April 20, 2008
Briefly Noted
Now Richard Mellon Scaife is endorsing Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. (In related news, the victory party is Tuesday night at Doug's Motel.)
I don't know what you think, but personally, when I add Scaife's support to the endorsements that Clinton has already picked up from other people who I greatly admire, like Ed Rendell and Opie "Luke" Ravenstahl, the choice becomes fairly obvious.
April 19, 2008
Jabbour's Jibber Jabber
Jay Jabbour's campaign literature isn't attractive. Worse yet, in several of his recent direct-mail pieces, he's made the same blunder.
He's made his opponent's name larger than his own. He's even using a picture of state Rep. Bill Kortz's signs. At first glance, the flier pictured above looks like one of Kortz's mailings.
I'm surprised that Jabbour would make such a rookie mistake.
As many times as he's run for various offices (about every two years for the past three decades) you'd think he'd have the hang of it by now.
. . .
The Mon Valley has long been known for spiteful, nasty, petty political campaigns, so the scorn that Jabbour is heaping on Kortz is hardly unusual.
The only surprising thing is the amount of his own money that Jabbour is dumping into this race. His most recent
finance report filed with the state indicates that he has more than $21,000 in his war chest, but $20,000 consists of a contribution Jabbour made to his own campaign on April 5.
Jabbour's an accountant, and I suppose tax season was good to him. But if I was 75 years old, and had $20,000 to burn, I'd be golfing, or traveling, not running for the state legislature for the eighth time.
. . .
I haven't seen any of Jabbour's TV commercials, but I have seen all of his newspaper ads and mailings, and they've ranged from inane to insulting.
Take the mailing above, which attacks Kortz for firing the office staff of his predecessor, Ken Ruffing.
Well,
duh. Kortz defeated Ruffing in the 2006 Democratic primary, another nasty race. Why would Kortz retain people who were loyal to his political opponent?
Another mailing lambastes Kortz for allegedly not supporting West Mifflin in its fight to collect amusement tax from Kennywood Park. (Kortz says he thinks Kennywood should be paying the tax, and that Jabbour's mailing is misleading.)
As everyone knows by now, Kennywood is suing West Mifflin, because the borough was collecting the tax only from the amusement park and not from any of the other entities subject to amusement taxes in Pennsylvania.
I'm no lawyer, but it sure seems to me that West Mifflin's actions violate the equal protection clauses of the state and federal constitution. And if West Mifflin loses the lawsuit --- which it very well might --- the borough's taxpayers will bear the burden. Jabbour's position on the Kennywood tax is not only legally questionable; it's financially questionable.
Yet I can understand why Jay Jabbour is defending West Mifflin's tax collection policies. One of the people who set those policies is the vice president of West Mifflin Borough Council: Jay Jabbour's wife, Arlene.
. . .
Needless to say, these are pretty thin arguments on which to build a campaign.
Now, I don't know Kortz. I've only met him once, briefly. And I haven't liked everything he's done. (The
Post-Gazette, while
endorsing Kortz for re-election, noted that he's a reformer who needs to deliver more reform. That sums up my feelings nicely.)
Nor are his hands spotless in the current campaign. Kortz's ads make a point of using Jay Jabbour's real first name, "Caleem."
Kortz is either implying that Jabbour isn't quite "American," or that Jabbour is hiding from something. Neither one is true.
I also didn't like Kortz's
unsuccessful attempt to get Jabbour's name taken off the ballot. Let the voters decide, Mr. Kortz. (Notice that I refrained from making a "courts"/"Kortz" pun.)
On the other hand, it's worth noting that Jabbour also used the courts to get his longtime political rival, former state representative and county councilman Richard Olasz Sr., removed from the ballot in 2001.
And I can understand why Kortz would pick up Jabbour's mud and fling it back at him. I would, too, in his position.
I'm also mostly satisfied with Kortz's performance after two years. I see no reason to toss him aside in favor of Jabbour, whose biggest claim to fame --- besides 16 years on West Mifflin borough council --- is being a
perennial pain in the rear-end to Dick Olasz.
