Shelf-Reliance: Studying Supermarket Scarcity in Black Areas
The lack of supermarkets in low-income and predominantly black neighborhoods is no myth, says a new study from Carnegie Mellon University. The recently completed research project by nine students in CMU’s H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management (and previewed in “Grocer Inequities,” April 16) was led by Beth Daponte, an authority…
The Intern Issue
I Was a Sweaty Paper Magazine Intern! Carnegie Mellon student goes from aspiring to perspiring in three short weeks Writer: Whitney Hess It’s humbling to admit that you have fallen prey to the lure of a chichi internship. A flashy magazine offers you a flashy experience and you are captivated. Resist the seduction! During my…
Not All Black and White
The 1964 edition of Stefan Lorant’s Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City optimistically displays a proposed arts center intended for a site near the newly completed Civic Arena. Marketed as a cure for neighborhood ills in Pittsburgh’s first so-called Renaissance, the massive, flat-roofed structure was culture by and for stodgy white guys. It never…
The Secret Lives of Dentists
For 20 years or so, Alan Rudolph has been one of the buried treasures of American cinema. His movies — like Choose Me, Trouble in Mind, The Moderns, Afterglow and Trixie — are smart, humane, intimate, romantic, witty and gently imaginative, yet not so quirky that you need a film degree to get them. His…
The Medallion
Once upon a time, Jackie Chan made movies (including all his best ones) only in Hong Kong. They were crazily inventive hybrids of kung fu, acrobatics, slapstick comedy, insane stunts and spy/cop-film conventions, and they made Chan the biggest international action star most Americans had never heard of. Not counting an abortive early-’80s sojourn in…
Why Tommy Can’t Lead
The emergency medical technician standing on the steps of the City County Building couldn’t talk. Although she was attending one of several protests about city budget cuts, city employees are barred from speaking to the press while in uniform. But she gave me a phone number to call when her shift was over. “When’s a…
Le Divorce
In the days before cell phones, a French friend of mine — the Last Faithful Husband in Gaul — told me that when the phone company began to itemize calls on monthly bills, French husbands went berserk: Now their wives could figure out their mistresses’ phone numbers. For the French, it seems, there’s sex, and…
Wayne “The Train” Hancock
Wayne Hancock’s East Texas verbal twang gets me ever’a time. So does that relentless acoustic-guitar strum his must-be-badly-calloused thumb picks out. And the deceitfully simple, gutsy rhyming punches of his lyrics. Oh, and the jumpin’, swingin’, slappin’ bass lines that act as both stride-left-hand piano and trap-kit drummer. Hell, ever’a’thing about Hancock’s back-to-basics Hank Williams…
Okay, I have to ask: Is there really an underground river that provides the water to the fountain at the Point?
Everyone does have to ask this question, it seems, since it comes up in casual conversation an awful lot. So I’ll answer your question if only to shut all those people up so I can get on with my beer-drinking in peace. When most Pittsburghers speak of the city’s legendary “Fourth River,” they seem to…
June Carter Cash
In some respects, it would’ve been a shocking emotional blow if June Carter Cash’s farewell album — recorded just months before her May death — wasn’t the masterpiece it is. After all, it comes with a Hall of Fame-ish studio lineup: the impeccable Norman and Nancy Blake, Marty Stuart, Dennis Crouch, and assorted Cashes and…
A Conversation with Andy Mulkerin
You guys are independent of the mainstream, but you send out press releases to us in the corporate press. Why?Well, you have to play the game to some extent. People who aren’t already involved in your world aren’t going to hear about it unless you go through their means of communication. One of my favorite…
Blue Lights Special
Back in 1996, when the Western Pennsylvania chapter of the ACLU filed a class-action police-misconduct lawsuit against the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, you couldn’t have found a nonprofit organization less popular among local law enforcement. And the ACLU’s stock with cops certainly didn’t rise when that suit led to a consent decree requiring federal oversight…
Sun Block is Not an Answer
The Aug. 24 Schenley Park rally against the continued occupation of Iraq by U.S. troops had something of a picnic air. Somewhat paler than many others on Flagstaff Hill, anti-war activists nevertheless basked in the sun. One demonstrator, bedecked entirely in black — including a facemask to conceal his identity — could be seen lurching…
Power to the Young People
“2, 5, 6 North Lang Cripps” is spray-painted blood-red on a wooden-slabbed window on an old bar building. Just across the street is the site where 8-year-old Taylor Coles and her father Parrish Freeman were killed early last year. It’s a spot where gangs and violence seem to have marked their territory. Last week, though,…
Ahoy, skippers!
Well, 40 of you have to beware, anyway. If all goes as planned, the Pittsburgh Public Schools board will approve funding Aug. 27 for 40 Pittsburgh students’ tuition at The Academy, a 20-year-old alternative education program in Baldwin Borough for juvenile offenders who are failing their regular classes, often because of poor attendance. Quite apart…
Darkened Lobby
John Maher says he has turned down many a ticket to a sporting event in his six-plus years representing Upper St. Clair in the state House. “I won’t even let anybody buy me a drink in this town,” says Maher. But Maher is an exception to the rule in a town where lobbyists pass out…
Follow That Story
As the city budget crisis simmered in last week’s political heat, Mayor Tom Murphy and city council President Gene Ricciardi looked to the city school board to provide an escape valve (see News Briefs: “& And Crossing Signals,” Aug. 13). At the board’s Aug. 20 meeting, they asked school directors to pick up the cost…
Idling Idled, But Bill Not Ideal
Buses, trucks and trains can no longer idly spew exhaust into Allegheny County’s air, according to an ordinance passed by county council Aug. 19 (see News Briefs: “Idle Fight Exhausting,” July 16). There are exceptions — if it’s extremely hot or cold outside, if the vehicle is undergoing maintenance, or if its engine is powering…
