Driving While Black Still Tough for Iraq Vet
A Green Tree traffic stop has reopened war wounds for one Iraq War veteran freshly arrived in Pittsburgh. In August 2004, Liberian immigrant Joseph Jakey Brown suffered spinal injuries and nerve damage fighting for the U.S. Army in Iraq. Today he continues to experience depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. On Nov. 13, Brown was…
Betting on Addiction
Before the state’s first slot machine is plugged in or the first dollar is spent under Pennsylvania’s gambling laws, state leaders have admitted that gambling will harm some citizens and their families. The legislature’s acknowledgement appears 112 pages into the July 2004 gambling law: The measure sets aside $1.5 million of…
Arch Rivals
Start talking about bridges, and the metaphors threaten to take over the substance of the conversation. Bridge the gap. Burn your bridges. Build a bridge to the future. The language of bridges tends to overpower other ideas. If you think these turns of phrase are easy to avoid, well, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.…
The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right
For me, one of the few bright spots of the 2004 election was an attack ad whose target was … Jesus Christ. The ad, a parody circulated on the Internet, quoted Jesus’ famous injunction to turn the other cheek. Such language, the narrator sneered, proved that Jesus was “soft on terror,…
Carson Street
Anne Carson can freeze your bones while she breaks your heart. “Light on brick walls and a north wind whipping the branches black,” she writes in “Methinks the Poor Town Has Been Troubled Too Long.” “Shadow draws the gut of the light out dry against its palm. Eat your soup, mother, wherever you are in…
Betting on Addiction
Before the state’s first slot machine is plugged in or the first dollar is spent under Pennsylvania’s gambling laws, state leaders have admitted that gambling will harm some citizens and their families. The legislature’s acknowledgement appears 112 pages into the July 2004 gambling law: The measure sets aside $1.5 million of…
V for Vendetta
It’s an old saw that the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is which side you’re on. In the intentionally provocative film V for Vendetta, the deck is stacked in favor of the mad bomber. The psychic wounds of Sept. 11 are still raw and the dust may have barely settled…
Fateless
Lajos Koltai’s Fateless, a Hungarian drama about the Holocaust, opens in 1944, without prologue, after the madness has begun: We meet going-on-15 Gyuri as he walks to his father’s Budapest shop sporting a yellow star on his lapel. It’s not there for decoration. His father wraps up a sale of some family jewelry and then…
AT LAST
High school sweethearts who drifted apart more than 20 years ago reconnect and find that their lost love is still alive. It may sound like a cheesy plot device, but in fact this light charmer is based on the real-life experiences of director Tom Anton and the film’s co-writer, Sandi Russell, now his wife. Mark…
Mendoza Express
Location: 812 Mansfield Road, Green Tree. 412-429-8780 Hours: Mon.-Fri. 11:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m.; Sat. 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Prices: Lunch $5-8; dinner $7-14 Fare: Mexican and Mexican-American Atmosphere: Roadside cantina Liquor: BYOB An undeniable factor in our family dining routine is Jason’s cravings. He’ll be engaged in some other activity — say, painting a window or driving…
THE BOYS OF BARAKA
A bitter irony runs through Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s documentary about at-risk Baltimore youth: These boys from the richest nation on earth have to travel to impoverished Africa in order to find a chance of success. In a private but primitive school in Baraka, Kenya, 20 kids are freed from the omnipresent horrors and…
Down to the Wire
The president recently signed the new-and-improved PATRIOT Act, which includes “30 new significant civil liberties safeguards,” the Justice Department boasts. The significance is in the eye of the beholder. These new provisions are an effort to regulate such arcane matters as roving wiretaps and “good faith” emergency warrantless eavesdropping. They set a deadline for delayed-notice…
DUMA
A boy named Xan (Alexander Michaletos) and his pet cheetah, Duma, set off across the wilds of Kenya in this low-key family adventure from Carroll Ballard (The Black Stallion). Ostensibly, the goal is to reunite Duma with his feline family, but this is also a journey of independence for Xan, who has been thrown into…
NFL Owners Put the ‘Pig’ in ‘Pigskin’
In the only league that really matters here, we have peace in our time. Despite rampant infighting, sniping and whining from the usual NFL suspects, Steelers fans can all breathe a sigh of relief. It’s hard to imagine that we care about the fortunes of this most unlikable group of guys. But it’s even harder…
SHE’S THE MAN
There must be better ways to address the inequities in women’s sports than the solution posited in Andy Fickman’s teen comedy-romance. When the girls’ soccer team gets cut, Viola (Amanda Bynes) dons fake sideburns, wraps her boobs and joins the boys’ team. Because this nonsense has been adapted from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, it’s a trifle…
What sort of firefighters did Pittsburgh have before the city’s fire department? Was it a volunteer fire department, or what?
Given the cost of Pittsburgh’s fire bureau these days, residents can be forgiven for yearning for the good old days, when fires were put out by bucket brigades. Some observers have even suggested that city services face competition from outside parties. But as local history suggests, such initiatives can have unforeseen consequences. Like the chance…
Rock of Aged
“Standing room only” barely described it. In a small, smoky rock venue, a crowd of about 250 went bananas as the third band in the line-up finished its set. But this was no regular Saturday-night crowd in Blawnox: Fans were jammed into every corner to support friends, family, coworkers, spouses … four bands’ worth of…
Janitors: Dirty Deal at CMU
They scrub toilets just like those everywhere else at Carnegie Mellon University. But as the janitors in CMU’s newest Oakland building found out the hard way, they earn about half as much as their counterparts elsewhere on campus. The seven janitors hired by Quality Services Inc. to clean the Collaborative Innovation Center (CIC) make…
Iraq War: Anti-War Sentiment Grows – as Does Police Presence
With signs reading, “I have family in Iraq — we are all children of God,” and “If you’re not appalled then you’re not paying attention,” at least 1,300 anti-war protesters marched on March 18 from East Liberty to Oakland to mark the third anniversary of the Iraq War. They were escorted by city police the…
Elections: Two-Fisted Voting Action
The March 14 special election of a new city councilor from District 3 didn’t lack for passion: Two candidates nearly got into a fistfight on Election Day. But voters apparently felt less strongly about the contest to replace former council member Gene Ricciardi, whose district includes the South Side, adjoining hilltop communities, and portions…
Not Just For Dems Any More (Sort Of)
One thing the Mar. 14 special election for City Council District 3 demonstrated, again, is the rift between labor unions and the local grassroots “progressive” movement. Take the Feb. 27 candidates’ forum in Oakland organized by the League of Young Voters: The event’s biggest applause was bestowed on Republican Neal Andrus — who criticized…
