On Thursday, the Almanac incorrectly reported that the minor-league pro basketball Pit Bulls would be moving to Our Fair City. Due to a typographical error (Ed. Note: No, actually due to our own incompetence), we spelled the team's name incorrectly and gave the wrong location for their games.
The Pennsylvania Pit Bulls will be playing their home games at Penn State McKeesport Campus' Wunderley Gymnasium.
(What did we get correct? We spelled "McKeesport" accurately.)
(Ahem.)
Joe Starkey reports in the Trib that former Pitt Panthers stars Julius Page and Jaron Brown are expected to play. The Pit Bulls will be part of the reborn American Basketball Association. The general manager of the franchise is Freddie Lewis, a native of Our Fair City who played in the original ABA for the Indiana Pacers, Memphis Sounds and St. Louis Spirits.
The first tryout camp for the Pit Bulls is being held this weekend at PSM. For more information, visit abalive.com.
The Almanac regrets the errors, and those responsible have been sacked.
In world news, there are unconfirmed reports from France that Yasser Arafat is brain dead. No offense, but how does this surprise people? It's been fairly obvious for a long time.
Tom Lehrer said once that "satire died" when Henry Kissinger was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize; for me, it died when Arafat got one. I don't wish ill on anyone, but it will be hard for many people to shed tears when Arafat passes onto his final reward.
In other news, a National Guard F-16 fighter pilot on a nighttime training mission strafed a New Jersey elementary school last night.
Geez, I suspected that the Bush administration would want retribution on the states that went for Yawn Kerry, but I didn't think it would happen so quickly!
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Bo Grace's comic strip "Piranha Club" (formerly "Ernie"), which runs locally in both the Trib and the P-G, hits about as often as it misses. But I thought last week's sequence, exploring a Ralph Nader presidency, was a hoot.
Judge for yourself. Start with last Monday and work your way forward to Saturday: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday
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Our Steel Valley correspondent, Dan Speed, passes along this link to the video clip portion of the Ohio State Highway Patrol Web site. Have any questions that routine police work is dangerous? This should settle those doubts.
And if you like those car crashes, you might also like these little movies from "Something Awful." (Warning: The language is not family-friendly.) "Letter from the Internet, Vol. 1," is my favorite, by far. (You need a Macromedia Flash player to view those movies.)
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I share James Lileks' reservations about "trick-or-treat":
Let's review the situation, children. You are masked. You are engaged in an extortionate activity, threatening tricks unless I give you candy; I comply with your demands. Your next move:
A. Say "thank you, sir" and walk away with grace and cheerful confidence. Or ... B. Lope away like some slope-shouldered goblin who probably thinks "manners" is a slang term for a part of the body. Dude hit me right in the manners.
Experience has taught me that the answer is usually B. And you say hey, Mr. Wilson, do you want kids to show up like Dickensian orphans, lined up, bags out, desperately putting on a false show of cheer and gratitude? Well, yes. Please sir, may we have some more? No! Who do you think I am, Father Hershey? Now begone.
Unofficial but complete election returns for Mon-Yough area communities:
Allegheny County: Braddock | Braddock Hills | Chalfant | Churchill | Clairton | Dravosburg | Duquesne | East McKeesport | East Pittsburgh | Edgewood | Elizabeth Borough | Elizabeth Township | Forest Hills | Forward Township | Glassport | Homestead | Liberty | Lincoln | McKeesport | Monroeville | Munhall | North Braddock | North Versailles Township | Pitcairn | Pleasant Hills | Port Vue | Rankin | South Versailles Township (Coulter) | Swissvale | Trafford (Allegheny County portion) | Turtle Creek | Versailles | Wall | West Elizabeth | West Homestead | West Mifflin | Whitaker | White Oak | Wilkins Township | Wilmerding.
