People laughed at Rick Santorum when he said that gay marriage would lead to rampant "man-on-boy" action. Well, now that a U.S. congressman has been accused of sending indecent proposals to teen-aged boys via the Internet tubes, the joke is on us!
Frankly, no one would have been surprised if a member of the Democrat Party had been exposed as a deviated prevert, but egad --- it was a Republican! Obviously, the corrupting influence of terrorist-coddling liberal wackos like Ned Lamont, Michael Moore and Bobby Casey has gotten to the poor man.
Luckily, we can count on Sen. Torquemada's vigilance. Here, he's seen in an ofishul White House photo (taken just this past summer) keeping a steely eye on the suspected perp. Even back in July, he knew what kind of person he was dealing with!
Sleep soundly tonight --- Rick Santorum is on the job!
(P.S.: Pay no attention to reports that the Republican leadership has been hearing complaints about Rep. Foley for more than a year, and covered them up. Those reports are being spread by people who forgot the lessons of 9/11, and would prefer if Saddam Hussein was still in power.)
(P.P.S.: “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” — Lord Acton)
Before we begin the usual stupidity today, Tube City Almanac would like to congratulate Sheriff Pete DeFazio on his impending retirement.
We believe Sheriff DeFazio entirely when he says that his retirement has absolutely nothing, nothing, to do with the fact that his office is under federal investigation, his former chief deputy is serving a five-year prison sentence, two other employees have been convicted on various charges, and that an audit found that he had overcharged taxpayers $2.5 million in sheriff's sale fees.
Therefore, we wish Laverne's dad all of the best as he returns to Milwaukee to take over the Pizza Bowl, and we hope that whomever the governor appoints, that person is just as qualified to be Allegheny County Sheriff as Pete DeFazio. That rules out Lenny, but perhaps Squiggy is available.
And now it's time to open the ol' Tube City Almanac mailbag and see what crawls out. Alert Reader Alex H. writes from Chicago (which is near Milwaukee) to say:
I am a native of the Pittsburgh area (born in McKeesport), and a descendant of parents and grandparents from McKeesport. My father was an executive with Westinghouse Electric, and although we lived other places as well while I was growing up, I still think of Pittsburgh as home.
My fondest memories of the area revolve around visits to both sets of grandparents and a favorite aunt and uncle. My maternal grandparents lived on Roslyn Street in Boston, while my father's parents lived on Cleveland St., west of Renziehausen Park.
My aunt and uncle lived on James Street in Haler Heights. At any rate, I left the area in 1975 after college to go on active duty in the Navy, and although I have returned very occasionally, I still become rather nostalgic at times. I now live in Chicago, and although the time I spent in the Pittsburgh area is actually a relatively small portion of my life, I still think of myself as being "from" there, a separate notion entirely from where I reside.
While browsing the online Post-Gazette today, I came across the story about the new grocery store opening in the Olympia Shopping Center, and through Google and/or links happened across the Tube City Almanac and Tube City Online.
I just wanted to contact you and express my appreciation for your efforts to document the considerable history and unfortunate present circumstances of a place which has meant a great deal to so many of us.
McKeesport is a prime example of the crushing blow dealt to many once thriving communities nationwide as we shift from a manufacturing Colossus to a service-based economy. We can hope for better times ahead, but I am not optimistic that we will herald their arrival any time soon. Keep up the fine work!
Haven't been in the immediate McKeesport area for 45 or 50 years, but was doing a web search to see if I could come up with the name of a club / nightspot that was in the area. Operated during the mid to late '50s and attracted a lot of teens. Of course, after all this time, a "lot" is rather indefinite. No clue on the actual numbers, but do recall that it always seemed crowded. Mix of a record hop type thing, with live music some nights --- weekends mostly. Drew people from all around the area --- even some from as far away as Greensburg.
Anyway, found your site, and really did enjoy reading the witty comments. And a few of the other feature items on the site, mainly the history pages. Brought back a certain number of memories, along with awarenesses that weren't possible back then.
Good site --- keep it going.
Just a short hop, skip and jump down the Monongahela River --- careful not to step on any tugboats --- takes us to Clairton, where Alert Reader Rebecca asks:Not long ago we bought the "big house" (the former Clairton Works superintendents house) in the fair city of Clairton. It's at the end of the block on Mitchell Street at Sixth.
It was built by the steel works for the superintendent around 1900 or 1903. It was lived in by a succession of mill supers from then until the mid '50s. It sat unoccupied for several years until sold to the family that we purchased it from.
