Cheers & Jeers
Associated Press
Cheers: More than 300 islands make up the Pacific nation of Fiji, located just over the International Dateline, and it’s fairly isolated – more than 2,000 miles from Australia, 3,000 miles from Hawaii and more than 5,000 miles from the U.S. West Coast. It may not be a place that many Americans give much thought to, but last Saturday the rituals and culture of Fiji were celebrated at Uniontown’s Hilton Garden Inn. It marked the 54th anniversary of Fiji’s independence from Britain, and some of the 50 to 60 Fijian families that have made Uniontown their home were in attendance. They have come to the area for jobs in the natural gas industry, and Bill Gerke, the mayor of Uniontown, said, “It’s wonderful that so many Fijians have chosen to call Uniontown their home.” Michael Dunham, a Uniontown resident, said the event demonstrated that Uniontown is a community where Fijians can feel welcome. “If you think about it, they could have chosen anywhere else in the world, and they chose Fayette County,” Dunham said. “The county may not be perfect, and no place is, but it just goes to show that we do have a place for everyone here.”
Cheers: Cheers to Bethlehem-Center boys soccer player Parker Amos for an outstanding individual effort in a recent Bulldogs victory. Amos, a 6-foot-3 sophomore forward/midfielder, scored all six of Beth-Center’s goals in a 6-0 victory at California in a Section 2-A match on Oct. 10. Goaltender Luke Amon recorded the shutout in the win for the Bulldogs who have won six of their last seven matches. Beth-Center currently has the best overall record among local boys soccer teams at 10-3-1, and the Bulldogs finished 5-3 in the section to tie for second place and earn a WPIAL playoff berth for the second consecutive year. Beth-Center was coming off a string of losing seasons, including a winless campaign two years ago, until Amos hit the scene last year as a freshman and played a key role in the Bulldogs going 11-8 overall and 5-5 in the section for a third-place finish and a postseason spot. Amos was the lone freshman named to the 2023 Class A All-WPIAL team and picked up right where he left off in 2024.
Cheers: A year before she retired from a supervisory role at a Goodyear plant in Alabama, Lilly Ledbetter found out through an anonymous note that she was earning about 35% less than her male colleagues who filled similar jobs. She took Goodyear to court, and was awarded $3 million in back pay and damages, but the decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court ruled that Ledbetter needed to file suit 180 days after her first paycheck, though it would have been extraordinarily hard for her to have known about the pay discrepancy that early in her tenure, given the secrecy culture that surrounds what people are paid. As a result of Ledbetter being denied the award, in 2009 Congress passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which now gives employees 180 days after their final paycheck to file suit. Ledbetter died this past Saturday at the age of 86, still advocating for equal pay. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, women still earn 83 cents for every dollar a man earns. Following news of her death, former President Barack Obama said, “Lilly Ledbetter never set out to be a trailblazer or a household name. She just wanted to be paid the same as a man for her hard work.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: A hotly contested election is looming, and we have received many letters to the editor about it. However, the 蘑菇视频 has traditionally ended running letters to the editor in support or opposition to a candidate about two weeks before an election. This being the case, the last day the 蘑菇视频 will run letters to the editor about candidates on the ballot in the upcoming election will be Wednesday, Oct. 23.