Washington County: Finleyville | Monongahela, 1 | Monongahela, 2-1 | Monongahela, 2-3 | Monongahela, 3-1 | Monongahela, 3-2 | New Eagle, 1 | New Eagle, 2 | Union Township, 1 | Union Township, 2 | Union Township, 3 | Union Township, 4 | Union Township, 5 | Union Township, 6 | Union Township, 7
Westmoreland County: Irwin, Ward 1 | Irwin, Ward 2 | Irwin, Ward 3 | Irwin, Ward 4 | Irwin, Ward 5 | Irwin, Ward 6 | Irwin, Ward 7 | Manor | North Irwin | North Huntingdon Township, 1 1 |
North Huntingdon Township, 1 2 | North Huntingdon Township, 1 3 | North Huntingdon Township, 1 4 | North Huntingdon Township, 2 1 | North Huntingdon Township, 2 2 | North Huntingdon Township, 2 3 | North Huntingdon Township, 3 1 | North Huntingdon Township, 3 2 | North Huntingdon Township, 4 1 | North Huntingdon Township, 4 2 | North Huntingdon Township, 4 3 | North Huntingdon Township, 4 4 | North Huntingdon Township, 5 1 | North Huntingdon Township, 5 2 | North Huntingdon Township, 5 3 | North Huntingdon Township, 6 1 | North Huntingdon Township, 6 2 | North Huntingdon Township, 6 3 | North Huntingdon Township, 6 4 | North Huntingdon Township, 7 1 | North Huntingdon Township, 7 2 | North Huntingdon Township, 7 3 | North Huntingdon Township, 7 4 | Rostraver Township, Collinsburg | Rostraver Township, Concord | Rostraver Township, Cross Road | Rostraver Township, Fellsburg | Rostraver Township, Lynnwood | Rostraver Township, Pricedale | Rostraver Township, Van Meter | Rostraver Township, Webster | Sewickley Township, East Herminie | Sewickley Township, Lowber | Sewickley Township, Rillton | Sewickley Township, Sewickley Township, | Sewickley Township, West Herminie | Sewickley Township, Whyel | Sutersville | Trafford, District 1 (Westmoreland County portion) | Trafford, District 2 (Westmoreland County portion) | West Newton, Ward 1 | West Newton, Ward 2 | West Newton, Ward 3
Where, oh where, will the nasty geese of Renzie Park go? Doesn't anyone think about the poor geese?
You see, as Jonathan Barnes writes in the Post-Gazette, Lake Emilie is being dredged and cleaned "in accordance with a Department of Environmental Protection mandate given to the city about a year ago, Mayor James Brewster said."
The spillway dam at the end of the lake is being reconstructed, and new fish beds will be installed in the middle of the lake and near the dam, where the lake bottom will be dredged to 12 feet to allow the water to flow more freely and to give more room for the fish to proliferate, Brewster said.
With just a concept plan presented at this stage of application, the planning commission would have to take the builder's word in how the prime real estate would be developed. The board would have to trust, said Allen Cohen, planning director.
"What if you die?" asked commission member Stump.
Shuster replied that his two sons and a daughter are very involved in the daily operation of his business RWS and they hold the same ethics. "They'll be around in 30, 40 years," Shuster said projecting faith, which Cohen also said would be needed toward the project that will take three to four years to build out.
"Four more years of 'faith-based' policies that fly in the face of science, reality and common sense?"
Come on, now, do you really want to go there? 90 percent of the American people claim to believe in God, the vast majority of them in the Christian God of the Bible. The name of God, in a general sense, is invoked in many of the founding documents of this nation and, for that matter, by the Supreme Court and Congress every day they are in session. ...
Don't we all get our instructions directly from God? If not, we should. The Ten Commandments would be a good place to start. And I believe Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love God and to love one another - also a great idea. Whether you believe in Jesus as Deity or not, I think that's sound advice. And while I am not a Buddhist or Confucian, there is some fine moral material to be found there, too.
(I) don't think the United States is suddenly a laughingstock because Bush was re-elected, except for those people on the other side who would have us believe it is so. And if there are issues here, I don't think the faith-based issues are the ones to be concerned about. They might just even be the solution.
My Democratic Party took another hit .... isn't it time we started asking some serious questions to our leadership and not blaming the opposition which is oh so easy to do these days. I would venture to say that some flexibility on one or several issues would have clenched the last two elections, however, we have let our party become what it is now and the sad part is that I don't know what it is.
