The Silly Commencement Address by Jon Stewart at William & Mary has been getting all the attention in the blogosphere.
Here's the Serious and Thoughtful counterpart, the Baccalaureate Address to Yale's graduating seniors by Dean Richard Broadhead, about to take over as Duke's president.
Monday, May 31, 2004
NYTimes In Pittsburgh
The New York Times ran this flattering travel piece on Pittsburgh in yesterday's paper, anticipating the arrival next week of the National Performing Arts Convention.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Language
Dennis Roddy of the Post-Gazette looks in on the blog from time to time, and in a comment on my post about illiteracy at the P-G (a propos of the P-G sports headline "European deal needs discussed") he wrote:
"It is a legacy of Scots-Irish ancestors and a practice widespread not only in western Pennsylvania but, as I discovered, Northern Ireland. The car needs washed. The room needs cleaned. Similarly, our expression 'to redd up,' is used not by the Pennsylvania Dutch but by people in Belfast and mid-Ulster.
Now, as to whether we should be ashamed of using it, I can only say this: opinions vary. Generally, I've found editors from out-of-town to recoil at such usage, while locals are more receptive. Coming to town and encouraging Pittsburghers to be ashamed of themselves and their linguistic heritage is fairly common."
I'd respond in the comments, but then who knows who'd see it. So:
I'm not concerned with whether anyone should be ashamed of speaking this way. But the syntax should be recognized for what it is. It's not anyone's linguistic heritage, even if an academic linguist or an enterprising columnist can make the ancestral connection. It's local slang. People who live here pick it up from neighbors and friends and family, and they pass it on to their neighbors and friends and family, and they do that regardless of their ancestry. If it suits them and if they're proud of it, fine.
But slang doesn't belong in the newspaper, and especially not in the ostensible newspaper of record for a city that is desperately trying to modernize itself socially and economically. One of my parents spent 50 years in the newspaper business, as a writer and editor. Her father also spent 50 years in the newspaper business as a writer and editor. I've been around journalists and journalism all my life. I know better than to defend "redd up" in the newspaper as part of someone's "linguistic heritage."
Newspapers, as Mencken argued, are hardly bastions of standard English. Slang often enters the language via newsprint and stays there because the press institutionalizes it. So I'll leave the question here: If we want "European deal needs discussed" to become the right way to phrase that point, so that it is part of standard written and spoken English, then I should leave well enough alone. The P-G should modify its internal style manual. And we should be looking forward to the day that the Stillers redd up Heinz Field for the fall season.
"It is a legacy of Scots-Irish ancestors and a practice widespread not only in western Pennsylvania but, as I discovered, Northern Ireland. The car needs washed. The room needs cleaned. Similarly, our expression 'to redd up,' is used not by the Pennsylvania Dutch but by people in Belfast and mid-Ulster.
Now, as to whether we should be ashamed of using it, I can only say this: opinions vary. Generally, I've found editors from out-of-town to recoil at such usage, while locals are more receptive. Coming to town and encouraging Pittsburghers to be ashamed of themselves and their linguistic heritage is fairly common."
I'd respond in the comments, but then who knows who'd see it. So:
I'm not concerned with whether anyone should be ashamed of speaking this way. But the syntax should be recognized for what it is. It's not anyone's linguistic heritage, even if an academic linguist or an enterprising columnist can make the ancestral connection. It's local slang. People who live here pick it up from neighbors and friends and family, and they pass it on to their neighbors and friends and family, and they do that regardless of their ancestry. If it suits them and if they're proud of it, fine.
But slang doesn't belong in the newspaper, and especially not in the ostensible newspaper of record for a city that is desperately trying to modernize itself socially and economically. One of my parents spent 50 years in the newspaper business, as a writer and editor. Her father also spent 50 years in the newspaper business as a writer and editor. I've been around journalists and journalism all my life. I know better than to defend "redd up" in the newspaper as part of someone's "linguistic heritage."
Newspapers, as Mencken argued, are hardly bastions of standard English. Slang often enters the language via newsprint and stays there because the press institutionalizes it. So I'll leave the question here: If we want "European deal needs discussed" to become the right way to phrase that point, so that it is part of standard written and spoken English, then I should leave well enough alone. The P-G should modify its internal style manual. And we should be looking forward to the day that the Stillers redd up Heinz Field for the fall season.
Make it in Pennsylvania
Today's lesson in doublethink comes from the Deloitte & Touche consulting firm, which is responsible for this perspective piece in today's Post-Gazette, based on a study by Deloitte, commissioned by unspecified state agencies.
How do we turn around the state's manufacturing economy?
