Sinclair Broadcasting Update

Update: U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, issued a statement Friday taking Sinclair to task for refusing to air the episode of "Nightline" during which the names of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen killed in Iraq are to be read:

There is no valid reason for Sinclair to shirk its responsibility in what I assume is a very misguided attempt to prevent your viewers from completely appreciating the extraordinary sacrifices made on their behalf by Americans serving in Iraq. War is an awful, but sometimes necessary business. Your decision to deny your viewers an opportunity to be reminded of warâs terrible costs, in all their heartbreaking detail, is a gross disservice to the public, and to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. It is, in short, sir, unpatriotic. I hope it meets with the public opprobrium it most certainly deserves.

God bless him.

Think Happy Oldsmobile Thoughts

Day Three of Life With Salmonella finds my stomach full of enough acid to make a battery that could light Monroeville Mall, including the Annex. So why don't I have the energy to come up with a better metaphor?

There's one nice thing about this whole ordeal. At last I can say that I'm definitely not full of it. Believe me. Now, my writing may be full of it, but I'm sure not.

My plans for Saturday and Sunday involve lying quietly in some place cool and dark and still for a long, long time. Can you rent a crypt for a weekend?

In the news, by now you've heard that the last Oldsmobile rolled off the assembly line in Lansing, Mich., yesterday morning. The Lansing State Journal has a wonderful online tribute to the car that made that town famous, including this interview with one of my UAW brothers:

Other than a starter car his father gave him and a Pontiac Grand Am, Hernandez has owned nothing but Oldsmobiles. His current love is a 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass S: rust color, hard top. He takes the car with 177,000 miles to two car shows a year. Even as Oldsmobile fades away, Alex isn't about to forsake his favorite brand. He'd rather buy used Oldsmobiles than other cars.

I don't often watch the network evening news, but I didn't have the energy to change the channel last night, and I caught the end of the "NBC Nightly News" with Tom Brokaw. The final segment dealt with Oldsmobile, and it closed with a collector driving away in a mid-'70s Olds Delta 88 convertible something like this one. Bright red with a white interior. Great looking car. Yeah, they wouldn't start in the rain, but who wants to drive a convertible in the rain, anyway?

Meanwhile, fallout from Tuesday's primary continues. Over at Pittsburgh City Paper, John McIntire is having a hard time controlling himself:

This was a major election for right-wing nutbaggery everywhere. The notoriously conservative Club for Growth ponied up nearly a million for negative advertising to beat Specter, who has the colossal audacity to think for himself from time to time.

Arlen is an old-school and occasionally moderate Republican. That is to say, heâs not completely blinded by ideology or stupidity. He voted against the Clinton impeachment. He wants to scale back John Ashcroftâs Patriot Act. Heâs a little worried that Mr. Ashwipe gets to find out what library books youâre reading.

But I donât mean to just gloat and have a few drinks at the expense of the scary wingnuts everywhere. Iâd like to make it more personal than that. Iâd like to gloat on an individual basis.

Erm. Yes. Well, then ... (backs away slowly). Wipe your mouth, John; you have a little foam showing on the corners.

Speaking of knee-jerk opinions, the reliable knee-jerk conservatives at Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns channels 53 and 22 here in Pittsburgh, are pulling "Nightline" from their ABC affiliates tonight because the show is devoting a full half-hour to reading the names of U.S. servicemen and women killed in Iraq.

According to Reuters, Sinclair said the "Nightline" segment "'appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq.' ... The broadcast group accused Koppel and his show of seeking to 'highlight only one aspect of the war effort and in doing so to influence public opinion against the military action in Iraq.'"

The hypocrisy is so thick you can spread it with a knife. If you watch the Fox 53 News at all, you've seen the right-wing bilge that Sinclair programs --- pro-war editorials so full of propaganda that Francisco Franco would have blanched. Sinclair also donates thousands of dollars to political campaigns --- exclusively to conservatives. And they have the gall to accuse "Nightline" of pushing a "political agenda"?

I'm sorry; speaking of gall, my poor ol' stomach is weak enough as it is. I can't take any more. I'm going to go look at some nice, cheerful Oldsmobile pictures, and think happy thoughts.

Today's Special: Titralac and Barf Bags

Where the heck were the election returns on Wednesday? What about the poll results?

They were the same place that the editor-in-chief, staff photographer and circulation manager of Tube City Online was, beginning Tuesday night: Curled up in a question-mark shape on the bed, between runs (and I do mean runs) to the porcelain throne. One nice thing about food poisoning is that it gives you plenty of "quiet time" to catch up on the Reader's Digest.

Want to hear a funny joke I read in "Life in These United States"? No? Fine.

Things are slightly better today, so I'm up and around again, but I'm crankier than a bull moose after a three-day hangover. The poll received a pitiful number of responses. I'm frankly disappointed. Here I slave over a hot Power Mac, day in and day out, half-dead, and this is the thanks I get?

I got four responses; two "yes" votes (though one of the yes voters, a Republican, called the primary ballot "one of the most pitiful ones I've ever seen"); and two "no" votes: one from someone who recently moved, and didn't re-register, and the other from an independent. Independent voters in Pennsylvania can't vote in the primary.

Speaking of food poisoning, I hear there's a new lunch special available on the North Side. It's called the Arlen Specter Sandwich: Crow on a bed of sour grapes. Tribune-Review editorial writers eat free.

As promised, here are links to detailed primary election results. Remember, there's lots of time left to register for the November general election.

Hopefully, by November, the only thing that will make me want to throw up will be campaign commercials.

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Mon-Yough area primary results

U.S. House of Representatives (Congress)

4th Congressional District (northern Allegheny County, all of Beaver and Lawrence counties and parts of Butler, Mercer and Westmoreland counties, including Delmont, Export and Murrysville). Winners: Stevan Drobac (D), Melissa Hart (R)

Results by county: Allegheny County | Beaver County | Butler County | Lawrence County | Mercer County | Westmoreland County

State Legislative Races
(Only contested races shown)

38th Legislative District (City of McKeesport; boroughs of Dravosburg, West Mifflin, Homestead, Glassport, Liberty, Port Vue, and Pleasant Hills; and part of Baldwin in Allegheny County). Winner: Ken Ruffing (D)

56th Legislative District (City of Jeannette; parts of North Huntingdon and Penn townships; and Irwin, North Irwin and Penn boroughs in Westmoreland County). Winners: Scott E. Avolio (R), James Casorio (D)

58th Legislative District (City of Monessen; townships of Rostraver, Sewickley and South Huntingdon and parts of East Huntingdon, North Huntingdon and Hempfield; and boroughs of Adamsburg, Arona, Madison, Manor, North Belle Vernon, Smithton, Sutersville and West Newton in Westmoreland County; along with boroughs of Belle Vernon and Fayette City and part of Washington Township in Fayette County). Winner: R. Ted Harhai (D)

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Detailed Results, by community (Allegheny County only)

City of McKeesport | City of Clairton | City of Duquesne

Municipality of Monroeville

Braddock | Braddock Hills | Chalfant | Churchill | Dravosburg | East McKeesport | East Pittsburgh | Elizabeth Borough | Elizabeth Township | Forest Hills | Forward Township | Glassport | Homestead | Jefferson Hills | Liberty | Lincoln | North Versailles Township | Pitcairn | Pleasant Hills | Port Vue | Rankin | South Versailles Township (Coulter) | Trafford (Allegheny County portion only) | Turtle Creek | Versailles | Wall | West Elizabeth | West Homestead | West Mifflin | Whitaker | White Oak | Wilkins Township | Wilmerding

All Allegheny County results

All Washington County results

All Westmoreland County results

Today's Poll: Did You Go To The Polls?

The polls in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania opened this morning at 7. They'll stay open until 8 p.m. Tomorrow, Tube City Online ("More Than a Web Site, a Community Instigation") will provide links to detailed primary election results from all Mon-Yough area communities here in the Almanac.

Right now, it's the first ever Tube City Online poll, brought to you by Potter-McCune Co., purveyors of fine foods celebrating the 15th anniversary of going out of business; along with Galen & Jones Motor Co., your McKeesport-area De Soto-Plymouth dealer; and the makers of Tastemaster Bread.

Today's poll question: Have you voted in today's primary? Do you intend to vote? If not, why not?

To vote, send email to tubecitypoll@lycos.com.

If you prefer to remain anonymous, or don't have email access, just click on the link below marked "Comment."

Please include either a name or a nickname, along with the area you're emailing from (Otto, Wilson, West Wilmerding, etc.). Even Pittsburghers are allowed to participate. Employees of Tube City Online are not only ineligible to vote, they're highly unlikely.

Please keep your comments clean.

Random Observations From A Random Mind

Tomorrow, the first-ever Tube City Online poll. Read on for details. But first, more crap!

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The old daytime-only AM station in Jeannette, WBCW (1530), has morphed into a daytime-only AM station on 770 called WKFB. When it's not doing paid infomercials, it's playing a somewhat weird mix of oldies and '70s pop that I find oddly compelling.

I first heard many of these songs when they were new, on the AM radio in my dad's '75 Chevy Impala (similar to this one, though his was a dark green four-door hardtop). Now, these songs are oldies.