(Warning: This is a completely partisan, bitter rant. Back to the lighter stuff tomorrow, I promise.)
As I write this, things don't look good for Long John. Cue Lee Andrews and the Hearts at the homes of doo-wop loving Kerry voters everywhere:
"Long, long and lonely nights
I cry my eyes out over you
Wond'ring if I did right
And why you left me with a broken heart."
Well, let me see. Yawn Kerry left you with a broken heart because he ran a lousy campaign that never hammered home a consistent message. And because he wrote off the South and Midwest -- including states like Missouri and Arkansas, which he could have conceivably won.
Also, the President's re-election campaign stayed relentlessly on message and spoon-fed the press corps lie after lie after lie --- and the press corps ate it up. Way to go, Fourth Estate!
"As I go along my lonely way I visualize your face
When I pass through (yeah!) my doorway
What's left for me to face?"
Let me think about that one, too. What's left for Americans to face?
How about four more years of the gap between rich and poor growing wider? Four more years of reckless spending, with no one paying the bills? Four more years of "faith-based" policies that fly in the face of science, reality and common sense? And no end to the quagmire in Iraq, created by a President who claims that he's never made a mistake, and that he takes instructions directly from God?
Excuse me --- Lee and the Hearts continue:
"Oh, oh, oh, long, long and lonely nights
I guess you're never coming home
Long, long and lonely nights
Ever since you've been gone."
Yeah, I'm singin' that one for the Bill of Rights. I been singin' it for four years. Which reminds me --- it's time to renew my membership in the ACLU. I joined up the day the Patriot Act was signed into law.
"Please, please, come back to me
You've been gone too long."
You know what's been gone too long? Civility, decency and Christian charity. They've been gone too damn long from the Republican Party.
But why worry about such weak-kneed, sissy concepts as those, when the strategy they've been using has worked so well? Focus on God, guns and gays. "John Kerry wants to allow gays to stop you from praying and take your guns away!"
And people believe this nonsense! Barnum was right.
You know what else has been gone for too damn long? The spines of moderate Republicans. They've allowed their party to be hijacked by the Flat Earth Society, just as the far-left hijacked the Democrats in the 1970s and '80s.
Other thoughts before I crawl into a beer bottle for the night:
-- The voter fraud in this election stinks out loud. Where the Democratic strategy was to mobilize voters at all costs, the Republican strategy was to stop Democratic voters from voting. Nice guys finish last.
-- If the Democrats can gain a majority in Congress --- and after watching this travesty unfold for the past eight months, I don't think they could successfully organize a fart at a bean-eating contest --- I look for some major investigations to be launched against the President's re-election campaign. The same patterns of arrogance and abuse of power that led to the Watergate scandal are evident in the Bush White House.
-- The lies and calumny slung by Republican party operatives, from the Not-So-Swift Boat Veterans to the right's water-carriers on TV and radio, were astonishing in their brazenness. Yet they were never effectively rebutted by the Democrats. At all. The Democrats allowed the opposition to lob big festering stink bombs at them, and then tut-tutted while everyone else was trying not to retch from the odor, instead of throwing the stink bombs back at the opposition.
-- President Dubya successfully turned this election into a referendum on his challenger instead of allowing Kerry to make it a referendum on his re-election. That speaks to the truly remarkable incompetence of the Kerry campaign.
-- This also speaks to the truly remarkable incompetence of Kerry's campaign: Kerry was running against a president who lost the popular vote in 2000, started an unpopular war, and turned a huge surplus into a huge deficit. Had he run a decent campaign, it would never have been close.
-- The fact that Kerry couldn't put a decent campaign together should give one pause about his ability to run the United States of America.
-- The much-vaunted youth vote that the Kerry camp was counting on stayed home in droves, as anyone with half a brain could have predicted. Young people don't vote. Maybe they'll vote in the next election --- while they're sitting on the Humvees in Iraq, Iran or North Korea.
Do I sound bitter?
Pardon my language, but you're goddamn right I am.
The United States of America --- a country that I love, a country that I would gladly volunteer to defend if they would have taken me, a country that I think is the greatest country in the world --- is right now a laughingstock.
