Once Bitten, Twice Tried
On its second try, the city has finally made Carole Wiedmann pay for the crime of finding herself too near a police dog. Wiedmann, 68, of Ohio Township, was part of a crowd of more than 100 people at an Oakland anti-military recruitment demonstration on Aug. 20 last year. After city, Port Authority and…
AbortionReport touches off dispute over “fake” family-planning clinics
A national report, released last month, has rekindled a long-running dispute between local abortion providers and the so-called “crisis pregnancy care centers” that oppose abortion. The report, “False and Misleading Health Information Provided by Federally Funded Pregnancy Resource Centers,” was commissioned by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). It states that crisis pregnancy centers…
Casey rejects sex-columnist contribution
In the 2006 election fundraising battle, Senator Rick Santorum leads his Democratic rival, Bob Casey, by nearly $10 million. But apparently, Casey is feeling secure enough to turn donations away. Syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage sent the Casey campaign a check for $2,100, the maximum individual donation allowed under campaign finance…
Young activists leave town … and actually come back
A contingent of about 30 Pittsburgh activists, many members of Pittsburgh’s League of Young Voters, spent the weekend of July 21st in Chicago at the National Hip-Hop Political Convention. Attendees said the weekend of panel discussions and performances served mainly to rededicate them to their mission of educating and empowering themselves…
Miami Vice
The sun has been beating down relentlessly, turning our brains to mid-summer mush. In theory, it’s the ideal time for Miami Vice, a film adaptation of the popular 1980s television show that reveled in bikinis, sunshine, bad-boy cops, colorful drug lords, speedboats and an entertainingly cheesy pastel-and-neon style. If only this dour, two-hour-plus…
The Night Listener
For a mish-mash of recondite themes, a cast of impressive actors and a few chills, you won’t find a better movie this summer than The Night Listener. That’s too bad. Based on a book by Armistead Maupin, and directed by the interesting Patrick Stettner (The Business of Strangers), it’s finally less than meets…
Scoop
Back in his prime, Woody Allen was what Grammy Hall would call a real Jew: He told wryly self-effacing jokes with an Old Testament sense of vengeance and a vaudevillian sense of awareness. But for well over a decade now, his movies have been more and more … oh, what’s the…
JOHN TUCKER MUST DIE
When three high school girls discover each has been “exclusively” dating campus hotshot John Tucker, they band together to humiliate him. Their proven strategy: Making over the dull girl to be his new conquest and subsequent comeuppance. Betty Thomas’ muddled comedy of manners hopes for a satiric edge, a la Mean Girls, but misses that…
SHADOWBOXER
It’s rare that a film is bad all the way through … from the dated artiness of its opening, and primal, scene, right through to its inexplicable conclusion (also a primal scene!). But Lee Daniels’ turgid, vaguely noir-ish melodrama about a pair of hitmen … Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr., both utterly unconvincing ……
Small ScreenOn the Outs
There’s no shortage of films about young men on the street. Young men in the hood, we’re told in these sagas, are simply marked for thug life, and little else. The women in these stories are one-note fringe players characterized by their relationship to the men (sexual trophy, griping baby-momma). That’s…
In Persuasion Nation
There are two reasons to read In Persuasion Nation, the new collection of short stories by George Saunders. One, you will laugh your plump little ass off: Saunders is likely the funniest writer of contemporary fiction going. Two, while you’re laughing you’ll get a dose of satire that’s as corrosive as it is…
New York Dolls
Stop crying in your beer and buy this record … but buy the limited edition. If you’re having trouble visualizing how the first New York Dolls studio album in 32 years comes about, the bonus DVD goes a long way toward answering such questions. Though once you see glammy ol’ David Johansen working…
The Long Winters
For the past five years, John Roderick has made a name for himself in indie-pop circles as the perfectionist epicenter of the group The Long Winters. And, except for bassist Eric Corson, he’s managed to drive out all his band members. With the third record, Putting the Days to Bed, it’s easy to see…
Contents Under Pressure
In 1869, H.J. Heinz launched his company with just one product: horseradish. At that time, he wasn’t even selling ketchup, let alone such global kitchen brands as Bagel Bites, Ore-Ida and Wyler’s. Heinz started with one product and one crucial idea … transparency. His competitors often used green vessels to hide the fillers that were…
Ma Provençe
Location: 2032 Murray Ave., Squirrel Hill. 412-521-2925 Hours: Mon.-Sat. 5-10 p.m. Prices: Soup and appetizers $6-12; entrées $14-28 Fare: Southern French Atmosphere: French village bistro Liquor: Limited bar, wine and BYOB ($10 corkage) Smoking: None permitted While everyone else may sing the praises of Paris in the springtime, July is the month we are in…
A Conversation with Caitlin Lenahan
Caitlin Lenahan, 25, has found the perfect “pets.” They don’t make any noise; they don’t smell or need to be walked. Best of all, they eat garbage, keeping it out of landfills and turning it into rich fertilizer. She shares her Greenfield home with a plastic trash can full of worms, who compost…
Filter Tip
We’re all fighting many wars. The culture war. The political war. The war over whether to go to new wars. The war over whether to leave old wars. And then there are those poor bastards fighting on the front lines of the real wars. What’s frustrating about most of these wars is that nobody’s winning.…
Barbed Wiring
When Terrell Montgomery moved into his new apartment in Highland Park last July, he thought all he needed to fork out was the first and last month’s rent. But when Montgomery applied to have gas turned on, he got an unpleasant surprise: Equitable Gas sought a security deposit of $448, even more than…
Hack-neyed Debate Over “Thursday Morning Massacre”
When I first heard Mayor Bob O’Connor had fired three of his top aides — chief of staff B.J. Leber, Solicitor Susan Malie, and Finance Director Paul Leger — I was looking forward to being outraged. O’Connor had ousted three respected professionals, two of whom were women! Once again, Pittsburgh’s “good old boys” had reared…
The Rich Are Different
From a list of personal possessions for which Margaret “Ritchie” Scaife is suing her husband, Richard Mellon Scaife. The suit, filed in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court on June 12 and first reported in the July 26 City Paper, pits the publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review against his second wife, whose lawyer says…