Deloitte says: "How do we shift manufacturing into a new dynamic? The answer is innovation. Pennsylvania companies need to make products that are more unique and bring extra value relative to their competitors'. Doing so will enable firms to command a higher price in the market, which in turn generates more revenue, jobs and higher wages."
So how do we do that?
Deloitte says: "Earlier studies show that companies assisted by an IRC outperform those that aren't, and Deloitte's analysis found that every dollar invested in the IRCs [Industrial Resource Centers, state-supported economic development entities designed to support in-state manufacturing ] yields at least $1.24 in state revenue. The challenge, though, is that the IRCs aren't designed to provide robust, cradle-to-grave product development services. Rather, they excel in helping companies make existing products more efficiently (among other competencies), using Lean Manufacturing and other techniques."
It's clear that Deloitte's work was supported at least by Catalyst Connection, the Southwest PA IRC, so it's grabbing the low-hanging fruit to criticize the report for recommending that the state hand more money over to the IRCs. It's also pretty easy to criticize the P-G for running this self-absorbed fluffball of a piece without explaining the background to the report.
But it's more important to point out the intellectual emptiness of the report itself. That's the point of my quotations above. The Report says--innovate, by funding novel, high end technologies. Then the Report says--we should "innovate" by funding companies that make existing products more efficiently.
Oops--Deloitte failed to read Innovator's Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen. Christensen's book is a devasting piece of analysis showing that successful firms have every short-term economic incentive to continue to do what they're doing. Same products, made ever more efficiency. So let's fund those IRCs! But that's a disastrous strategy as a long-term matter, because those same successful firms are structurallly unlikely to invest in the kind of real innovative product development that will support next-generation business success. Real innovation means new products and new markets.
How do we turn around the state's manufacturing economy?
Deloitte says: "How do we shift manufacturing into a new dynamic? The answer is innovation. Pennsylvania companies need to make products that are more unique and bring extra value relative to their competitors'. Doing so will enable firms to command a higher price in the market, which in turn generates more revenue, jobs and higher wages."
So how do we do that?
Deloitte says: "Earlier studies show that companies assisted by an IRC outperform those that aren't, and Deloitte's analysis found that every dollar invested in the IRCs [Industrial Resource Centers, state-supported economic development entities designed to support in-state manufacturing ] yields at least $1.24 in state revenue. The challenge, though, is that the IRCs aren't designed to provide robust, cradle-to-grave product development services. Rather, they excel in helping companies make existing products more efficiently (among other competencies), using Lean Manufacturing and other techniques."
It's clear that Deloitte's work was supported at least by Catalyst Connection, the Southwest PA IRC, so it's grabbing the low-hanging fruit to criticize the report for recommending that the state hand more money over to the IRCs. It's also pretty easy to criticize the P-G for running this self-absorbed fluffball of a piece without explaining the background to the report.
But it's more important to point out the intellectual emptiness of the report itself. That's the point of my quotations above. The Report says--innovate, by funding novel, high end technologies. Then the Report says--we should "innovate" by funding companies that make existing products more efficiently.
Oops--Deloitte failed to read Innovator's Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen. Christensen's book is a devasting piece of analysis showing that successful firms have every short-term economic incentive to continue to do what they're doing. Same products, made ever more efficiency. So let's fund those IRCs! But that's a disastrous strategy as a long-term matter, because those same successful firms are structurallly unlikely to invest in the kind of real innovative product development that will support next-generation business success. Real innovation means new products and new markets.
Monday, May 24, 2004
Pitt Commencement
The University of Pittsburgh School of Law (that's the full, official name) held its commencement exercises on Saturday, featuring more than 250 new JDs, a batch of LL.Ms (lawyers from other countries taking a one-year degree in the US), and a group of MSLs (mid-career professionals taking a one-year program of law courses), and a stirring address by Theodore Shaw, the new president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
The Post-Gazette ran a nice piece about the address. For any of you non-lawyers whose immediate instinct is to whine about the excesses of the legal system and the ever-expanding number of lawyers in our midst, take a moment to read the report of Ted Shaw's remarks.
Congratulations to all the graduates, and welcome to the profession.
The Post-Gazette ran a nice piece about the address. For any of you non-lawyers whose immediate instinct is to whine about the excesses of the legal system and the ever-expanding number of lawyers in our midst, take a moment to read the report of Ted Shaw's remarks.
Congratulations to all the graduates, and welcome to the profession.
Catching Up on Comments
Thanks to Rich for pointing out that when Bruce Springsteen was last in town, he made a special point of supporting Just Harvest, a local organization working for the elimination of hunger.
