the government to keep its interference in commerce to a minimum. That鈥檚 not the case anymore in the Trump age. The New York Times outlined earlier this month how treasurers in some states, including Riley Moore in West Virginia, are warning some companies they won鈥檛 do business with them because of the stands the companies have taken on environmental issues. Moore has announced that heavy-hitting banks like Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs have been denied state contracts because they are reducing their investments in coal. Other states have punished companies that, in their view, have been too environmentally friendly. As Times writer David Gelles wrote, 鈥淭he Republican treasurers skirt the fact that global warming is an economic menace that is damaging industries like agriculture and causing extreme weather that devastates communities and costs taxpayers billions in recovery and rebuilding.鈥� They also avoid the fact that maybe these companies view renewables as the wave of the future and a sound investment.