From the Tube City Almanac National Affairs Desk, well, there goes that wacky, zany Howard Dean again! Hoo, hoo, hoo, wait 'til you read his latest crazy, outrageous comments in USA Today:
Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean says his party needs to do more to appeal to voters who have been lost because of unease over "values," including people who oppose abortion and parents who are dismayed by TV programs they find offensive for their children.
"We need to be a national party, we need a national message, and we need to understand why people in dire economic straits --- people who certainly aren't being helped by Republican policies --- why they vote for George Bush," he said. "We need to respect voters in red states who want to vote for us, but we make it hard for them by not listening to what they have to say."
Ha, ha, ha, that screaming liberal goofball! That left-wing ... wait, what did he say?
What Democrats need to do now, Dean said, is recast the debate on issues including abortion and win back voters who might be drawn to the party for its stands on economic issues and health care.
Karl Rove, busy torturing rats with a hacksaw in the White House basement, just shuddered. "I sense a great disturbance in the force," he said.
Democrats get "caught" in defending abortion, he said. "Well, there's nobody who's pro-abortion, not Democratic or Republican. What we want to debate is who gets to choose: (House Majority Leader) Tom DeLay and the federal politicians? Or does a woman get to make up her own mind?"
He said the party also should encourage "pro-life Democrats" to run for office.
At the headquarters of Planned Parenthood, the phonograph needle just scraped across the record and a tray of glasses crashed to the floor.
What Dr. Dean is saying is that the Democratic Party needs to focus on winning elections, not placating its warring factions. Because in its desperation to build consensus, the Democratic Party for the past decade has stood for everything, and thus for nothing. Too many national Democratic leaders have walked around for years looking down their snoots at the great unwashed who vote Republican, which has left them feeling morally superior and utterly out of power.
And ... surprise! ... Dean isn't focusing on the thoroughly stupid idea, advanced by the (losing) Gore campaign team and the (losing) Kerry campaign team that Democrats can some how ignore the South and Midwest:
Dean promised to do more to bolster state parties, including in places where Democrats haven't fared well lately. He announced grants totaling $465,000 for state organizations in Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota and West Virginia --- all Bush states.
If this means that the Democratic Party is finally going to be wrenched from the professional New York, L.A. and D.C. handwringers, bellyachers and assorted other mushy-heads who have handed the reins of power to the Republicans on a silver platter, then I'm all for it.
Meanwhile, in local news stories you may have missed, there's word (via Brandy Brubaker in the News) of a major new shot-in-the-arm for the Mon-Yough area's economy:
Glassport soon will welcome a new and improved Rite Aid. The national drug store chain plans to move its Monongahela Avenue store to a vacant lot on the site of the former Copperweld office building and Johnny K's Lounge along Ninth Street.
Rite Aid will build a new store more than twice the size of the current location. Reportedly, only one store in Ohio is as large as the one planned for Glassport.
Wow. We used to be the steel capital of the world. Soon, we'll have the world's second-largest Rite Aid. (Not the largest, but after all, that would be gaudy, and we in the Mon Valley have always been known for our exquisite good taste.) Feel free to take the rest of the day off.
Down in Metropolitan Finleyville, rumors that a Wal-Mart is coming to town are hurting business at Trax Farms, writes Mary Niederberger in the Post-Gazette.
Since word got out last summer that a developer was planning to build a shopping center with a Wal-Mart on land south of Trax Farms, "rumors have been floating that we closed or that we sold the farm to Wal-Mart," said John Trax, retail manager for the farm market and one of 17 Trax family members who own the farm. ...
Salesmen who call on the farm said they also had heard that Trax had sold the property to Wal-Mart. Trax said the rumors became so rampant that he had trouble convincing employees that the farm was not going to be sold. "It's really hard to keep employees' morale up when they are hearing this all of the time," he said.
