Category: default || By jt3y

A big announcement rocked the Western Pennsylvania media world overnight. A man who's become a fixture on the local scene announced he was stepping aside to get on with his life's work; he's been controversial at times, but I've very much admired his spirit and fearlessness.

No, not that guy, I'm talking about Dave Copeland:

Today marks the end of my nearly three year experiment with the personal blog. ... Blogs are the new email, and I do not want to be one of those annoying people who forwards you the same cute message, link or scam that all the other annoying people have already sent you. Silence is increasingly golden, especially in a world where anyone can have their own electronic column.

I will miss it --- and especially the great people who have emailed, left comments or just been generally supportive of the whole thing. And I won’t stop blogging; but future blogs will be focused and have a purpose beyond the reckless self-promotion that characterized this blog.

Personally, I have no plans to stop being an annoying person, so I'm going to keep doing this as long as possible. Tube City Online has been around since 1995, but the Almanac is only about 18 months old. I started it because when I left daily journalism, I needed something to force myself to write every day. (I've come to detest the word "blog." This is more of a free local newspaper column that doesn't rub off on your hands. Of course, you can't take it into the john either, although some people say that at least you could put it behind you that way. But I digress.)

As I've mentioned before, Dave's site has been something of an inspiration to me --- reading his stuff back in ought-two definitely convinced me that I should be doing something similar. And while Dave and I have very different writing styles and interests, like him, I am and remain a "surly (bad word)."

So, although I'll miss his daily musings, I salute him, and wish him well on several exciting new ventures; among them, his new site called Freelance Daily, and his book project.

Just be grateful this isn't an audio blog, because then, I'd be singing this:

And now, the end is near
And so we face the final bloggage,
Where once, he felt inspired,
Now views his page as dismal cloggage.
Yet still, he writes with style ---
Which is to say, not in a news way,
But more, much more than this:
He did it Dave's way ...

Thank you! Thank you very much! Groupies always welcome!

...

In the news in the News: Pat Cloonan last week had community reaction to the announcement that Rev. Paul Bradley, a Glassport native, was being elevated to auxiliary bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.

"Glassport was a wonderful community in those days, and still is," said the son of the late John and Cecelia Bradley. "The focus of our life very much was the church, St. Cecelia's parish in Glassport. Our family was very involved in the life of the parish and it became a part of our family existence." ...

The family ties aren't intertwined quite as much these days in Glassport - of Bradley's seven siblings and 12 nieces and nephews, only one niece is still there, a member of Queen of the Rosary who lives with her family along Monongahela Avenue.

But there are other Mon-Yough ties for the bishop-elect, a member of boards of McKeesport's Auberle and its Pauline Auberle Foundation.

...

In other business, I've been trying to avoid TV news --- I've damaged too many TV sets from throwing old shoes at them --- but I happened to catch KDKA's 10 p.m. cast the other night.

What do you suppose was the headline on a story about the woman who was murdered by someone who then stole her unborn baby?

Try "WOMB RAIDER."

Good grief. I'm not sure that even the New York Post would use a headline like that. KDKA has entered National Enquirer territory. Somewhere, Bill Burns is hyperventilating.

...

From the Tube City Almanac's National Affairs Desk, Department of Radio Monitoring, comes word of this report on National Public Radio about President Bush's press conference the other day. The NPR correspondent said that the President was "surprisingly frank" in assessing the difficult situation in Iraq, and noted that the substance of his remarks differed substantially from what he was saying a few months ago; namely, that the war in Iraq was going well, and that freedom was on the march.

"What changed?" the NPR talking head asked another talking head.

Gee, like her, I wonder what changed? Before the election, everything in Iraq was going so well, according to the President and his advisors. Boy oh boy, this is indeed a stumper. I may need to think about this puzzle for a while.

More on the press conference that wasn't:

The president got a tad petulant when fielding questions on Social Security. His emphatic response to any and all queries about his position on the subject was an indignant, righteous refusal to answer: “You’re not going to get me to negotiate with myself,” he repeatedly told the perplexed reporters. “I know what you’re trying to get me to do. You’re trying to get me to answer ‘Why this,’ ‘why that,’ to take positions -- don’t bother to ask me.” (Sam Rosenfeld, The American Prospect)

The nerve of these liberal hacks! Going to a press conference and thinking they can ask questions of the President! And expecting him to take positions on issues! Who do they think he is, a world leader or something?

One might wonder that if 51 percent of Americans thought this guy was a better choice for President than Yawn Kerry, then just how incompetent and useless of a candidate was Kerry?

"Pretty darned incompetent and useless," comes the obvious response.

...

Internet time-wasters: Michael Jackson's "Thriller," re-enacted in Lego blocks, and Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life," done in thirty seconds by bunnies. (For the first one, you'll need to open that link in Windows Media Player, for the second, you'll need a built-in Flash player.)