I have mixed emotions about the decision by the McKeesport Zoning Hearing Board has granted a variance to Propel Schools to put a charter school in the Executive Building on Fifth Avenue, Downtown.
On the one hand, I'm glad to see something coming to Fifth Avenue that will bring some life to the Downtown area. Will this be the first primary school Downtown in Our Fair City since St. Mary School on Olive Street closed, or am I missing one? Fifth Avenue may be a ghost street some days, but it's not dirty, and it's not dangerous. It just desperately needs some young people --- and their parents --- to liven it up.
On the other hand, I'm not sure I agree with the concept of charter schools. I fear they divert resources and energy from the public school system that would be better spent improving that system. (As a product of parochial schools, I have nothing against private schools; I just don't want my tax money being spent on them, and that includes Catholic schools like the ones I attended.)
Anyway, you can find out more information, and judge for yourself, by visiting Propel Schools' Web site. The McKeesport Area School Board rejected Propel's charter application, so they've appealed to the state. Pending a successful appeal, Propel wants to open its school Downtown in time for the 2005-06 academic year.
Propel's school in Homestead is already open, and early reports on it are enthusiastic. I'm open-minded enough to give them a chance.
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I'm also open-minded enough to like Cyril Wecht. In fact, I would go so far as to call myself an admirer, even when he does things that aggravate me, like endorsing a Republican candidate over someone from his own party, as he did the other day. (It's a pity, too, because the one thing Joe Hoeffel's Senate campaign needs right now is a coroner. The latest polls show him nearly 20 points behind Darlin' Arlen Specter.)
Thus, it was nice to see him grab some ink in Salon the other day in an article about the 40th anniversary of the so-called Warren Report. Salon Editor David Talbot calls Wecht one of "a heroic and indomitable band of citizen-investigators ... all of whom refused to accept the fraud that was perpetrated on the American people."
Naturally, Talbot means the Warren Report is a "fraud." Being the geek that I am, I've read the Warren Report. I even have a copy.
I've also read Wecht's books, some of the conspiracy books and Gerald Posner's Case Closed (which Talbot savages, unfairly, in my opinion), and I've seen a bunch of documentaries as well as highly-fictionalized accounts, like Oliver Stone's JFK.
My uninformed opinion is that the Warren Commission set out to prove Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK, instead of trying to find out who shot JFK. They had their conclusion, and worked backward to the answers. It's not a good way to conduct an investigation, to put it mildly.
That said: The evidence compiled in the Warren Report is fairly compelling, and one is left with the feeling that, yeah, Lee Harvey Oswald was just crazy enough to do it. John Hinckley shot Reagan with much less provocation that Oswald thought he had. And besides the motive, Oswald had the means and opportunity. (The idea that Oswald couldn't work the slide on his Mannlicher-Carcano fast enough to fire the shots is bogus, by the way. It's advanced by people who can't do math.)
Could he have hit Kennedy from the School Book Depository? As someone pointed out to me the other day, Oswald "may not have been a great shot compared to other Marines, but compared to the average guy, he was pretty good."
Look, he had to hit a slow-moving Lincoln Continental using a military rifle with a telescopic sight. From that distance, he could have hit Kennedy and Connally with a handful of manure. The only way they could have made it easier for Oswald would have been if Clint Hill had been holding up a big bull's eye over Kennedy's head.
Was the Dallas police investigation incompetent? Well, considering they passed the evidence around the hallways so that the bystanders could handle it, and that, oh, oopsie, their prime suspect got murdered while in their custody, I think we could reasonably say they were incompetent.
Did the Warren Commission try to bury conflicting evidence? Yes.
Was the Secret Service derelict in allowing the President to travel through a city full of people who hated him, past the skyscrapers downtown, in an open car moving at 10 miles per hour? Gee, I dunno, you think? In fairness, though, it was Kennedy's political advisers who pushed for a trip through Texas, and they're the ones who wanted the car's top down, so that the public could see him.
But the people who produce posters with 78 different photos of Lee Harvey Oswald with circles and arrows pointing to tiny, minute imperfections to prove a conspiracy are the same ones trying to prove that Jerry Killian, using a professional-quality typesetter, snuck into his own office, late at night, and typed memos to himself that, when faxed to CBS from a Kinko's in Abilene 31 years later, could conveniently be used to discredit George W. Bush.
They need to give it up. Conspiracy theories do not help the national dialogue move forward. The very fact that we're still hashing around the Warren Report, or the President's National Guard service, means we're stuck in the past instead of focusing on future threats.