Thanks to Chris (welcome back, Chris!) for the pointer to the authentic Women's Benchmark Reports, produced by the University of Pittsburgh Center for Social and Urban Research, that were the subject of P-G reporting and analysis earlier this month.
Thanks to Chris (welcome back, Chris!) for the pointer to the authentic Women's Benchmark Reports, produced by the University of Pittsburgh Center for Social and Urban Research, that were the subject of P-G reporting and analysis earlier this month.
Sunday, May 23, 2004
Move to Pittsburgh!
I like the spirit of this little perspective piece in today's P-G, arguing that Pittsburgh needs to expand its immigrant population and take after Minneapolis. But the author combines two perspectives that are really very different--be like Minneapolis, and be like Palo Alto. On the one hand, there's attracting poor, dependent populations like the Hmong who moved to Minneapolis. That community worked hard and has slowly begun to moved into the city's middle class. On the other hand, there's attracting educated, upper class immigrants, like the large number of entrepreneurs and software developers from India who have energized much of the Silicon Valley economy over the last 15 years.
First, southeast Asian populations in many Middle West communities have survived and prospered in part because many of those communities had extensive social service networks to support those populations--and in part because many of those communities have a large number of low-paying, dangerous, backbreaking jobs those only those at the absolute bottom of the socioeconomic ladder are willing to take. The immigrant community comes in, takes over those jobs, saves enough money to escape them and move into the middle class. Another immigrant community follows. Repeat pattern. I have a lot of family members around Iowa. There are a lot of small Iowa towns now with pretty good Vietnamese restaurants--often not too far away from meat packing plants.
Lesson: Immigrant populations migrate toward jobs. Low-wage jobs and high-wage jobs. Pittsburgh will have a hard time attracting poor immigrant populations without an abundance of low-wage jobs and/or a far more generous government benefits structure than we have today.
Second, Indian entrepreneurs and software developers have been attracted to the Silicon Valley for all the usual Californian reasons. The heart of the Valley is a social and economic culture that values imagination, expertise, and energy--Seize the Day!--over history and skin color. No one sits around Palo Alto whining that there isn't enough to do downtown and waiting for someone to do something. There isn't a lot to do in downtown Palo Alto (I grew up there, my family still lives there, I go back at least once a year), but everyone and his mother is brainstorming new ideas, raising money, hiring friends, and launching new businesses. Many of them fail. Even most of them. But they get up and start again.
Lesson: Pittsburgh will have a hard time attracting more of these sorts of immigrants without doing more to change its historical resistance to social and economic entrepreneurship.
Get yo Pittsburgh on.
First, southeast Asian populations in many Middle West communities have survived and prospered in part because many of those communities had extensive social service networks to support those populations--and in part because many of those communities have a large number of low-paying, dangerous, backbreaking jobs those only those at the absolute bottom of the socioeconomic ladder are willing to take. The immigrant community comes in, takes over those jobs, saves enough money to escape them and move into the middle class. Another immigrant community follows. Repeat pattern. I have a lot of family members around Iowa. There are a lot of small Iowa towns now with pretty good Vietnamese restaurants--often not too far away from meat packing plants.
Lesson: Immigrant populations migrate toward jobs. Low-wage jobs and high-wage jobs. Pittsburgh will have a hard time attracting poor immigrant populations without an abundance of low-wage jobs and/or a far more generous government benefits structure than we have today.
Second, Indian entrepreneurs and software developers have been attracted to the Silicon Valley for all the usual Californian reasons. The heart of the Valley is a social and economic culture that values imagination, expertise, and energy--Seize the Day!--over history and skin color. No one sits around Palo Alto whining that there isn't enough to do downtown and waiting for someone to do something. There isn't a lot to do in downtown Palo Alto (I grew up there, my family still lives there, I go back at least once a year), but everyone and his mother is brainstorming new ideas, raising money, hiring friends, and launching new businesses. Many of them fail. Even most of them. But they get up and start again.
Lesson: Pittsburgh will have a hard time attracting more of these sorts of immigrants without doing more to change its historical resistance to social and economic entrepreneurship.
Get yo Pittsburgh on.
Steeler Nation on CMT
Surfing the other day, I happened across the video for Gretchen Wilson's new hit country single, Redneck Woman. (Catchy tune, but my guess is that Gretchen's a one-hit wonder.) There's Kid Rock in a brief cameo (sitting in a family room with Bocephus himself), and Kid's wearing a Steelers jersey. Cool.
Cheesecake in Pittsburgh
Thanks to Joe (welcome to the blogosphere, True Pittsburgh!), I learn that the retail development around the South Side Works is going to include a Cheesecake Factory.
