CFO on NPR on Pittsburgh

A writer for CFO Magazine was interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition today about cities and their struggles. Pittsburgh -- decent economy, outdated political/tax structure -- was the centerpiece of the interview. Here's the link to the audio stream.

You Think Pittsburgh Has Parking Problems?

Cross-posted from my other blog, a note about Boston battles over chairs in parking spaces recently cleared of snow. At least Bostonians only use chairs to mark spaces that they've earned by shoveling. Pittsburghers use chairs (among other things) to annex parts of the street that happen to lie next to their doors or storefronts. Where's the honor in that?

Still, the surest way for any candidate in the upcoming Pittsburgh mayor's election to torpedo a campaign would be to come out against chairs that mark parking spaces.

Extreme Associates Case Dismissed

As a lawyer, I feel obliged to note the courage of local federal judge Gary Lancaster, who recently dismissed federal obscenity indictments against two Californians doing business as "Extreme Associates." This was the first major federal obscenity prosecution in years, and it fell apart under the weight of the recent Supreme Court case, Lawrence v. Texas, that held that state anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional.

Privacy is as privacy does, as Forrest Gump might have said. Not only did Judge Lancaster toss out the indictments, he ruled that the entirety of the federal obscenity statute is unconstitutional in light of our Lawrence v. Texas-guaranteed rights of liberty, privacy, and free speech. He agreed with the defense that "the government can no longer justify legislation with enforcement of a 'moral code.'" Roughly speaking, if it's legal to own it, then it's legal to sell it.

Specifically, the court ruled, "the federal obscenity statutes violate the constitutional guarantees of personal liberty and privacy of consenting adults who wish to view defendants' films in private." Why? Because "public morality is not a legitimate state interest sufficient to justify infringing on adult, private, consensual, sexual conduct even if that conduct is deemed offensive to the general public's sense of morality."

It will be interesting to see what the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has to say about this. Meanwhile, ABC News has a long and interesting report here.

The Harold and Maude Hearse

It's cold, and I'm procrastinating, and I noticed that in a recent post Anne praised the whole idea of owning a hearse as your family vehicle. That reminds me of a brief story: I grew up on the San Francisco peninsula, in a town whose neighbors were used as settings for Harold and Maude, a classic of the cult film circuit. Not surprisingly for a film that was entirely about death, there was a hearse, and after the film wrapped the hearse got sold. The hearse ended up in the hands of a kid at Palo Alto High School, and at a party in Palo Alto one night in the mid-1970s, that kid and I showed up at the same party. I ended up as one member of a gang of teenagers that rode around Stanford and the streets of Palo Alto that night, in the back of the hearse that Harold and Maude made famous, cracking jokes and making the kind of mayhem that teenagers think they make when they invade the local college campus.

Pittsburgh Thinkers of the Year

According to the Post-Gazette, WQED's Pittsburgh Magazine has included three "Thinkers" among its Pittsburghers of the Year. They are:

Finn Kydland, Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon;

Edward Prescott, Professor of Economics at Arizona State and holder of a Ph.D. from CMU; and

Wangari Maathai, Assistant Minister for Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife in Kenya, and founder of the Green Belt Movement for environmental conservation and community development in Kenya. Professor Maathai received an MS in Biological Sciences from Pitt.

Professors Kydland and Prescott shared the 2004 The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Professor Maathai received the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.

It's fair to call Finn Kydland a Pittsburgher. But the others? No disrespect intended to either of them, but there are an awful lot of brilliant people who actually live in Pittsburgh, who didn't happen to be recognized with Nobel awards in 2004. Pittsburgh -- city, region, and magazine -- can and should be proud of the here and now. We don't need to claim reflected glory from those who passed through lived, worked, or studied here at one point in their lives, long ago.

Not in My Sandbox

Mark Rauterkus's remedy for the childish behavior of the Act 47 recovery team and the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority (ICA) is sunshine. Open meetings, open reports, open processes.

Not a bad first step, by any means, but hardly the last one, either. Even in the sunshine, and even with new leadership, are Pittsburgh politicians capable of solving Pittsburgh problems?

Good Money After Bad?

The title of the post is a little unfair, but when someone with no axe to grind says that a big capital investment downtown that designed to promote tourism in Pittsburgh is unlikely to pay off, shouldn't we be listening?

The author quoted in the story, Heywood Sanders, has been in the middle of convention center controversies and economic development controversies before.

Back to Business

This concludes Pittsburgh's regularly scheduled sports programming for the winter. Between the NHL lockout, a disappointing season in the making for area college hoops, and the absence of the NBA, there's not much for a sports fan to do for a while except hit the slopes, wait for spring training, and take a long, long moment to remember Johnny Carson.

