Cheers & Jeers
Cheers: Organ donation is life changing. Dunbar resident Keith Lowry knows that firsthand. Earlier this year, Lowry was the 500th person to have a heart transplant performed at Allegheny General Hospital. He returned to AGH this week to kick off National Donate Life Month, and offer his heartfelt thanks to those who made the surgery a success, and to the family of the donor who made his second chance possible. The family蘑菇视频 connection to organ donation stretches back 45 years 鈥� as both recipients and living donors. Keith蘑菇视频 wife, Tammy, was a living donor for a friend who needed a kidney, and members of her family both donated and received organs. Locally, the Center for Organ Recovery (CORE) will hold a flag raising at WVU Medicine Uniontown Hospital on Tuesday, April 18. During the ceremony, a CORE representative will talk about the importance of organ donation. In Pennsylvania, those interested in becoming donors can sign up online through the state Department of Health. The designation is listed on state-issued identification cards or driver蘑菇视频 licenses. For more information, visit donatelifepa.org.
Jeers: Students have quite enough to be concerned about without the ever-present worry that they could be shot while at school. On Wednesday, a series of phony school shooting calls sent police across Pennsylvania into emergency response mode, schools into lockdown and added additional stress to the lives of students and their families. The practice of 鈥渟watting鈥� has been around for a while. Essentially, swatting is making a phone call to emergency services with the goal of dispatching a large number of police to a location. While those who make these hoax calls refer to them as pranks, that is a grave understatement. Imagine armed police showing up at your home after receiving a false report that someone had been shot and killed. They arrive believing something is wrong; you鈥檝e just been sitting there watching TV. The stress of that situation would be profound. Now, put yourself in the shoes of students at Laurel Highlands and their parents. The district蘑菇视频 senior high was one of several schools in Pennsylvania targeted by fake shooting reports on Wednesday. While police quickly recognized the calls were hoaxes, the reports likely caused trauma and anxiety for students 鈥� especially on the heels of the Nashville school shooting. We hope the person or people who made these calls are caught and prosecuted. Our students deserve to learn in a safe environment, and without worry that someone蘑菇视频 sick joke will disrupt their day.
Jeers: In case you are one of approximately five people who have not yet been made aware, actor and lifestyle maven Gwyneth Paltrow has lately been a defendant in a Utah courtroom. She蘑菇视频 being sued by a retired optometrist who claims that Paltrow crashed into him and fled on a ski slope seven years ago, causing a brain injury, broken ribs and emotional distress. Izzy Ampil of BuzzFeed News wrote, 鈥淭he whole thing is blissfully ridiculous. This trial exists in a privileged bubble where grown adults can鈥檛 hash out their resort squabbles without getting litigious about it.鈥� The question, though, is why the media, particularly television news, has paid so much attention to something that is so 鈥渂lissfully ridiculous.鈥� Twists and turns in the trial have been breathlessly reported on during the nightly newscasts of the three major networks, and at least one cable news network preempted its regular programming to carry Paltrow蘑菇视频 testimony. But this is hardly the O.J. Simpson trial redux 鈥� it蘑菇视频 a civil suit. More importantly, though, what stories are not getting time and space that are of greater importance in the long run? What would Walter Cronkite have thought?