Spare us, please. Yet another chain restaurant comes to ruin Pittsburgh's palate. In other restaurant news, the New York Times reports that New Haven, Connecticut is now home to New England's best Spanish restaurant. New Haven! Previously known among chowhounds for a couple of pretty good brick oven pizza places, and probably best known as the town that gave us Frisbees.
Yet high end food is moving out of New York, and up to New Haven. We get the Cheesecake Factory.
Spare us, please. Yet another chain restaurant comes to ruin Pittsburgh's palate. In other restaurant news, the New York Times reports that New Haven, Connecticut is now home to New England's best Spanish restaurant. New Haven! Previously known among chowhounds for a couple of pretty good brick oven pizza places, and probably best known as the town that gave us Frisbees.
Yet high end food is moving out of New York, and up to New Haven. We get the Cheesecake Factory.
Friday, May 21, 2004
Fear and Loathing at Penn State
No, I'm not talking about the decision to extend Joe Paterno's contract by four more years. I'm talking about something even more foolish: a campus policy that bars students from running server software on dorm computers. Ed Felten's Freedom to Tinker blog has more. And Rob Heverly extends the point.
Come on, hear the noise
I'm taking a break from Pittsburgh this morning to blog about Nick Hornby's opinion piece in today's New York Times. Hornby is the author of the fabulous novel, High Fidelity, inspiration for the differently fabulous film, High Fidelity.
His Times piece is an extended, romantic rant about how popular music has lost its soul:
"In truth, I don't care whether the music sounds new or old: I just want it to have ambition and exuberance, a lack of self-consciousness, a recognition of the redemptive power of noise, an acknowledgment that emotional intelligence is sometimes best articulated through a great chord change, rather than a furrowed brow. Outkast's brilliant "Hey Ya!," a song that for a few brief months last year united races and critics and teenagers and nostalgic geezers, had all that and more; you could hear Prince in there, and the Beatles, and yet the song belonged absolutely in and to the here and now, or at least the there and then of 2003.
Both 'Hey Ya!' and Marah's new album are roots records, not in the sense that they were made by men with beards who play the fiddle and sing with a finger in an ear, but in the sense that they have recognizable influences — influences that are not only embedded in pop history, but that have been properly digested. In the suffocatingly airless contemporary pop-culture climate, you can usually trace influences back only as far as Radiohead, or Boyz II Men, or the Farrelly Brothers, and regurgitation rather than digestion would be the more accurate gastric metaphor."
A lot of this is old news, and it's impossible to miss the irony of a piece about the redemptive power of rock music (note the Springsteen reference) showing up on the gray pages of the Times, just above this piece by the postmodern provocateur Stanley Fish, talking about why academics should stick to the ivory tower.
But Hornby's point bears notice, and not just because it's Hornby who makes it. Virtually all of the public debate over popular music during the last five years has been about what the Interent means to the future of music. There's a huge, dead vocabulary out there that everyone uses to talk about this question: "piracy," "theft," "the public domain," the "commons," "creativity." Everything new is really old; we have to liberate music from the corporate oppressors so that consumers can rip, mix, and burn! Or we have to teach the young that there's no such thing as a free lunch, and that they have to behave as ethically online as they do elsewhere. Songwriters and musicians "deserve" to make a living. Or the music industry has no business sniffing around the personal storage devices of private citizens. And so on.
Hornby is talking about all of those things, and brilliantly, he's talking about none of them. I take his implicit point to be this: Fights over file sharing aren't really fights over private property, or corporate structure, or communications policy, or privacy, or control of the Internet. They're fights over culture, over where culture comes from, and how, and over what culture means to all of us.
His Times piece is an extended, romantic rant about how popular music has lost its soul:
"In truth, I don't care whether the music sounds new or old: I just want it to have ambition and exuberance, a lack of self-consciousness, a recognition of the redemptive power of noise, an acknowledgment that emotional intelligence is sometimes best articulated through a great chord change, rather than a furrowed brow. Outkast's brilliant "Hey Ya!," a song that for a few brief months last year united races and critics and teenagers and nostalgic geezers, had all that and more; you could hear Prince in there, and the Beatles, and yet the song belonged absolutely in and to the here and now, or at least the there and then of 2003.
Both 'Hey Ya!' and Marah's new album are roots records, not in the sense that they were made by men with beards who play the fiddle and sing with a finger in an ear, but in the sense that they have recognizable influences — influences that are not only embedded in pop history, but that have been properly digested. In the suffocatingly airless contemporary pop-culture climate, you can usually trace influences back only as far as Radiohead, or Boyz II Men, or the Farrelly Brothers, and regurgitation rather than digestion would be the more accurate gastric metaphor."