Which means, of course, that I'm getting old, too. Erp. Of course, my having grown up with AM Top 40 radio should have been a clue.

Someday, I'll be telling my grandchildren: "Yep, all we had was AM radio in our automobile, and we were happy with it! And we used to have to dial a telephone. We didn't have no new-fangled telepathic links with our telephones, by jiminy!" Then they'll yank the cord on my life-support machines.

Anyway, last weekend, WKFB played a song that I probably haven't heard since it was a hit in the summer of 1977. And now, the blasted thing has burrowed into my brain like a parasite, and taken up residence for more than a week.

The song is "Ariel" by Dean Friedman, and it's my gift to you. Make sure to turn the volume on your computer way up; with the distortion and crappy fidelity of most PC speakers, maybe it will sound like it did coming out of the dry-rotted center-mounted dashboard speaker of the Impala:

Way on the other side of the Hudson,
deep in the bosom of suburbia,
I met a young girl, she sang mighty fine,
Tears on My Pillow and Ave Maria.
Standing by the waterfall in Paramus Park
she was working for the Friends-of-BAI
She was collecting quarters in a paper cup.
She was looking for change and so was I.

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A check on the Internet reveals that Ben Folds cited "Ariel" as an inspiration for his song "Kate," another tune that tends to get stuck in my head for hours at a time.

Down by the Rosemary and Cameron, she hands out the Bhagavad Gita ... aw, dammit!

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According to Pat Cloonan in Saturday's Daily News, about one-quarter of eligible voters will head to the polls tomorrow. That estimate comes from Mark Wolosik, Allegheny County director of elections, who tends to be fairly accurate about these things. (The article doesn't seem to have made it online.)

Twenty-five percent? That's pitiful in a presidential election year, even for a primary. And if it rains tomorrow, we can expect turnout to be even lower. (Warning: Moralizing ahead. You have been warned.)

Many of the same people who would stand in the rain for hours if Wal-Mart put DVD players on sale --- or, God forbid, if Steelers tickets were being given away --- won't take five minutes on the way to work tomorrow to cast a ballot.

Yes, I realize the Republican nominee for president is not really in doubt unless you happen to be one of these dimwits. (Millie Howard of New Richmond, Ohio, may be my favorite. She's seeking $1 donations --- 75 million of them.)

And the Democratic nomination isn't in question at this point, either, though Dennis Kucinich is still very much running, and Pennsylvanians can choose delegates for other candidates besides U.S. Senator Yawn Kerry. Personally, I'm strongly leaning toward a vote for "Uncommitted."

But there are any number of hotly-contested state races. Republicans have two biggies --- the nomination for U.S. senator and the state Attorney General's race. Any Republican who doesn't vote in the primary tomorrow simply doesn't care enough to claim membership in any party.

As for Democrats, besides the state Attorney General race, Mon Valley residents have a chance to make a choice in a great three-way free-for-all right now for the state 38th Legislative District seat currently held by Ken Ruffing.

Perhaps you have a good reason for not voting tomorrow. That's fine. If so, I want to hear about it. Tomorrow, we will be asking if you voted in the primary; if not, why not, and if so, what motivated you to defy the pundits and head to the polls?

It won't be as good as the KQV phone poll --- which is not a scientific survey, but is intended to give you a chance to express your opinions on the events of the day --- but neither will you have to dial a phone.

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This has nothing to do with the Mon Valley, so I hesitated about including it. In the end, the chance to make a couple of cheap jokes won out.

Did you happen to see Prince Bandar al Sultan, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, on "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert Sunday? Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it's more interesting, and this was riveting stuff. Russert kept clobbering His Royal Highness, and the prince kept trying to bluff his way out of the questions, like a third-grader who forgot to do his homework. You can read Russert's questions, and Prince Bandar's answers, at MSNBC.

The transcript, unfortunately, doesn't capture the way the prince was squirming. I was waiting for him to stick a finger under his shirt collar and go, "Homina homina homina homina," like Jackie Gleason.

Prince Bandar was holding a retractable ballpoint pen in his hands, and kept clicking it on and off when he got nervous. By the end of the interview, I was afraid it might burst into flame.

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Remember: Big poll tomorrow! Don't forget to vote --- preferably in your city, borough or township, but if not, then by all means, at least here at Tube City Online.

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(Addendum: Boy, do I ever need an editor. I wrote this Monday morning before work, and re-read it after work. I used the word "much" three times in one sentence, and "odd" twice in another sentence. Yecch. Odd much? Why yes, I am.)

Why Not Outsource Politicians?

State Rep. Dave Levdansky of Elizabeth asks a good question in this morning's Tribune-Review: "What does a person on the other side of the ocean understand about someone's problems in Pennsylvania?"

According to a story by the Trib's Brad Bumsted, workers at call centers in India and Mexico are answering questions from Pennsylvania food stamp recipients. Indian computer programmers are also working on an upgrade of the state police criminal history database.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen; your tax money is going to support outsourcing.

Bumsted reports that the state Department of General Services has ordered all state agencies to report by May 1 on any offshore work being done by state contractors, and that Gov. Rendell is supporting legislation to limit outsourcing of state contracts.

Pardon me while I jump up and down and yell: "We needed legislation to prohibit this? Good gravy, doesn't anyone have any common sense?"

OK, I'm better now. Of course, the state is obligated by law to award contracts to the lowest responsible bidder, and supporters of outsourcing say it allows businesses to take advantage of cheap overseas labor.

Guess what? We've got cheap labor right here. According to the state Department of Labor, we've got 5.2 percent unemployment in Allegheny County. In Butler, they've got 6.5 percent unemployment, and in Westmoreland and Beaver, 6.6 percent. Unemployment in Washington County is 7 percent, it's nearly 8 percent in Indiana County, and in Fayette County, it's 10.2 percent.

Read that last statistic again: One in 10 adults looking for work in Fayette County can't find a job at any price.

At the same time, Unisys, the computer company that won the contract for rebuilding the state police database, sent the work overseas, and it's being paid for (in part) by the state income tax and turnpike tolls that residents of Fayette and 66 other counties are paying.

Unisys couldn't find a group of Connellsville or Uniontown residents capable of punching numbers into a computer for $5.15 per hour? I doubt that.

According to Unisys' annual report, the corporation's net income was up 16 percent in 2003, and earnings per share went up 87 percent, from 39 cents to 73 cents.

And if that call center was in Dunbar Township instead of Bangalore, I suppose that Unisys may have made only 71 cents per share.

I don't believe that government should be in the business of making jobs for people; that's the job of private industry. But the jobs that government needs should damn well be held by Pennsylvanians.

As for companies that send jobs overseas that could be held by skilled American workers, I have no problem with them. I just think that if Lawrence Weinbach, CEO of Unisys, is so proud of the profits that his company is realizing in India, then maybe he should move there, along with the rest of the board of directors.

Let me back up; I don't mean to pick solely on Unisys, whose state contract represents one small part of a much larger problem.

When U.S. Steel and LTV were closing their Mon Valley plants in the early 1980s, white-collar workers snickered at the laid-off steelworkers. "Those dumb, overpaid hunkies never got an education, and now look at them," they said. "Serves them right."

When Westinghouse began laying off skilled technical personnel and downsizing in the 1990s, younger engineers and programmers had their turn to laugh. "Those old farts never upgraded their skills, and now they can't compete," they said.

Now the younger engineers and programmers are watching their jobs go overseas, and they don't seem to find it so funny.

Meanwhile, our national politicians have gotten us all fired up over issues like flag burning, school prayer and gay marriage. So, answer these questions honestly. How many people in your borough, city or township are burning flags? How many children in your neighborhood have been stopped from praying privately in school --- or attending a religious school of their choice? How many gays or lesbians on your street want to get married?

I'll bet your answer to each of those is "none."

Now, how many people do you know who are unemployed through no fault of their own? I can think of a half-dozen --- non-unionized skilled workers, not grunts.

I have to hand it to our leaders in Congress and the White House. They do a good job at setting up straw men for us to rail against. While we're distracted, they give the major donors to their re-election campaigns --- namely, large corporations --- free rein to take American jobs overseas.

Then, the corporate leaders bring back the profits for their own use, and share the booty with the politicians. If that wasn't such a cynical strategy, I'd say it was utterly brilliant.

In fact, I'm almost eager to find out how, in this election year, our leaders are going to put a positive spin on outsourcing. After all, during the steel industry's decline, Reagan's labor experts told laid-off steelworkers to get retrained to do computer work.

Now that the computer work is going offshore, what will the Bush administration suggest that laid-off computer workers get retrained in? I don't think that making hamburgers at Dairy Queen requires an associate's degree from CCAC.

Maybe making "Blizzards," sure, but not burgers.

(Update on yesterday's entry: The Associated Press is reporting that Army Staff Sgt. Ed Carman was 25, not 27, as the Daily News reported. AP attributes the age to Maj. Greg Yesko of the 99th Regional Support Command, based outside of Pittsburgh.)

