October 21, 2005
Whoops!
The Valley Mirror has a story this week about people running stop signs on Braddock Avenue in Swissvale. Apparently, police are cracking down after one fatal pedestrian accident and several near misses.
Well, Swissvale is like a stroll through a deserted meadow compared with some places. Remember what I wrote a few months ago about Florida drivers? Dateline, St. Petersburg, Fla.:
A 93-year-old driver apparently suffering from dementia fatally struck a pedestrian, then continued driving through a toll booth with the man's body on his windshield, police said.
Ralph Parker of Pinellas Park drove for three miles Wednesday night after striking the 52-year-old pedestrian with his gold 2002 Chevrolet Malibu, severing the man's right leg, police said.
A toll taker on the Sunshine Skyway saw the body stuck through Parker's windshield and notified police, Traffic Homicide Investigator Michael Jockers said.
More
here from the St. Pete
Times. Authorities say that they are unlikely to charge Mr. Parker because he didn't even know what day it was when they stopped him, nor where he was driving to.
Police have taken his driver's license, however. Which was last renewed by Florida's DMV in 2003.
Welcome to Florida: Now run for your life!
...
Speaking of the cops, and bad drivers, we have another
Mon-Yough speedtrap report for you. Picksberg police have been observed running a speed check at the north end of the Glenwood Bridge (the Hazelwood side), particularly during evening rush hour, while the cops in
Our Fair City have been watching Fifth Avenue in the East End, between Hartman Street and the McKeesport-Duquesne Bridge (mostly after sunset).
You have been warned: Get the lead out of your feet!
Also, the new signs designating the Fifteenth Avenue Bridge as the Senator Albert V. Belan Bridge are up, though they were covered with canvas the last time I checked. Not sure when they're going to be unveiled. (This weekend, maybe? Or have they already been revealed? Reports to the
Almanac are most welcome.)
...
Of all of the stories about Our Fair City (perhaps hereinafter I'll abbreviate that as "OFC") I'd like to see make the news in
India and
Australia, the continuing sad tale of the fetuses stacked in Robert Winston Jr.'s garage wasn't one of them.
If you don't already know, Winston, former operator of Newman-Winston Memorial Chapel, is
headed for trial. Jonathan Silver's story in the
P-G tracks the saga of how a man who was once a pillar of the business and professional communities wound up involved in a sordid mess.
...
To Do This Weekend: Penn State McKeesport Campus will host high school students, transfer students and returning adult students for the second annual Penn State Day tomorrow. The event kicks off at 9 a.m. in the Student Community Center. Information on degree programs, admissions strategies, financial aid opportunities, student organizations and athletics will be available, along with campus tours, photos and face painting, a free T-shirt and a tailgate lunch. Call 412-675-9010 or register
online. ... There's country line dancing tonight at the Palisades, Fifth Avenue at Water Street. (Yee-haw!) Call 412-678-6979. ...
October 19, 2005
George Romero, Documentarian?
As usual, the mainstream media in southwestern Pennsylvania has fallen down on the job, and I have to rely on The Onion, America's Finest News Source, to bring me the important information that shapes our world, like this week's front page story:
Study Reveals Pittsburgh Unprepared For Full-Scale Zombie Attack
PITTSBURGH --- A zombie-preparedness study, commissioned by Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy and released Monday, indicates that the city could easily succumb to a devastating zombie attack. Insufficient emergency-management-personnel training and poorly conceived undead-defense measures have left the city at great risk for all-out destruction at the hands of the living dead, according to the Zombie Preparedness Institute.
"When it comes to defending ourselves against an army of reanimated human corpses, the officials in charge have fallen asleep at the wheel," Murphy said. "Who's in charge of sweep-and-burn missions to clear out infected areas? Who's going to guard the cemeteries at night? If zombies were to arrive in the city tomorrow, we'd all be roaming the earth in search of human brains by Friday."
Government-conducted zombie-attack scenarios described on the State Department's website indicate that a successful, citywide zombie takeover would take 10 days, but according to ZPI statistician Dr. Milton Cornelius, the government's models fail to incorporate such factors as the zombies' rudimentary reasoning skills and basic tool use.
Personally, I'm not worried. If this trend is like everything else, it won't hit the Mon Valley for at least another 20 years. And if the zombies come down here to feast on our brains, well, the joke will be on them! We're in no danger of starting our own Mensa chapter any time soon.
But as a
Tube City Almanac correspondent pointed out in an email, "you would think the zombies would choose a more vibrant city like Boston."
This brings up another important issue: Should we be trying to attract more zombies to Western Pennsylvania? And is there a zombie gap developing between Pittsburgh and the West Coast?