A lot of this is old news, and it's impossible to miss the irony of a piece about the redemptive power of rock music (note the Springsteen reference) showing up on the gray pages of the Times, just above this piece by the postmodern provocateur Stanley Fish, talking about why academics should stick to the ivory tower.
But Hornby's point bears notice, and not just because it's Hornby who makes it. Virtually all of the public debate over popular music during the last five years has been about what the Interent means to the future of music. There's a huge, dead vocabulary out there that everyone uses to talk about this question: "piracy," "theft," "the public domain," the "commons," "creativity." Everything new is really old; we have to liberate music from the corporate oppressors so that consumers can rip, mix, and burn! Or we have to teach the young that there's no such thing as a free lunch, and that they have to behave as ethically online as they do elsewhere. Songwriters and musicians "deserve" to make a living. Or the music industry has no business sniffing around the personal storage devices of private citizens. And so on.
Hornby is talking about all of those things, and brilliantly, he's talking about none of them. I take his implicit point to be this: Fights over file sharing aren't really fights over private property, or corporate structure, or communications policy, or privacy, or control of the Internet. They're fights over culture, over where culture comes from, and how, and over what culture means to all of us.
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Gothamist and Chicagoist
Last post for today:
Check out Gothamist and Chicagoist.
Pittsburgh-ist sounds ridiculous. But we could use a site like those.
Check out Gothamist and Chicagoist.
Pittsburgh-ist sounds ridiculous. But we could use a site like those.
PittsburghBuzz.com
I'm on the mailing list for PittsburghBuzz.com, which posts information about all kinds of events going on around town. I got an email asking me to promote the site (and the events). Happy to oblige.
It's nice to see that the list is more than just happy hours. There really is a lot going in Pittsburgh these days.
It's nice to see that the list is more than just happy hours. There really is a lot going in Pittsburgh these days.
Neighbors in the Strip This Weekend
If talking about Smart Growth doesn't interest you, then check out this weekend's "Taste of the Strip", a food extravaganza designed to welcome all of us back to the Strip after years of disruption and construction around the Convention Center. Sponsored by Neighbors in the Strip. The organizers claim that the Fishmobile will be there. Can they mean THE Fishmobile?
Smart Growth Conference
The Smart Growth Partnership of Westmoreland County is holding a conference tomorrow at Soldiers and Sailors Hall in Oakland, sponsored by the Pitt Institute Of Politics, the Pittsburgh Foundation, and Sustainable Pittsburgh. Free and open to the public.
Dan Gillmor's eJournal
Belated kudos to the Post-Gazette for picking up Dan Gillmor's technology column. Dan writes for the San Jose Mercury News, and he's one of the sharpest technology writers anywhere. Dan's pieces don't run on the P-G website, but the columns, and Dan's other postings, are up at his weblog.
Cool Site of the Day #2: Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank
Donate to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank - You can help! 412 460-3663.
Back in the day, when he was doing large stadium shows, Bruce Springsteen used his celebrity to promote food banks in every city he visited. I don't know whether he still does that. But when I heard him make his pitch to tens of thousands of us at the Oakland Coliseum in 1984, he instantly became my all-time favorite rock 'n' roll musician. (I confess that I liked the Tunnel of Love tour better. Caught that on the grass, at Shoreline.)
Back in the day, when he was doing large stadium shows, Bruce Springsteen used his celebrity to promote food banks in every city he visited. I don't know whether he still does that. But when I heard him make his pitch to tens of thousands of us at the Oakland Coliseum in 1984, he instantly became my all-time favorite rock 'n' roll musician. (I confess that I liked the Tunnel of Love tour better. Caught that on the grass, at Shoreline.)
Cool Site of the Day #1: Construction Junction
Reuse building materials at Construction Junction in Point Breeze.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
David Byrne on Pittsburgh
Thanks to Steve Posti, recently returned to Pittsburgh, for this link to David Byrne's blog and musings about his stop in Pittsburgh.
He begins with characteristic lightness: "Last night the audience sang Happy Birthday to me as we walked on stage. We're in a beautiful renovated theater in downtown- the topless muses frolic on a ceiling mural."
The blog doesn't have permalinks, so scroll down to May 14.
He begins with characteristic lightness: "Last night the audience sang Happy Birthday to me as we walked on stage. We're in a beautiful renovated theater in downtown- the topless muses frolic on a ceiling mural."
The blog doesn't have permalinks, so scroll down to May 14.
The Real Problem With Pittsburgh
I missed the original story last week, but Samantha Bennett reminds us of a recent Pitt report that illustrates the awful state of the region's adult women.
Step one: There are more adult women than there are adult men. "According to the 2000 census, women older than 18 outnumber men by 14 percent in the city, 16 percent in Allegheny County and 14 percent in the metropolitan area, which includes surrounding counties."
