Jun 30 2009
If you are a writer for the Post-Gazette, one of the more depressing features of our Web site is the section that details the most e-mailed stories. As an indicator of public interest, it is enough to make someone like me despair.
Just a little while ago, I finished writing my column. I think it is pretty good - I hope it is funny - but I know that I have little chance of cracking the electronic honor roll of most e-mailed stories. In my wildest dreams, I don't expect to be No. 1.
As I write at this hour, the No. 1 e-mailed story is the following ...
Man without pants reported on Montour Trail
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
By Liyun Jin, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
State police are searching for a man spotted without any pants along the Montour Trail in Robinson, Washington County.
Pamela Roberts told police she was running with her daughter around 5:30 p.m. yesterday when a man emerged from the bushes near mile marker 13.
The suspect is described as a white man between 40 and 50 years old, 5 feet 7 inches tall, with a medium build. According to police, he was wearing a light blue button-down shirt and a dark blue cap, was carrying big binoculars, and was naked from the waist down.
According to Trooper Raymond Quiroz, the witness said the man became startled and ran away. No one else on the trail reported seeing him.
Police searched the area but were unable to locate the man.
Now, I will admit that this little story is a gem that contains wonderful little details. Indeed, the mental picture of police walking the Montour Trail in the hope of apprehending the man without pants will keep me smiling for a while yet.
But then the depression will return and I will realize anew that I am a seldom-emailed loser.
Jun 29 2009
I am back from my week of furlough. In 40 years in this business, I have been hired and fired but never furloughed.
It seemed to me like a rehearsal for eventual retirement. I went to East 'N Park and was called "sweetie," which decidedly I am not. I mowed the lawn. I went for a couple of runs. I took my dog Sooner up into the woods. I did chores. I puddled about like an old codger.
News was happening while I was away and one part of it - the death of Michael Jackson - conspired to make me feel old. I liked him as a performer well enough but was left puzzled, shocked even, by the general outpourings of grief.
Yes, he died relatively young and that is sad, but I am not of that generation who saw him as a cultural icon. To me, he was just an odd guy with white socks and one glove who sang and danced well. To feel that your life was touched, I guess you had to come of age in the 1980s and I had a head start on that.
The moonwalk of mortality aside, my time off was rather wonderful --- and it was made better by the great weather. The only drawback on this vacation was that I wasn't being paid.
I came back to 460 emails, most of them garbage. Still, it wasn't depressing to come back and any lingering regrets were banished with one reading of an only-in-America story on the PG Web site today ....
Monday, June 29, 2009
The Associated Press
Man, woman both wounded while trying out their new gun
Police say a man and woman have been wounded while trying to figure out how to use their new handgun in their Washington County home.
Police in Cecil aren't identifying the couple wounded last night.
Police say the gun fired while the couple were handling it, wounding the man in the hand and the woman in her hand and biceps. Both were being treated at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh.
Police say the couple simply didn't know how to operate the gun properly.
Oh, so that's how it works!
Jun 19 2009
One of things that right wingers love to do is dream of my unemployment, or so I gather from my mail. They know that the newspaper industry is suffering and they assume it's because newspapers are liberal (actually, many newspapers are conservative and they are hurting along with the liberal ones, but, hey, we shouldn't let the facts get in the way of a good fantasy).
This is a sampling from just this past week from a gentleman - I use the term loosely - named Ed:
"I'm ... not impressed that you get paid anything to write the BS you and your employer print. Unfortunately for you, I don't think you will be getting paid to write your BS that much longer. Maybe you can be the recipient of one of the government programs you so love."
Here's my special gift to Ed: I can confirm that I will be unemployed next week. Unfortunately for Ed, I will be only unemployed one week. I am taking the week off as part of the compulsory furloughs that those not in the union here must take.
I will not be writing my column or my blog. I will not be in the office or even checking my mail from home. I will be on the dark side of the moon eating cheese and having a wonderful time not hearing from the likes of Ed.
Please reconvene here on Monday, June 29, when I return refreshed to my mission of driving the Eds of the world crazy. And certainly do not feel sorry for me - I'll gladly take a short vacation if it means improving the finances of the paper. Besides, my daughter is coming home and I intend spending some quality time with her and her new husband, Critter. It's all good.
