350 Miles for a Hot Dog

Here's Peter on the pathetic state of Pittsburgh street vendor culture. The blog is Tea and Peterb.

Fair Use in the Digital Age

Two Philly-area filmmakers are coming to Pittsburgh on Monday, April 26 to present "Fair Use in the Digital Age," a film about copyright issues in the new information environment. The film is supposed to be very good (as well as provocative). It will be showing at the Warhol Museum, at 12:15 p.m. on the 26th.

Admission is steep--$150 for professionals, $75 for students, paralegals and judges. Although the film is open to the public, the target audience for the showing is the legal community, and downtown lawyers in particular. These are the folks who need both the continuing education credits that are being offered, and (more important) the different perspective on copyright law that the film presents. (They are also most likely to be downtown in the middle of the day. The Pirates play at home that day, by the way, but it's a night game.)

If you'd simply like to buy a copy of the film for $50, go to willfulinfringement.com.

Brainstorming 101: Onward, Into the Fog of Creativity

The New York Times ran this little piece yesterday about a person who runs a "creativity training firm" in Chicago. (The firm is SolutionPeople. The whole idea of "training" people to be creative rubs me the wrong way. We all have creative instincts. Most of us do not live lives that encourage us to use them. My read of the Times piece, though, is that "SolutionPeople" (or at least the guy who runs it) isn't really "training" people to be creative. Instead, he's really encouraging people to tap into and develop confidence in their latent creative senses. This has to be good.

There are more than a few organizations around Pittsburgh that would benefit from this sort of "training." I won't name names. Will you?

Indica Indian Bistro

I had lunch today at the brand new Indica Indian Bistro in North Oakland. It's on Craig Street, two blocks NORTH of Forbes.

This is a terrific new place, for a lot of reasons. One, the food is very, very good, and it's fresh. Two, it's a local business, with partners who renovated (beautifully renovated) an old house in a neighborhood that is in dire need of this kind of investment. Three, it's a middle-tier restaurant: The style is very nice and professional, but not high-end. The pricing is moderate--not beyond a student's price range, but not so cheap that it turns off local professionals. The restaurant is nice enough that it's easy to imagine hosting a private party there, but casual enough that a small group of colleagues from an office down the block might walk down to grab the lunch buffet.

In short, this is exactly the kind of restaurant that Pittsburgh needs more of, not only in Oakland, but downtown, in other neighborhoods, and in the suburbs. To those who think that we already have enough Indian restaurants, I say: We can never have too many Indian restaurants. If we have a few extra, then may the good food and service drive out the bad. Go, eat!

PIttsburgh International Gets the Internet

Our local airport is one of the few in the country to offer free Wi-Fi. Cool.

Cabela's

Until last Saturday, I had missed the news: Cabela's is building a store/museum/distribution center on I-70, just east of Wheeling.

Beyond Fast Food

The P-G's Sunday piece about the new wave of trendy restaurant franchises in Pittsburgh celebrates all the wrong things. Why is it "progress" for Pittsburgh to play host to a bumper crop of out-of-town chains? Sure, Panera is a lot nicer than Eat 'n' Park, but would we be drooling over Panera if each store was called the "St. Louis Bread Company"--which it is, in St. Louis?

How about celebrating innovative and affordable locally-owned restaurants? For lunch, I like Cafe Zinho, in Shadyside. How about you?

Chelsea v. Roma at Heinz Field

Mark Madden, the P-G sports columnist, is wrong about many things, but he's absolutely right about the wonders of soccer. Heinz Field will play host to an exhibition match between Chelsea (of the English Premiership) and AS Roma (of Italy's Serie A) on July 29. The ticket prices are outrageous--$35 for the cheapest seats--but go if you can afford it. Even if Chelsea doesn't buy Becks back from Real, and even if Totti pouts, this will be a lot of fun.