And a large percentage of Americans want to send back to the White House the people who have harmed my country so badly through their arrogance and ignorance.
If you believe in prayer, please pray for the United States of America. It's going to need all of the prayers it can get.
Voting for the first time today? Take ID.
Voting for the first time in a new precinct? Take ID.
You say you already have a voter registration card, and it says right on it that it's sufficient ID? It doesn't matter. Take another ID.
When I moved to North Bittyburg, a suburb of Our Fair City, earlier this year, I changed my voter registration to the new address. This morning, I went to my new polling place for the first time and handed over my voter registration card.
"It says 'ID Required,'" the judge of elections told me after looking up my registration information in her binder. Sure enough, "ID REQUIRED" was stamped over my name and on several other names --- presumably newly registered voters, or voters who recently moved.
Neither she nor the polling place inspectors could decide whether the voter registration card was adequate.
Keep in mind that on the back of the card, it says, in capital letters, "YOU SHOULD KEEP THIS CARD ON YOUR PERSON ... IT IS IDENTIFICATION OF YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE AT YOUR NEW ELECTION DISTRICT, DIVISION OR PRECINCT. Under the law you must present a form of identification to the election officials on Election Day the first time you vote in a new election district, division or precinct. This card is an acceptable form of identification."
Under the "Help America Vote Act" --- the half-hearted attempt by the U.S. Congress to prevent a rerun of the 2000 Florida debacle --- states are allowed to request ID from voters. The idea, of course, is to prevent people from registering multiple times, or registering fictitious names.
The problem, of course, is that this is the first presidential election since "HAVA" was enacted, and there is bound to be some confusion.
Luckily for me, I had remembered to bring a wage tax stub, a phone bill and an electric bill, all with the new address on them. (My state driver's license still lists my old address --- the update card hasn't arrived yet.) The judge of elections complimented me on my "efficiency." (That made my day, although I admit I'm easily amused.)
So if you're voting for the first time, or you've recently moved, take ID with you. A utility bill, a photo ID, or a paystub are all sufficient, according to the inspectors.
And be grateful you're not living in Florida or Ohio, where Republicans are going to make concerted efforts to challenge voters in heavily Democratic areas to prove they're eligible to vote. They're challenging up to 10,000 new registrations in Pennsylvania, according to Dennis Roddy in the Post-Gazette.
Please note that as far as I know, the Democratic Party is not sending poll watchers to, say, Sewickley Heights, Mount Lebanon or Fox Chapel to challenge voters to prove that they're eligible to cast ballots. But if they do, and you hear about it, please feel free to let me know.
I mention that strictly in the name of being fair and balanced. God bless America!
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Election turnout at North Bittyburg Ward 3, Precinct 1, where I vote, wasn't particularly heavy --- I was voter number 40, as of 7:45 a.m. --- but business was expected to be brisk across the region, according to Pat Cloonan in The Daily News:
Four out of every five registered voters are anticipated at polls as the Mon-Yough region joins the rest of the nation in the 2004 general election. The biggest contests to be considered between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. tomorrow are, of course, the presidential contest and Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race that could help decide which party controls that segment of Congress.
But three other statewide races are on tomorrow's ballot, not to mention a wide range of contests for U.S. House and both houses of Pennsylvania's General Assembly. There are seven local contests on ballots in Mon-Yough communities.
On Friday, with a couple of hundred other people, I went to Mount Alvernia High School's auditorium in Millvale to see the Class of 2004 graduate from the St. Margaret School of Nursing.
Among the graduates was my mom.
I rarely write about my family, but in this case I can't help it. There are many different kinds of courage and bravery --- firefighters who dive into burning buildings; soldiers, sailors and Marines who volunteer to go off to war; people who break down restrictions in the name of civil rights.
Nursing school doesn't have any particular physical dangers, I suppose (you're unlikely to get shot at, although one of my mother's classmates did fall and break an ankle). Nevertheless, it takes a lot of courage to give up your full-time job and mortgage your house to go back to school at (mumblety-mumble) years old, with absolutely no guarantee --- save your own initiative --- that you'll come out the other side with a degree.