Jun 17 2009
And another one bites the dust. What is it with holier-than-thou Republicans? Does it enflame their thighs and make their eyes like limpid pools reflecting the ripples of passion?
Oh yes, in fairness, Democratic Sen. John Edwards also made a mockery of his marriage vows with another woman, but he was mostly just a creep to his wife and perhaps those who believed in him.
The latest to lose his dignity like a pair of pants at the cleaners, Sen. John Ensign, is clearly more of a public hypocrite, a Promise Keeper who forgot to keep his promise with one of his staffers. Although he kept quiet the identity of his lover (and her husband) in his public admission of infidelity, there was no hiding that secret. They have now stepped from the shadows to make the humiliation general.
Now there are questions being raised about the propriety of her pay raise during the time of the affair from December 2007 through August 2008.
Seriously, what consenting men and women do in their bedrooms should be regarded as a private matter, but when you have made such a public show of promising to keep your pants up, then those of us in the cheap seats are going to take some amusement from your de-trousering.
Not to worry. The Republican Party is still being led by moral giants, such as Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh.
Jun 17 2009
Although amply proportioned like an old sofa, I am not comfortable with public hugging. I do not think that consenting adults should be forbidden to hug in public, but I think hugging is more satisfactory in private settings.
In other words, keep your hugging hands off me unless you have an invitation.
To that end, I read with alarm a piece that was positioned under my column this morning in the Portfolio section. Its author, Adam Joseph Miller, promotes public hugging. To which all I can say is arrgh!!
As it happens, I once wrote a front-page story on hugging for the PG. Photographer Annie O'Neill and I went out together on the assignment and ended up having to hug each other, which was mortifying for both of us (Annie and I later became great friends when we were sent to Vietnam to cover the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon in 2000, but in 1996 we were not on hugging terms.)
I thought it might amuse you to reproduce the piece here. Note - what I wrote was not my column, but a piece of reporting done for the Close Encounters team, a project that at the time had staff members doing some unusual reporting while having encounters of the journalistic kind.
You will observe that I wrote it in the Mickey Spillane style to give it a bit of an edge. It was a fun excitement, except, of course, for the hugging.
THESE BEARS ARE NOT DANGEROUS, JUST HUGGABLE
By Reg Henry
Post-Gazette Staff Writer
It's a slow day in the newsroom. The boss comes over, says, "Some dames are doing a hugging seminar. Something about bears."
He pushes over a yellowed newspaper clipping, small as a betting ticket but with less promise of a payout.
What's this, boss? Not enough three-alarm fires in this town for a straight-shooting reporter?
Well, maybe the hugging seminar is going on at a hot-sheet joint with some doll whose middle name is Danger.
No such luck. It's turns out to be at St. Margaret Memorial Hospital. We wheel out to Aspinwall with the feeling of an impending hangover.
We go to the conference room. Bears outnumber the people, and these are not the type of bears that play in Chicago or kick out the drunks at a nightspot.
In front of the bears, there are two classy ladies. That's as obvious as a neon sign on a dark night. Kind, friendly, enthusiastic - things you don't see much of on the old City Desk.
So what's the caper?
It turns out Sue Franke, 49, of Murrysville, is a registered nurse and heads a program just starting up called The Special Kids Network, which provides information and support to families who have children with special health-care needs.
Her helper with the seminar is Sally Johnson, 48, of Penn Hills, health and disabilities co-ordinator with the Allegheny County Head Start program and the Allegheny Intermediate Unit.
You'd think hugging would come as naturally to people as playing the numbers, but apparently not.
Hugging is taught, Franke says, ``because people are afraid to do it because we are a non-touch society, people are afraid to intrude on somebody else's space and they don't want to be accused of harassment or molesting.''
Yeah, sure, but why hug anyway?
Hugging, they say with a warmth that would melt ice cubes in the Arctic, is one of the essentials of a happy life. It reduces stress, dispels loneliness, opens doors to feelings, builds self-esteem, helps premature babies and comforts people in hospitals.
To help a hug-deficient society, Franke started "hug therapy" when she did graduate work at Penn State. "I come from a family of huggers and did some research and put the program together.'' It really took off when she got the support of Shadyside Hospital six years ago.
It is more than OK to hug, they say; it's vital for both children and adults.