The (Steel) Curtain Comes Down

Last night's result (Pats 41 - Steelers 27, if you somehow happened to miss it) was profoundly unsurprising, if disappointing. The Steelers weren't as good as their 15-1-plus-an-OT-playoff-win record. The Pats were even better than their 14-2-plus-a-playoff-blowout record. And the game wasn't as close as the score indicates.

But congrats nonetheless to a group of players and coaches who exceeded all expectations for the season and who managed to lift the spirits of Pittsburgh significantly for three months. Bill Cowher will and should stay. Ben Roethlisberger -- a rookie, after all -- will get better. There's a large cadre of excellent young players. Troy Polamalu, Alan Faneca, and Hines Ward are tops in my book, but your book may vary. Jerome may call it quits (but should he? quite a season!), and Plaxico may hunt free agent dollars, but this team will be back.

Zyng-ed

I happened to eat lunch at Zyng yesterday, the new upscale noodle place in Squirrel Hill that got a nice write-up in the P-G last Wednesday. My mini-review: nice concept, good looking place, friendly and prompt service, reasonbly priced. The food lacks a certain edge, like it's calculated to please. Overall: Zyng was a pleasant experience, but it didn't knock my socks off, and I'm not aching to go back. Is it a problem that the owners are entrepreneurs, not restauranteurs? I'm rarely one to ding people who are looking to take risks in business, but when it comes to new restaurants, it's not about the business. It's all about the food.

En Fuego

An outside auditor recommends that 1/3 of Pittsburgh fire stations be closed (Post-Gazette coverage here and Tribune-Review coverage here). The report will prompt a flurry of indignant letters to the editor. There will be outrage and bluster from usual suspects, including the firefighters' union boss, Joe King. Right or wrong on the particulars, though, the recommendation is the sort of truth-talking that the region needs: A city the size of Pittsburgh can't afford (and doesn't need) public services on the scale that it has them now.

Tow Boat Down

The towboat disaster and tragedy on the Ohio River last weekend has prompted an overdue public examination of the work of towboat crews. There's some good background material available: The New Yorker magazine doesn't archive much of its material on the web, but if you happen to track down a copy of the Nov. 15, 2004 issue, you'll find a typically wonderful and insightful essay by John McPhee, who hitched a ride on a towboat on the Illinois River. In the meantime, take a look at The Waterways Journal.

Romancing the Burgh

When the New York Jets come to town to play football, the nostalgia machine in the New York media works overtime. This week, it's doing a pretty good job.

Today's Times runs a nice feature on Myron Cope, whose picture should appear in most dictionaries under "local sports icon." Like a lot of fans watching the Steelers/Jets game at home this afternoon, I'll have the TV on "mute" while listening to Bill Hillgrove, Myron, and Tunch Ilkin (with the occasional contribution from Craig Wolfley) on the radio.

Thursday's Times carried this long feature on Pittsburgh's long-time love affair with the Steelers. The writer, Jere Longman, might have hit the nostalgia/cliche jackpot, but I like the piece anyway. The whole thing comes off as affectionate. As a soccer fan, Longman can recognize a love affair between a city and a team:

Tony Novosel, 52, a bartender at Chiodo's and an academic adviser and history teacher at Pitt, said that passion for the Steelers reminded him of passion for European soccer, where the local team is considered 'immediate family.'

The passion here runs deep and true, but I'm still waiting for the fans at Heinz Field to break into song.

Aussies in Pittsburgh

G'day to Australians in Pittsburgh!

NBC News to Broadcast from the Burgh

Brian Williams will host the NBC Nightly News tomorrow night (Friday, 1/14) from Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh and Peer-to-Peer

Mt. Lebanon-based SightSound Technologies is in the news again. SightSound recently sued the revived Napster music downloading service for patent infringement.

Tube City Online and the P-G

Props to Jason at Tube City Online for the nice writeup in today's Post-Gazette, a piece about Jason's book project that includes a nice color photo -- but neither mention of nor link to his blog.

Pittsblog is Back in Pittsburgh

Last week's announcement that Southwest Airlines will be coming to Pittsburgh in May took the edge off of wondering whether a USAirways airplane would arrive at the gate yesterday to fly me back to Pittsburgh.

Southwest's announcement means, I think, that USAirways has one last chance to get its act together as a company (that means management *and* labor) and survive, at least in some form. It also means that like a lot of outsiders, Southwest sees opportunity in Pittsburgh. (The ever-thoughtful Steve Massey notes the same thing.) But I may be more optimistic than most; just about everyone I was flying with last week seemed to think that it's all over for the carrier but the fire sale. And though a slimmer, competitive USAirways may be better than no USAirways, there is no getting around the fact that some folks, and maybe a lot of folks, are going to lose their jobs.

Happy New Year

Pittsblog is one year old today. Happy New Year to all. I'll be away for a week, so no blogging 'til then.