Category: default || By jt3y

It's About Time: We all know it. Stanley Denton, a member of the state Board of Control overseeing Duquesne School District, is finally saying it publicly.

Denton tells Mary Niederberger of the Post-Gazette that West Mifflin Area School District's day-late, dollar-short proposal to manage Duquesne High School is a con game:

"This plan feeds on the pain and agony that the [Duquesne] community is experiencing over losing their high school and it gives them a false sense of hope that maybe there is a way that they can keep their school," said Dr. Denton, an assistant professor of education at Point Park University.

"They are not interested in helping Duquesne residents to keep their school open. This plan is created to keep the Duquesne students out of West Mifflin."

Meanwhile, a new study from the University of Pittsburgh indicates that the Pittsburgh metropolitan area is one of the most segregated in the country, and that African-Americans in Western Pennsylvania get paid less and get worse job opportunities than black residents in other regions.

That's not necessarily related to the Duquesne-West Mifflin situation, right?

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Alleghenee Genac Genac Genac: Speaking of Pitt, a couple of people from the Mon-Yough area will be inaugurated today into the university's prestigious "Cathedral of Learning Society," which honors philanthropists who have donated more than a million dollars:

• Dr. Thomas E. Cadman was born in Homestead and graduated from McKeesport High School. He began his medical career at McKeesport Hospital. Cadman later became a clinical professor of pediatrics at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and a researcher and director of pediatric neurology at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa. He died in March 2006.



• Thomas Usher, former president, CEO and chairman of the board of U.S. Steel, spent an early part of his 41-year career with the corporation as a management trainee at National Works in McKeesport. He and his wife, Sandra, have directed their recent efforts toward raising and donating money for cancer research.



• Gordon Vanscoy of Irwin is associate dean of Pitt's School of Pharmacy and a professor of pharmacy and therapeutics. The author of more than 200 scientific papers, Vanscoy is a highly sought-after consultant in pharmaceutical education and training; he and his wife, Bethann, have established an endowed chair and an endowment fund at the school of pharmacy.

They'll join other inductees, including Arnold Palmer, at a by-invitation-only ceremony in Oakland tonight.

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A Reminder: Opinions expressed at the Almanac do not represent those of the University of Pittsburgh, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball, or the members of the Coulter Uplift Society.

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Holiday Ro-o-o-o-o-ad: In a lengthy profile, the Boston Globe recounts how Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential hopeful, strapped the family dog inside a car carrier on the roof of the family's Chevy station wagon during a vacation trip in the early 1980s. The dog relieved himself all over the roof.

Maybe Mitt Romney's family thought that the anecdote was endearing and sweet. To me it's just creepy, and it makes him sound like a control freak. You'd strap your dog to the roof of the Wagon Queen Family Truckster and then take off down the highway?

Besides, his father was the one-time president of AMC. What was he doing driving a Chevy in the early 1980s? He should have had a Jeep Grand Wagoneer.

Now there's a vehicle that an Irish setter would be proud to pee on.

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CQ CQ K3RAP: I promised to post a couple of audio excerpts from last weekend's ARRL Field Day. First, a little explanation. After making an antenna from 100 feet of bailing wire (cost, four dollars at Able True Value Home Center in North Versailles), I took my 1967-vintage Heathkit GR-54 shortwave radio out onto the back porch and hooked it up.

I bought the old beast at a flea market about 15 years ago. I've got a new digital radio I could have used, but it was a nice, cool Saturday evening and I thought the nostalgia value of sitting with a bottle of beer and smelling the dust cooking on the vacuum tubes would be pleasant.

Well. It wasn't a high-end radio "back in the day," and it was positively lousy when literally thousands of ham radio operators were trying to contact each other on Saturday night. What you'll hear in the two excerpts are lots of people talking on top of each other (it's not a particularly sensitive or selective radio) and me trying to clarify what they're saying with the fine tuning knobs.

(Clip 1, Clip 2)

As I said earlier this week, it was like trying to catch butterflies with a bulldozer. But it was a fun experiment, and maybe I'll go out again this Saturday night if the weather is nice and see what's "on the wind."

Depending on my frustration level, it's liable to be the radio itself when I throw it across the back yard. It should make one heck of a "thud."

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To Do This Weekend: The U.S. Army Field Band and Soldiers' Chorus will perform at a free concert tonight at 1900 hours ... er, 7 p.m. ... at the bandshell in Renziehausen Park.