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Besides, we don't need to make up conspiracy theories. The real news is bad enough. While the Bush administration is running around "painting smiley faces on Iraq," to use a phrase I saw a conservative writer use recently, military experts are warning that the occupation of the country is turning into a debacle --- and is helping al Qaida.
These wild-eyed leftists are from hotbeds of liberal thought like the Army War College.
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From the Los Angeles Times:
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld mixed up Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden with deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein twice in a speech Friday. ... In Afghanistan, he told the National Press Club, "the leader of the opposition Northern Alliance, Masoud, lay dead, his murder ordered by Saddam Hussein, by Osama bin Laden, Taliban's co-conspirator." ... Later, Rumsfeld said, "Saddam Hussein, if he's alive, is spending a whale of a lot of time trying to not get caught. And we've not seen him on a video since 2001."
A note to the leadership of the Democratic Party: Wake the f--- up, you pathetic wuss-bags! They're kicking your a--!
You disagree? You think you're "talking tough?" Here's a quote from your candidate, John Kerry, drawn from his "tough-talking" midnight rally after the RNC: "I'm not going to have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by those who have misled the nation into Iraq."
Good lord, by the standards of this year's Bush campaign, Kerry's statement was equivalent to "Bush is a great president and a vote for him wouldn't be wasted." ...
Democrats had better realize that people buy this s---. While they're saying that President Bush has failed to "provide jobs and healthcare to working Americans," the Republicans are saying that Kerry faked his war wounds. Sorry to burst your bubble, readers of The Nation, but Americans respond to lies, and the more vicious the lie, the more effective.
Yesterday, Fast Eddie got some bad news, so he shot the messenger, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer:
As Gov. Rendell's nominee to head the Gaming Control Board withdrew yesterday, Rendell blasted the news media, through clenched teeth, for "what you did... to one of the most decent, honorable men."
Rendell said that the criticism of Francis P. Friel was, in part, fed to news organizations by political opponents. It produced "the worst and most unfair result in my 27 years" in public office, he said, adding, "We have to stop trying to pick people apart."
Addressing reporters at a Center City news conference, Rendell asked, "Would any one of you out there want to be evaluated by one mistake you've made?
"Judged by the Frank Friel standard, I could no longer remain governor."
The Ipsos-Reid survey of 1,000 Canadians, which has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, found that six in 10 say the teams' owners are being fairer and more reasonable than the players. Half think the dispute will last long enough to cancel the 2004-05 season, but almost two-thirds agree the NHL will rebound from the dispute and possibly become a better league. (The Globe and Mail)
A few weeks ago, I noted the startling resemblance between Dick Rickles and Don Cheney ... er, I mean Don Rickles and Dick Cheney. One of them is an insult comic, and the other is vice president, but after listening to the vice president speak, I'm not sure which is which.
In the interest of fairness, it's worth pointing out another similarity between a comedian and a politician, only this one is a Democrat. Let's see ... flushed complexion, angry finger-pointing, pudgy frame, wild hair ...
Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you the evidence that Al Gore is actually Lewis Black in disguise:
(Left, Associated Press; Right: Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Copyrights reserved by their respective holders.)
Just like Dick Cheney and Clark Kent, Black/Gore thinks that wearing glasses will disguise his real identity, but we know the truth. Obviously, Al Gore has been working the stand-up circuit for several years now.
He must have had a lot of gigs during 2000, because he sure as hell didn't spend the time working on his campaign.
(I wasn't the one who noticed the resemblance, by the way. Credit and a tip of the Tube City hard hat go to a poster at the Testy Copy Editors Web site.)
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It's always worth checking in with Chris Livingston's "Not My Desk Daily Journal" to see what he's been up to. Why someone hasn't given this guy a book contract is beyond me; he seldom fails to crack me up.
I don't want to spoil the punchlines, but read what (he says) happened when he sent a book to a friend in Georgia, and then tracked it using the UPS Web site.
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Subdivided Bob checks in on the passivity of Pittsburghers, who seem to do what they're told without complaining (even when they should), and composes the Pittsburgh Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to whine and moan about those things to people who are in no position to actually take action on my behalf, and the wisdom to realize that everybody but me is a jagoff.
(As) one of W.'s Yalie frat brothers tells Kelley, it's not the substance abuse in Bush's past that's disturbing, it's the "lack of substance ... Georgie, as we called him, had absolutely no intellectual curiosity about anything. He wasn't interested in ideas or in books or causes. He didn't travel; he didn't read the newspapers; he didn't watch the news; he didn't even go to the movies. How anyone got out of Yale without developing some interest in the world besides booze and sports stuns me." New Yorker writer Brendan Gill recalls roaming the Kennebunkport compound one night while staying there looking for a book to read --- the only title he could find was "The Fart Book."
