Tommy the Turtle Says…
Hey, kids! Today, we’re going to learn about being distressed. It sounds bad, but it can be fun! You know how you feel when Mom holds your Halloween candy just out of reach, and says you can’t have it until you eat your Brussels sprouts? Mayors sometimes feel that way, too. In fact, the…
Library Books Down Street
The Carnegie Library plans to shutter its Hazelwood branch on Monongahela Street and move to a location on much-busier Second Avenue. But at a Nov. 5 City Council hearing, supporters of the current site pled with city officials to, well, throw the book at them. The Hazelwood library, said Carnegie spokesman Craig Dunham, is…
Voter Hesitation
Pittsburgh blacks believe that their vote counts — they really do! And many of them are registered. But that hasn’t translated to more blacks at the polls come election day, according to a survey released Nov. 10 by the Pittsburgh Transportation Equity Project, based in the Hill District. After PTEP activists sat down with…
Follow That Story
Three discrimination cases filed with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in Harrisburg against street preacher Ronald McRae were quietly dropped June 2, years after being instituted. For nearly four years, beginning in 1997, McRae (now the head of the Street Preachers’ Fellowship in Johnstown — see News Feature: “Organize Globally, Annoy Locally,” Oct. 29) and…
We live in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. What’s the difference between a commonwealth and a regular ol’ state?
For all intents and purposes, there’s no difference between states that are just states and those that are commonwealths. The only reason for the distinction as far as I can see is for smug teachers to trip up hapless grade-school kids in civics class. I was one of those kids, if you must know, and…
School of Hard Knocks
“I want to make liars out of people who say Fort Pitt is a terrible school,” says fifth-grade teacher Bennett Blaxter. The biggest accuser last year: the federal government. Folded into an elementary-sized chair and surrounded by kids, Blaxter looks for an instant like a fifth-grader herself. Standing, she’s just 5 feet and change, blond,…
So Long, Chum?
“The best fucking thing to happen to me was to lose the election, ” said Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht, reflecting on his County Executive race loss four years ago, in contrast to the 15-point butt-whoopin’ Controller Dan Onorato put on Jim Roddey to put county government back in Democratic hands. But despite Cyril’s…
Thomas’ Adventures in Wonderland
Mayor Tom Murphy’s annual budget is about as close as Pittsburgh government gets to ceremonial grandeur. Each November, the mayor is led before City Council by one of its members: He is greeted with the applause of an audience consisting largely of mayoral appointees who stand and cheer when he enters. But given the…
A Conversation with Holly Perella
What was the impetus for this? A few years ago I had trouble getting pregnant and I took fertility drugs and got pregnant with twins. I watched those great baby shows on The Learning Channel and saw a woman who went to an artist and had a belly cast done. But one of the twins…
The Shins
The past is irrelevant, the future unimportant. What matters is the present, in its malleable entirety. What one might consider a lesson in nonlinear thinking is what others would call the double-edged sword of success. Simply put, there are two words every auspicious band fears upon completion of a second album: sophomore slump. Half…
Basement Jaxx
Basement Jaxx has a lot to live up to. The London duo’s last full-length release, 2001’s Rooty, was declared by some the savior of acid house’s ever-teetering legacy, and the record that would finally — a decade late — smash dance music through the layers of pop, rock and hip hop dominating American charts for…
Kid Koala
In the ever-expanding universe of electronic music — which to the uninitiated can seem like a hopelessly complicated genre layered with endless derivatives and sub-classifications (downtempo, breakbeat, drum and bass, et al.) — turntablism is probably the most user-friendly. A stack of vinyl records and a hardy stylus are the only necessary instruments; deejays make…
The Three Rivers Film Festival
The 22nd annual Three Rivers Film Festival, presented by Pittsburgh Filmmakers, continues through Nov. 23. The program of more than 45 films includes foreign-language works, American independents and experimental cinema. New this year is a competitive, juried component for the Shorts Program, with prize winners being announced during the festival. Tickets for most films are…
Seaside
Julie Lopes-Curval’s Seaside takes place in the kind of French provincial beach town where middle-class people go to spend the summers while their elders stay home alone in Paris to roast and die. But in this lackluster town, native tourism is hardly a money-maker, and the locals barely seem to care. The town’s only industry…
Bollywood/Hollywood
In her amusing lampoon of All Things Indian, Deepa Mehta tells the story of Rahul, a prosperous, 30ish, self-proclaimed “techno-geek” who falls in love with a New Age white girl, which displeases his upscale but still ridiculously traditional Indian Hindu Canadian immigrant family. Fortunately for Rahul’s mother (who eschews Christian blasphemy, just in case) and…
Iraq Between the Headlines
Kathy Kelly has led volunteer groups to Iraq for the past nine years in opposition of the United Nation’s economic sanctions and most recently the United States’ war against the country’s regime. Her group, Voices in the Wilderness, headquartered in Chicago, will receive the annual Thomas Merton Award on Nov. 18 from the Garfield-based Thomas…
The Great Unraveling
Perhaps the chief pleasure of reading Paul Krugman is knowing how much he displeases those you don’t agree with. Since the early days of the Bush Administration, Krugman’s twice-weekly column in The New York Times has given liberals a brief taste of what Rush Limbaugh gave conservatives in the Clinton years: the fun of pounding…
