Lori Falce Columns category, Page 9
Lori Falce: What would you do with 18 months?
If you want to know what the impact of the coronavirus pandemic was in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put a number on it this week. No, that isn’t how long the world was in lockdown. It wasn’t how long we wore masks or kept six...
Lori Falce: High cost of college is no joke
My sister’s youngest child just graduated from high school, which means come fall, she will have two kids in college at the same time. Teasing her about the campus visits and paperwork and packing and all of the costs was funny. Until I realized my son is 13. That puts...
Lori Falce: The sportsmanship of the Olympics
I have always loved the Olympics. Even if I disagree with the International Olympic Committee on whether any particular event is a sport or not, I gladly bow to the greater pageantry of the entire production. Maybe I don’t think tug-of-war — yeah, it was an Olympic event until 1920...
Lori Falce: Court puts colleges before students
It can be hard to feel bad for a college athlete. You look at what many are being given. Full-ride scholarships and world-class training facilities. Training table meals and a staff of people to keep them healthy. Tutors to keep their grades up and, hey, if you go to the...
Lori Falce: Why Carl Nassib coming out matters
When I was 20, I stood on the steps of Schwab Auditorium at Penn State as my dearest friend had a kind of confirmation. It was Coming Out Day, and people from across campus were declaring who they were inside. Gay, lesbian, bisexual — they stood up, spoke the truth...
Lori Falce: Not all dads are fathers
On Sunday, barbecues will fire up, hammocks will be in full swing and ties will be wrapped and ready to be oohed and ahhed over. Father’s Day will have arrived, the day when we celebrate the dads in our lives. But with that in mind, let’s remember that not all...
Lori Falce: Six degrees of big decisions
My son enjoys a good game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. In his version, it’s more Six Degrees of Marvel Movie Characters, but the principle still holds — especially since Bacon played the villain in “X-Men: First Class.” Take any actor — or person, really — and find the...
Lori Falce: Gaza is lesson in compromise
Both sides dig in. Both sides are sure they are right. Both sides are sure there is no middle ground — only winners and losers. It is the story of our politics. It happens in halls of Harrisburg and the courthouses of counties and God knows it happens every day...
Lori Falce: Infrastructure costs one way or another
Since the beginning, civilization has been built on infrastructure — even before there was infrastructure. When we were just nomadic tribes, the framework was about who was hunting and who was gathering, the paths to follow and the water to find. Wheels and fire changed those. The Egyptians might have...
Lori Falce: Mothering is an action word
Mother is a complicated word. We think of it most easily as a noun — a female parent, the pie-baking June Cleaver who kisses skinned knees and helps with homework. But there are a million kinds of mothers, making it hard to stick with the stereotype. There are mothers who...
Lori Falce: Pittsburgh is not a political punchline
Political speeches are becoming a lot like a slow night at a comedy club. That’s not just because of the awkward pauses when a joke doesn’t land right or the forced laughs when a canned joke is trotted out for the millionth time. Nope, it’s because of the name dropping....
Lori Falce: Trial and verdict not same as justice
For me, every issue I write about is a crime scene. Every argument is the give and take of prosecution and defense. After 30 years of murders, sexual assaults, theft and fraud, the way I process information is a lot like a courtroom. A crime reporter frames the mechanics of...
Lori Falce: Risks of not researching women’s health
It seems like just a couple of weeks since I was writing a column where I said we need to pay more attention to the way diseases and treatments affect the bodies of women. Oh, wait. It was. Now, here we are, with one of the three vaccines meant to...
Lori Falce: When an opinion isn’t worth spoiling with facts
There isn’t much that can make someone bristle like fact-checking. As it’s part of my 9-to-5 job, it’s not something I like to do in my free time. Still, sometimes it needs to be done. If my mother was about to make a cake with a cup of salt instead...
Lori Falce: Medical research has to see people
“At least you have your health.” It’s the phrase that gets used when something goes wrong, reminding you to look for the silver lining in that storm cloud. But what about when the cloud is medical? What do you do when your health is the issue? That is what many...
Lori Falce: Is the filibuster really the problem?
Filibuster is a ridiculous word. It means “freebooter” or pirate in Dutch. While piracy might not seem like a word that has much to do with lawmaking, filibuster says otherwise. In English, it refers to a special kind of stand taken by one senator in the face of overwhelming opposition....
Lori Falce: Do we need an equal rights law?
No one knows every law. Congress makes them. So do state legislatures. They are passed for each county, for each city, for each school district. Making them is a defining aspect of every level of government. And there are just too many to track. That’s why we have as many...
Lori Falce: Read all about zombie vacuums
“A Dyson Sphere Could Bring Humans Back from the Dead, Researchers Say.” OK, that might be the most startling headline I have ever read. It popped up on my smartphone. I did a double take and obviously I clicked, curious about how my vacuum is going to create zombies. News...
Lori Falce: How to triage pandemic problems
The doctors stood at the foot of my father-in-law’s bed, explaining to my husband and me what was happening and why. The cardiologist talked about heart rhythms and lost muscle and the crippling heart attack that had brought my father-in-law to the hospital in the first place. It was critical,...
Lori Falce: Weather or not, here it comes
Unpredictable as the weather. It’s a phrase used often, a kind of mild indictment of meteorologists everywhere. It tells us that nothing is really predictable. Just like the clouds and the rain, anything on the horizon can be blown off course by a little wind or melted away by a...
Lori Falce: Oops, cancel culture did it again
Spend some time on social media and you might think a brand new starlet had taken over the musical world. Her name is on a million hashtags. It’s like everyone under 30 just discovered Britney Spears. Yes, Britney of the red patent leather catsuit or the Lolita plaid skirt and...
Lori Falce: Lent, vaccines and keeping the faith
When Ash Wednesday next week starts the Lenten season, 40 days of faith and fasting leading toward Easter, you won’t have to be Catholic to be part of it all. The no-meat-on-Fridays ritual will mean that fish-fry fundraisers and restaurant seafood menus will give everyone a little glimpse of what...
Lori Falce: Why did I get the vaccine?
I hate needles. Always have. Always will. I have a cartoon-like response to being approached with a syringe. But I’m also an adult and I have learned that, like death and taxes, needles are an unavoidable part of the deal. There are flu shots. My doctor will periodically want a...
Lori Falce: Lights, camera, virus!
Movies have given us a lot of unrealistic expectations. We expect love to conquer all. We expect a last minute judicial Hail Mary to save an unwinnable court case. We expect the underdog to win the big game. Television has convinced us that the most complicated problems can be solved...
Lori Falce: Purple is the color of the year
Every year, Pantone — a 70-year-old company in New Jersey that has built its business on the matching and mixing of colors — pulls out its crystal ball and makes a prediction for the coming 12 months. The company looks at the trends, analyzes the horizon and announces the Color...