In Turtle Crick, there's an exceedingly nasty race for borough council, writes Bill Heltzel in the P-G. Some of the language is barely fit for print:
Incumbent Bob Mullooly said his late wife, Helen, persuaded him to run for council eight years ago. ... He bemoaned decisions to build the expressway through Turtle Creek and to keep the junior high school in town, but he said there isn't much that council can do about other government agencies.
"Every time something comes down the pike," he said, "we get the poopy end of the stick."
Good Lord! Watch your language, Councilman Mullooly. There are ladies and children present!
Finally, over in Irwin, Patti Dobranski writes in the Tribune-Review that borough council is preparing to pave Pennsylvania Avenue, also known as Old Center Highway: "'That street looks like the Ho Chi Minh trail ... and that's the gateway to our town. It's got to be done,' said Councilman Harry Neil."
Some how I think Harry Neil means the Burma Road and not the Ho Chi Minh trail, unless there are Viet Cong snipers hiding behind the Irwin Park Amphitheater that I'm not aware of. Maybe someone should call Berk's ... are they selling a lot of cone-shaped hats and black pajamas these days?
...
To Do This Weekend: The Downtown post office, Walnut Street at Ninth Avenue, will be open until 9 p.m. today for you last-minute tax filers. ... Book Country Clearing House, located in the old Potter-McCune warehouse at 3200 Walnut St. in Christy Park, hosts another book sale Saturday and Sunday. Call (412) 678-2400. ... McKeesport Little Theater, 1614 Coursin St., presents "A Bedfull of Foreigners," today and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Admission is $15 or $7 for students with ID. Call (412) 673-1100.
P.S. I've got a new column over at Pittsburgh Radio & TV Online.
I had another project to work on Wednesday night, so no Almanac today. We'll be giving refunds in the alley.
You could go read this New York Times story about millionaire Walter O'Rourke, who owns his own railroad, yet amuses himself by working as a conductor for Noo Joisey Transit. (Tube City hard hat tip to Alert Reader Jonathan.)
Or you could go read Rip Rense's recent Rip Post about his confrontation with a young LaRouchie.
You could even look at Joseph F. Kelly's Life in thisLowCountry, which has had several terrific pieces lately.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can put off until the day after tomorrow, that's my motto. So naturally, I'm doing my taxes this week.
OK, that's not entirely accurate. I actually did my federal taxes some time ago, mostly in the hopes that I had a refund coming. But as they say in Italian, au contraire. Not only did I not have a refund coming, I owed the gubmint about 200 clams due to a withholding error. I figured the government could wait for its money, so I'm not sending the federal tax stuff in until Thursday, even though it's complete.
I tried itemizing this year for the first time, since everyone told me that buying a house and moving would result in all sorts of tax deductions. It turns out that I bought the house too late in the year for the mortgage interest to be more than a standard deduction, and moving expenses are only deductible if you move more than 50 miles. Also, real-estate taxes that you pay are deductible only when they've actually been sent to the taxing body --- not just put into escrow. That leaves me 0 for 3 in the homeowning department, but better off next year.
Maybe. Since the President and Congress are considering eliminating the mortgage interest deduction (so much for the "ownership society"), it's a big "maybe."
Anyway, that takes care of the feds. I'll be able to pencil-whip the state tax form out in a few minutes, and since freelance writing assignments fell off the end of the Earth for me this year, I won't owe anything to Uncle Ed.
Certainly, I don't begrudge the Commonwealth its three percent and change, so long as the state General Assembly continues to spend the money on vital needs, such as placing placards that say "In God We Trust" in public school classrooms, or promoting creationism, or regulating yearbook photographers. ("Pennsylvania: Legislative Grandstanding Starts Here.")
Still, there's one set of taxes that really frost my doughnuts, and those are the local wage taxes. I don't mind that they have taxes, per se. Hey, the borough (or township) and school district need their 1 percent (or 3 percent, for you lucky City of Picksberg residents, and 1.7 percent for people in Our Fair City). I've been behind the scenes of a lot of Mon-Yough area municipalities --- and most of them are run relatively frugally.
