Organizers are firming up plans for Saturday's second-annual "Rally in the Valley" to end violence.
Events start at 12 noon at Stephen Barry Field in Renziehausen Park and run until 6 p.m.
The rally will combine entertainment, inspirational speakers, crafts and food "in a Christian atmosphere," says Alease Paige, one of the leaders of Mon Valley Concerned Citizens.
Scheduled speakers include Doug McCracken, pastor of McKeesport Alliance Church; Rev. Hazel Garland of Zion Apostolic Assembly; Dr. Rani Kumar, emergency medical physician at UPMC McKeesport; and youth organizers from across the Mon-Yough area.
The speakers will be trying to encourage teens and young adults to stay away from drugs and crime, and focus on educational opportunities and jobs.
In addition to Paige, other organizers of the rally include the Rev. Earlene Coleman, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church; Luethel Nesbit of the OIC; Gerald "Puddin" Grayson, teacher and basketball coach at McKeesport Area High School; Pete Giacalone, pastor of Rainbow Temple Assembly of God; and Bobby Walker.
Mayor Jim Brewster, Allegheny County Councilman Bob Macey, and Bob Hammond of The Daily News have also pledged their support, Paige says. The mayor's office has been "a staunch supporter," she says.
For younger children, clowns and costumed characters will be working the crowd; for their parents or older siblings, UPMC will present information about HIV testing and anti-smoking help, volunteers will be registering new voters, and homemade craft items will be on sale.
McKeesport Weed and Seed also will be on hand with a child ID program, Paige says.
Food vendors on hand will be selling barbecue, fish, hot dogs, hot sausage, funnel cakes, lemonade, French fries and desserts, and other items, she says.
It's been a busy week, but luckily, we have sponsors like the new Pittsburgh version of "Family Feud," debuting soon on WRCT-TV:
"Family Feud, Pittsburgh Style" (952 KB, MP3)
(Editor's Note: This is an adventure in navel-gazing. People who don't care about listening to me bloviate should probably go somewhere more fun.)
. . .
On Wednesday morning, before I'd even finished my first cup of coffee, an article from the Post-Gazette got up my nose.
It talked about an incident at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's main branch in Oakland. On one of the library's entrances, someone using spray paint scrawled a phrase from T.S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
Most of the article, headlined "Line from T.S. Eliot poem intrigues literature buffs," speculated on why that particular poem was chosen, noting that it had "stirred the whimsy of the city's literature buffs."
Over at The Burgh Blog, PittGirl was aggravated, too. She imagined the internal monologue of the vandal or vandals: "This is why we do what we do. The chance to be famous. To be somebody. The chance to see our art in the newspaper and to have that newspaper speak to college literature professors about what our motivation might have been for that particular choice of a quote."
Yeah, that's about how I reacted, too.
. . .
So I emailed the author:
Perhaps I'm too cynical, but I find nothing intriguing or poetic about someone spray-painting the steps of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.
As a journalist, I understand that this story was worth covering. But with respect, I question whether your piece in this morning's paper struck the right notes. I had to read to the eighth paragraph before you called this incident what it really is --- vandalism. (The Tribune-Review nailed it in the first three words.)
If a bank robber quotes Shakespeare after pistol-whipping a teller, I wouldn't compliment him on his tortured artistic soul.
By quoting literary experts, you're granting legitimacy to something that is essence a crime --- and one against an important public institution. Our RAD tax money will be spent to scrub away someone else's "art" when it could be spent on after-school or literacy programs.
When I think of the few hundred dollars that it costs Carnegie Library each time some "street artist" makes a "meta-allusion" to T.S. Eliot, it doesn't "stir my whimsy." It just makes me mad.
Because it was a "riff" (to use my editor's words) and not standard journalism, I took full liberties to indulge my own views.
I realize that we're coming at this from very different viewpoints. But as you work on your thesis, I think it's important to keep in mind the feelings of the people whose property is being transgressed by "graffiti artists," and yes, I'm using scare quotes, because I don't consider it "art."
I hope you're interviewing some of the recipients of this "art," because many of them feel violated, just the way someone feels after their home is burglarized.
All meaningful art is transgressive of some boundaries, but where a provocative poem, painting or sculpture might disrupt someone's emotional viewpoint, graffiti "art" causes actual physical damage to their possessions.
Maybe the victims of "graffiti art" get upset because they have an unnatural attachment to their objects, but maybe they also get upset because they're on a fixed income, and the graffiti "artist" has just cost them time and money they can ill afford.
I can understand why a graffiti "artist" might lash out at an institution like the police or a major corporation, because they represent authority figures and possible repression.
Targeting a library or a private homeowner, however, seems less like a statement about society, and more like needless cruelty and thoughtlessness.
Most artists create to express something in their souls; if graffiti vandals are "artists," and feel the need to inflict pain on people to express themselves, then there's something very ugly inside them.
And now, we pause for a transparent attempt to take your money an important message of interest.
I noticed the other day that Shop 'n Save, Foodland, Giant Eagle and even my local grocery store, The House of Rancid Lunchmeat, are all selling reusable grocery bags made out of canvas.
And I said to myself, "How can I cash in on this trend help conserve our country's precious natural resources?"
Introducing Tube City Online's answer to the grocery bag problem. It's also suitable if you need a matched set of "hunky suitcases" for your summer vacation.
I'm making a whopping 98 cents on each one, so please, feel free to buy several. Send 'em to your relatives. Take 'em to Whole Foods for a little reverse snob appeal, and when you see the free-range, organically grown, carbon-neutral, sustainable citrus soft drinks, say, "Hey! Ain't yinz got no Lemon Blennd?!"
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