And it wasn't easy for her. Nursing, as you might expect, is a demanding field, and the training is designed to weed out all but the most qualified. After all, you literally often have the lives of your patients in your hands while making observations, administering medication and assisting doctors. The lazy, the sloppy and the uncaring need not apply.
But besides the academic rigors, my mom faced a couple of specific challenges that would have derailed someone with less fortitude, including a bout with ill health and a couple of bullies (as far as I could determine, young RNs who resented her) who tried to push her out of the program.
She's not out of the woods yet. She's been hired at one of the local hospitals already, but she still has to pass the state licensing test --- and now, she wants to go on and get her bachelor's degree. I don't know if I'd have that kind of gumption.
Lots of people say their parents are their heroes. I'm sure they're sincere, even if it's become something of a cliche. I've always admired and loved my mom, but it's no knee-jerk reaction for me to say she's my hero --- she's earned that respect. Way to go, mom!
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In a related matter, I did something on Friday I usually try to avoid; I shopped at Wal-Mart. I wanted to find a "gag gift" for mom's graduation party, and thought either a toy nurse's kit or the board game "Operation" would be funny. Where else can you go for cheap toys?
Let me start by saying the toy department at Wal-Mart is frighteningly large. Wal-Mart in and of itself is too damned big, which is one of many reasons (their predatory employment and procurement practices are two others) that I avoid Wal-Mart at all costs. I must have wandered the aisles for a half-hour looking for what I wanted.
Second, is there any toy made today that doesn't come with a licensed character attached? They don't have dress-up costumes for little girls who want to play "princess," they have "The Disney Princesses" and "Barbie" princess outfits. They don't have "Operation," they have "Special Edition Shrek Operation."
Third, toys no longer require any imagination at all. Each toy comes with a specific, scripted function, usually tied to some TV show or movie. You don't buy a mere toy car --- you buy a "Limited Edition Bratz Hummer." You don't get a box of building blocks that you can turn into anything you want --- you get a Lego "Star Wars" Playset that builds one, and one thing only. (You can "Build The Story!" according to the package, and if you deviate from the story, presumably George Lucas comes to your house and takes all of your blocks back from you.)
Finally, Wal-Mart is featuring a disturbing number of role-playing toys designed for low-wage service jobs. Instead of policeman, cowboy, teacher, doctor and firefighter playsets, there were "cashier" and "cook" playsets for several different fast-food chains, including McDonald's (which, of course, usually puts restaurants inside Wal-Marts).
What are the messages that we're sending kids by giving them these toys? Only buy things with approved, licensed brand names from large multinational corporations; and prepare yourself for a career flipping burgers. Good Lord!
I realize I'm sounding like a old fogey, but I long for the days of nice, peaceful toys like plastic machine guns and lawn darts.
I eventually found a toy doctor's kit. God bless the Fisher-Price people; they're still turning out lumpy, hard plastic interpretations of stethoscopes, hypodermic needles and other items, neatly packaged for $13.99.
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From the Tube City Almanac's National Affairs Desk, comes this object lesson: If you can't win honestly, then cheat.
In South Carolina, there's no poll tax any more, but that hasn't stopped more creative miscreants:
A bogus letter circulating in South Carolina, purporting to be from the NAACP, threatens the arrest of voters who have outstanding parking tickets or failed to pay child support. The NAACP said Friday the letter is a scare tactic and called for an investigation. ... The letter also says voters must have a credit check, provide two forms of photo identification, a Social Security card, a voter registration card and a handwriting sample.
County Elections Manager Mark Wolosik said he has sent five fraud complaints to the county police so far, all involving young voters who were re-registered as Republicans through deception. In a letter sent this week, District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. has advised security chiefs at the county's colleges and universities to forward additional complaints of voter-registration fraud to Moffatt. ...
(An) official-looking but thoroughly humorous notice, posted at Ross Park Mall ... suggests Democrats should wait until Nov. 3 to vote. "Due to the immense voter turnout that is expected on Tuesday, Nov. 2, the state of Pennsylvania has requested an extended voting period," states the faux notice, printed on letterhead with the Allegheny County seal.
The notice states that Republicans will vote on Tuesday, while Democrats will vote on Wednesday. (Post-Gazette)
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