I do object, however, to the godawful local wage tax forms that boroughs, cities, townships and school districts have started sending out. A few years back, Pennsylvania attorneys convinced local taxing authorities to outsource their tax collections. Instead of having little old semi-retired blue-haired ladies at the municipal buildings collecting the local taxes, the attorneys promised to cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war upon tax cheats.
Any time you add multiple lawyers to a problem, naturally, you aren't simplifying it. Lawyers don't make money by making things simple. Throw a couple of dozen accountants into the mix and you have a real recipe for eye-crossing bureaucracy.
These tax "experts" began sending residents complete local tax schedules which have grown ever more complex, and every bit as complicated as the IRS 1040 form --- they now want you to list profits from investments, farming losses, savings penalties, the whole nine yards.
Excuse the heck out of me, but exactly where do they get off demanding all this? Here's all a local tax form has to look like:
Do you know where all of the bad guys go? Why, Jefferson Hills, of course. Don't you know about the criminals who are at Large? Haw. Haw. Haw. Then, of course, there was the midget psychic who gave palm readings in a shack along Route 51. Her business cards read, "Small Medium at Large." Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!
Seriously, folks, the Mon-Yough area community of Large takes its name from the John Large family, which came to Western Pennsylvania shortly before the turn of the 19th century. John Large erected a distillery along Peters Creek which made Monongahela Rye Whiskey.
His son, Jonathan, and grandson, Henry, eventually turned Large Whiskey into a nationally known brand. There's a story about former University of Pittsburgh Chancellor William Holland arriving at the office one day in the 1900s with a terrible chest cold. He asked his secretary to telephone the Schenley Hotel and have them send over a bottle of Large Whiskey.
The secretary called and told the bartender (I'm paraphrasing slightly), "The Chancellor needs a large bottle of whiskey."
"No, I want a bottle of Large Whiskey!" the Chancellor yelled from his office.
"He says a very large bottle of whiskey," the secretary repeated.
The Large Distillery was eventually sold to another company, and finally was closed. The property passed through the hands of contractor, bus operator and financier Noble J. Dick before being sold to Westinghouse Electric Corp., which constructed its Astro-Nuclear Laboratory around the old distillery buildings. (Their motto should have been, but wasn't, "One way or another, you'll get high in Large!")
Anyway, I stumbled over John and Linda Lipman's web site, which gives the history of Western Pennsylvania distillers, including Large Distillery and Thomas Moore Distillery (makers of "Possum Hollow" Whiskey and originally based in Our Fair City). You can also read about Westmoreland County's famous Old Overholt brand whiskey (or as old-timers called it, "Old Overalls"), which contributed to the fortune that Henry Clay Frick would later invest in coal and steel.
...
Speaking of which: I finally saw a copy of the new free newspaper being distributed in the South Hills called the 51Corridor. There's a story on the front page of the most recent issue about the Large Hotel. (Which isn't that large, natch.) I'd link to the paper or the story, but its website doesn't appear to be working.
One wonders what the market for yet another free weekly newspaper could be in an area that already has the Gateway papers, The Valley Mirror, The Almanac (the one printed by the Observer-Reporter, not the TCA), three dailies, and who-knows-what else. But good luck to the proprietors. If nothing else, I enjoyed the Large Hotel story.
...
Why is this man smiling? He doesn't have much to smile about.
He's Harry James Collins, 57, of Connellsville, and he's accused of setting a fire that damaged the Wesley United Methodist Church in that Fayette County city.
There have been 27 arsons in Connellsville over the last year and a half, and while police aren't linking Collins to other fires at this time, it's obvious that they're looking closely at him. Bob Stiles had a thorough story in this morning's Tribune-Review, and I'd expect more in tonight's Connellsville Daily Courier.
