Notes from Blunder Ground
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Aug. 20 editorial, “A fine NEA moment,” had all the makings of a piece from the paper’s Clinton-bashing glory days. It had lurid allegations of sex in the office, a man in a position of power and an intern — or in this case, a teacher’s aide — and the silent complicity…
Frank Bolden, 1912-2003
“Until somebody threatens your life, you haven’t been a good journalist,” Frank E. Bolden told City Paper in his last interview (see “Bolden the Beautiful,” Aug. 13). During his 90 years, in which he led campaigns in the black press against lynchings, Jim Crowery, and racist housing and lending discrimination, Bolden certainly received such threats.…
From Ancients to Infants
With new, bright yellow plywood carefully nailed over its windows, the vacant former Mercy Senior Care St. Joseph’s building has cast a lonely yet hopeful gaze over Penn Avenue at Aiken, on the border of Friendship and Garfield, since the former nursing home closed in November 2002. Now, the building that housed the community’s…
Why Did the School Board Cross the Road?
The much-maligned board of the Pittsburgh Public Schools did Mayor Tom Murphy a favor Aug. 27, passing resolutions to pay the city’s 202 crossing guards for the rest of the 2003 calendar year, including the days last week when only parochial schools were in session (city schools opened Sept. 2). The guards had been cut…
Acting Badly
In the tug-of-war over pollution policy, Allegheny County Council gave another hard yank Aug. 26, and the county Board of Health may be fast approaching the mud puddle. Council approved, 12-0 with one abstention and two absences, a so-called “bad-actor” ordinance (see Political Footballs: “Coughin’ Corner,” June 4). The ordinance bars the county Health Department…
Brand R vs. Brand O
Jim Roddey and Dan Onorato: They’re everywhere you want to be. They’re in your living room, in your car, and (if you have a TV there) in your bedroom. The Allegheny County executive and his challenger, the county controller, are in the news most days, and they’re spending some $6 million on their campaigns, mostly…
Mixed Verdicts in Special-Ed Complaints
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania offered two seemingly contradictory rulings late in August in the due process hearing of Mount Lebanon School District middle-schooler Michael Kurland and the joint complaint of 13 sets of district parents, both of which centered around the district’s Extended School Year program for special education students (see Levine: “Child Left Behind,”…
Built Upon Frustration
Pittsburgh is a traditionalist city, where folks stick to their guns and don’t blindly follow trends (or if they do, it’s five years later). So it is with Da Core Records, which has based much of its roster’s aesthetic on the early-’90s rise of metallic hardcore. A band like Built Upon Frustration (recently reunited, hence…
Shill
The title of this debut CD from Shill is a bit misleading — the songs are neither instrumental nor particularly tranquil. Instead, these guys seem to have grown up in the shadow of local heavies such as Don Caballero and then Creta Bourzia, and have absorbed their math-rock and melodic tendencies, as well as more…
Caustic Christ
Youngsters who buy their subculture neatly packaged at the mall and smartly dressed at the Warped Tour will claim they know what punk is. Caustic Christ would say that these kids have no idea. Modern chart-punk uses the Pistols’ and Ramones’ failed commercial bids as a springboard for its bubblegum catchiness, tossing aside everything that…
Circle of Dead Children
Radio-friendly nu-metal may rule the airwaves and the minds of the young and impressionable. But the authentic metal underground continues regardless, unabated but also mostly unheralded. If there’s one Pittsburgh-area metal band that readers of Terrorizer and Metal Maniacs are likely to be familiar with, it’s a trio which avoids many of the typical head-banger…
Positively Negative
Finally, there is good news to report from rapidly declining Allegheny County: Its residents are getting smarter. In the latest Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Pennsylvania Poll, 59 percent think we’re on the wrong track. And of course they’re right! But at least they’re not dumb. Because I have news for you, ladies and germs … we’re doomed!…
A Conversation with Eric Altman
Are you trying to figure out whether Bigfoot exists, or do you believe it already and you’re trying to prove it? I’m about 95 percent believing they exist. I need to see one of these things to know for sure in my heart that they’re real. But I’ve talked to enough witnesses, I’ve seen footprints…
The Magdalene Sisters
A priest clutches a bodhran to his chest as sweat pours from his fevered brow, his hands slamming against the drum’s skin in a frenzy of pounding rhythm, his lips pressed in ecstasy against the instrument: It’s clear from The Magdalene Sisters’ opening sequence that the Catholic Church, despite its strictures, cannot contain sexuality or…
Respiro
In the Sicilian island village of Lampedusa, where life consists of family and fish, Grazia is trouble. She’s bored, spirited and rebellious, which would be enough to unsettle her isolated town. But she’s also mentally ill — manic-depressive, it seems — and the shots her husband administers to her buttocks as she thrashes on the…
Jeepers Creepers 2
See, there’s this winged man-freak of unknown origin who appears every 23 years and eats for 23 days (no reason given for scheduling). By sniffing a victim’s fear, the creature learns which body part it needs to eat. But, it’s choosy: It sniffs some folks, determines their innards to be less than Grade A, and…
Lightning Strikes Again
The decline of the local steel industry is a topic only slightly fresher than the demise of steam trains. It was hardly a scoop even in 1988, the year filmmaker Tony Buba premiered Lightning Over Braddock, his “exploded documentary” set against the backdrop of his Mon Valley hometown’s fading fortunes. But if Lightning Over Braddock…