"We can't ask the voters to do what they have refused to do seven times before," the
Post-Gazette says, adding that "Mr. Jabbour's attacks against Mr. Kortz in this race lack credibility."
True, dat.
. . .
Perhaps the funniest part of Jabbour's campaign is his slogan: "He's a keeper!"
Yep, he's such a dedicated public servant that he quit his county council seat to run unsuccessfully for state representative, then ran for county council again a year later.
So if Jabbour is a "keeper," then maybe we should keep
him in the Mon Valley, and send
Kortz back to Harrisburg.
By the way, in several ads, Jabbour calls Kortz "a promise breaker."
Considering the accusation comes from a guy who couldn't make up his mind whether he wanted to be on county council or in the state legislature, the irony is pretty thick.
April 19, 2008
Listen Up, Bitter People
If you're going to U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton's speech tonight in Renziehausen Park --- or, more likely, you're reading this after the fact --- I want to hear from you.
Yeah, I'd go myself, but I've been on the go since 6 a.m. Friday morning (minus a few hours' sleep Friday night), and I'm all in.
And yeah, maybe that's a poor excuse, but I don't get paid for doing this, you know.
Anyway, tell me what Sen. Clinton had to say, why you attended the rally, and whether you're voting for her. Email jtogyer@gmail.com.
Digital photos would be tres bien, too, as they say in high-class places like White Oak.
Also, city Councilman Paul Shelly reports that Clinton's opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, is also coming to Our Fair City.
Details are on Obama's campaign website:
Join Barack Obama at a Town Hall in McKeesport on Monday, April 21st.
On Track for Change Town Hall with Barack Obama
Penn State Greater Allegheny
Wunderley Gymnasium
4000 University Drive
McKeesport, PA 15132
Monday, April 21st
Doors open: 4:00 p.m.
Program Begins: 6:00 p.m.
The event is free and open to the public. However, seating is limited and tickets are required. Admission is on a first-come, first-served basis.
For security reasons, do not bring bags. Please limit personal belongings. No signs or banners permitted.
Same deal here: I have a real job, and I can't go. But if you go, I'd be interested in hearing from you.
April 17, 2008
What, Me Bitter?
Whenever I want to take the pulse of the Mon-Yough area, I don't look around and talk to my neighbors and friends.
No, I ask anti-Semite former Nixon speechwriters and failed presidential candidates.
Now, where can I find someone like that ... oh! Ladies and gentlemen, here's Pat Buchanan:
It was said behind closed doors to the chablis-and-brie set of San Francisco, in response to a question as to why he was not doing better in that benighted and barbarous land they call Pennsylvania.
Like Dr. Schweitzer, home from Africa to address the Royal Society on the customs of the upper Zambezi, Barack described Pennsylvanians in their native habitats of Atloona (sic), Alquippa (sic), Johnstown and McKeesport.
Wow, it only took Pat two sentences to work "Africa" into his column so that he could remind everyone that Barack Obama is black.
Incidentally, Pat's column was titled "Deepest, Darkest Pennsylvania." Just in case you
forgot that Barack Obama is black.
Pat continues:
In Barack's mind, black anger and resentment at "racial injustice and inequality" are "legitimate." But the anger and resentment of white folks, about affirmative action, crime and forced busing are born of misperceptions -- and of "bogus claims of racism" manipulated and exploited by conservative columnists and commentators to keep the racial pot boiling and retain power, so the right can continue to do the bidding of the corporations that are the real enemy.
You tell 'em, Pat! I wake up every day and curse the heavens that I was born a white male Christian American.
Why God, why? Why couldn't I have been a black Muslim lesbian in a wheelchair? I would have had so many advantages!
According to Pat, Barack Obama's an elitist. But Pat's the one who can't be bothered to correctly spell "Altoona" and "Aliquippa."
. . .
Meanwhile, Bob Braughler's favorite word continues to pop up in political stories about Pennsylvania.