Step two: The adult women are extremely well-educated. "In the metro area, 94 percent have high school diplomas, the highest percentage in the nation. Thirty-five percent in the region have bachelor's degrees."
Step three: These women are chronically under-employed, and under-paid. "In Allegheny County, 71 percent of women 25-59 are employed. That's above average for the nation's 50 largest counties. But only half work full time. Women here work part time at a higher rate than in other cities, counties and metro areas." "So how do we make a living? This region's women have locked up two traditional, low-paid fields: We have 75.5 percent of the office and administrative support jobs, and 61 percent -- second highest in the country -- of the food preparation and serving jobs. We are a region of secretaries and waitresses. With college degrees, apparently."
She concludes: "Why, with so much schooling, are we so poorly paid? Why are we so underrepresented in government and on organizational boards? Why are we paid less than women in other cities?"
She's obviously right, but I don't have any answers.
Get yo Pittsburgh on, indeed.
Step one: There are more adult women than there are adult men. "According to the 2000 census, women older than 18 outnumber men by 14 percent in the city, 16 percent in Allegheny County and 14 percent in the metropolitan area, which includes surrounding counties."
Step two: The adult women are extremely well-educated. "In the metro area, 94 percent have high school diplomas, the highest percentage in the nation. Thirty-five percent in the region have bachelor's degrees."
Step three: These women are chronically under-employed, and under-paid. "In Allegheny County, 71 percent of women 25-59 are employed. That's above average for the nation's 50 largest counties. But only half work full time. Women here work part time at a higher rate than in other cities, counties and metro areas." "So how do we make a living? This region's women have locked up two traditional, low-paid fields: We have 75.5 percent of the office and administrative support jobs, and 61 percent -- second highest in the country -- of the food preparation and serving jobs. We are a region of secretaries and waitresses. With college degrees, apparently."
She concludes: "Why, with so much schooling, are we so poorly paid? Why are we so underrepresented in government and on organizational boards? Why are we paid less than women in other cities?"
She's obviously right, but I don't have any answers.
Get yo Pittsburgh on, indeed.
Just Ask the Really Young
The Post-Gazette reports on the 2004 Jr. Benchmarks Competition, featuring local middle schoolers developing marketing campaigns for the region.
The Incarnation Academy on the North Side took first place with "Get yo Pittsburgh on."
Try that down at the Duquesne Club.
Weirdest part of the story: "Another group celebrated Pittsburgh's delights to the tune of 'YMCA,' the '70s hit by the guy-band, the Village People."
"Guy-band"? Is that a typo, or is the P-G trying to slip a euphemism past us?
The Incarnation Academy on the North Side took first place with "Get yo Pittsburgh on."
Try that down at the Duquesne Club.
Weirdest part of the story: "Another group celebrated Pittsburgh's delights to the tune of 'YMCA,' the '70s hit by the guy-band, the Village People."
"Guy-band"? Is that a typo, or is the P-G trying to slip a euphemism past us?
Monday, May 17, 2004
Friends of the Riverfront
Friends of the Riverfront is a volunteer organization helping in the transformation of Pittsburgh's rivers from purely working rivers to multi-purpose, community resources.
Sunday, May 16, 2004
Pittsburgh Teachers Who Blog
Signal + Noise, a blog by Carnegie Mellon faculty member Christopher Genovese, has been around for a while, although I just noticed it today. Creating Text(iles), by Duquesne English professor Anne Brannen, is well-known in the Pittsburgh blogosphere.
There must be other Pittsburgh teachers who blog. Where are they?
There must be other Pittsburgh teachers who blog. Where are they?
Joe Hoeffel for Senate Blog
Joe Hoeffel, the Democratic candidate for Arlen Specter's Senate seat, has a weblog.
Geek Night Coming Up
The Pittsburgh Geeks have a Geek Night coming up on Thursday, June 3 at the Church Brew Works.
Friday, May 14, 2004
The Best of Bowie
David Bowie comes to town this week, and Ed Masley has a pretty good preview.
But the P-G dropped the ball by omitting Bowie's most impressive accomplishments: leveraging his career, and ownership of his catalog, into an extraordinary financial and entertainment empire. It's not just that the guy has turned out an impressive body of music; it's that much earlier than most rock 'n' roll musicians, he figured out how to make himself a cash machine. He keeps the cash. And all this before the dawn of file sharing.
Another David B with a techno/art take on music--David Byrne--was in town the other day. One of my colleagues was on his way out the office door to go to the concert. A Pitt student who works in our building overhead my asking my colleague where he was headed. The student's reaction was: "Who?" He'd never heard of Talking Heads.