Pittsburgh's own Riverhounds are playing a series of exhibition matches around the region, and they kick off their regular season on Saturday, April 24 against Northern Virginia, in Moon. The 'Hounds schedule is here.

Antiques Fair at the Meadows

Yesterday was a great day to be out at the Antiques Fair at the Meadows. The fair is held the last Sunday of every month, and it's huge. The Meadows is between Route 19 and I-79, just north of Washington, PA.

Proud to be a Pitt faculty member

These remarks, by Bob Brandom, Distinguished Service Professor in Pitt's incredible Philosophy Department, are worth reading all the way to the end.

Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity

My colleague Larry Lessig has a new book out on intellectual property law, culture, and technology. You can buy it here.

SunCrumbs

A friend mentioned the Pittsburgh Poetry Slam and Sun Crumbs to me, and I found this wondrous website and organization.

There are amazing things happening in this town. Check out the link to Sun Crumbs "Events."

Leadership Pittsburgh

From its website, Leadership Pittsburgh looks like it--and its graduates--are doing great things. Comments?

City targets space savers

Over this past weekend, the city of Boston actually started to implement its new policy of using sanitation trucks to collect chairs (and other objects) used to "save" parking spaces. As the mayor said back in December, "The streetscape has been littered with household furniture long enough."

Could it happen here?

NCAA's heroes, life's zeros

Derrick Jackson at the Boston Globe points out that Pitt is among the NCAA tournament teams that hides poor graduation rates for its basketball players--and African-American players in particular--behind federal privacy law.

UPDATE: It would be nice to see a story about Pitt basketball like this one about Pitt football.

UPDATE #2: Gregg Easterbrook has the same story about universities' hiding their graduation rates, at least when it suits their purposes.

Twentieth Century Pittsburgh

Check out the late Professor Lubove's two books about Pittsburgh history

Ebenezer Baptist Church

I'm sitting in my office this morning watching a long, long parade of firefighter and EMS vehicles make its way up Forbes Avenue to a memorial service for the two men killed fighting last weekend's fire at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. In the face of that horror, and while remembering and honoring those men and the Department they served, we should also pause to acknowledge the loss--and the courage--of the church. News of the congregation is posted here.

Bridges

Almost too cool: bridgespotting--the collective known as BridgeSpotters, celebrating the fusion of art and engineering, and Bridges and Tunnels of Allegheny County, which is a paean to engineering itself.

Creating Text(iles)

At Creating Text(iles), Anne has what looks like a pretty extensive list of Pittsburgh blogs. Check them out.

Onyx Alliance

Pittsburgh has a lot of organizations focused on the future of the region--more than I suspected. (More than we need? Just a thought.) I've collected a lot of links but will try to blog them one at a time. For starters: the Onyx Alliance.

Pittsburgh Signs

There are a lot of sites out there by Pittsburgh photographers, but I haven't seen many that focus on images of Pittsburgh. Here's a good one: Pittsburgh Signs. I came across this yesterday while searching for a picture of a George Aiken sign.

Fill me in: what sites am I missing?

Quiet Storm

And I'll plug the Quiet Storm coffeehouse/restaurant/concert venue, even though I haven't been there, because it just sounds terrific, and I like the website. (I'd be a visitor sooner if it served Saturday breakfast--I take my kids out to breakfast on the occasional Saturday morning, and I'm always looking for someplace new and different.)

Penn Avenue Arts Initiative

Blogging can tend toward preaching to the choir--so I don't know whether folks who wander past this page are learning about cool things that they don't know about or are seeing that the cool things that they *do* know about are getting a little publicity. No matter; at least *I'm* learning about cool stuff. Now I'm starting to get overwhelmed by the number of cool things that I want to blog. (I'm more impressed than ever by some of the individuals and groups active regionally.) It will have to be one thing at a time. I'll start here: Check out the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative.

Pittsburgh-area bloggers, unite!

In some ways, the reaction to the P-G story about blogging in Pittsburgh is more interesting than the story itself. The comments on my post below are self-explanatory. Here is Cynthia's take.