Remember when you read these stories that it's Barack Obama who's looking down on us, not the national hot-shot reporters and politicians.
- Here's "hardscrabble" Allentown in the Chicago Tribune, while a different article, also in the Chicago Tribune, introduces us to the "working-class residents of hardscrabble towns in the valleys and mountains of southern Pennsylvania."
- The Los Angeles Times visits "hardscrabble" (and "gritty") Philadelphia neighborhoods, while the Huffington Post takes us to "hardscrabble" Altoona.
The Huffington Post is the outlet that broke the "Barack Obama is an elitist" story. Of course, it was founded by Arianna Huffington, whose own hardscrabble background includes her MA in economics from Cambridge.
- And here's the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, running a photo of Hillary Clinton in a Pittsburgh laboratory with the note that she's trying to appeal to "the hardscrabble working people of Pennsylvania."
You all remember the hardscrabble research chemists at Alcoa and PPG, and the hardscrabble bioscientists at UPMC, who take their lunch buckets down to their laboratories.
When I was a kid, my grandpappy used to take me to shift change time at the cyclotron, so I could watch the guys trudging through the clean room when the whistle blew.
- The U.K.'s Economist, in an article that will send the chamber of commerce types running for their Alka-Seltzer, says that "Pittsburgh feels decayed" and that the area is full of "beaten-up rustbelt towns":
Parts of Pennsylvania offer classic rustbelt fare --- battered by downsizing and fearful of change. The state was a cradle of America's industrial revolution, the home of robber barons such as Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. But today it is littered with shuttered factories and shrinking towns. It has seen the slowest population growth of any big state in the country.
What? Rusty? Shuttered? Battered? Why, take a look at the Mansfield Bridge, or Braddock Avenue in Braddock, and see if you can figure out what they're talking about. I sure can't!
Remember, we've reinvented ourselves, we have world-class this and that, Pittsburgh is America's most livable city, and blah blah blah.
- Last and certainly least, here's a blogger for New York's free Metro newspaper: "After all, this is Pennsylvania. And outside of the Obama-friendly confines of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, the rest of the state could very well be called Pennsyl-tucky. If it were located below the Mason-Dixon line, Pennsylvania's small-town electorate would be dubbed 'rednecks,' 'good old boys' or the 'NASCAR vote.' Instead, they're euphemistically called 'blue collar,' 'white ethnic' and 'Middle Americans.'"
And Barack Obama's the elitist. Not the New York-and-Washington-based media.
This is how we pick a president. Excuse me while I throw up.
. . .
Finally, a little birdie tells the
Almanac that a correspondent for Italy's national financial newspaper,
Il Sole 24 Ore, was in
Our Fair City this week, while a reporter from London's
Daily Telegraph was in Clairton.
At least you can get good Italian food in the Mon Valley. Where the hell do you get
bangers and mash?
April 15, 2008
Turnpike Gnomes
The backers of the Mon-Fayette Expressway and the Underpants Gnomes from "South Park" have a lot in common.
In a 1998 episode of the long-running animated series, one of the children discovers that tiny gnomes are stealing his underpants. When they're confronted, the gnomes reveal
their business plan:
- Collect underpants
- ?
- Profit!
Last night, the University of Pittsburgh's
William Pitt Debating Union hosted a forum on the Mon-Fayette Expressway at the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium in Oakland.
And like the underpants gnomes, those who spoke in favor of the MFX aren't quite sure what comes after "Phase 1: Build Highway," but in Phase 3, we're all wearing silk drawers.
. . .
In fairness, two of the speakers were students, and though neither was from Pittsburgh, they did a good job summarizing the various arguments, pro and con.
Pitt senior Colin Esgro, taking the "pro" side, compared the region's transportation system to a patient with clogged arteries.
"The heartbeat of Pittsburgh is still strong, but without a major bypass operation, our region may suffer serious cardiac arrest," he said.
