Giving a Good Name to Lobbying
In this Age of Abramoff, some grassroots activists find themselves going unheard in Harrisburg and Washington. But on Mon., May 8, they can receive plenty of training to further their causes, as the local American Civil Liberties Union chapter hosts a workshop featuring speakers on how lobbyists give and receive. Voices favoring conservative legislation…
Getting Handle on Bars to Cycle-Commuting
While every week is Drive Yourself Alone to Work Week for most Americans, May 15-19 is Bike to Work Week … and Bike Pittsburgh is making an effort to help commuters realize commuter cycling can be simple, fun and doable. The week, part of the League of American Bicyclists’ Bike Month, will include biker breakfasts,…
State of Discontent: The 2006 Primary Guide
At last: a non-presidential election that matters … that gives you choices worth making. In recent years, voters in state-level and even national-level elections have grown used to primary contests that were either desultory or nonexistent. But this year, incumbents are beset on all fronts: There’s outrage over the pay raise in Harrisburg, doubts about…
The Promise
Once upon a time, the People’s Republic of China turned obedience into a culture. So after a while a group of young filmmakers found ways to create luscious-looking films that still managed to eke out an idea or two about the state of things (i.e., things about the state). Now China guzzles oil faster…
Amazing Grace
If you had seen the shoot at Gooski’s, in Polish Hill, on a cold, windswept March night, you might have wondered what the hell was going on: A crew of 30 or so, bundled against the sub-freezing temperatures, groping cameras, light clips and sound booms, calling “action” to a handful of actors shivering…
Full of Beans
Coffee, like tobacco, contains a drug as perfect for the postindustrial era as it was for its machine-age predecessor. Nicotine and caffeine are small-gauge stimulants. They are cheaply purchased, quickly consumed and as quick to the bloodstream, spiking alertness and dulling hunger for that extra push on the shop floor or behind the…
HARD CANDY
In David Slade’s psychological thriller, a 14-year-old girl, Haley (Ellen Page), entices thirtysomething Jeff (Patrick Wilson), a man she believes to be a pedophile. Once alone in his home, she abruptly switches the game, and through a series of unlikely moves, makes Jeff the helpless victim. So the abuser becomes the abused … it’s an…
HOOT
If only it were so: A trio of young adolescents in Florida prevents a retail development from destroying the habitat of some tiny ground-burrowing owls. Sure they resort to vandalism, physical abuse and assorted other petty crimes to achieve their ends … but really, isn’t all for the birds? Wil Shriner directs this family comedy-with-a-muddled-message,…
THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE
Part biography and part social study, Mary Harron’s genial film casts its lens upon Bettie Page, the raven-haired pin-up beauty of the 1950s, who decades later was revived as a divine goddess of hipsters, retro-ists and feminists alike. Page, portrayed here with eerily resemblance by Gretchen Mol, is a sweet Tennessee girl, God-fearin’ but with…
We’re Smokin’
Location: 2312 Babcock Blvd., Ross Township. 412-931-3190 Hours: 6:00 a.m.-9:30 p.m., daily Prices: Starters $3-10; sandwiches $4-7; entrées $6-18 Fare: Smoked meat, fried vegetables, and salads with both Atmosphere: Indoor/outdoor patio Liquor: BYOB Smoking: Permitted throughout Pittsburgh may not be known for barbecue, but that doesn’t mean Pittsburghers don’t like it. The trouble is where…
STICK IT
After wrecking a dream home while performing a daredevil bike stunt, rebellious teen Haley (Missy Peregrym) is ordered by the judge to enlist in a gymnastics training program. Sure, that happens … in the movies. The same sort of movies where “bad” girls wear Black Flag T-shirts and sass the coach (Jeff Bridges, always a…
Birds of a Feather
In the 1990s, when New Orleans was debating whether to allow casino gambling, a pundit commented that since New Orleans already had organized crime — along with an abundance of prostitution, drug abuse, crooked cops, corrupt politicians and petty criminals of all sorts — it was particularly well suited to host legal gambling. Pittsburgh has…
Da Buttonpusha
Big Jus and Deezil Money The Big Money Project 7 Figure Entertainment Tee-Jay My Testimony Self-released One of the hardest workers in the Pittsburgh music scene has to be Kay Bey, a.k.a. Da Buttonpusha, a.k.a. Da Constant Grinder. When not in her “Slum Palace” Beltzhoover basement running her Just Pushing…
Pirates Follow Suit
I saw something nasty in Cleveland last month. I went to watch the Pittsburgh Passion women’s professional football team take on the Fusion, and I saw something so horrible as to defy description. Even more shocking than the sight of film crews shooting Spider-Man III in downtown Cleveland. (I’m not sure what is more shocking…
Mt. Lebanon’s “Top 25 List” Object Lesson
Maybe you don’t know exactly what happened in Mount Lebanon, where a group of high school boys stand accused of humiliating a group of high school girls by treating them as sex objects. Maybe you don’t know any of the details, or any of the people involved. But judging by the public outcry the story…
The Renovation Will Be Televised
On Generation Renovation, one of the many spruce-up-your-house shows on HGTV, the premise is that Gen X-ers have endearingly quirky yet fascinating methods of home refurbishing. So how lucky we are that the show chose the ‘Burgh’s own Kristin Hughes and her Victorian house in Friendship as a subject for a segment (which…
Confessions of a Former Dittohead
Like most tragic love stories, it began with instant, passionate attraction, though the end of the affair was a long, tortured decline filled with recriminations and shattered illusions. And now, author Jim Derych holds forth on his former objet fixe with the grim frankness of one who’s moved beyond the drama to make peace with…
In Face of Suit, City Re-Charges Police Dog Bite Victim
Carole Wiedmann is being arrested a second time … for the alleged crime of letting a police dog try to bite her in the ass. Wiedmann, of Ohio Township, was arrested on a failure-to-disperse charge last Aug. 20 during a counter-recruitment protest in front of the Armed Forces Career Center on Forbes Ave. in…