The neighbors, naturally, are "shocked":
"He's a good neighbor. I find it hard to believe," said one woman, who asked to remain anonymous.
"When I heard about it, I was shocked," another neighbor said. "The old guy's so nice. He doesn't even have a car to get around and do this stuff."
Ah, the life of a swinging, hedonistic bachelor was on full display this weekend. Take Sunday morning, which I spent at Sears, Roebuck, buying pruning shears, a rake, and throw rugs. Then I came home and (you may want to chase the kiddies out of the room now) cleaned out the flower beds and trimmed the rose bushes.
Whoa, Nelly! I have to admit, I'm feeling a little bit dissipated now. But that won't stop me from continuing my sybaritic ways, such as later this week, when I go over to my mother's house and spray pesticide on the lawn. Yowza!
Also this weekend, the sleek, gray Mercury decided to jerk me around. Saturday night, as I washed dishes (slow down, Hugh Hefner!) I saw the interior lights were on. I said a bad word, then put on my shoes and went outside ... but the interior lights weren't on.
Hmm. An optical illusion, I thought.
I finished rinsing the dishes and was about to wipe off the counter when I noticed the lights were on again. This time I watched them slowly fade out.
So I kept watching. About 10 minutes later, they came on again, and then slowly faded out. And I said another bad word.
A word here about modern automobile technology. Years ago, someone (perhaps Henry Ford, when he wasn't writing anti-Semitic claptrap for the Dearborn Independent) realized it would be a good idea if when you opened the door of your car, the lights came on inside.
So, they hooked up a little switch that was activated when you opened the door, and turned on the interior lights. The circuit diagram looked something like this:
The switch cost about 39 cents, and the bulb was 19 cents, and the wires cost another 79 cents. Sometimes the switch broke, and you'd stop down at the Esso (or Sinclair or American or Gulf) station, and Gus (or Eddie or Stush or Tony) would install a new one. Sometimes the bulb would burn out. But that was about all that could go wrong.
For about 70 years, this is how dome lights in cars worked. Well, this wasn't good enough for the modern American consumer. They don't just want lights that turn on and off. They want them to dim slowly --- they call it "theater lighting" in the auto trade. They also want to be able to turn them on and off with their keyless remote entry doohickey. They want the lights to turn on, too, if they open the trunk. And they want the lights to go off after a certain amount of time, like if little Timmy, age 3, has been playing around in the car and left the door wide open, so that the lights don't drain the battery.
The result is that the interior lighting on the modern automobile is no longer controlled by mere switches and wires. On most cars, they're now computer-activated; the sleek, gray Mercury has something called a Lighting Control Module which controls everything from the headlights to the turn signals to the brake lights to the dashboard hibachi and automatic package shelf bobble-head doll motion detector. Thus, the circuit now looks like this:
There is no switch --- there's a motion detector built into the hinge of the door, which Gus (or Eddie or Stush or Tony) wouldn't know how to service, even if the Esso (or Sinclair or American or Gulf) station hadn't been torn down and replaced by a "GetGo."
And when something goes wrong with the interior lights, you don't just replace the switch or the bulb, you take the car to the dealer, where they (I swear I'm not making this up) hook the Lighting Control Module to the special computer analyzer, which tells them (at a shop rate of $75 per hour) that the Lighting Control Module (Motorcraft Part No. F8AZ-13C788-BA) is fried, and that will be $270.49, plus tax and labor, and can you pay the man on the way out?
Naturally, what I've done instead is pulled the fuse on the dome lights for the time being. The car is still under warranty for another 3,000 miles, but the warranty only covers the power train, not the electrical fizzly bits. If only the dome lights had gone on the fritz because the motor had fallen out of the car, then I might be covered.
There is a slim chance --- very slim --- that the doors are slightly misaligned or the door sensors are dirty, and some futzing around in the driveway this week might fix the problem. I'm going to try it, but I'm not hopeful.
This is progress? Phooey on progress, I say.
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