First E-Vote Here, No Re-Votes Here, Say Dems
The first electronic vote in Allegheny County will also be the first Democrat-on-Democrat demonstration over potential voting problems. While county Democratic Committee members vote on Sun., Feb. 27, to endorse Dems for the May primary election, local activists from MoveOn.org will be leafleting members about potential problems with computer-based voting. Such private elections…
Prevent Abortion? Not on Your Pro-Life
NARAL Pro-Choice America says it is challenging anti-abortion groups and legislators to find common ground on abortion — preventing them in the first place. It placed ads in The Weekly Standard, a conservative publication, on Feb. 19 and called publicly for state lawmakers such as Sen. Rick Santorum and representatives Tim Holden, John Murtha…
Jennifer Gentle
To find out what exactly goes on in someone’s mind during an LSD trip — that is, if you’re wary of trying it firsthand — you need only turn toward the stranger and more heavily drug-induced psychedelia of ’60s musicians such as Roky Erickson, Syd Barrett and Brian Wilson, artists well known for…
Various Artists
For this, the second volume in a planned multi-volume series, British deejay and traveler Miles Cleret revisits many of the artists featured on volume one. From the Kusum beat of the Sweet Talks, Ogyatanaa’s groundbreaking experiments, and K. Frimpong’s minor-key depth, this collection continues to pull the very best from the region’s mightiest…
Diary of a Mad Black Woman
When Helen McCarter (Kimberly Elise) is unceremoniously dumped by Charles, her power-attorney husband of 18 years, she finds solace, strength, vengeance and ultimately grace courtesy of her extended Atlanta family. Diary of a Mad Black Woman is ostensibly Helen’s story of renewal — the stuff of a 100 Lifetime projects — but the…
Bride & Prejudice
Meet the Bakshis — Mr. and Mrs. — a pleasingly plump, comfortably middle-class Indian couple with four impossibly beautiful daughters. The eldest, Jaya, has a relatively benign streak of independence. But Lalita, the next in line, is intelligent, sharp-tongued and strong-willed — clearly, an Indian mama’s raging nightmare. Then, into their…
Konono N°1
We can thank Dutch anarchist avant-punks The Ex for this one. In fact, anyone who copped that band’s 2004 LP, Turn, has at least encountered a riff nicked from this brutal Congolese ensemble. Formed some 25 years ago, Konono N°1 quickly decided to electrify its likembes (traditional thumb pianos) and transform the traditional…
Sale Against the Wind
Slick Rick Santorum, the Eddie Haskell of the U.S. Senate: You wouldn’t buy a used car from this guy, let alone an insurance policy. Yet there he was on Feb. 21, trying to sell a plan to dismantle Social Security, arguably the most effective insurance program in history. Before more than 150 people…
Architecture in Motion
Subway riders visiting the Museum of Modern Art’s interim location in Queens traveled on elevated tracks past a dynamic roofscape. A few large cubes with unintelligible graphics appeared in an oddly angled group. As the subway advanced, they seemed to align. For just a split second, they spelled out “MoMA” before the continuing forward motion…
I heard that the Pittsburgh area holds the record for the largest inland oil spill. Is this true, and what are the details?
Oh, it’s true. On a cold January Saturday in 1988, an oil storage tank in Jefferson burst, spilling more than 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel — enough to run a Hummer for at least a month, assuming Hummers ran on diesel — into the Monongahela River. And the Environmental Protection Agency has indeed…
Lost in Translation
“Even though the government is saying [the PATRIOT Act] is the law now, well Jim Crow and slavery was the law at one time, but it was immoral law, and we fought against it.” — Amir Muhammad Shareef “The rhetoric of Muhammad Shareef makes people nervous.” — Omar Slater “Wherever there are two or three…
A Conversation with John Soroka
Ever since a Saturday Night Live skit several years ago featured actor Christopher Walken calling for “more cowbell” during the recording of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” this simple bovine accessory has become the percussion instrument du jour for pop music audiences. Indeed, Web sites such as “The Cowbell Project” (www.geekspeakweekly.com/cowbell)…
Oakland Food Trucks May Move Just a Few Blocks …
Oakland’s lunch trucks will have to hit the road soon, but they may not have to drive far. City Councilman Bill Peduto is sponsoring a bill to create a “vending area” on DeSoto Street, between Fifth Avenue and O’Hara Street. The stretch of street, which currently has no parking meters, could be…
City a Home to More Homeless and Hungry
“We are seeing a lot more people who used to work for US Airways and other laid-off blue-collar workers,” says Joyce Rothermel, CEO of the Greater Pittsburgh Community Foodbank, which gives out groceries to those in need. According to a new survey of more than 50 local hunger and homelessness agencies, which…