I'll be adding some links to my list of blogs about Pittsburgh.

Florida to DC

CMU Professor Richard Florida is moving to George Mason University. Much as I disagree with his book, this is a loss for Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh goes blog wild!

The Post-Gazette has this story today about some Pittsburghers who blog. Missing from the piece: the Tribune-Review's Dave Copeland and Jilly!.

Bill Toland, who reported and wrote the story, includes a comment toward the end that San Francisco's blogging community is more sophisticated than Pittsburgh's. (Or maybe Bill is repeating a comment by John Riegert, who writes Yinzer Mullet). As a native and long-time resident of the Bay Area, I'm not so sure that we're less sophisticated. I know some pretty smart and pretty interesting (and pretty sophisticated) people in Pittsburgh, both online and offline. True, The blogosphere is a lot deeper on the West Coast--there's more online connectivity, a lot more tech, and a large, energetic, and proud early adopter population. But in the Bay Area, there's also a lot of online self-absorption, technology snobbery, and San Francisco and Silicon Valley exceptionalism.

Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership

The "Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership" has a snazzy and expensive website that describes (among other things) what to do in "the city [that] comes alive after five." Pittsburgh? Really? For what to do after five, the P-G suggests: Mr. Small's, in Millvale.

By the way, it looks like this post violates the PDP's linking policy. But I'm not worried. Most judges have heard of the Internet. While I'm at it, the PDP Terms of Use "agreement" is also legally meaningless--but then, so are most website "Terms of Use." But I like the photo of the gavel. Not subtle, but I like it.

Freedom to Tinker: A Spoonful of Sugar

From Ed Felten, this report (A Spoonful of Sugar) on a clever piece of work going on at Carnegie Mellon.

PG open meetings law suit goes to court

All the front page fuss abot the demographics of Pittsburgh's Act 47 recovery team, and only a small item about what may be a much more important issue: the secrecy of the team's deliberations. Kudos to the Post-Gazette for trying to open the process.

UPDATE (March 13): Congratulations to the P-G for its quick win.

A Coach of Good Cheer Leads Pitt

The New York Times runs a nice piece on Pitt hoops coach Jamie Dixon.

Local music scene cheers 'Burgh's rockin' ranking

The Tribune Review reports on Esquire magazine's decision to name Pittsburgh as its number one "city that rocks." The ranking appears in a booklet included in the April 2004 issue.

Sri Venkateswara Temple

I'm told that newlyweds are blessed with good luck if they visit a Hindu temple immediately after getting married. True? If so, someone should market the Sri Venkateswara Temple in Penn Hills both around the region--and outside it--as an opportunity to get to know Pittsburgh.

Miss Frothingslosh

I'm not down on Pittsburgh history; I'd just prefer to keep it at a respectful distance. Most of the time. Are there traditions worth reviving? Maybe--how about Miss Frothingslosh?

Pittsblog in the news

The Beaver County Times included Pittsblog in a "What's a Blog?" feature this morning.

Last Friday, I talked with a Post-Gazette reporter who was writing up a feature on Pittsburgh area blogs, including Dave Copeland and Jilly! We're still waiting for that story.

Pittsburgh's Model City?

Brian O'Neill went looking for a city that Pittsburgh might emulate as it tries to work its way out of the doldrums. He comes up empty. Boston comes close, but it turns out that Boston's budget hums along with a generous state subsidy.

If you ask the wrong question, you'll end up with the wrong answer. Pittsburgh's goal shouldn't be to identify a "model city," an outcome that it likes, then arrange itself as best it can to produce that outcome. We shouldn't want to look like (or act like, or thrive like) Boston, or San Francisco, or even Minneapolis. No city can "emulate" any of those in the sense that it can replicate its economy, government structure, or culture. What Pittsburgh can do is assemble educated and motivated people and turn them loose to work with what we have already, to reject the old and try the new, to keep what works and toss out what doesn't. There will still be economic lows and highs, and government successes and failures. But they will be (and should be) ours; there shouldn't be blame assigned (or credit given) for following the wrong (or right) model.

