A federal grand jury this morning handed up an 84-count indictment against Allegheny County Medical Examiner Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, alleging he used his office as coroner to conduct private pathology business and used public employees to perform some of that work.
The indictment also accuses Dr. Wecht of falsely billing several private clients for such items as transportation to and from the Pittsburgh airport when he was, in fact, driven there by county employees.
The indictment accuses him of mail and wire fraud; theft of honest services; and theft from an organization that receives federal funds. (Post-Gazette)
Well, it seems that Denver columnist Bill Johnson, frightened by the howls of protest from angry Stiller fans over his thinly-sourced screed in the Rocky Mountain News this week, has recanted. Sort of:
The people here, I will admit, are some of the nicest folks I have encountered in a decade. And even they will acknowledge --- if they are the slightest bit liquored-up --- what your eyes are screaming at you: The place is kind of grimy and, well, kind of ugly.
So what if you have a corrugated-steel lumber mill from the 19th century plopped right in the middle of the old neighborhood. In Denver, it would now be resting for eternity in a landfill. Here, they rip out just enough from the inside to turn it into gleaming, not-too-cheap condos, restaurants and office space.
The place where I ate breakfast, with its thick wood paneling, was a firehouse back in the 1800s. The old railroad station up the street? Today, it houses fancy cheese and wine shops, linen-tablecloth restaurants and boutiques.
"Hey Bill, How are things up on BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN?? Nice and Clean?!?!?!?" "Bill Johnson is a moron!" "Mr. Johnson, you might want to look in the mirror before you call anybody butt-ugly. You are no prize pig yourself." "The light reflecting of your big a-- forehead looks metal gray in your picture." "I thiink (sic) you are butt ugly Bill Johnson." "Such a closed mind for such a big head." "You have some nerve calling The Burgh 'ugly' -- you look like a cracked-out Flip Wilson..."
It's become a tradition as beloved as income taxes: Before any pro football playoff game, the newspaper columnists in each city have to trash-talk the opposing team's hometown. Hilarity and boffo larfs ensue. And if you believe that, I have a lifetime subscription to the Jeannette News-Dispatch that I'd like to sell you.
The Post-Gazette used to crank out these things every week while the Steelers were in the playoffs. In fact, on at least one day during each playoff week, they used to devote most of a sports section to "trash talk," and it was as funny as a sucking chest wound. They may still be doing it, and they're probably just as idiotic as ever, but if they are, I haven't noticed them.
Maybe it's merely an indication of how coarse our culture has become, but to me, pieces like these also prove that many newspaper managers are as tone-deaf as Wal-Mart guitars, and I say this because I no longer entertain any notion that I'll ever be allowed within 500 feet of a newspaper job again.
So when Mike Madison of Pittsblog pointed out that a columnist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News had written one of these stupid things about Picksberg (a city of some size north of Our Fair City), I groaned, but I drifted over to read it.
At the very least, I thought the Denver column might be good for a sick laugh. Alas, I didn't think it would be full of obvious fabrications. Mr. Bill Johnson of the Rocky Mountain News, you're full of baloney. (Or "jumbo" as we "frothing at the mouth" Steeler fans might say.)
I won't bother dissecting Mr. Johnson's entire column, which ran in Wednesday's paper. But I will say that Mr. Johnson is (a.) a fabulist, (b.) a lazy writer or (c.) a sloppy reporter. He can take his pick or mix 'n match 'em, for all I care.
In any event, I hope he didn't ask the Rocky for reimbursement for his trip to Picksberg, because I'm not sure he made it out of the airport. If he did, he didn't do much work.
In fact, he seemed to spend most of his time in bars, where he learned --- to his surprise --- that people seemed to be drinking and talking about sports.
Now, that's what you call your A-1, hard-hitting journalism, right there. In future columns, perhaps Mr. Johnson can report that people in swimming pools are wet, or that people at the mall are "usually shopping for goods and services."
But if we're going to find fault with every little sentence, well, we'll be here all day, and I don't have the time or the inclination to bother. So let's pick apart some of the more obvious clinkers in Mr. Johnson's masterpiece.
...
Clinker No. 1: Mr. Johnson writes that: "On my way to the hotel, there is a man standing on a busy street corner, wearing a halter-top dress. He holds a sign in his hands that says: 'I BET AGAINST THE STEELERS.'"
This is a big boo-boo, Mr. Johnson, unless you flew into Allegheny County Airport and stayed, say, at the Large Hotel. That incident, as David Whipkey reported in Wednesday's Daily News, happened in West Elizabeth on Route 837.
There is no way in hell your rental car went through West Elizabeth on the way from Findlay Township to downtown Picksberg, unless you're one lousy driver. Maybe you saw the incident on the news, but you didn't even quote the sign correctly.
