Category: default || By jt3y

Ryan Kuntz of Regent Square, writing the guest "Rant" this week's City Paper, has the right idea:

I live very close to the intersection of Forbes Avenue and Braddock Avenue. A couple of months ago with the election closing in, a group of people took over that intersection every Saturday morning to support their candidate and hold up the evil “honk for” signs to get other people to honk in favor of their candidate. With me living so close and all, I would be woken up every Saturday morning with the sound of hundreds of cars honking and honking and honking. ...

Why are you honking?! What does that accomplish? If you honk to show support, the guy holding the sign already supports what you support. You’re not going to gain support for anything by honking at a guy who supports what you support, so just give him the thumbs-up and be done with it. Anyone that’s not right there isn’t going to know what you are honking at anyway. For all they know you were scaring a blind raccoon off the road.

I noticed this phenomenon over the last election, too. It's not exactly new --- picketers have long asked passing motorists to honk in support of their strikes, and if you grew up in the Mon-Yough area in the '70s and '80s, you saw your share of picket lines.

But it's one thing to honk in order to cheer up 12 cranky, cold, tired steelworkers, huddled in the rain alongside a burn barrel on the side of a state highway. It's a whole other thing to honk in support of a political candidate who might be 2,000 miles away. How does he or she know you're honking? And what exactly are you demonstrating by honking your horn in support of some candidate, other than 1.) You support the candidate, and 2.) You're not willing to do anything tangible to show that support.

Want to support a political candidate? Put a bumper sticker on your car. Put a sign in your yard. Put a check in the mail. Put on your shoes and go door to door, drumming up interest in your cause. But the honking thing is a waste of your time and my precious silence.

And another thing: If someone cuts you off in traffic, a simple warning "toot!" is sufficient. Don't sit there like a numbskull and lean on your horn: BLA-A-A-A-A-ATTTT! Any sympathy that the surrounding motorists and pedestrians might have had for you melts fairly quickly.

Even better than the road-ragers who lean on their horns are the ones who, having been cut off, stop their cars in the lane and start blowing the horn repeatedly: BLA-A-A-A-A-TTT!!! BLA-A-A-A-A-ATTT! BLLA-A-A-A-ATT!

Great. You're mad about someone being rude in traffic, so you decide to answer that rudeness by blocking everyone else and annoying them.

Close cousins to these Raging Horny Motorists are the ones who, confronted by a traffic jam, begin leaning on their horns. As if their horns are magical devices that will vaporize the cars in front of them.

Pennsylvania's vehicle code specifies that all cars and trucks must have "audible warning devices," but doesn't necessarily say when they can and can't be used. Some communities have passed noise ordinances forbidding "excessive" horn-blowing; I'd guess that the state's disorderly conduct law, which prohibits people from making "unreasonable noise," including on highways, would take care of serial horn blowers in other municipalities, though I'd bet money that few, if any, people are ever issued a disorderly conduct citation for honking their horns too much.

Besides, I don't know that legislation or law enforcement should be necessary to take care of a problem that's just a matter of common sense --- and common decency.

It all brings to mind a great World War II cartoon by the late Bill Mauldin; two long columns of jeeps, halftracks, deuce-and-a-halfs and tanks have come to a crossroads in a narrow mountain pass. Bombs are dropping all around from planes flying overhead.

At the front of one of the lines of vehicles sits a lieutenant in a jeep, and a weary MP, directing traffic, is leaning over to him. "Thanks, sir," he says, "what we really needed was someone blowin' his horn."

So, for all of you horn-dogs who feel it's necessary to go around voicing your support of various political causes or demonstrating your displeasure with your fellow motorists, here are two simple words: Bus pass. Try it. We'll all be happier.

Or, if the state doesn't bail the transit authority out, how about these two words: Prefrontal lobotomy.

...

Speaking of noise --- no, not really, but I needed a transition --- Our Fair City's "Henny & The Versa J's" has been nominated for a Grammy award. Their record "Come On Over" is up for consideration as top polka album of the year, reports Melissa Spangler in the Post-Gazette.

Ah-wunnerful, ah-wunnerful! (You can buy the record here.)

...

In other local news of note, Penn State McKeesport Campus reports that James B. Stewart, a professor of labor studies, industrial relations and African and African-American studies there, and a former PSU vice provost, has published "Flight: In Search of Vision." The book chronicles the evolution of African-American studies in U.S. universities.

The reviews have been positive, with a scholar at Temple University calling the book's premise "some of the best thinking about the theoretical implications of African-American Studies" and saying Stewart is "among the top ranks of comprehensive African scholars."

You can buy the book by emailing Professor Stewart, or by clicking on this link (in which case Tube City Online gets a share of the sale, whoo-hoo!).

...

And speaking of professors, over at Pittsblog, Michael Madison talks briefly about McKeesport Area School District's decision to hire the former superintendent of South Allegheny, specifically as it relates to the ongoing dustup in Caketown's schools. More on that tomorrow.

... I know, try to contain your enthusiasm.

...

Finally, as all good "Peanuts" fans know, it's Beethoven's Birthday. Celebrate by watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" tonight at 8 on ABC.