In the Real World, a Family Mourns

Here's what I learned this morning by listening to talk radio: U.S. Sen. Yawn Kerry, D-Monotonous, purposely got himself injured in Vietnam so that he could get a Purple Heart. Quote from a caller: "He knew he was going to run for president, and that this was going to be a resume-builder."

Want to know why talk radio has a reputation as a haven for far-right-wing nutcases? Want to know why a group of people felt a need to start a "liberal" talk radio network? There are your reasons right there. It takes an exquisitely twisted mind to come up with something that bizarre.

Here's the scene as I imagine it: Lt. j.g. Yawn Kerry is standing on the deck of his swift boat, patrolling a river somewhere in Vietnam, when snipers begin firing on the craft. As tracer bullets cut through the night sky, Kerry's crew scrambles to its battle stations and begins returning fire.

But Kerry stands on the boat's prow, defiantly yelling at the Viet Cong: "Go ahead and shoot me! Someday, when I'm running for president against a Yalie who right now is drinking beer and hiding from his National Guard duty, getting wounded is going to look great on my resume!"

Politically, I'm probably much closer to a Republican than I am to a Democrat, but it's hard to align yourself with people who think such a scenario is plausible.

Especially when in the real world, people are mourning the loss of real soldiers in the current Iraq conflict. They aren't there to build their resumes. They're in Iraq because they volunteered to serve their country, and their country sent them there.

Last night, McKeesporters learned that a local family is among the mourners. The first soldier from the Mon Valley to die in Iraq will be buried in the veterans' section of McKeesport and Versailles Cemetery.

According to The Daily News, Army Staff Sgt. Ed Carman, 27, a McKeesport High School graduate, was killed Saturday in a tank accident in Iraq. Army officials said the accident was caused by a mechanical malfunction.

Sgt. Carman leaves behind two small children and a grieving family, including a former co-worker of mine. Viewing is set for tonight from 7 to 9 p.m. and from 12 noon to 9 p.m. tomorrow at Willig Funeral Home on Ninth Street, Downtown.

Our deepest sympathies go out to his family. Requiescat in pace, Sgt. Carman.

Study: Half of All Statistics Are Made Up

From the Department of Mixed Emotions comes word that U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Hooterville, is gaining on incumbent U.S. Sen. "Snarlin'" Arlen Specter in the race for the Republican nomination:

A surge in support for conservative challenger Rep. Pat Toomey one week before the primary has narrowed incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter's lead in Pennsylvania's Republican race for U.S. Senate to a scant five percentage points, according to a poll released Tuesday. In a (Quinnipiac University Polling Institute) poll released April 7, Specter held a comfortable lead of 15 percentage points. The primary is April 27. ... Clay Richards, assistant director of the Connecticut-based polling institute, said the swing in support for Toomey came from conservative defectors from Specter's camp.

If these polls are accurate, then Toomey definitely has momentum going into the April 27 primary, which is bad news for Specter.

I have mixed emotions about this development because I think Specter has, in general, done a good job for Pennsylvania. On the other hand, I don't like the direction that the country has gone with Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate, and if a Specter loss means that Democrat Joe Hoeffel (motto: "Joe Who?") has a chance, then by all means, so long Arlen, it's been nice to know ya.

But there's a third, more sinister possibility; Specter loses in the primary and Hoeffel loses in November, meaning that Pennsylvania will be represented by Toomey, giving the state two of the most hard-core conservative senators in the U.S. The other one being, of course, Rick Santorum, a U.S. senator who lives in Herndon, Virginia, which is not quite in Pennsylvania.

(Oh, yes, I know that Santorum owns a house in Penn Hills. He cares so much about that house that he allowed the property taxes to go delinquent, according to a recent story in the Penn Hills Progress. But that's a topic for another time.)

Toomey is getting a considerable boost from donors and volunteers from outside Pennsylvania, who regard Specter as "too liberal." Specter is a Nixon-style Republican whose politics seem very similar to those of Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott. What "Bizarro World" have we landed in when a Nixon-Goldwater Republican is "too liberal"?

Now, onto the fun stuff. There is virtually nothing available on the Internet or in print about the G.C. Murphy Co., the McKeesport-born variety and discount store chain which was one of the most innovative retailers of the postwar era, and whose influence stretched from New England to the Florida Keys, and west into Texas. That's a shame, and it's one of the main reasons that I am helping a group of former Murphy employees and retirees to compile a history in time for what would have been the company's 100th anniversary.

I've posted a 1950 corporate history of G.C. Murphy in our history section; eventually, there may be a Murphy Web site somewhere, but for now, I hope that when someone searches for "G.C. Murphy" on the Internet, they'll finally find something worthwhile.

Meanwhile, if you know of a retired Murphy Company employee, especially someone who spent their career on the sales floor, please have them get in touch with me at jt3y at dementia dot org, or write to me at P.O. Box 94, McKeesport, PA 15134.

(And remember ... there are plenty of Tube City Online shirts, stickers and license plate frames on sale in our souvenir shop, just in time for summer. Or something like that.)

Live From Pittsburgh, Home of the Liberty Bell

There's a new radio station in town, sort of. A daytime-only AM station was moved from Portage, Pa., to Wilkinsburg. WCIX is at 660 AM and is running syndicated talk shows --- which is sort of the radio equivalent of suspended animation.

I'd say that WCIX is destined to get a 0.1 rating in Pittsburgh, but only because Arbitron doesn't rate stations in negative numbers.

Because I'm a masochist, I tuned in last night and caught part of a show called "What's Cooking?" First, there are a lot of commercials, including ads for the L.A. Dodgers and out-of-town restaurants.

Why, oh why, WCIX, are you running ads for the L.A. Dodgers in Pittsburgh? We can't get Pittsburghers out to see the Pirates for heaven's sake, let alone the Dodgers.

Second, the hosts "welcomed WCIX to the network" and said "we love Pittsburgh and all the great sports teams ... the Pirates, the Steelers, the Flyers."

Yep, and we Pittsburghers love to eat cheesesteaks while we watch "Rocky."

Then they began to talk about the great 1979 Pirates ... including Roberto Clemente and Bill Mazeroski. Oh, really? Maz and Roberto?

It's called "preparing in advance," fellas. Try it.

In other news, David Siegel has resigned from US Airways, having apparently accomplished his goal of doing absolutely nothing for the airline, according to Mike Pound in the Beaver County Times:

"Two years ago, US Airways was facing financial distress, rapidly declining stock prices and dissension among its employees," said J. Randall Nutter, a professor of business, accounting and management at Geneva College. "I'm afraid that list is still intact today."

I'm sure it's mere coincidence that there were only days left before Siegel's option to leave with a $4.5 million severance package was to expire.

So, great job, Dave! I'm sure all the flight attendants, mechanics and pilots who have given back part of their salaries to the airline appreciate your hard work (on your own behalf) and wish they could join you in leaving US Airways with a big pile of someone else's money --- as opposed to unemployment compensation, which so many of them have received under your leadership.

And how about a big hand for the US Airways board of directors for structuring Siegel's compensation package like that? Other companies reward executives for their performance, but US Airways rewards them for spending two years bumping from crisis to crisis. Yes, a big hand is in order --- to deliver each and every one of them a dope slap.

I guess we could have seen it coming --- according to a timeline in the P-G Siegel had previously bailed on Avis Rent-a-Car after less than six months as its CEO. (What is it about these failed CEOs, who like failed football coaches, go from job to job? Who hires these people, and why? "Well, you were a dismal failure at State University, but we think you're perfect to coach our team at Tech A&M.")

I might point out that Siegel is the second US Airways CEO to leave under a cloud of controversy and with a golden parachute; Rakesh Gangwal bailed in 2001 and took $16.8 million worth of stock options with him.

Santayana was wrong: Those who forget their history are doomed to become members of the US Airways board of directors, or so it would seem.

Finally this morning, it's nice to end on a high note with some good news for Our Fair City. Governor "Speedy" Rendell has promised to commit up to $5 million to eliminate grade crossings at the industrial parks in McKeesport and Duquesne, according to Pat Cloonan in The Daily News.

That should open the sites for quicker development and eliminate the bottlenecks that form at the Center Street crossing in McKeesport and the Grant Street crossing in Duquesne.

(P.S. Are you tired of yinzers who put "OBX" stickers on their cars so they can brag about going to the Outer Banks? Check out what we've got in our CafePress store, and at a low, low price.)

Time! For a Commercial!

First, some shameless self-promotion. I had a very busy, but productive weekend. Among other things, I wrote a new column for Pittsburgh Radio & TV Online. If you're interested in broadcasting, you'll see that my leaden rapier is as blunt as ever.

Also, I'd like to point out that I predicted last month at PBRTV that Air America, the new self-proclaimed liberal talk radio network, would be dull. I based my prediction on the track record of the personalities who were tapped as hosts.

Guess what? The reviews are in, and they uniformly call Air America dull, with content that hectors, rather than entertains or informs. David Shaw, writing in the L.A. Times, calls a day listening to Air America "the most boring day of my life."