"In my background,'' Franke says, "I was covering patients in the hospital and people are very frightened ... they are away from family and friends, and when you offer someone a human touch in a hug it makes them feel so much better about themselves.''
Sometimes hugs work as well as a pain pill. "My patients would ask me for a hug instead of pain medicine because it would help calm them down,'' Franke says.
With a slide show, they explain 12 different types of hugs.
The A-Frame. Ankle Hug. Waist-Grabber. Bear Hug. Cheek-to-Cheek. Grabber-Squeezer. Group Hug. The Guess-Who? Hug. Heart-Centered Hug. Side-to-Side Hug. Top-of-the-Head Hug. And Variations.
This seems like more positions than the Kama Sutra, but they don't have to land you in the hoosegow. "Hug therapy is always nonsexual, is very caring and compassionate," Franke says.
The secret to avoiding trouble, Franke says, is to always ask the potential huggee first and be sensitive to a person's feelings.
Not everyone likes being hugged and it can be cultural. "People from Northern European countries, Scandinavians, Germans, British, they're less likely to offer a hug than somebody from the Southern Mediterranean like the Italians or the Greeks - they are more likely to touch and be affectionate in public,'' Franke says.
Teddy bears are used in the hug therapy. "It's just amazing what teddy bears will do," Franke says. Even a grizzled reporter realizes that it's impossible to dislike anyone who gives a quote like that.
At the end of the session, there are some practice hugs. This is a dangerous moment for a reporter and a photographer who are not usually hugged on the job.
There's no hiding either. Only two other people are in the audience, hardly a quorum for a teddy bear's picnic, plus the presenters and a PR person for St. Maragret's, who says the same seminar the previous day had attracted 50 people.
Teddy bears are distributed. There's no getting out of the joint without a bear.
Jun 16 2009
Not being very social, I do not regularly read the Seen column. This is nothing against our social scene reporters Marylynn Uricchio and Patricia Sheridan, whom I know and like and think do a great job. I am sure they return the favor by not reading some of the more room-emptying editorials I write on subjects that aren't interesting to them.
But I have several friends who attended the Mattress Factory's 2009 Urban Garden Party, which they said was quite an event, and I found myself reading the Seen column account of it. I was stopped short when told that the caterers had "served lamb burgers from trays placed on a naked woman."
My own view is that food and naked people should be kept separate. You never know where naked people have been. While I grant that at this party the trays added a hygienic separation between burgers and bod, I am just not sure that Julia Child would have approved. I am also uncomfortable with women being used as furniture. For that matter, I am not in favor of men being used as furniture - should anyone get any bright ideas.
Americans have never liked lamb very much. This is a shame, because in Australia where I grew up people can't walk through a field without grabbing a sheep and putting slices of bread on each side of it. Nude women play no part in this, which is just as well - you can find some nasty burs in sheep paddocks.
Even so, promoting lamb through unorthodox employment of nude women is unlikely to promote the product. Distracted men won't remember what they eat.
Jun 15 2009
I spent my lunch hour watching the Penguins take their victory parade through the streets of Pittsburgh. Theirs was a magic victory Friday night and exuberance was the general mood among the thousands of fans. Oh, I suppose you could find some frustrated motorist somewhere, confounded by streets closures, but where I was people were happy.
Together with a colleague, I went to the same vantage point I used to watch the Steelers' Super Bowl parade back in February - a small parking lot fronting the Boulevard of the Allies and across from PPG Place. The last time I was here a small mound of ice and snow allowed a higher perch but today we had to peer over the forest of bodies from lot level. We still had a pretty good view.
My impression was the crowd, admittedly viewed from a small section of it, was every bit as big as for the Steelers and every bit as happy - but tended a bit younger (which makes sense given that most schools are out). The fine, sunny day also helped make the parade a success.
Thirty years ago, such a scene for the Penguins would have been unimaginable because, back then, Pittsburgh wasn't much of a hockey town. It just goes to show what winning can do for a team and a city. Pittsburgh Pirates, please take note.
Jun 12 2009
Ellen Goodman is not my favorite columnist. I have previously joked in this space that many things in this life appear to be the part of providence's plan to give Ellen Goodman something to write about.