Looking at the world from that perspective, Boston is a great model. No one in "the Hub" decides what to do by asking whether Boston should be more like San Francisco, or New York, or Chicago. For a while, years ago, Boston's high tech community tried to develop an East Coast version of the Silicon Valley around Route 128--and failed miserably. Today, Boston knows better. The Valley is sui generis. And Boston's tech economy--building on its New England strengths, not Palo Alto's--is doing pretty well.

New Life Sciences Greenhouse Head Brings Ideas That Might Not Sit Well With Everyone

I don't know Doros Platika, now the head of the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse. But if this report is accurate--the Greenhouse is going to make fewer but larger venture investments--I like his approach. It's risky. But Pittsburgh needs to take risks.

Who is Pa Pitt?

Should the city bring back a (more up to date version of) Pa Pitt ?

PSU fires tenured theater professor

All I know is what I read in the newspaper, but Penn State's firing of tenured faculty member Nona Gerard seems highly suspect to me. There's more information from Professor Erin O'Connor at UPenn (and more from Professor O'Connor), and still more, as well as from University of Texas law professor Brian Leiter, UCLA law prof Eugene Volokh, and IU prof Eric Rasmusen, among others.

A Vital Touchstone for High Schools

The Concord Review, which The New York Times calls A Vital Touchstone for High Schools, sounds like an organization well worth supporting. It publishes well-written research papers by high school students. But according to the Times, the Review is chronically short of money--and its grant requests have been turned down by 145 organizations. Are Pittsburgh foundations among the 145? Am I missing something about the Review?

Martha's Run Coming Up

The family and friends of Martha Dixon want you to know that the annual fundraiser/road race in her memory is coming up on April 10, 2004 in Mt. Lebanon. The Post-Gazette recently ran this great story about the race and what it means.

The Future of Pitt Women's Basketball

Former UConn women's basketball star Shea Ralph has been toiling quietly on the Pitt sidelines this year. The New York Times chronicles her ups and downs. Welcome to Pittsburgh!

Happenings Around Town

There are a number of new sites promising information on cool parties, openings, and concerts going on around Pittsburgh: Element Five, This is Happening, Pittsburgh Buzz, The Soul Pitt, E Mayhem, and Pgh Events.

The Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney dimension to this activity is charming. I do hope that some of this energy goes into starting companies in addition to putting on shows.

48th Annual Pittsburgh Folk Festival

The 48th Annual Pittsburgh Folk Festival is coming, May 28-30, 2004 at the amphitheatre at Station Square.

Happy to Be in Pittsburgh

I'm not the only one out here writing about Pittsburgh's future. Check out Patrick and Jeff and David.

It's a meme!

Let's greenlight Pittsburgh

Carl Kurlander had this thought-provoking piece in yesterday's P-G about stimulating filmmaking in Pittsburgh and supporting Steeltown Entertainment. Best line in the piece: "I have never seen a city so rich in culture for its size." Weirdest: "The creation of jobs [in other examples of regional filmmaking] begins with the creation of intellectual property."

Note to region: Find people willing to take risks, and find them some money. The intellectual property will follow.

The road to riches?

The Boston Globe reports on the ongoing debate over Richard Florida's Rise of the Creative Class.

Also from Beantown, Harvard economist Edward Glaeser has published a paper arguing that urban growth and adapatability are strongly associated with the percentage of the population with college degrees. The key to success of any city--and what distinguished Boston from Pittsburgh during the 1980s--is attracting and retaining smart, educated people. But markets, not planning, help cities make the most of its resources. According to the Wall Street Journal (David Wessel, Feb. 26, 2004), Prof. Glaeser says, "Get the smart folks and let them figure out what the industries of the future are. Don't micromanage."