Citing Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission studies, Esgro said the proposed expressway spur between Hazelwood and Monroeville would cut delays at the Squirrel Hill Tunnels by 75 percent.
He quoted figures from highway lobbying groups that claim every dollar spent on highways returns nearly $6 in social and economic benefit.
The completed expressway through West Mifflin, Dravosburg, Braddock, Turtle Creek and other municipalities would serve 715 businesses employing 25,000 people, Esgro said.
. . .
The student taking the con position, Pitt sophomore Richard Pittman, chided Esgro's "clogged arteries" metaphor as like "trying to perform open-heart surgery on a patient with high blood pressure."
The MFX is a myth, he said, like "the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot." In reality, Pittman said, "it has stood in the way of facing the real problems that confront the Mon Valley" by discouraging investment in
Hazelwood and
Braddock, where large sections of property would be needed for the expressway.
Even if the MFX was completed, he noted, brownfield sites in McKeesport, Duquesne, Clairton and East Pittsburgh would still be accessed via surface roads, which the toll road won't help.
In fact, they would likely become more congested around the toll road interchanges, Pittman said.
. . .
Esgro was a better advocate for the highway than
Lynn Heckman, assistant director of planning for Allegheny County's economic development office --- though again in fairness, Heckman was a last-minute substitute for Shawn Fox, chief of staff to Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato. Fox cancelled Monday afternoon due to illness.
Completing the MFX in Allegheny County "will serve the greatest ridership of any section," Heckman said, remove traffic from surface streets like Second Avenue in Hazelwood, and "most importantly, offer upgraded access and interchanges in Oakland, which is our region's major economic generator."
An aside: I'm not sure that Heckman's "most importantly" line should be taken literally. It was probably intended to help an audience of Pitt students, faculty and staff relate to the topic.
But it sure rings cold to people whose houses or businesses stand in the highway's path. My house is one block from the projected Dravosburg section of the road.
And it also adds strength to the argument that the MFX isn't really intended to help the Mon Valley --- it's to help Pittsburgh and East Hills commuters bypass the Mon Valley.
. . .
The MFX will make it easier to market the RIDC industrial parks in Duquesne and McKeesport and encourage existing businesses to stay in the Mon Valley, instead of relocating to areas with better highways, Heckman said.
Allegheny County's biggest request each year for community development funds is for demolishing old houses, she said.
"We should not be demolishing, we should be developing," she said. The MFX would support "in-fill" developments in older neighborhoods by making them attractive as bedroom communities, Heckman said.
But no one last night has any idea how to pay for the road. Last month, the Turnpike Commission
announced that it was seeking proposals from private companies to finish the road.
And obviously, there's no way to reliably estimate what development the MFX will actually generate in the Mon Valley.
Instead, like the Underpants Gnomes, MFX backers are hopeful that after the highway is complete, new development will happen and thus generate "profit!"
. . .
Opponents of the expressway often say the estimated $4 billion to $7 billion needed to complete the Allegheny County segments would be better used on other projects.
Heckman and Esgro noted that the Turnpike Commission can't spend money on non-toll road expenditures, and any federal or state dollars already pledged must be spent on the MFX.
But no one has even tried to raise any money for any other projects, noted Pittman's debating partner, Andrea Boykowycz of
PennFUTURE and the Oakland Planning and Development Corp.
Boykowycz, who has
posted comments about the MFX on
Tube City Almanac, is one of the highway's vocal critics.
Rather building on brownfields in places like McKeesport, Boykowycz said, creation of the MFX will allow developers to build on farms and wooded areas in Washington and Fayette counties, which are cheaper to develop because they don't have the environmental problems presented by old mill sites.
. . .
The Pittsburgh region has an $18 billion projected shortfall for infrastructure repairs over the next 30 years, she said.*
Onorato and other MFX backers would better serve the region by improving existing roads, bridges, and water and sewer lines in the Mon Valley, all of which desperately need repairs, Boykowycz said.
"Directing all of this attention to the MFX has really distracted people from raising money for this need," she said.