We know the names of the supers that lived here and have bits of info on them and their families, but no info on the staff (we are told a cook, a maid and a least one male (groundsman, driver, handyman etc.) who apparently lived on site a least part time.
We are attempting to find the names of those who worked here or relatives of those who worked here who might be of help in putting a face to this big house. Perhaps early photos of the neighborhood or the house itself. Stuff like that.
We have spoken to several people from various historical organizations without success.
This place is a part of the Mon Valley and its history, we have invested a lot of work and time in attempting to make it the grand home it once was.
The point of all this is; Can you help? I realize you're in McKeesport and we're in Clairton but long ago people knew one another. Many thanks for your time in reading this too long missive.
I really enjoyed your article about Cynthia (Neish). She really was something --- a real force behind the progress of the Heritage Center! And the Heritage Center is a true gem for the community.
You may have seen the headlines over the weekend: A maglev train in Germany crashed into a maintenance truck, killing 23 people and injuring 10.
I find it curious that none of our hard-working Pittsburgh reporters have asked the folks at Maglev Inc., located in Our Fair City, for some local perspective on this accident, or perhaps one of the local universities that are supplying brain power for some analysis.
The P-G story that ran on Saturday --- most of which came from Associated Press --- did note that Maglev Inc. is a partner with the German company that was operating the train that crashed.
I am not implying that magnetic-levitation trains are unsafe. This is the first recorded fatality in more than 20 years of testing maglev trains.
But the same AP story noted that the train that crashed was on a 20-mile demonstration loop that was built in 1985. It's not in commercial service. In fact, after about three decades of maglev train experimentation, there is only one maglev line in commercial service anywhere in the world, in China.
I still say that all of the federal, state and local tax money that has been poured into maglev in Western Pennsylvania has been a waste of money. Not one single piece of maglev equipment has ever been demonstrated in Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh agencies have been dinking around with maglev since 1987.
Hell, even Skybus got a demonstration track around the South Park fairgrounds.
I am not anti-progress. I am not anti-technology. In fact, maglev combines some of my favorite things --- things that are shiny and go fast.
But considering the complete lack of return on investment that maglev technology has provided to Western Pennsylvania, I wish all of the effort we are expending on maglev had been routed toward improving existing surface transportation in the Mon-Yough area.
. . .
Has anyone else noticed that there's a fitness club/gym in the old fire station up on Grandview Avenue? It's called (appropriately enough) "Firehouse Fitness," and the last two times I've been past, I've seen lots of people working out on those stair-climbing machines.
Now, my idea of exercise is flying off of the handle and shooting off my mouth, and I only run when someone is chasing me, but that's pretty cool. I hope they succeed.
The demographics of most of the city wouldn't lend itself necessarily to a fitness club (a bingo parlor, maybe) but that neighborhood is really close to the new development around Renzie Park and in Haler Heights. Presumably some of the younger families and couples over there, and in White Oak, might want to check out "Firehouse Fitness."
I'd link to a website, but I can't seem to find one. Time permitting, I'll dig up more information.
. . .
By the way, I made someone from out of town laugh the other day by referring to Haler Heights as "Pill Hill." It got the nickname when all of the doctors in McKeesport began moving there.
There's another, not-nice nickname that I don't intend to repeat here, but I seem to recall that John Hoerr mentions it in his book, And The Wolf Finally Came.
Are there any other city nicknames that confuse outsiders? The person I was talking to was mystified by one of them --- a number of people kept telling her about "Lowertenth." Lower 10th Ward, I said. That's the part below West Fifth Avenue and the old P&LE tracks.
I always just thought of it as "10th Ward," but people who live there call it "Lower 10th" to distinguish it from "Upper 10th" --- the part that borders Port Vue. Real, real old-timers call it "Reynoldton," because it was once a separate borough that was annexed by the city.
There's Christy Park (the part of the city along Walnut Street, south of the 15th Avenue Bridge) and the 12th Ward, which consists of the old Eden Park Borough. I don't know who Christy was, but I suppose I could look it up.
Myer Park is along Myer Avenue, and I presume it's named for prominent attorney and real estate developer Gilbert Myer. Grandview is up by the old firehouse, and I know I'm missing others.
If some enterprising fellow has a website about McKeesport, he should look up that kind of information and put it in the Internet tubes.
Oh, wait, that's me. Rats.
. . .
Finally today, Jonathan Barnes has a Barnestormin' commentary about one of my favorite pet peeves. He whacks Pittsburgh's Mayor Opie for telling David Letterman that there's no steelmaking in the region any more.