Yes, life unfolds as a series of Ellen Goodman moments, all involving women in some sort of distress, usually because of men -- and no surprise there. I grant you that if I were a woman, I would like Ellen Goodman's writing much more.
That all said, her column ("The Identity Dance") that appeared in this morning's paper was terrific. In my feeble male way, I have struggled mightily to expose the shallowness and absurdity of the critics of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. But Ellen Goodman said it all effortlessly in her wise and knowing column.
I salute her and I shall go off now and have a beer to drown my feelings of inadequacy in the face of the master - make that, mistress.
I should drink a bottle of Iron City but I don't have any in my fridge - which I suppose is indicative of the problem, the one lurking behind the news today that the decision has been made to brew the beer in Latrobe. I feel bad for the union guys, who have given up a lot in concessions, and I feel bad for the city. It's depressing to consider that a beer that's been around since the Civil War is leaving town. A city without a major brewery is like Ellen Goodman without an issue provided by providence.
Forgive me. It's late and my analogies are tired.
Jun 11 2009
The headline of the Post-Gazette's lead story this morning was "Czar Will Monitor Execs' Pay." Ah, another czar.
Americans - well, their media - seem obsessed with czars, which is rather an odd obsession when you think that they weren't all that popular in their heyday in Russia.
Real or proposed, Americans hear regularly of drug czars, health czars and energy czars as well as a lesser range of ranks for other occupations.
If you are a career criminal, you might rise to the level of kingpin or mafia boss. While it would be fun to be a kingpin, I always wanted to be a beer baron myself. Being an everyday sort of fellow, I cannot see myself being a czar in any field.
When you read The New York Times story, however, you realize that Kenneth R. Feinberg isn't much of czar (his real title is special master for compensation). He will only oversee the compensation of employees at seven companies that have received federal assistance. Also, judging by his picture on Page A-6, he wouldn't look good in a plumed czar hat.
No, that's no czar, as the rules announced make clear. As The Time story notes, "... for most companies - both those receiving taxpayer support and those that are not - the proposal is the result of a compromise that largely lets them off the hook. The rules reveal a strong reluctance among some of President Barack Obama's advisers to intrude more deeply into corporate boardrooms, government officials said."
Wait a second, what is this "strong reluctance to intrude..."? Didn't the right-wing fellahs say that Obama was a Marxist?
I have to take issue with PghGirl's comment in the last blog. She mentions that people protested in Market Square and Obama didn't reduce taxes. In fact, he did. One third of the stimulus package was in tax cuts. I recently got a letter from the company that runs my 401K that spelled this out in detail. You could look it up.
When I wrote recently in a column that Obama cut taxes, I got a note from a guy who absolutely refused to believe it. Couldn't happen. After all, Obama's a Marxist.
As for PghGirl's suggestion that protesters should follow leaders to their homes, country clubs etc, I can't think of an idea more likely to backfire. As anyone who lived in Pittsburgh in the early 1980s can attest, that was the basic strategy of the DMX, a group protesting the laying off of steel workers. It was pretty hard to hurt the cause of unemployed steel workers back then, but the DMX managed it with their tactics of personal confrontation, often in churches.
Jun 10 2009
My column this morning didn't please the lefties, but I am an equal opportunity offender. After giving so much stick to the right wingers in recent years, it was only fair that I pull the ears of their polar opposites for once.
But one thing wasn't controversial - the part about Pittsburgh being so friendly. My original draft said that the only place equally friendly is my native Australia, where people are so friendly that they call each other mate even when they have no intention of mating with the other person. That was cut for space and also because it was a little off point.
As it happens, I have long thought that Pittsburgh is similar to Australia. At first blush, it is a crazy comparison. Where are the great beaches and the gum trees that adorn Oz? Where's the wonderful weather?
What you can find here (and there) is a no-nonsense, unpretentious, straight-forward people formed by a blue-collar culture. They like a joke, love a beer and are suspicious of swells who put on airs and graces. They are also sports crazy.
Taste alert: Australia even has its own term for a jag-off, the term I couldn't say in the paper but I reckon I can say in my blog, because if the Internet is not the Wild West what is the point? The Australian word is wanker. The jag-offs and the wankers could meet and have a convention to discuss how they are discriminated against.
That Pittsburgh is really the North American Oz may explain why I have been so happy here.
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