Now, a brief commercial. Since its inception in 1995, Tube City Online (which debuted as "The Tube City Home Page") has been completely free and unsupported by advertising. Part of that, of course, is because the site lives on a non-commercial Web server, for which I've been very grateful, and I don't want to jeopardize the non-commercial status by soliciting ads. Any expenses for the site have come out of my own pocket.

What expenses, you ask? Film for pictures. Photocopying expenses. Disk storage. Software and hardware upgrades. Travel. Sharpening the knives I use to stab people in the back. Fending off threats. And so on.

While I enjoy doing this, it can be a fairly costly hobby at times, and my cash situation is less than flush. (What? A writer who's poor? What a surprise!)

So, I'm going to begin asking for your support in keeping Tube City Online functional. No, I'm not accepting advertising, but I have opened a CafePress store. The first items include snazzy T-shirts with maps of Western Pennsylvania and our new logo; and a chrome "McKeesport" license plate frame.

I've tried to tailor the images to the format and make them reasonably attractive; I've also kept the markup low, on purpose, to make sure the items are affordable. I'm going to try to add new items once a week, time permitting. If you can see fit to purchasing something, I'd be appreciative. (Have an idea for a T-shirt or some other McKeesport-themed item? Send suggestions to jt3y at dementia dot org. If I use your suggestion, I'll give you credit here, and give you a free one once they're ready.)

In exchange for your support, I want to extend an offer that was originally a mission of this Website: Namely, to offer free Web pages to non-profit groups in McKeesport and its suburbs that need them. The only two takers were the McKeesport Model Railroad Club and McKeesport Heritage Center. C'mon, you know your group could use a free Web page! Some restrictions do apply, of course.

Meanwhile, since adding this blog page a little more than a year ago, I've tried to keep it focused on Western Pennsylvania issues. It's not a blog about national politics.

If this were a political blog, I might feel compelled to comment on last night's revelation that the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States has promised his own "October Surprise" to help the re-election of President Gee Dubya Bush. If this was a political blog, I might feel obligated to point out that conspiring to keep the price of oil low to help influence our election is a much skunkier thing to do than, say, telling the incumbent president's opponent that you hope he wins the election. (As the incumbent president's opponent has famously claimed.)

One might even say --- mind you, if this was a political blog --- that it amounts to using a foreign nation to help buy an election, which is in contravention of various federal laws. And that if a certain president accepted this little bargain, and didn't leap from his chair saying, "Out of my office, you fiendish scalawag!" as soon as it was proposed, then he'd be a big ol' crook.

I might also point out that the "House of Saud" makes the Corleones look like charter members of the Jaycees.

Mind you, this is not a political blog. But speaking of the incumbent president's opponent, U.S. Sen. Yawn Kerry, D-Monotonous, if it were a political blog, I might feel compelled to comment, too, on his appearance on "Meet the Press" Sunday morning. I might feel it necessary to say that he has the weirdest-looking farmer's tan I've ever seen (you have to take off your sunglasses if you're going to avoid those "raccoon eyes," Senator), but that he acquitted himself fairly well with Tim Russert, despite talking around some of the questions.

Russert rolled tape of a 1971 "Meet the Press" interview with Kerry, in which Kerry stated that he had committed "atrocities" while in Vietnam. Kerry tried a lame attempt at a joke ("Where did all my dark hair go, Tim?") before making a non-apology apology for accusing his fellow soldiers ("Who I love," he said) of war crimes.

But again, this is not a political blog. I hope I've made that clear.

Nothing to See Here

If you're thinking about going to Oakland today, don't. Go somewhere else. Carnegie Mellon is having Carnival and the roads around Schenley Park are closed. John Kerry is bringing Bon Jovi to Bigelow Boulevard and the roads around there are closed. A tree-trimming crew has traffic restricted on Craig Street.

About the only thing that could make traffic flow worse is if Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus would come into the neighborhood with a parade of elephants and clowns.

Oh, never mind, the elephants and clowns are in Downtown Pittsburgh at the NRA convention.

In retrospect, perhaps it isn't a good idea to tease heavily-armed conventioneers. Ha ha! Kidding! I kid! Welcome to Western Pennsylvania! I respect the right to bear arms! I think Charlton Heston is wonderful! Really! And while you're in town, perhaps you'd like to visit one of the fine shooting clubs in the Mon Valley --- like McKeesport Sportsmen's Association, which is actually in North Versailles Township, or Pitcairn-Monroeville Sportsmen's Club, which is in neither of those towns (it's in North Versailles Township).

Now, back to the traffic mess in Oakland, which is now the third-most congested area in Pennsylvania, after Center City Philadelphia and Downtown Pittsburgh. Some day, perhaps, the powers that be will bring light-rail to Oakland and the east suburbs of Pittsburgh. For now, they're too busy building stadiums so that professional sports teams can finish in last place. And they're trying to bring in slot machines, because the Pennsylvania Lottery is apparently too inefficient at parting fools from their money.

Ahem. Not that I'm bitter.

Otherwise, the well is dry today. Hopefully, there will be some content on Monday, but I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel.

I'll leave you with an image that some people will find melancholy and depressing, and others will think is hysterically funny. Here's the man who could have been president, in his new, empty office at Dartmouth College. Can't he at least get some of those fake, cardboard books they use to fill the shelves at furniture stores?

Notice that he's using a Power Mac. We could have had a President of the United States who uses a Macintosh.

Howard Dean thought the media and the far right were responsible for his demise. Maybe it was Bill Gates instead.

How Do You Say 'We're Screwed' in Aramaic?

If you live in Our Fair City or its environs, and you're drinking a glass of water, you may want to put it down and start drinking something healthier, like beer.

It seems that federal law requires mining companies to pay royalties so that contaminated groundwater can be pumped out of abandoned coal mines. Thanks to the ongoing cleanup efforts, our rivers have gone from brown and orange with a head of foam to green and blue (with occasional shiny oil slicks).

But that law is about to expire, and there's no guarantee that Congress will vote to reauthorize it. Given that the gang currently in control in Worshington, Deecee, never met a polluter it didn't like, I wouldn't bet the price of your next fishing license on its renewal. According to Don Hopey in the Post-Gazette:

Failure to reauthorize the federal trust fund ... will short-circuit mine drainage treatment efforts and increase the amount of pollution reaching the two rivers from thousands of abandoned mines. If that happens, 42 public drinking water intakes and thousands of private wells would be threatened, along with frogs, fish and other aquatic life.

Two of the most threatened rivers in the U.S., according to a lobbying and environmental group called American Rivers, are our beloved Monongahela and Allegheny. That's not surprising, given the history of coal mining in Western Pennsylvania.

Hopey writes that before the law was enacted 12 years ago, state surveyors found a frog --- that's right, one --- in the entire Kiskiminetas River, which flows into the Allegheny.

Now is the time to write your congressman (in the Mon-Yough valley, Mike Doyle) and ask that the law be extended.

Especially if you like to go pleasure boating --- powerboats with lead-lined bottoms don't float very well. Or fishing --- unless all you're looking to catch are old shoes and those famous Allegheny whitefish.

Elsewhere in the news, I didn't think stupidity was a criminal offense when it came to Pittsburgh city politics, but it may yet turn out to be, according to the P-G and the Trib.

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. is investigating reports that Hizzoner Smurphy traded up to $12 million in wage and benefit concessions (including a no-layoff clause) in exchange for the endorsement of the city firefighters union during his 2001 re-election campaign. City Councilman Doug Shields has asked the state Attorney General's office and the U.S. Attorney to investigate as well.

Everyone is used to politicians trading money or favors for votes, but I suppose you can't be quite as blatant about as the president of the firefighters' union claims that Murphy was. Murphy's staff says the allegations are utterly, totally false.

In the department of "what goes around," it's worth remembering that Shields was a top aide to the man who Murphy beat in 2001 --- former city Councilman Bob O'Connor. Mm-mmm ... irony.

Closer to home, comes word that Our Fair City is in line for some new public housing, to be built on the site of the old St. Mary's German Church on Olive Street. It's part of a settlement between the McKeesport Housing Authority and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Gee, thanks HUD! I was just thinking that what McKeesport really needs is some more public housing, just like fish need bicycles. Why doesn't HUD ever recommend that public housing be built in Fox Chapel? Or Sewickley Heights?

Besides, if the fish have to start drinking that contaminated mine drainage again, they won't need bicycles; they'll need tiny little scuba suits.

Finally, if you liked The Passion of the Christ, you'll love the Manchester Guardian's helpful guide to Aramaic phrases:

Baseem, ellaa saabar naa d-etstebeeth yateer b-Lebeh d-Gabaaraa! Not bad, but I think I preferred Braveheart.

Ma'hed lee qalleel d-Khayey d-Breeyaan, ellaa dlaa gukhkaa.
It sort of reminds me of Life of Brian, but it's nowhere near as funny.

B-kheeruut re'yaaneyh laa kaaley tsuuraathaa khteepaathaa, ellaa Zaynaa Mqatlaanaa Trayaanaa laytaw!
It may be uncompromising in its liberal use of graphic violence, but Lethal Weapon II it ain't.

