From Here to Obscurity

It was 11 years ago when I walked into the art department at the college newspaper and saw the managing editor using Photoshop to superimpose the school's logo over an image of a spider web.

"What's this for?" I asked.

"It's for our new home page on the World Wide Web," he said.

"The what on the what?"

"The World Wide Web," he said. "Haven't you been paying attention? It's this way where people can look for information on the Internet."

"Like Usenet."

"No, with the Web you can get pictures and sounds."

"Like Gopher and FTP."

"No, not really. Look, I'll show you." He opened a program called Mosaic and showed me a page of text. "See? And if you click on these underlined items --- those are links --- they take you to other pages."

"Ah. Hmm. OK. That's ... interesting." I wandered off to do something else. Who could predict that the Web would some day grow into one of the biggest time-wasters ever created by man?

Anyway, soon I was screwing around with the Web myself, and within a couple of months, I had signed up for a three-credit course called something like, "Designing and Writing Hyper-Text." Among the assignments? Create your own Web page. My topic? It turned out to be Our Fair City.

Thus, 2005 marks the Tube City Online's 10th year on the Web, having attracted thousands of visitors, several nasty emails, and one legal threat --- this is true --- from U.S. Steel Corp. I used to have several pages about U.S. Steel's old National Works, and received a "cease and desist" order in 1997 for allegedly using U.S. Steel intellectual property without permission. I wrote back with an explanation of fair use and the First Amendment, and haven't heard anything since. (Am I tempting fate?)

The first effort was pretty crude (I was actually looking through my dusty, musty archives for a copy of it, and haven't found a complete one yet). But I'm proud to say that after those pathetic efforts, I've finally elevated Tube City Online to its current, highly advanced state of mediocrity.

To celebrate, look for lots of new and exciting features in this 10th anniversary year!

Look for them, but don't expect them!

...

Unlike this site, there are a few useful corners of the Web. The Penn State Data Center, which crunches state, municipal and federal statistics, is among them. Among the features I enjoy is "Map of the Month." This month's map compares estimated population growth from 2000 to 2004 to illustrate which are the "fastest-growing" U.S. states. (Hint: Not Pennsylvania.)

The map is a PDF file, so you'll need Acrobat. But you know that, right?

...

Jonathan Potts links to a great Trib article by Brad Bumstead about the state Turnpike Commission's continual promises that better things will be created for better living if we just build six-lane toll roads to them ...

... and how those better things never seem to materialize, though we do get these great highways that allow us to speed from Delmont to Tarrs, thus greatly cutting down the commute time for people from Tarrs, Mendon and Armburst who are heading to the Delmont-New Alexandria metroplex.

Sarcastic? Me? No-o-o-o-oo.

Bumstead points out that while the Turnpike Commission often claims its projects are self-sustaining, traffic on the Amos K. Hutchinson Bypass, the Beaver Valley Expressway and the Mon-Fayette Expressway is running so much behind expectations that tax money has had to be diverted to pay for them.

Writes Jonathan:

How does the commission and its friends in the Legislature justify these projects? Why, they will be engines of economic development, of course. But as the Trib's article notes, there is scant evidence that the projects have boosted local economies, and certainly not remotely enough to justify the costs.

Jonathan blames the failure of these various highway projects on pork, patronage and corruption. I'm going to try and give the PTC the benefit of the doubt and say that they're not crooked. (C'mon, work with me, here. I'm still feeling the Christmakwanukah spirit.)

However, I suspect that like most large organizations that have been around for a long time, the Turnpike Commission is primarily concerned with perpetuating its own growth.

In other words, it's only natural that when you ask the Turnpike Commission how to spur economic development, they'll reply "Build a Turnpike!" As a wise friend often tells me: "When all you have is a hammer, suddenly everything looks like a nail."

It's just a shame that Pennsylvania doesn't have anything in its economic development toolbox except hammers.

Oh, and slot machines. Lots and lots of slot machines.

Ahem. We're doomed.