"U.S. Steel employs 4,000 people locally and 45,000 globally, and the company’s growing," Barnes writes. "The 105-year-old company produces 4 million tons of coke annually at the Clairton works, and 2.9 million tons of raw steel each year in Braddock."
Seriously. What does Opie think they make at Edgar Thomson Works --- Jell-o?
And we still make tubes in the Tube City, too. Put that in your electric-resistance-welded pipe and smoke it.
Correction, Not Perfection: Alert Reader Dennis notes that the former Eden Park Borough now comprises the 12th Ward of McKeesport, not the 11th, as this Almanac originally said. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Today's Almanac is kind of a grab-bag of items I've stumbled over, with no real connecting theme. Maybe you should pretend this is the noon news ... perhaps on the mythical TV station that was supposed to be built in Irwin, but never was ... yet with fewer political ads and no happy talk.
And with less hair, too.
. . .
Our top story: You might see some odd-looking speed limit signs in North Huntingdon Township. Township police are experimenting with unusual color schemes and numbers in an attempt to catch motorists' attention, according to Patti Dobranski in the Tribune-Review Greensburg Astonisher.
Sgt. Duane Kucera came up with the idea after seeing a "13 MPH" speed limit in a North Hills housing development: "I kept thinking about it, and thought that, if I noticed it, something like that may work to slow down drivers in the township. People get so accustomed to seeing 'Watch Children' signs, they don't always pay attention to them."
Dobranski reports that a 19-mph speed limit has now been set on Biddle Avenue in Westmoreland City, and a second will soon be placed in Hahntown. In addition, a white-on-green 20-mph speed limit sign has been placed on Mockingbird Hill to slow drivers near the elementary and middle schools there.
It's a novel idea, and it just might work.
Maybe they could go one step further, though. They could put the speed limits in formulas, and force drivers to solve for "x."
Given the average American's math literacy, that would slow traffic way down. Some people might have to pull to the side of the road and get out calculators.
I understand that other speed limits that were considered and rejected include “i,” “x/0” and “6.0221415 times 10 to the 23rd power.”
On the other hand, I think I saw someone on Route 30 recently who appeared to be trying to reach that last speed.
. . .
In sports: The nation's only truly honest newspaper, The Onion, is running a fantasy football contest this season. Unlike other contests, however, the object is to pick the worst players in the league.
"Think that only Fortune 500 CEOs get rewarded for their incompetence and failure?" asks the Onion. "No more! Now you can field a winning fantasy roster of underachievers." Top prize is $5,000.
Among the top three "busts" of the week? Hines Ward ("who wouldn't have loved to have Ward's 17-yard performance?") and Ben Roethlisberger ("this year's 'Snakes on a Plane'").
Oooh, that smarts!
. . .
And finally, with today's "Speak Out," filling in for Al Julius, it's Anthony, one-half of Tunesmith and Anthony, with a commentary about the Port Authority's plans to extend the Downtown subway line to the stadiums (stadia?) on the North Shore ... and on the Post-Gazette for endorsing those plans:
The cost of this asinine project has ballooned to $435 million, or $68,655.30 per foot. The Federal Transit Administration has committed to pick up 80% of that tab. To quote Don Vito Corleone, “How did things ever get so far? I don’t know. It was so — unfortunate — so unnecessary.” ...
How about maximizing existing capacity ... before you go and expand capacity? Every day it seems that PAT is whining that it’s going to have to increase fares because ridership is down. Capacity seems to be the least of their problems.
And as far as establishing a beachhead that may extend the T north and west, perhaps this $435 million pill would be easier to swallow if this project was one step in one bigger master public transportation plan, but it is not. This sort of piecemeal urban planning that the P-G is endorsing with that argument is a big reason why it’s so difficult to get around this city.
Terry Madonna
On the morning news
Giving just the first of this day's interviews
He's got opinions
On most every race
Helping hack reporters to save face
Monday quoted in the Trib-Review
Tuesday morning in the Post-Gazette
Wednesday lunchtime he's on Channel 2
And the week's not done yet
Terry Madonna
Giving it his best
Can't Pennsylvania media just let him rest?
. . .
Terry Madonna, professor of public affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, was just on the radio, analyzing the race between Bob "Bob" Casey Jr. and Sen. Rick Torquemada, R-Penn Hills, Va.
Says Dr. Madonna, Pennsylvania's most ubiquitous political pundit:
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