Nits, Gnats and Notes

Random notes on the news, and things I learned on the Internet while looking for other things:

A Pittsburgh-based company, Albert Elovitz Inc., is being sued by the City of New York, which accuses it of making unauthorized FDNY and NYPD souvenirs, according to the New York Daily News:

City lawyers said they don't know how much Elovitz makes from the items, but believe it is a substantial amount. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy, the sale of NYPD and FDNY merchandise has earned millions for the nonprofit Police Foundation and the FDNY Fire Safety Education Fund, which control the trademarks under agreement with the city.

Elovitz, based at 3001 Penn Ave. in the Strip District, bills itself as the "World's Largest Manufacturer of Music Items," meaning gifts.

In other business, it seems that Bob Hope was known to tool around Toluca Lake in Chrysler Imperials and customized Chrysler New Yorkers --- and for good reason, according to the very thorough (almost obsessively so!) Online Imperial Club website.

According to the site, Hope's programs were sponsored by Buick through the early 1950s, until he was supposedly spotted on camera driving a Chrysler. General Motors dumped him, and Chrysler immediately signed him.

If you're a car buff or a nostalgia buff, don't miss the Imperial Club's near-canonical catalog of Imperials spotted in films and TV shows, including movie clips.

Speaking of cars, Paul Carpenter of the Allentown Morning Call says the recent reports about Governor Rendell speeding along in his state police chauffeured Cadillac points up the "glaring hypocrisy" of traffic law enforcement:

Savvy drivers know they can get away with speeding only when traffic is heavy. But they have to slow down on solitary stretches of highway, where fast driving is less likely to cause harm ...

High speed, by itself, never hurt anybody. The only reason to focus on the speed of solitary vehicles is to raise revenue through speeding tickets. The troopers who chauffeur governors know that, and they represent one of the most glaring examples of hypocrisy that government can devise.

(Thanks to a reader for sending along that link. You can suggest links, too, by emailing jt3y at dementia dot org.)

L.A.-based freelance writer Rip Rense produces what amounts to an old-fashioned newspaper column on the Internet each week. Sometimes he misses, but when he's cooking, he's very good, as in this recent entry.

If you like trains, you can find a surprising number of high-quality photos from across the country --- many of which may be ordered as prints, suitable for framing or gifts --- at a website called RailPictures.net.

Former Daily News photographer Wade Massie, now working as a freelancer, is among the contributors. Many of Wade's photos are from Western Pennsylvania, naturally, like this one taken along Fourth Avenue in Our Fair City.

Another one of Wade's photos, taken in Tenth Ward at what used to be known as "Belle Vernon Junction," makes me shiver just to look at it. Wade's portfolio on RailPictures also includes some nifty shots that spotlight trains passing the Downtown Pittsburgh skyline.

In "real life," Wade does commercial photography, and he's accepting new clients; you can write to him at wade at wadesimages dot com.

By the way, if you didn't know, you can send feedback on Almanac entries now by clicking on the link that says "comments" below each item.

If Stupidity Was Criminal, They'd Be Lifers

A lot of Pittsburghers are calling for the resignation of Mayor Murphy. I'm not from Pittsburgh, so I really don't have a dog in that fight. But I think they're dead wrong.

If the reports released yesterday by the Pittsburgh financial recovery teams are accurate --- and I have no reason to believe that they aren't --- then the mayor and every member of city council who has served for more than two years should resign.

They would have to resign, because I don't think a grand jury can indict for "extreme stupidity." According to the Post-Gazette:

The board also assailed the practices city officials used over the past 10 years in borrowing more than $900 million through the sale of "non-callable'' bonds, which cannot be refinanced at lower rates, and for their payment methods for workers' pensions and payments to workers who are injured on the job.

For the past five years, as interest rates plummeted, businesses everywhere have been refinancing debts. Homeowners have gotten new mortgages. And boroughs, townships and school boards throughout Allegheny County have retired old bonds and issued new ones at lower interest rates.

But Pittsburgh officials, in their infinitely finite wisdom, agreed to issue bonds that can't be refinanced, and the taxpayers are stuck with them, come hell or high water. Nicely played!

Well at least they used the bond revenues for important things, right?

Sure. They handed millions of dollars to Federated Department Stores so that they could build a new Lazarus store in Downtown Pittsburgh. You know that store --- it's the one with the "Going Out of Business" ads in the newspaper.

And they gave some money to Lord & Taylor. I hear Lord & Taylor is buying leftover "Going Out of Business" signs at the Lazarus liquidation.

When officials couldn't borrow any more money on the city's faith and credit, they mortgaged the income from the money they were borrowing. This is something like using Visa to pay Mastercard.

It could have been worse. They could have been selling off city assets, like the water lines, for one-time cash payments in a desperate attempt to cover up their deficits. Oh, wait, they did that.

OK. Well, they could have been taking out loans from loan sharks, in which case Pittsburgh would have several city councilmen with broken legs right now. Come to think of it, at least some poetic justice would have been served.

The state-appointed "Act 47" recovery team is recommending "substantial" spending cuts, including cutbacks in the number of city fire stations, layoffs of city employees and wage freezes, along with imposing fees for services like garbage collection.

No kidding. Only in the City of Pittsburgh would outside experts have to tell elected officials about such basic facts of life as charging money for garbage collection. Or that maintaining enough services for a city of 650,000 is foolish when only 300,000 people live there, and that sometimes, you have to layoff personnel.

These are all things that other municipalities have had to cope with, but the City of Pittsburgh has been too good for. Or, more precisely, they're things that some elected officials have been too cowardly to ask for, especially when it's much more useful politically for them to blame suburbanites, like us rich slobs who live in the Mon Valley, and ask for us to subsidize the city's losses through commuter taxes and the state's general fund.

I find the Republican National Committee fairly distasteful right now; I think it's in the hands of charlatans who would make Elmer Gantry blush. But a lot of the blame for the City of Pittsburgh's problems can be laid at the heels of the politicians who have viewed Pittsburgh City Government as an employment service for voters, and not as a means to deliver services to taxpayers.

If Allegheny County Republican Party leaders can't put several people onto the ballot next year for Pittsburgh City Council, they should be ashamed of themselves. And if they can't get several Republicans elected to city office, they should be embarrassed.

Putting Republicans in charge of the City of Pittsburgh wouldn't solve its problems. Yet it's hard to imagine that they could do worse.

Heck, it's hard to imagine that a chimp throwing darts could make worse decisions than the people who have been running Pittsburgh city government for the last decade.

A Date That Should Live in Infamy

Today is the anniversary of the birth of David Letterman. If you see Drew Barrymore, remind her to keep her clothes on.

If that's not enough, it's also the day on which 50 years ago Bill Haley & The Comets entered a former Knights of Pythias temple in New York City and recorded "Rock Around The Clock" for Decca Records.

Letterman and "Rock Around The Clock," born on the same day. Coincidence? Yes, most likely. Unless ... !

No, I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

By the way: The Comets are still touring in Europe, though Haley died in 1981.

Don't Call Me Rude, You Jerk

Happy Easter Monday! It's time for a pop quiz from the Tube City Almanac Public Affairs Department.

Imagine you're the president of a large republic in the Western Hemisphere. Your counterterrorism chief has been warning you for some time that a man named Osama Bin Laden wants to attack your country. Now, you've received a confidential memo warning that this same man plans to hijack airliners and that one of his targets is the World Trade Center in New York City.

What would you do?

A.) Raise your national defense posture, put the Air National Guard and Coast Guard on alert, and station U.S. Marshals in several large city airports.

B.) Order an immediate review of security procedures at all large airports, and ask the INS and U.S. Customs Service to place agents at the airline gates to look for suspicious passengers.

C.) Demote your counterterrorism chief and go on vacation to your ranch in Crawford, Texas.

No fair peeking to find out what a real president did in this situation!

(In our next quiz, we'll ask this question: Having failed to prevent the terrorist attack in the above scenario, you now must run for re-election. How would you approach this? A.) Apologize for the lapse in security and vow to work with the other great nations of the world to stamp out terrorism wherever it occurs, or B.) Boast about your anti-terrorism work, accuse your critics of being "unpatriotic" and attack your opponent as being "soft on defense.")

In other news from the world affairs desk, we think of Canada as being a nation of peaceful, polite, civic-minded people. In other words, dweebs. But Charlie Gillis, writing in Macleans last week, reports that Canadians are finally catching up to their U.S. neighbors:

Pollster Angus Reid, who has tracked public opinion on most major issues through the last two decades ... has noticed a selfish tone creeping into the responses of Canadians, which he associated with the rise of free-market, individualist ideology. "We were becoming more of a society where people thought, 'How do I survive?' " he says. "In that kind of world, what do we do? We begin to build walls around ourselves."

It's a sad fate for a civilization based, in theory at least, on the presumption of social progress. After an intellectual enlightenment, a couple of world wars and a communications revolution, you'd think we'd make a few strides in the realm of daily human relations. But in the last couple of decades, all the available evidence suggests the opposite has taken place. If anything, we appear to be losing ground.

This sounds like a bunch of socialist clap-trap from a bunch of syrup-swilling, toque-wearing, hockey-playing snow-for-brains fools, and the next time Canadians want to lecture us about rudeness, they should just shut the heck up.