In any event, you didn't see it "on a busy street corner on the way to the hotel." You made that up. Naughty, naughty.
(And while we're on the subject, I've heard of a "halter top," but what the heck is a "halter-top dress," anyway? Perhaps the women wear those in Denver, Lord only knows.)
...
Clinker No. 2: Mr. Johnson claims that he was subject to "an unprovoked lecture" by a rental car clerk at the airport, whose "face (turned) red immediately upon seeing my Colorado driver's license." That doesn't even make sense.
If you were a rental car employee, would you harangue a customer? You'd get your rear-end fired. So unless you want to give up a name, Mr. Johnson, of either the company or the employee, I'm gonna have to call "bull" on that one, too.
It certainly is convenient, though, how the people in your column offer up perfect quotes to illustrate how stupid and ugly Picksberg is, which just happens to be the point (and I use that word loosely) at which you seem to be driving.
...
Clinker No. 3: Mr. Johnson writes: "I will tell you this, something I would never tell one of the locals. Pittsburgh is one butt-ugly town. It is precisely the type of town that would name its professional football team the Steelers. Old mills, long stilled, dot the town. Weeds spill from smokestacks. Across the Ohio River from where I write this rises downtown Pittsburgh, as dark and forbidding a skyline as you will ever encounter."
Now I know you're full of that stuff that comes out of the north end of a southbound bronco. Sure, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so if you think Picksberg has a lousy skyline (compared to what, Denver?), well, that's your opinion. Lots of people disagree. Personally, I like Our Fair City's skyline better (the sun glinting off of the steeples and the weeds on the roof of the Penn-McKee are particularly nice in the fall), but that's just me.
But objectively speaking, the only hotels on the Ohio River that would grant a view of downtown Picksberg are the new ones near PNC Park and Heinz Field. And from those, you're not going to see any "old mills, long stilled" with weeds spilling from smokestacks, Fibby McFibsalot.
Since you also apparently spent some time over on the South Side, you didn't see any "old mills, long stilled" over there, either. They were torn down to make way for the South Side Works, which may be a bland, boring and homogenized suburban-style shopping plaza, but it's definitely not an "old mill, long stilled."
(You wanna see old mills, we've got old mills down in the Mon-Yough area, sporty, but seeing them would have required real reporting that took you more than a few blocks from your hotel room.)
So, I'm guessing you cribbed your description from the moldy old clippings in the Rocky's library, or maybe from a Lexis-Nexis search. Or, perhaps American Movie Classics recently ran "Flashdance" and "Gung Ho" back to back as part of an "'80s Movie Weekend," how should I know? No matter: Your veracity average isn't so hot, if these examples are any indication.
...
By the way, I'm not sure what the crack about, "precisely the type of town that would name its professional football team the Steelers," is supposed to mean.
So they're named the "Steelers," as opposed to what? Something real creative like the "Rockies"? Or perhaps we could name one of our teams the "Avalanche," after those big piles of snow that come down off of mountains and crush people to death. Now that's a much more inspiring name. (See? That's how you talk trash, chump.)
There are guys in the third day of a four-day drunk, passed out behind the state store, who immediately upon awakening to use the men's room could come up with more pungent insults that the treacle you've larded into your column, Mr. Johnson.
...
There are plenty of real things to poke fun at in Western Pennsylvania, but again, you didn't bother doing any real work. You toured a few South Side bars and took a few badly-aimed cheap shots.
This column is a perfect example of why newspapers are running --- not sliding --- toward irrelevancy. Too many newspaper writers are lazy and reliant on tired old formulas, and they take obvious shortcuts. Maybe something like your column was funny 20 years ago, but now, it's just lame.
And they also don't seem to realize that their work is instantly available, via the Internet, for others to find those obvious shortcuts, and to poke fun at them. Like little old me, for instance.
According to Mr. Johnson's biography on the Rocky website, he "won the National Headliner Award's First Place for Columns in 1995 and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary in 1993." He also was a faculty member at the University of Arizona.
Well, I haven't taught anyone anything since I was the senior patrol leader of my Boy Scout troop and held a knot-tying demonstration (I barely escaped with my fingers intact), so far be it from me to offer advice to an obvious writing expert.
Nevertheless, here's one tip: If you're going to sucker punch someone, you'd better make sure the first blow is hard, and true. You swung wild, and missed.
As for your Pulitzer nomination, it's too bad they don't have a category for "most egregious use of hackneyed cliches," Bill. You'd have that prize locked up.
But until someone gives you what you so richly deserve, why don't you take your column, soak it in that cat whiz that Coors calls "beer," and stick it? About a mile high up ought to do it, I think.
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