But the student knew (knows) Bowie. It's the business angle that makes Bowie a long-term play: technology, art, and business.
But the P-G dropped the ball by omitting Bowie's most impressive accomplishments: leveraging his career, and ownership of his catalog, into an extraordinary financial and entertainment empire. It's not just that the guy has turned out an impressive body of music; it's that much earlier than most rock 'n' roll musicians, he figured out how to make himself a cash machine. He keeps the cash. And all this before the dawn of file sharing.
Another David B with a techno/art take on music--David Byrne--was in town the other day. One of my colleagues was on his way out the office door to go to the concert. A Pitt student who works in our building overhead my asking my colleague where he was headed. The student's reaction was: "Who?" He'd never heard of Talking Heads.
But the student knew (knows) Bowie. It's the business angle that makes Bowie a long-term play: technology, art, and business.
A New Direction for Pittsburgh?
That's an improbable title, given the train wreck that local politics has become. (Did you ever think that you'd see the day when the old joke about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel--and it's an oncoming train--would come true?) But summer has unofficially arrived, with the Pittsburgh Folk Festival coming up on Memorial Day weekend, the Three Rivers Arts Festival coming in June, and the reconfigured Three Rivers Regatta in early July. And I've heard that there's an occasional baseball game nearby, in THE BEST BALLPARK IN THE MAJOR LEAGUES.
The city may be imploding financially, but great stuff is still going on. I read the comments on the blog that complain that nothing is going on in Pittsburgh. That downtown is dead. That there aren't enough young people, or enough things for young people to do. That we should be surprised that Pittsburgh is "ranked" as high as it is by whatever ranking organization happened to release a statistic this week.
If you don't like the way things are, get up off your couch and get moving to make things better. No city--large or small--is going to bring the party to your door. There are a lot of people--young and old--who are already doing just that. Read some of the posts below, and read some of the other blogs about Pittsburgh.
Image matters. I was pleased the other day to hear that non-Pittsburghers think better of the region than I suspected. Good vibes means that people may want to invest here and move here. Investment and movement bring energy, and industry. They bring growth (growth brings change--but that's a good thing). So broadcasting the fact that we've got cool cultural institutions is important. Broadcasting the fact that we've got cool technology institutions is important. Business institutions. Community institutions. Educational institutions. Etc. Etc.
Growth isn't an undifferentiated good. Good growth takes imagination. Over the last few months, I've posted a lot of little items about good things going on in Pittsburgh. Over the next few months, I'll start posting some imagined items about good things that might go on in Pittsburgh--in the future. Pittsburgh's next Renaissance, if it's going to have one, has to be a grass-roots effort. Suggestions are always weleome . . . .
The city may be imploding financially, but great stuff is still going on. I read the comments on the blog that complain that nothing is going on in Pittsburgh. That downtown is dead. That there aren't enough young people, or enough things for young people to do. That we should be surprised that Pittsburgh is "ranked" as high as it is by whatever ranking organization happened to release a statistic this week.
If you don't like the way things are, get up off your couch and get moving to make things better. No city--large or small--is going to bring the party to your door. There are a lot of people--young and old--who are already doing just that. Read some of the posts below, and read some of the other blogs about Pittsburgh.
Image matters. I was pleased the other day to hear that non-Pittsburghers think better of the region than I suspected. Good vibes means that people may want to invest here and move here. Investment and movement bring energy, and industry. They bring growth (growth brings change--but that's a good thing). So broadcasting the fact that we've got cool cultural institutions is important. Broadcasting the fact that we've got cool technology institutions is important. Business institutions. Community institutions. Educational institutions. Etc. Etc.
Growth isn't an undifferentiated good. Good growth takes imagination. Over the last few months, I've posted a lot of little items about good things going on in Pittsburgh. Over the next few months, I'll start posting some imagined items about good things that might go on in Pittsburgh--in the future. Pittsburgh's next Renaissance, if it's going to have one, has to be a grass-roots effort. Suggestions are always weleome . . . .
Summer Treats
With the warm weather this week, my family and I went out the other evening for a frozen custard at Rita's. Not bad at all. It reminded me of the best frozen custard I know (and custard that's far better than Rita's): at Ted Drewes in St. Louis. Get the Concrete!
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
We're Number 19
In yet another of the seemingly endless parade of rankings of cities and metropolitan areas, Pittsburgh apparently ranks number 19 overall in rankings published by something called the National Policy Research Council, or NPRC.
According to the P-G, "In specific categories, Pittsburgh ranked 12th for business climate, 13th for public safety, 17th for infrastructure and quality of life, 22nd for economic dynamism and 33rd for environment."