Meanwhile, a Macleans poll shows that 77 percent of Canadians think that society has become less civil. Writes one man from a place called "London, Ontario":

My wife and I were just talking about this. Could this increase in incivility be a result of our materialistic culture's constant desire to assign value to things? After all, if compassion becomes a commodity, are we not educated to horde it and dish it out only to those people we consider deserving of it?

Aw, how smart could you be if you live in Canada? You probably don't even know how to make ad hominem attacks!

Speaking of Canada, fallout from the Great Glassport Easter Bunny Massacre continues. The story --- first reported last week in The Daily News --- was picked up by the Toronto Star, Calgary Herald, Winnipeg Sun and Regina Leader Post on Saturday. It's also made news in Bahrain, South Africa and Australia.

Remember that you read it first at Tube City Almanac. Unless you read it in the Daily News at the same time I read it.

A sports writer for one of the news outlets in the third world (the Plain Dealer in "Cleveland, Ohio") even took a few shots at Western Pennsylvania:

The Start found the whole thing surprising. Not because the show took place (Glassport is a suburb of Pittsburgh, after all). We were shocked the Easter Bunny didn't fight back. Come on, E.B., if someone comes after you, take 'em out! Don't let anybody kick that fluffy tail.

What does some jerk from Cleveland know? Go back to Canada, you hippy!

DemocraticUnderground.com ranked Glassport Assembly of God Church, along with Antonin Scalia and Bill O'Reilly, among the "Top 10 Conservative Idiots" of last week.

Now there's a motto to paint on the "Welcome to Glassport" sign. Personally, I prefer the term that Dennis Roddy used in Sunday's Post-Gazette: "A town with a large measure for tolerance."

People in Glassport, after all, have tolerated me for years.

Finally, speaking of signs, Mark Stroup is using some of our photos of Kliment Brothers Studebaker on his great Pittsburgh Signs website. If you haven't been there yet, hop on over. It's a great way to ease into the work week and may make you appreciate some of the pop art that's hanging around our area.

An OK, But Not Great, Friday Column

What is so good about "Good Friday"? If you're Christian, then you believe that Jesus died on Good Friday for your sins, and to ensure that there would be an afterlife. And that's good. But it surely didn't seem like a "good Friday" to the people standing around the cross on Calvary.

It seems like kind of an odd name. Do you go around wishing people, "Happy Good Friday!" Of course not. Do you send cards showing a whipped and bloodied Savior? Well, maybe you do, if you're Mel Gibson.

Along comes Google to the rescue! The top 10 answers are on the board ... show me ... the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Good Friday, called Feria VI in Parasceve in the Roman Missal, he hagia kai megale paraskeue (the Holy and Great Friday) in the Greek Liturgy, Holy Friday in Romance Languages, Charfreitag (Sorrowful Friday) in German, is the English designation of Friday in Holy Week -- that is, the Friday on which the Church keeps the anniversary of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

"Holy and Great Friday" makes much more sense that "Good Friday," as does "Sorrowful Friday."

The origin of the term Good is not clear. Some say it is from "God's Friday" (Gottes Freitag); others maintain that it is from the German Gute Freitag, and not specially English. Sometimes, too, the day was called Long Friday by the Anglo-Saxons; so today in Denmark.

Pay attention. There will be a quiz next week.

Now, onto less important matters; I promised to explain the new logo for this page, which is being adopted (gradually) by the other pages of Tube City Online.

It's inspired by the "dingbat" used by the old New York Herald Tribune, which was imitated by hundreds of other newspapers. Basically, that logo represented antiquity and ancient civilization on the left, and progress and American ingenuity on the right.

In one of those great ironies of life, three days after we unveiled the new logo, Newsdesigner.com dissected the Herald Trib's dingbat, and now I don't have to. Huzzah!

The Tube City version is less allegorical and more representational.

On the left there's a steel mill and a "McKeesport tiger," the mascot of the city's sports teams. The eagle in the Herald Trib logo has been replaced by a hawk, which is native to Western Pennsylvania. The clock is replaced by part of the City of McKeesport Official Seal (itself an allegorical image of two crossed steel pipes, or "tubes," over a gear); below that is a gear with the logo of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, whose arrival in the 1850s opened up the Mon-Yough valley to development.

On the right is a steamboat, many of which were built just upstream from McKeesport in Elizabeth and Monongahela City. There's also a streamlined freight train representing the other railroads that served McKeesport (Union, Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, Pennsylvania and McKeesport Connecting), and an airplane to represent the Mon-Yough valley's role in developing commercial air travel; McKeesport businessmen helped fund construction of Pittsburgh's first commercial airport, McKeesporter Clifford Ball founded one of the predecessors of United Airlines, and Dr. Lytle Adams of Irwin invented the first commercially successful airmail system.

Finally, "Lady Liberty" is no longer carrying an American flag; now she's holding the flag of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I left the hydrogen atom up front in place in honor of Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory, the Westinghouse "atom smasher" in Chalfant, and the design and construction of America's first nuclear-powered submarine in Turtle Creek.

That wraps up today's history lessons; if you're Christian, Happy Easter; if you're Jewish, I hope you're having a blessed Passover; and everyone else ("miscellaneous," as Reverend Lovejoy would say), have a good weekend.

Comes With an Unlimited Afterlife (Batteries Not Included)

Just in time for Easter gift-giving, comes your very own plush, huggable Jesus toy (not recommended as a Passover gift):

As parents, we wanted to give our children a doll that would have more meaning in their lives and would support the Christian values that we wanted to teach them. It was important to help our children remember who Christ was and that he is always with them in heart, mind and soul, and thatâs how the idea of Huggy Jesus was born.

I don't want to rain on their parade, because this seems like a noble idea. But do you really want your child gumming Jesus' ear into a sodden, soggy mess? Or dropping Him into the toilet? Or running Him down with Tonka trucks in the backyard?

Other questions to ponder before you purchase a Huggy Jesus ($19.95 plus shipping and handling):

What happens when Huggy Jesus gets invited to a tea party with the stuffed animals? Will He turn three Oreos and a juice box into a feast for everyone? If you buy your child Huggy Jesus and he or she prefers to play with Elmo instead, does that mean they're turning to Satan?

Also, I understand that Huggy Jesuses are being recalled. But the company hasn't told people. Parents find out when they go into the family room and find the lid to the toy box has been rolled away, and Huggy Jesus is gone.

Now, just where I am going, and why am I in this handbasket?

(Thanks to The Chief for passing along the link.)

A Diplomatic Crisis He's Unable to Dodge

When I'm out of money at the end of the month (actually, in my case, it's more like "when I'm out of money by the second week of the month"), perhaps I should re-evaluate some of the things that I spend my money on.

Like the two-barrel Carter carburetor I just ordered from a rebuilding shop in Florida.

Some of you know that I'm restoring (repairing, is more like it) a 1984 Dodge Diplomat, truly one of the all-time classic cars of the 20th century.

No, it isn't. But I got it for free, and it's something of a hobby project. And when I finally wind up broke and hungry, at least I'll have someplace to live --- in the back seat.

You don't often hear people talking nostalgically about Chrysler Corporation quality in the 1980s, and for good reason. When my dear brother gave me the car last year, it would only idle at stoplights if you kept your foot on the accelerator.

That, of course, presumes that you were able to get it to stop; braking had to be planned well in advance, and when the time came to haul this beast down, you had to stand on the pedal with both feet, and pray. My brother neglected to mention this problem when he handed me the keys; I learned about it on Interstate 79, as I moved the car from McKeesport to Canonsburg, where it currently rests. Upon my discovery that the braking performance rivaled that of the USS Enterprise, profanities were uttered, as I recall at a fairly loud volume. Luckily, no one outside the car could hear them over the roar of the engine.

Because it wouldn't idle worth a damn, the idle speed was about double what it should have been, which means miles-per-gallon measurements were no longer appropriate. It was more like "gallons-per-mile."

After a thorough inspection of the Dodge's engine compartment --- clotted with 20 years of dirt, old oil and dead bugs --- I'm fairly convinced that the brake system problems are caused by a bad vacuum leak; and that the vacuum leaks are being caused by bad hoses. And by the carburetor, which is completely shot. It's darn near coked shut and looks as if it has never been pulled from the motor.

The first step will be to replace all of the dry-rotted hoses and install the carburetor. Presuming the transplants take, next month this heap gets a new ignition system --- $199, and still available from your local friendly Dodge dealer's parts catalog, 20 years later.

(I just had a thought: Now that Daimler-Benz owns Chrysler, I now technically own a Mercedes-Benz product. Here I am, a rich, wealthy so-and-so, and I didn't even know it! Once the Dodge is running again, maybe I'll drive it to the country club. I'll tell the other swells my Bentley is in the shop.)

After the motor is tackled, it will be time to repair the sagging rear end (the car's, not mine); and this winter, hopefully, the cosmetic work (again, on the car, not me) will begin.

So what's right about the car? With a torsion-bar front end, it still handles surprisingly well. Once the 318 cubic inch V-8 engine is breathing freely again, it should have excellent get-up-and-go. I wanted a old car that I could tinker with, but not some "trailer queen" that I was afraid to drive, or some rarity that I couldn't find parts for.