I expect Mike Madison over at Pittsblog to blame our lack of zombie preparedness on the fact that Pittsburgh zombie fighters
don't start work early enough. While voodoo artists in San Francisco and Dallas are already practicing their black arts by 7 a.m., Pittsburgh zombie hunters are still in bed.
Other bloggers, like
Ol' Froth and
Maria will point out that while Bob Casey Jr. supports the rights of the undead, Chuck Pennacchio has clearly and decisively spoken out against equal protection for zombies under the law.
And just how will our leaders address the zombie problem? The usual suspects will take the usual predictable actions. Picksberg City Council will appoint a blue-ribbon panel and brainstorm (ha! ha!) ways to drive zombies from the area, while the Picksberg Downtown Partnership will announce plans to build a massive crematorium between Fifth and Forbes avenue. (Luckily for them, it already looks like a ghost town, so adding a crematory isn't much of a stretch.)
County Executive Dan Onorato will announce a plan to raise tax assessments on funeral homes in order to encourage zombies to go to Butler, Beaver and Washington counties, but his proposal will be blocked by Republicans on county council. They'll be armed with a report by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy that criticizes public sector efforts at fighting zombies. The 78-page study, authored by Jake Haulk, will explain that the money should come from private industry, which would derive more benefit from getting rid of vampires and werewolves, anyway.
Then, Joe Kirk from the Mon Valley Progress Council will hold a press conference to show that the Mon-Fayette Expressway will pass some of the region's largest cemeteries, and that when it's complete, zombies will be able to shamble from Interstate 68 in West Virginia to the Parkway East in a fraction of the time it takes on surface roads, thus speeding them quickly out of the area.
Not to be outdone, maglev proponents will appeal to the federal government for $10 million to study proposals for levitating zombies back into their coffins using superconductors.
Alas, it will be difficult to coordinate our response to the zombie problem. Soon, suburban politicians will start to complain that all of the zombie-fighting efforts are being focused on Picksberg to the detriment of the rest of Allegheny County. They'll form a regional zombie working group and invite experts from Louisville or Tampa to explain how those areas became less attractive places for reanimated corpses.
Naturally, old rivalries will prevent
Our Fair City from joining that group. Instead, watch the legal ads in the
Daily News for an announcement once the City of McKeesport Zombie Authority is chartered. The city will ask for a federal community development block grant to erect a giant wall around McKeesport-Versailles Cemetery and mount flame-throwers on the front of its police cars.
Some residents will criticize the napalm cannons as "police brutality," leading Pittsburgh TV stations to come to town and film part of a city council meeting. News footage shot inside McKeesport's municipal building that night will show a very heavy-set, sweaty-faced woman shouting and pointing her finger at Mayor Jim Brewster, along with an elderly man with thick glasses reading a statement from a piece of torn-out notebook paper. Council will table further action on the zombie problem pending a report from the city solicitor.
In the end, zombies won't come to Western Pennsylvania, and much arguing will ensue over all of the money wasted on zombie preparedness. The main arguments will be summarized by lengthy op-ed pieces in the
Post-Gazette and
Tribune-Review (headlined, respectively, "What Pittsburgh can learn from the zombie mess" and "The real zombies are in the Democratic machine").
A reporter from the
Philadelphia Inquirer will arrive in Duquesne or Clairton to do one of that newspaper's semi-annual "depressed Mon Valley mill town" stories: "Joe Fedrachinvak, 78, used to work in the steel mill here. But now, he just sits on his porch and remembers the days when flames belched from the rusty stacks along Route 837, and zombies filled the streets on Friday nights."
To combat these feelings of malaise and self-doubt, Pittsburgh TV stations will commission flashy promotional campaigns: "Hey, Pittsburgh's a great place to be! Stand up and tell 'em, 'We're zombie-free!'" In a column for
City Paper, someone will point out that the same jingle and slogan were used in Detroit in the 1980s.
Finally, in a few years, watch for Rick Sebak's newest special, "Zombies That Aren't Undead Any More," which will take a wistful look back at the days when nearly every corner had at least one hollow-eyed freak stumbling around, trying to bite people on the head; and when trolley conductors carried shotguns to blast zombies off of the steps of streetcars. George Romero and Tom Savini will serve as technical consultants.
And now if you'll excuse me, the nurse is here to give me another dose of my medicine. She says that next time, I need to remember to break the pills in half.
Published weekdays (usually), except holidays (and when we have something better to do) at McKeesport, Pa., by Tube City Online LLC, P.O. Box 94, McKeesport, Pa. 15134.