Despite the official-sounding name, the "NPRC" is just another think tank that has a product to sell--itself. On the site where the "Gold Guide" with its rankings is available for sale, one of the prominent blurbs touting its wisdom comes from the Denver Post. To wit: "A veritable mother of all rankings . . . A master list of the bluebloods of civic achievement." Surprised? Denver is number 1 on the NPRC list.
According to the P-G, "In specific categories, Pittsburgh ranked 12th for business climate, 13th for public safety, 17th for infrastructure and quality of life, 22nd for economic dynamism and 33rd for environment."
Despite the official-sounding name, the "NPRC" is just another think tank that has a product to sell--itself. On the site where the "Gold Guide" with its rankings is available for sale, one of the prominent blurbs touting its wisdom comes from the Denver Post. To wit: "A veritable mother of all rankings . . . A master list of the bluebloods of civic achievement." Surprised? Denver is number 1 on the NPRC list.
Sunday, May 09, 2004
Illiteracy at the Post-Gazette
From this morning's Sports section, the following headline: NHL Notebook: European deal also needs discussed.
A C student in seventh grade English should be able to diagram that sentence and see what's wrong with it.
"One of America's Great Newspapers"? Bah.
A C student in seventh grade English should be able to diagram that sentence and see what's wrong with it.
"One of America's Great Newspapers"? Bah.
Saturday, May 08, 2004
Liberty, Technology, Duty: Where Peace Overlaps War
A lot of my incoming patent law students have undergraduate transcripts that contain four (or more) years of coursework in science and/or engineeering--and nothing but science or engineering. No history, philosophy, art, literature, psychology. Not even economics. Occasionally, an undergraduate engineer who is looking toward law school asks me: What should I do to prepare for law school? I have two standard responses: One is: run, don't walk, away from "law school prep courses." (How to read cases, outline courses, take exams.) They're worse than useless. They're useless and expensive. Two is: Read Shakespeare. Or if not Shakespeare, then read Melville. Dickinson. Ellison. Baldwin. Morrison. Borges. Milosz. Pick a major literary figure--any gender, any genre, any era--and read that person's works. Be literate, in every sense of that word.
Why does that matter? Lots of reasons. Here's one.
Why does that matter? Lots of reasons. Here's one.
Friday, May 07, 2004
2004 Jefferson Lecture
Helen Vendler, the A. Kingsley Porter University Professor of English at Harvard, yesterday delivered the Jefferson Lecture in the Humantiies, the highest honor bestowed by the federal government for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.
The Lecture has nothing to do with Pittsburgh. I'm just wowed by fabulous defenses of the role of the arts and the humanities in American education and culture. From the lecture: "Just as art is only half itself without us--its audience, its analysts, its scholars--so we are only half ourselves without it. When, in this country, we become fully ourselves, we will have balanced our great accomplishments in progressive abstraction--in mathematics and the natural sciences--with an equally great absorption in art, and in the disciplines ancillary to art. The arts, though not progressive, aim to be eternal, and sometimes are. And why should the United States not have as much eternity as any other nation? As Marianne Moore said of excellence, 'It has never been confined to one locality.'"
The Lecture has nothing to do with Pittsburgh. I'm just wowed by fabulous defenses of the role of the arts and the humanities in American education and culture. From the lecture: "Just as art is only half itself without us--its audience, its analysts, its scholars--so we are only half ourselves without it. When, in this country, we become fully ourselves, we will have balanced our great accomplishments in progressive abstraction--in mathematics and the natural sciences--with an equally great absorption in art, and in the disciplines ancillary to art. The arts, though not progressive, aim to be eternal, and sometimes are. And why should the United States not have as much eternity as any other nation? As Marianne Moore said of excellence, 'It has never been confined to one locality.'"
Monday, May 03, 2004
Back in Pittsburgh
I've been out of town for the last week or so, visiting and conferencing in New York and New England. I saw some old friends and made some new ones. A relevant observation: Without exception, when I told people that I live in Pittsburgh, the reaction was -- that's a great place! You have to look up my friends in Pittsburgh who are doing "X" ("X" always being some really interesting thing)!
First example of "X": The Studio for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon.
This -- the reaction about Pittsburgh -- hasn't happened to me before. Are we doing something right without knowing it?
First example of "X": The Studio for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon.
This -- the reaction about Pittsburgh -- hasn't happened to me before. Are we doing something right without knowing it?
Pedal Pittsburgh -- Coming May 16
Hope for good weather for the upcoming Pedal Pittsburgh!
And while you're at it, check out the event's beneficiary: the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh.
And while you're at it, check out the event's beneficiary: the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh.
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