Pittsburgh Xplosion’s X-Factor
A former NBA champion, a wide-receiver-turned-gubernatorial-candidate and about 1,800 people walked into the Mellon Arena last Friday and — wait for it — a professional basketball game broke out. Professional basketball? In Pittsburgh? Yeah, no joke. No sports fan could laugh at the résumé of head coach Tom Thacker, at least. He won an NCAA…
What’s the Matter With Upper St. Clair?
Upper St. Clair’s School District has killed its vaunted International Baccalaureate program. Supposedly it was for financial reasons, though board members including Daniel Iracki voiced fears that IB could make kids doubt their “strong Judeo-Christian value system.” Worse, he speculated, its global perspectives could make Marxists of the Children of the Cul de Sac. To…
A Taught Narrative
The lauded memoirist Frank McCourt tells me he could spend seven hours on a soapbox denouncing the evils of the Bushies’ No Child Left Behind law, and of the pedagogy of mandatory testing. His opening salvo: “This is the one profession that politicians barge into all time. They’re not going to…
In His Line
Early in his 2003 collection The Singing, readers new to C.K. Williams might peg him as a poet for whom each phenomenon of the outside world is but the dock for a journey inward, each page a fresh ticket. Hastening, the reader would add that this is fine: The opening poem,…
DJ Kelly
The first floor of Kelly Carter’s West End home is filled with stacks upon columns among rows of records. One wall is held up by Carter’s twin Technics tables and a copper-plated Vestax three-track mixer. There’s also a barely-used Pioneer CD mixer, which Carter only uses for mixing in her friends’ tracks. …
A Conversation with Pepe Buylla
It’s rare to see a business sporting a new sign painted by hand. But if you do, especially on Pittsburgh’s South Side, there’s a good chance it’s the work of Pepe Buylla. The McKeesport native and grandson of Spanish immigrants has painted signs from coast to coast. Back in Pittsburgh since the early…
Image Conscious
Media Literacy 101 If teachers dream of lights going on in students’ eyes, this must be a gratifying day for Teresa Foley. Educators might mark days between such moments. Here in the basement of Steel Valley High School, Foley is earning several each class period. Maybe it’s because Foley, a guest lecturer, is new to…
Uphill Battle
In a race that could be decided by just a few hundred votes, the next representative for City Council District 3 could have been determined Feb. 22, in the basement of Knoxville’s St. Sava Church. There were about twice as many voters as candidates at the forum, held by the neighborhood block-watch committee.…
Voting:County Opts Out of Optical Scanner Option
Voting activists hoping the county would buy the only kind of state-approved machines that currently allow paper voting records — optical scan machines — were disappointed Feb. 27. County Executive Dan Onorato and County Councilor John DeFazio, both members of the Board of Elections, voted to purchase a different kind of machine: the AVC Advantage…
Sex Ed: Can’t Touch This, Says Abstinence Program Head
Denny Pattyn, head of Silver Ring Thing, is “actually thrilled” about the ACLU’s Feb. 21 settlement with the federal government concerning their abstinence-only sex-ed program, he says. Based in Ohio Township, Silver Ring Thing for years has been promoting sexual abstinence to teens through a sound-and-light show based on Christian faith and the Bible.…
Madea’s Family Reunion
After the giddy success of last year’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Tyler Perry returns with another episode in the domestic saga of his alter ego Madea, the matriarch of an extended African-American family. Dirty secrets, bad rich men, good working-class men with muscles, fear of commitment, horny old guys playing dominoes,…
Block Party
A lot of well-meaning African-American kids with green dollar signs in their eyes and African consciousness in their hearts have dreams of what they’ll do when they get rich … bitch. They’ll go “back” to Africa and throw a huge party for the hood, featuring all their favorite artists. In reality, though, when they finally…
A Good Woman
Listen to the tributaries of A Good Woman, and you’ll hear what sounds like the babbling of Oscar Wilde, on whose 1892 comedy of manners, Lady Windermere’s Fan, this new movie is based. “The best way to keep my word is never to give it,” says a man to the married woman he’s…
McCormick and Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant
Location: 2667 Sidney St., South Side. 412-432-3260 Hours: Mon.-Thu. 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Prices: Starters $7-13; entrées $14-27 Fare: Traditional and original seafood Atmosphere: Cavernous, yet candlelit and cozy Liquor: Full bar When the seafood chain McCormick and Schmick’s first opened at Pittsburgh’s shiny new SouthSide Works, it…
Transportation: Pair of Problems Face Two-Wheelers
As PennDOT plans to rehabilitate the congestion-plagued Route 28 corridor for the benefit of motorists, Bike PGH wants to make sure the state doesn’t create fresh nightmares for those traveling on two wheels. Scott Bricker, executive director of Bike PGH, says the state’s plan raises two main concerns for the group: The first…
Dissent for Coffee
Stories about the FBI and Secret Service becoming suspicious of Pittsburghers usually involve, quite literally, the usual suspects: the left-activists, punks and anarchists whom one would expect to attract attention in a country that touts dissent as a sign of democracy’s health while distrusting the dissenters themselves. But I can’t help seeing Jeff Ritter’s visit…
Any Storm in a Port
It’s a sure sign of the apocalypse. I agree with Sen. Rick Santorum. I agree with Congresswoman Melissa Hart. Adding fuel to my apocalyptic fire, Rick and Melissa agree with Hillary Clinton. We all think Dubya is in search of his second oar, since he clearly isn’t rowing with both in the water. It is…