As for relieving traffic congestion on existing roads, Boykowycz said, "it's no wonder people are looking for alternatives --- the existing roads are in very bad shape."
"Trying to raise money for the Mon-Fayette at the expense of Route 51 is really a waste of time," she said.
. . .
Boykowycz is right, of course. No one from PennDOT, Allegheny County or any local municipality or council of governments has ever put together a comprehensive plan to revamp and improve roads like Braddock Avenue, Second Avenue, or routes 51, 885 and 837.
Since the 1960s, virtually all of the Mon Valley's business and civic leaders have been talking expressways, expressways, expressways, even as the Mansfield Bridge (to take one example)
crumbles around our ears.
Boykowycz calls it a failure of "political leadership" and a lack of "political courage."
. . .
Yet Boykowycz and other MFX opponents, including Braddock Mayor
John Fetterman, are fighting 100 years of automobile culture in the United States.
People may grumble about high gas prices, but they still like driving their cars.
People may dislike traffic, but they like new shopping centers and housing developments.
Two students last night questioned why developing greenfields in Washington and Fayette counties would be such a bad thing.
"You said that when the Parkway East was built, Monroeville developed overnight," one student said. "I'm from Uniontown, and I look at the Mon-Fayette as a big economic development (opportunity) for the whole region."
Boykowycz pointed out that spreading people further away from the city increases pollution and wastes fuel, and creates more expensive infrastructure that needs to be maintained.
"It's not sustainable development," she said.
. . .
But it's difficult to ask people to sacrifice an immediate near-term benefit to prevent a possible long-term consequence.
And today's political leaders, frankly, aren't worried about consequences that might develop 30 years from now, when they're out of office.
From a practical standpoint, it's also a lot easier to bid a coalition to support one big regional highway project than 1,000 little projects scattered all over the county.
So like the underpants gnomes of "South Park," the Turnpike Gnomes of Pennsylvania keep tunneling away.
Maybe some day in the future, when (if?) the highway is built, we'll find the Mon Valley full of "profit!"
Or we'll find ourselves standing around without any underpants, waving at the cars as they drive by.
(more)
April 14, 2008
It's Not a House, It's a Home
Even if you're by yourself, you're never lonely in the
Blueroof Technologies "model home" on Spring Avenue in the city.
Open the front door, and "Amy" announces your arrival. Turn on the bathtub faucet, and Amy announces that, too. Use the cabinets, the stove or the refrigerator, and Amy tells you right away. She doesn't miss much.
"Sometimes what Amy says drives us crazy," jokes John Bertoty, executive director of Blueroof, whose offices are on the home's second floor.
He and the other members of the non-profit corporation's small staff get to hear the voice of "Amy" --- a digital speech synthesizer, run by a computer in the basement --- all day long.
But Blueroof employees aren't the only one listening to Amy. The federal government is listening, too.
. . .
Next month, U.S. Rep. John Murtha, a Johnstown Democrat and one of the most powerful members of Congress, will be testing out Blueroof's newest project --- a special assisted-living cottage for wounded Iraq War veterans.
Equipped with technology that allows disabled or partially paralyzed vets to live independently, it can be attached to an existing house, saving their families tens of thousands of dollars in expensive modifications.
The Blueroof "Independence Module" will be exhibited May 29 and 30 at Johnstown's
Showcase for Commerce. Using the onboard "telemedicine" equipment, Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, will have his vital signs checked by a doctor 166 miles away at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Murtha spokesman Matthew Mazonkey confirmed to the
Almanac that the congressman will be touring the Blueroof module, but it's not known exactly which day.
. . .
People in the Mon Valley have heard a lot of promises over the years about miracle start-up companies with can't-miss high-technology projects. Most of them were never completed.
Blueroof isn't a pie-in-the-sky proposal. The model home was built three years ago. Since then, a for-profit subsidiary of Blueroof has erected 10 more homes in the city, Elizabeth Township, North Versailles Township, White Oak and other suburbs.