I've also learned that there's a fairly healthy fan base for these old Diplomats, and not just among police impersonators.

Why shouldn't there be? It's a big, old, rear-wheel-drive American car, virtually indestructible, plain as a mud fence, with lots of go fast power but little finesse. Detroit doesn't make them like this any more, and for good reason. Technologically speaking, a car like this makes you appreciate how far U.S. automobiles have come in the past 10 years --- thanks in large part to the Japanese manufacturers, who just beat the snot out of American companies for making heaps like this Diplomat.

Meanwhile, just last week, the fellow who owns the garage where I store the car sent me some e-mail. A car "just like mine" was on sale in the local shopper. For $25. I pay about $100 per month to store the car.

Sure, I'm losing money on this project every month, but I'll make it up in volume.

And if I don't, it will be the perfect vehicle for my drive to bankruptcy court.

'Passion' Sparks Rash of Anti-Lapinism

It appears that the Sugar-Frosted Stupid Flakes that were being eaten in the offices of The Tartan last week are also available in Glassport, as we learned from reading David Whipkey's story in last night's Daily News:

What was supposed to be an Easter celebration for children reportedly turned into a demonstration of how Jesus Christ was crucified.

Several area residents were outraged by a performance sponsored by Glassport Assembly of God church Saturday at Memorial Stadium. ...

Residents quote performers as saying, "There is no Easter Bunny" and breaking eggs meant for an Easter egg hunt.

A portrayal of the Easter Bunny being whipped and tortured as the 12 stations of the cross reportedly was part of the show.

Remember: The Easter Bunny suffered and died for your sins. Whenever I see an inflatable plastic bunny duct-taped or tied to a tree at this time of year, I always pause to reflect.

There's a broader point to make here about the commercialization of Easter, and I'm sure it's the point that the Assembly of God church was trying to emphasize. Easter is the most solemn holy day on the Christian calendar, but it's been turned into another occasion to decorate trees, hang lights and exchange presents: a springtime "X-mas."

The tradition of exchanging candy and sweets on Easter Sunday was designed to celebrate the end of Lenten fasts. The candy wasn't the reason for the occasion in the first place, despite what Brach's, Cadbury, Hershey's, M&M-Mars, etc., would like you to believe.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that enacting "The Passion of the Trix Rabbit" for an audience of elementary schoolers is a bright idea, either.

On a related note: Animal shelters are once again reminding folks not to buy your small children a bunny rabbit for Easter. The ASPCA has an entire page addressing myths about caring for rabbits (they don't particularly like to be held, need lots of space, and aren't "low maintenance"). If your heart is set on getting a bunny, why not hop over to Fallen Timber Animal Shelter in Elizabeth Township and adopt one, instead of buying one from a pet store?

Elsewhere, the Maple Creek Mining Co. is being ordered to shut down part of its Mon Valley operations because it's been digging under homes near Charleroi without permits, and without notifying homeowners, according to Scott Beveridge in the Observer-Reporter.

Finally, there's a new blog in town (probably more than one): Honest Wagner is keeping tabs on your Pittsburgh Pirates, who are going to try to stay undefeated tonight when they play the Phillies. They're on a one-game winning streak right now. Whoo-hoo!

Spoof Wasn't Funny, But Was Par for the Course

Yesterday, I wrote about the April Fool's Day spoof that landed the editors of Carnegie Mellon's student newspaper, The Tartan, in hot water. Last night, I finally got a chance to look at one of the remaining copies of the issue, which was recalled by the editors.

It's every bit as puerile, unfunny and crude as I expected. And remember, I worked on three Tartan spoofs, so I know unfunny and crude. Although I don't quite remember our spoofs relying so much on potty and genitalia humor; ours were more from the funny-last-name, tweak-the-nose-of-authority school --- strictly Mad Magazine caliber, not Screw.

Now, puerile, unfunny and crude jokes about bodily functions, genitalia and sex are exactly what you see in most of the movie comedies aimed at the teen and young adult market. It's also much of what passes for humor on basic cable TV. (See Exhibit A: The Man Show.)

I hate to make a liberal "blame society" argument, but here goes: If we reward Howard Stern, Jimmy Kimmel, Joe Rogan, the Farrelly Brothers and others with multi-million dollar contracts for making puerile and crude jokes, and then censure a group of college students for making puerile and crude jokes, what kind of mixed message are we sending? Howard Stern can do it because he's rich and famous, but you can't?

The Tartan last night printed a two-page non-apology apology, including a letter from the editor in chief, in which he both accepts responsibility and disclaims responsibility, and professes his plans to make the paper better than ever; he clearly doesn't "get it," and needs to yield the stage. At least his parents have gotten their money's worth. He went to college for an education, and he's about to be taken to school.

Elsewhere in the apologia, the cartoonist who made the racial slur was given about 11 inches of space to explain why he thought the joke was "funny" or "poignant." Give him a little bit more rope, and he might be able to hang himself. A suggestion to the cartoonist: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

Several Tartan editors penned individual columns professing that they were shocked, shocked by the graphic content of the spoof issue and are considering resigning. (At least a few already have, according to Bill Zlatos in the Trib.) And the "special edition" of The Tartan also includes a group of predictably outraged letters-to-the-editor of the type that the Post-Gazette receives when it cancels a comic strip like "Gasoline Alley."

Outraged letters-to-the-editor are best, I think, when they're written on a manual typewriter, so that the periods and exclamation points poke through the paper like little bullet holes. Some tear stains don't hurt, either.

(A friend passed along a link to Tony Norman's column in the P-G in which he declares that the editor of The Tartan "has a stain on his reputation that won't easily come out. Years after he graduates from CMU, he will have to explain to potential employers who have done a minimal background check why he failed to exercise routine editorial judgment on deadline." Tony, please. Take a deep breath. He didn't pen Mein Kampf or a glowing review of Protocols of the Elders of Zion, for goodness sakes.)

A "town meeting" is scheduled for tonight on the CMU campus to discuss this issue, or so I'm told. Maybe they'll actually discuss the issue instead of all of the side issues and tangents that are being tossed out about the "climate" that supposedly spawned this misguided, ugly wreck of an April Fool's gag.

On the other hand, I hear the cauldrons of boiling oil are already being prepared.

In Mon Valley news, St. Clare of Assisi Elementary School in Clairton is closing because of declining enrollment; itself the product of a merger of St. Joseph, St. Paulinus and St. Clare schools, it was forced to lay off three teachers last year. Students will likely be offered the chance to attend St. Michael's in Elizabeth, St. Joseph's in Port Vue or St. Agnes in West Mifflin.

Catholics had better decide that either religious education is important, and that they're going to support it with donations and at the collection plate; or that Catholic schools aren't important, and that they should be closed. As the product of 13 years of Catholic education, I think it is important; but I also don't think taxpayers should be expected to subsidize the operation of Catholic schools with vouchers.

(Have I donated to Serra lately? Hmm. Um. Well. Something I've been meeting to do. Ahem. I buy raffle tickets; does that count?)

J.C. Penney, which announced yesterday that it was selling off its Eckerd Drug (formerly Thrift Drug) stores, is suing Monroeville Mall to stop construction of a new outdoor shopping plaza near its store.

A real estate manager testified yesterday that "impulse (shopping) is very important" and that some potential Penney's customers might be discouraged from entering if the new plaza opens outside of the Penney's entrance.

I can't help but think that they'd find their way to Penney's if Penney's was selling something worth buying. Target in Homestead (or in Monroeville, for that matter) isn't particularly easy to get to, but they don't seem to lack customers. In fact, they're so busy that no one shops there any more. (Rimshot.)

The Eckerd stores are being split up between CVS Corp. (which is suing a bunch of Homestead and West Homestead residents who spoke out against its plans to tear down a cluster of historic buildings on Eighth Avenue) and the Canadian-based parent of Brooks Pharmacy.

I hope no one loses their job, but I can't say I'll be sorry to see Eckerd go. The stores have steadily declined since being converted to Eckerd from Thrift Drug.

The Pennsylvania stores are going to Brooks; which is good, because if CVS opened a store across the street from me, I'd move. I don't particularly care to spend money at places owned by corporations that sue people for exercising their right to free speech. You can read more about their "SLAPP" lawsuit in City Paper and elsewhere.

Censorship Won't Heal These Wounds

Each month I write out a check to pay my student loan; some months, I write two checks. I look a lot like Steve Martin in The Jerk when I do: "One! Hundred! And! Ninety! Three! Dollars! And! Seventy! Three! Cents!"

(I also behave like Steve Martin when the new phone books arrive. I dance around the room singing, "The new phone book is here! The new phone book is here!" But that's a story for another time.)

While I make payments to the loan company and to my alma mater for my degree, my real four-year education came from working at The Tartan. The news late last week that the newspaper --- my newspaper --- had included a racial slur in a comic strip in its April Fool's edition was deeply disturbing, embarrassing and shameful.

