Category: Mon Valley Miscellany, Our Far-Flung National Correspondents, Politics || By

Easter snuck up on us this year, didn't it? As Jack Bogut noted this week, he hasn't gotten all of the tinsel out of his living room carpet yet, and now it's full of plastic grass.

It didn't sneak up on people who use Skyline Drive in West Mifflin, of course, because city physician Rudy Antoncic and his wife have put up their bunny display again. Frankly, I look forward to this annual tradition more than I do the NCAA basketball tournament.

If the weather stays nice today, drive up and take a look. Because if the weatherman's right and the snow starts to fly tonight, you may only see the tops of the bunnies' ears tomorrow.

Nevertheless, it's Good Friday, and I don't really feel like tackling any serious issues today. Let's have some fun instead.

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Vocabulary Test: In last week's issue of the Valley Mirror, editor Tony Munson coined some new words that he thinks the Mon Valley needs:

• Kennymilk --- To assess a tax on only one business in a municipality


• Borosack --- The firing of a borough manager, solicitor, police chief or other department head following a change of borough council president


• Ravenstile --- An elected official who behaves like a 10th grader


• Silbergone --- A business that moves out of a municipality because of high taxes


• Minimunist --- A person who believes that the smaller a municipality --- and therefore the more numerous --- the better


• Isodemolists --- People who believe passionately in a one-party political system and fight hard to keep representatives of any other party from serving on municipal councils and school boards.

Heh heh heh. Between Munson's editorials, Jim O'Brien's column and the chicken-dinner local news items, my Valley Mirror might be the best 50 cents I spend each week.

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That's What I Want: OK, so I promised to keep things light, but the Angry Drunk Bureaucrat summed up my feelings this week when he said, "Anyway, this whole recent economic ... erm ... s---storm, has me nauseous, scared, and frankly trying to figure out how to capture and eat squirrels from my neighbor's yard."

"I'm worried less about a recession than inflation," James Lileks wrote on Monday. "I'm worried most about a recession, inflation and a jolly round of trade wars, coupled with fragile banks, overcapacity, diminished consumer confidence and aggressive messianic collectivism. Something about that smells familiar. I love studying the thirties and forties, but not first hand."

Of course, Lileks comes at these things from a fairly neoconservative point of view. (The "messianic collectivism" line is a shot at Ron Paul and Barack Obama, methinks.) I love the guy, and I've bought several of his books as gifts for people, but he views the world through Hugh Hewitt-tinted glasses.

As a mushy-headed liberal, something smelled familiar to me in the 1990s about the aggressive drive to privatize utilities, allow banks to sell securities and insurance, provide stock market access to amateurs, and lend money to people unqualified for credit.

But I share Lileks' feeling that the Great Depression is something best experienced secondhand.

So last year, when I read John Kenneth Galbraith's The Great Crash: 1929 and Robert T. Patterson's The Great Boom and Panic, I got a real sick feeling in my stomach. Since then I've been trying to sock away some money in a savings account and pay off my credit cards as fast as I can.

The good news, I suppose, is that if another Depression hits, parts of the Mon Valley won't be able to tell the difference.

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No, No, A Thousand Times No: Well, that was a sour note. So here's something light: I dare you to watch this. Egad.

By the way, I have no nostalgia for the 1970s. None. Zero. And that video is a reason why.

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To Do This Weekend: Happy Easter! If you're looking for a local church, we have a semi-complete list here. And if you have an event going on this weekend, post it in the comments below.