"KB," who moved to McKeesport in 1991, wrote this week with some great questions! (It gave me a chance to show off my command of useless information.) Her letter begins:
"The one thing I seem to notice most about McKeesport is that there are a lot of abandoned houses here. A lot of these house are huge and very beautiful and I started to wonder why no one lives in these houses, or why they are never offered up for sale. I was hoping maybe someone who runs this Web site is from a family that has lived in McKeesport for generations because I would love to know about these old houses."
"Back when McKeesport finally established itself was Huey Street known as 'Millionaire's Row'? That's what my boyfriend's mom told him it was called, because that's where all the 'well off residents' built their homes."
"Is there any information on how big the cemetery used to be? ... I was also wondering if there are any old photos of Huey Street or the cemetery or any other street, because my boyfriend and I really would like to see what McKeesport looked like before all those pretty big houses became run down."
"Some people dream of great accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them." --- Constance Newman
"The kind of ancestors we have is not important as the kind of descendants our ancestors have." --- Phyllis A. Wallace
After spending my entire life (so far) in the Mon-Yough area, it amazes me that there are still places that I've never been.
Case in point: The old Potter-McCune warehouse on Walnut Street in Our Fair City, which I've been passing on a weekly or daily basis since I was an infant. Saturday's "warehouse sale" by Book Country Clearinghouse, which now uses the old Pomco building, was as much an excuse for me to poke around inside as it was to buy books.
Though the book bargains were pretty remarkable, too. I walked out with $150 worth of books for about $38, including some recent bestsellers --- like The Trust, Alex Jones and Susan Tifft's history of The New York Times and the family that owns it, and Taken For a Ride, Bill Vlasic and Bradley Stertz's unpacking of the Daimler-Benz takeover of Chrysler Corporation. Also, some P.J. O'Rourke, a biography of John McCain, and a bunch of reference books.
There isn't much inside to tip off the building's heritage, by the way, though some of the signage clearly dates to the 1960s or '70s, or even earlier. Inside, it's a fairly standard 1930s-style warehouse --- oiled wood floors and factory-sash celestory windows in the roof. One room (if I recall correctly, it had children's books stored there) was covered with tile and had several holes for water pipes. I suspect it was either a shower room or a food-washing area.
The warehouse floor was a little daunting; the books were stacked in piles in every room that seemed to have no rhyme or reason. One of the Book Country employees tipped me off; the books were sorted by publisher, and then stacked alphabetically. If you didn't know the publisher's name, they were more than happy to look titles up on their computers.
I was also amazed at the memory recall of the employees; one lady asked if there were any books on knitting, and a Book Country employee rattled off several titles and their approximate locations. I asked about one title, and the staff person was able to give me the exact aisle where it would be located. (There were no copies left, alas.) As someone who can't remember where my car keys, eyeglasses or checkbook are from day to day, I was impressed.
Of course, as a wholesaler of remaindered books --- titles that were returned, unsold, from bookstores --- the pickings could be hit or miss. There were 2004 World Almanacs for 75 percent off, but there were also quickie celebrity biographies of people whose 15 minutes of fame is long since forgotten. Do you want a copy of Bushisms, a collection of the President's malaprops? Book Country has an entire pallet-load --- or did, as of Saturday afternoon. Maybe they were all sold by Sunday.
I didn't realize that Book Country has sold off its retail stores, including the location on Rodi Road in Penn Hills. According to the employees I talked to, they deal strictly wholesale with other retailers now. If a discount store needs a mixture of low-priced hardcovers, they call Book Country, and an order gets pulled and sent out.
They also fill orders for large bookstore chains that find themselves suddenly out of a popular backordered item. I won't mention the names that were dropped to me, but you've heard of them. It's nice to know that such a business has found a home in Our Fair City!
Also, the Book Country folks were apparently gratified by the amount of community response that the weekend sale generated. The big parking lot at the warehouse --- which can accommodate many tractor-trailer rigs --- was packed, and folks were parking on the street. Several employees told me that the company may hold additional warehouse sales in the future. Watch this space for details.
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Seen at Book Country, by the way: Brad Grantz, a Republican from Elizabeth who's challenging Democratic state Rep. David Levdansky in the 39th House District, which represents parts of Allegheny and Washington counties. Grantz is blogging his campaign at VoteGrantz.com.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I have worked with Grantz on some volunteer activities in the past.)
I don't live in the 39th District, but if Grantz is shopping the 75 percent off sale at Book Country, I guess we can assume he's for fiscal responsibility. And literacy, come to think of it.