Each is equipped with some variation of technology that enables people with physical disabilities to live on their own.
Ground will be broken for the newest Blueroof home this Wednesday in the
Third Ward. It'll be used by faculty and students from Pitt and Carnegie Mellon to gather data for gerontology research.
And there's more to come.
. . .
What's so special about Blueroof's model home? It looks like a thousand other frame houses in McKeesport.
OK, it's a lot
newer than most of them. (More than 80 percent of the city's housing was built before 1960, and nearly half is from before World War II, according to the U.S. Census.)
The point is that the model house blends nicely with an older urban community. It also wouldn't look out of place in a new suburban development.
Even inside, the voice of "Amy" is the only obvious difference between the Blueroof house and the average comfortable older home in Myer Park or Port Vue.
That's by design. The technology in the walls of the model home is designed to be "invisible" to occupants, Bertoty says.
. . .
Under the surface, the Blueroof house is a very sophisticated dwelling, designed to allow independent living to people who have restricted mobility, including those with degenerative muscle diseases or who have lost the use of their limbs to accidents.
"Senior citizens don't want to be warehoused," says Bertoty, retired principal of McKeesport Area High School. "When we talked to seniors, we found they really wanted to connect with what goes on in their neighborhoods. They want to connect with young people. That really belies what we've been doing with senior high-rises and so forth."
Unfortunately, the typical 1920s or '30s "four-square" Mon Valley home isn't easily modified to accommodate a wheelchair or a walker. The bathroom is on the second floor; the hallways are narrow; the kitchen cabinets are too high; the bathtub is hard to climb into.
The model home has more than 1,000 square feet of accessible living space. Kitchen cabinets are wheelchair accessible. A person in a wheelchair or walker can get into the bathroom just by rolling over a small lip.
. . .
All this is fine, but what's with "Amy" and all of the sensors?
Well, if you're living alone, what happens if you fall and become incapacitated?
What happens if you have a chronic illness and lapse into unconsciousness?
If you don't have a regular caregiver or close family, it could be days before you're found.
Or what happens if you're suffering from memory loss? Maybe you started making dinner, got distracted, and forgot you left the oven on. Carbon monoxide poisoning or a fire could result.
In a house equipped with Blueroof technology, caregivers anywhere in the world can monitor sensors remotely, over the Internet. Conditions like a faucet left running, or an oven left turned on, trigger alarms.
And there are sensors in and around the bed. If you don't get up and move around every day, they know that something's gone wrong, and they can summon help.
. . .
Most of the sensors are simple off-the-shelf components like motion detectors and water-flow detectors --- but can provide a surprising amount of data, Bertoty says.
"If you haven't opened the refrigerator for a couple of days, you're probably not eating," he says.
The model home is also equipped with remote-controlled video cameras, but Bertoty says most clients want to maintain their privacy and don't ask for cameras.
And with the help of components from Nintendo's Wii video game system, doctors can even provide physical and occupational therapy from anywhere in the world.
Reading data from the
Wii game controllers, which measure real-life force and velocity, enables physical therapists to ensure that patients are doing their exercises properly, and evaluate their progress.
. . .
Using off-the-shelf parts and pre-fabricated housing components keeps the cost of a Blueroof home low.
A house like the model cottage can be assembled for the same cost or less than a so-called "stick built" home, according to Bertoty.
The independence module for disabled veterans costs about $50,000, plus site preparation. Bertoty says the cost has to be weighed against the expense of modifying an existing home for wheelchair accessibility.
In January, the independence module was trailered to Walter Reed, where doctors and researchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs spent several days evaluating it.
And more than 300,000 people toured the independence module during the Pittsburgh Home and Garden Show in March.
More tests are coming, and the new "research cottage" will go a long way toward securing the funding Blueroof needs to take its work to the next level.
"We believe this technology can help support people, but now we have to prove it," Bertoty says.
. . .
Coming Wednesday in the
Almanac: Blueroof's proposed role in economic development ... and in the
rebirth of the city's Third Ward.
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.