Having worked on at least three spoof issues of The Tartan in four years at the paper (including one as the editorial cartoonist), I can understand how no one in authority caught the problem. That doesn't excuse it, but I can surmise exactly how it happened.

Putting out a student newspaper at a school without a journalism program is a thankless job; you spend six days per week begging for copy, and the seventh day banging it into shape so that you can print something.

On publication day, you've been up for about 36 hours straight. By 4 a.m., you're loopy on rubber cement fumes and toner ink, and have eaten nothing but candy bars and Mountain Dew from the vending machine down the hall. Someone could smash flies onto the layout boards, and as long as the splotches mostly covered the page, you'd send them to the printer.

While at The Tartan, I can remember captioning a photo of a group of ... I'll put it charitably ... stereotypical "free spirits" in bandannas, sandals and grubby clothing who were demonstrating on behalf of the repeal of marijuana laws. I thought it would be funny to mention the title of a movie that was playing that week.

The movie was Dazed and Confused. I swear, it seemed humorous at 3 a.m. Monday morning; it was not so funny when the angry letter-to-the-editor came in from the president of the protest group.

But none of my editors questioned the caption. Probably, in their rush to meet the courier so that the paper could make the presses on time, no one noticed it. At The Tartan, we had a tradition of doing final page-proofs like this: "Does it say 'f--k' anywhere in a headline? No? Send it."

This haste is not a recipe for careful, thoughtful publication. Mistakes are made. Things slip into print that, upon careful reflection, would never have left someone's keyboard. Sometimes, the mistakes are harmless, like mine, which wounded mostly my pride.

Sometimes, unfortunately, the mistakes are embarrassing and damaging to the paper's credibility. With one word, a volunteer cartoonist has torpedoed any moral authority The Tartan will have to criticize events on campus for at least four years --- the amount of time it will take current freshmen to graduate, and for the memory of this ugly incident to be forgotten.

To the credit of the current editors, they handled the situation as well as could be expected. On Friday, they fanned out across Oakland to recall as many of the 6,000 newspapers as still remained. They fired the cartoonist. They issued a formal apology calling the incident "deplorable." They contacted the dean of student affairs and agreed to cooperate fully in an investigation. On Saturday, when a group of demonstrators marched for "cultural sensitivity," the editors met with them to apologize face to face. They brought along the fired cartoonist to meet the protesters as well.

The only thing left for them to do is resign, in my opinion --- at least the editor-in-chief and the managing editor, and possibly the comics page editor. I'm sure they didn't intend to harm the newspaper, and I don't think they did anything wrong, but sometimes, for the good of an organization, the leaders have to fall on their swords.

None of this is enough for some people, however. According to the Post-Gazette, these people are calling for what amounts to censorship:

The demonstrators asked not only for suspending publication of the newspaper but also for the resignation of its five-member editorial board. They also want all of the students responsible for allowing the slur to be printed to be suspended or expelled.

Why stop there? Why not burn the newspaper office, plow the ashes underground, and salt the earth? The independent voice of the student body screwed up, big time. That calls for an apology and possible censure of the persons responsible. Silencing the students' voice helps no one, unless you want the only source of news on campus to be press releases from officialdom.

One student at Saturday's protest said she was "unimpressed" by the apologies the newspaper's editors delivered. Their lack of emotion made them seem insincere, she told the P-G's Amy McConnell.

Perhaps they should have appeared in sackcloth and ashes, flogging themselves with birch boughs. Perhaps they should have been crawling on broken glass. Perhaps they should have torn at their hairshirts while crying out to the heavens: "Oh, God, strike us down now! We are not worthy."

"I'm disappointed in America's future," Ms. Unimpressed told the P-G. "I'm disappointed these are the people who are going to be leading us."

Oh, get over yourself. Personally, I'm disappointed in the people who are already leading us --- George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove. This incident aside, I can't see where the editors of The Tartan are going to do a worse job come 20 years from now. Go have a beer and mellow out.

In an editorial this morning, The Tartan's sometime rival on the other side of Panther Hollow also called for shutting down the newspaper for the rest of the school year because of the spoof issue's "pathetically unfunny and disturbing content."

Bite your tongue, Pitt News. There but for the grace of God goes you. Besides, people who advocate censorship lose their moral authority --- just as The Tartan has damaged its own.

Something else is bothering me as well; the university is creating a "content review board" composed of the dean of student affairs; a vice provost and another faculty member to review the "accuracy, relevancy and effect" of the newspaper's coverage.

I'm hardly unbiased, but the university has no business reviewing the content of a student-run newspaper. An advisory board is one thing; that could provide useful guidance for the editors on how to prevent such situations from happening again. A "content review board" has ugly "big brother" implications.

What will happen the first time the newspaper tries to cover environmental pollution inside a university building that's making people sick --- a topic I remember covering for The Tartan? Will the dean veto it on the grounds that the information isn't "accurate" or "relevant"? Or what will happen if the Defense Department subpoenas the university's billing records as part of a fraud investigation? That was the topic of another story I remember writing. Will the provost say that the story may have a negative "effect" on the university? I hope not.

Finally, while I think the newspaper's response was mainly appropriate, I do seriously fault the editors of The Tartan for one thing. They suspended publication this week during the investigation.

I can understand their desire to give themselves some breathing room, but if they fancy themselves journalists, they should damned well have published a newspaper --- and they should have had front-page coverage of the entire controversy. It's their job; and it didn't go away just because they screwed up royally last week.

Hey, Tartan: Pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and get back into the game. You owe it to your readers.

Is That All There Is?

Welcome to the newly-redesigned Tube City Online: The Blog, which is being rechristened The Tube City Almanac.

The new logo at the top of the page is a homage (there's that word meaning "ripoff" again) to one of the world's greatest newspapers, now long defunct and buried, the New York Herald Tribune. (If you're a newspaper junkie, you owe it to yourself to find a copy of Richard Kluger's book The Paper, which tells the story of the Herald Trib's rise and demise, and also punctures some New York Times myths.)

Next week, I'll explain the symbolism in the logo, which is going to start popping up on other redesigned pages at this site.

If you're having trouble viewing this page ... well, then how are you reading this text? Seriously, some browsers have trouble with Movable Type's stylesheets. I've tested the page successfully on both Windows machines and Macs, and in every browser (Opera, Safari, Mozilla, Netscape, Internet Explorer) except Internet Explorer for Mac OS X.

Since Microsoft has announced that they will no longer support or develop IE for the Mac, I'm hoping that only a few people will have trouble seeing the new format. (I hate when webpages tell people to "upgrade their browser," but unfortunately, if you're an Mac IE user, you may want to ... well, you know.)

Also, Safari seems to have a problem going from the new archive pages back to the main page. If you're a Safari user, you may have to launch the archive pages in a new window. I apologize, and if I can figure out how to fix the problem, I will.

There was a nice response to yesterday's spoof-slash-rant, and I got a "warm fuzzy" from Copeland, too.

Enough throat-clearing; onto the content. Site update time: I recently unearthed a bunch of poorly scanned McKeesport scenery photos that were on Version 1.0.1.1.2.1 or something of this Web site.

They're lousy looking, but since I don't think I'll have time to rescan the shots any time soon, I've put them back onto the server. You can find them at the new Old Photos page. A "new Old Photos" page is an oxymoron, but consider the source. The page also previews the new look of the site that is gradually going to be phased in.

Pittsburgh City Paper has a great cover story about award-winning photographer and artist Duane Michals, a McKeesport native who has written a book about Our Fair City:

In my life now, Iâve begun to delve into "Duaneâs Wizbang Box of Old Time McKeesport Memories" and pull out stuff about my mother and fatherâs relationship. Now that all the principals are dead I can talk about her having a relationship with another man, the great love of her life, which she didnât have the courage to seize. And there are little memories, like my grandmother always having a cat named Petunia -- how no matter how many cats she had it was always the same name -- and how my two aunts and uncle were "lost in the labyrinths of their minds" due to Alzheimerâs.

Michals, now 71, lives in Manhattan and has written some 20 books. He remains active shooting spreads for fashion magazines and doing photojournalism. Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to this book, and to the upcoming documentary about his life that's being produced by the Mon Valley Education Consortium.

Michals tells CP's Heather Mull that he was "never destined to live in McKeesport." I often consider leaving --- let's face it, the Mon Valley is not exactly the publishing capital of North America --- but something makes me stay.

Too broke to move somewhere else, maybe.

In other news, Barb writes that Camp T. Frank Soles is planning a reunion:

If you were a child camper or a staff member between 1962 and 1976, please return to the Indian Council Ring, July 7 to 10, 2004 (check in after 6 p.m. on July 7, and the event concludes on July 10 after breakfast, approximately at 10 a.m.)

The event costs $130, with meals included. For more information, contact Sue Fletcher (sufletcher-at-aol-dot-com), or Cindy Kozdras Popovich (cjpopovich-at-comcast-dot-net).

Barb suggests that we add a "Community Events" calendar to the site. Hmmm .... that's a good idea. I'll add it to my "to-do" list (currently at 3,120 items and holding).

Copeland Spoof and Journalism Rant

The April Fool's Day 2004 spoof of Dave Copeland's website, and my newspaper rant, are archived here.