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As for fiscal responsibility, I should have exercised some this weekend and stayed out of Book Country, among other places; I spent more money than I expected to this weekend. Sunday, I took my own advice and went to a ham radio swap meet in Butler County, where I picked up a 1960s German-made Grundig shortwave set. It was cheap, but I still felt a little bit guilty driving home. There are things I need to buy more than another damned radio.
It's called a Grundig "Melody-Boy" (do you think that, perhaps, that name doesn't translate well into English?) and I can find next to nothing about it on the Internet. As you might expect, the controls are all labeled in German, and I had to largely guess what their functions were. ("Ein" means "on.") But it worked well; in the middle of the afternoon I was pulling in FM and AM stations from all over Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.
So, I put the little set to good use as I worked around the house Sunday night, and checked in with a program that used to be a regular habit. Johnny Lightning's "Radio NewYork International," a potpourri of samples from pirate radio broadcasts, political rants, juvenile humor, 1960s radio jingles, international phone calls from all manner of lunatics and music. Lightning (not his real name, obviously) is himself a former pirate broadcaster who works a legit job now; "RNI" is as close as you can get to real, raw pirate radio on a licensed frequency.
Since it's broadcast over shortwave and (supposedly) isn't intended for a domestic audience, it's free from FCC obscenity rules. That means it's often vulgar; but it's also often very, very funny, even without the crudities. In fact, its funny moments are more spontaneous and its serious discussions are more thoughtful than 90 percent of what passes for commercial or public radio in the U.S. right now. They finally have a Web site, but you can check in live (if you have a shortwave, and if the weather conditions are right) on WBCQ (7.415 MHz) between 8 p.m. and midnight Sundays.
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Speaking of radio, a reliable source phoned me Saturday morning to tell me that Clarke Ingram mentioned this Web site on WWSW-FM (94.5) Friday night.
If this was a shameful attempt by Clarke Ingram, heard from 7 p.m. to midnight Friday on 3WS, to get a plug, then it's not going to work! Sorry, Clarke, but Tube City Almanac doesn't give plugs that easily!
Nice try, though, by Clarke Ingram, who's also heard evenings and weekends on WKHB (620) in Irwin and sister station WKFB (770) in Jeannette.
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In the comments to Friday's entry, Alycia points out that CBS News is rather (ha! ha!) forcefully defending its use of the National Guard memos that many people suspect are forgeries. And, as Alycia says, the typeface or "font" in the memos has been around since the 1930s, meaning that it's not inconceivable that the memos were produced in the 1970s.
All this is true, but unfortunately, the entire controversy detracts from the real issue: the President is attacking his challenger on his military record, when in fact, the President's military record is spotty, at best. Reliable sources --- not faked memos --- contend that his father pulled strings to get him into a Guard unit that was flying obsolete planes that had no chance of being used in Vietnam. And he didn't even show up for his physical in 1972, which means that he couldn't even be cleared for duty in those obsolete planes.
And that detracts even further from the real issue: What does it matter what the President or John "Yawn" Kerry or anyone else was doing 30 years ago? I'm more concerned what they've done for the last four years, or what they plan to do for the next four years.
All these "made-for-TV" dustups accomplish --- whether the Swift Boat nitwits or the doofuses at CBS who can't recognize an obvious fraud --- is to distract us from real issues: the outsourcing of American jobs, the ballooning deficit, the ongoing war on terror, and the war in Iraq. The latter two items are different, in my opinion, despite the best efforts of the incumbent to blur them together.
If I was a real cynic, I'd suspect that the President's advisers want us to be distracted by nonsense like faked memos for just a few weeks longer --- say, at least until Nov. 3. And it doesn't take too much of a conspiracy theorist to wonder who faked the memos in the first place ... perhaps an overzealous opponent of Bush's re-election?
Or was it maybe a Republican operative hoping to discredit Kerry, a la the "Canuck letter" that Nixon's campaign planted in 1972 to discredit Ed Muskie?
Karl Rove's helpers, after all, are the folks who planted rumors that John McCain was "mentally unstable" after having been a POW in Vietnam, and that Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in that war, was a "coward." Would you put some faked memos past them?
Or, maybe it's time to call the doctor; I think my lithium has stopped working.
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Nice story last week by Chuck Gibson in The Daily News about the new commanders of the Salvation Army chapel in Our Fair City, Capts. Chris and Aubrey Stephens. The Stephens met at a Salvation Army function in 1978, Gibson reports, and they have two children.
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Tomorrow: Almanac mailbag.
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