My current work project, in a nice coincidence, brought me back to the homeland. Tonight we made it out to PNC Park, where the Pirates made me feel more at home by losing. (They even gave up an inside-the-park homerun. Nice.)
Gotta give it up though for the best stadium in baseball:
Tonight for dinner, I had kielbasa and sauerkraut. It was delicious, but sadly, I was out of pierogies.
A few days ago, a friend asked, “What’s that called when you have an area that’s contaminated with hazardous waste and there’s some federal money to clean it up?” and I instantaneously chimed in with “Superfund“.
You can take the dude out of Pittsburgh, but you can’t take the Pittsburgh out of the dude.
While slight, there’s still a shot for the playoffs. It’s pretty pathetic that the Super Bowl champs are one of those “Denver has to lose, then New York has to lose, and maybe Houston or Baltimore … and THEN we might get in” teams, yet that’s where we are. A dude can hope.
I’m obviously pulling for the Steelers next weekend, but shoutout to Miami’s two (!) Woodland Hills H.S. grads in the lineup — Jason Taylor and Lou Polite.
Here’s a little Pittsburgh-area holiday greeting:
Happy Holidays to all.
Things I don’t like about the G20 in Pittsburgh today:
Things I like about the G20 in Pittsburgh today:
I’m back from Indianapolis. Let’s go:
• So Wednesday was the 30th anniversary of President Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech. I’ve heard about this speech before as a turning point in his presidency, so I went ahead and read the full text. To sum it up in a phrase, I don’t understand why this speech was so hated upon — it seems to me to be right on the money.
I haven’t watched the video — though I posted it below, so I should probably get on that — so a lot is missing in terms of the substance vs. delivery view. But in reading it, it’s striking for sure how much of the national debate is stuck exactly where it was in 1979. Here’s President Carter talking about energy independence, new forms of energy, and the corrupting influence of consumerism. Last I checked, it’s 2009 and we’re still talking about every one of those things. The historical verdict seems to be that conservatives’ favorite punching bag scored a lot of points immediately after the speech, but then fired most of his Cabinet and made himself look yet again like an ineffective leader. The guy was definitely lacking in a lot of his Presidency, but I think the speech hateration — “unprecedented disaster”? — is off the mark.
• This NY Times opinion piece is Tom Wolfe at his most annoying — exclamation! points! lots of emdashes … with ellipses! — but I think somewhere in there he made a good point about the philosophical aspects of the space program that don’t get touted.
• I’m noticing that there’s all Rust Belt downtowns have a part that always conforms to the same standard. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Milwaukee — you will always find a part of downtown that has a well-trafficked bus stop with the usual cast of characters, a run-down Dunkin Donuts, a parking garage and a near-total lack of office workers in the business-casual sense. (In Detroit, this encompasses everything within the city limits.) All of these elements will inevitably be present. This should probably get a name, so visitors know to look for it. Brownbagville? The Dunkin District?
For real, that could be anywhere between Minnesota and Upstate New York.
• To all my NU readaz: did you know Le Peep is a franchise? I had no idea of this until I ate at one in Indianapolis this morning. Maybe I could have learned this if Le Peep were open other than 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. (I would like to thank Paul for that joke from the year 1999.)
• Anybody ever dealt with Apple service before? My iPod is pissed at me and I need to know how helpful I can expect them to be. Thanks, yo.
Later.
It’s a month old, but check out the roughneck mayor of Tha Docc on the Colbert Report:
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| John Fetterman | ||||
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… and on the NewsHour from a year ago.
It’s awesome that a brilliant dude like this is willing to come to Woodland Hills and work so hard to turn it around, and it’s equally interesting to me that he was able to find a community that was essentially a blank canvas to implement his public-policy ideals. Did he go through a search process of some sort? The whole thing makes most of our efforts seem puny in comparison, and he seems to be having some success.
And as my friend Todd pointed out, “I also know that I would not fight the Braddock mayor or challenge him in a Billy Madison style IQ test.”
NY Times gives Pittsburgh the hookup!
Pittsburgh Thrives After Casting Steel Aside
This one was good too back in the day:
Not so much this:
I hope this gets more news coverage than I expect it will, but the Pittsburgh Pirates are now tied for the longest streak of losing seasons in North American pro sports history. My past two job descriptions didn’t even exist during their last winning season.
So congrats to you, Nutting family, for this fantastic record of poor ownership. I also find remarkable my Pirate-fan friends, who each year continue to straight-facedly tell me that, “If the bullpen pitches at about 350% of their ability and the new kid we brought up from single-A ball can hit .403 or so, then I really, honestly, truly think we can make .500 this year.”
For real: give up already.
I just saw this today:
Pittsburgh beats Los Angeles as sootiest city
A professor in the article points out that it’s Ohio’s fault, as power-plant emissions drift across the state line. How did this happen when we don’t even have the factories anymore? If Pittsburgh kids have to have asthma, at least we could get some jobs for the trouble.