AntiRust

Yes Sir! The Post-Gazette Does More of Activist's Bidding, Kisses More Boots

The other day, I noted that a powerful player in state politics claims to be "generating" editorials and news coverage at the Post-Gazette and other papers in the state. Looks like he might be at it again. But with an interesting twist.

Check out today's editorial about smoking in the Post-Gazette. It talks all about using government force to make people stop smoking. And what a great idea it is. Which seems strange. I thought this whole thing was about making sure bartenders never get a whiff of the vile tobacco-smell and, inevitably, drop dead on the spot. But now it seems like a broader campaign, doesn't it? It's not about worker safety. It's about strong-arming people into quitting their "nasty habits."

Thank god the editors have outside sources to generate their editorials. Because if they didn't they might have to think this through a bit. And think about the implications of using government force to correct "nasty habits." What else is nasty? Some people think premarital sex is. Some people thing gay sex is. Some people think dirty words are. Some people think short skirts are the end of polite society. Some people think not going to church is nasty. And yes, Mr. McIntire, some people thing suggestive language on the radio is a dire public health threat AND nasty. All of it. Nasty. And therefore under the purview of state control.

Ah, yes. The press. Defenders of our rights. The folks who watch the watchers. But if this is really about worker safety, why would the editors care if people smoke when no workers are present?

This. Has. Nothing. To. Do. With. Worker. Safety.

Anyone who says it does is firmly in the hip pocket of Big Dishonest Editorial. Maybe I could call the Post-Gazette and get them to write an editorial about that. Maybe not. Maybe not everyone is created equal when it comes to "generating" editorials and news coverage. You think?

Oh, and since I haven't posted it in a while, here is the Post-Gazette's take on why river guides do not deserve as much protection as bartenders. That is, this is how the editors justify their murderous campaign against river-workers:

In our erstwhile home of the brave, there's an urge to flatten every bump, to put a pillow around every tree and to generally make life as risk-free as possible. That Dimple Rock will be left alone, that a wild river will be allowed its bit of wildness, is a reassuring sign that America hasn't entirely lost its daring.

So. If you want to "go wild" by rafting on a river, fine by them. But if you want to unwind by having a cigarette with your lager, you can go straight to hell. Why? Because that will kill bartenders.

But rafting on the river will clearly kill river guides. The difference? The editors at the Post-Gazette like river rafting. And they do not like tobacco. That is, they are allowed to endanger workers with their irrational pastimes. You are not.

Got it.

Love Suburbia. Love Hipsters. I Command You.

The post immediately prior to this one explores what happens when the cool people living downtown don't think it's cool anymore. If you are interested in such things, you absolutely have to check out this epic blog post at The America Scene, which lays out the suburbs-versus-downtown debate in all its delicious intractability.

Some really great stuff here. Like... what happens when the urban-advocates get their gas taxes and their mass transit and all the rest and... people keep driving their Hummers and living in the exurbs? Like I have been saying, a lot of people are not living out there and driving those because they are getting mixed signals from government. A lot of them--some of them, at least--live out their because they love McMansions and they love driving around in huge SUVs.

Is this an inevitable consequence of prosperity? Maybe. Maybe not. But the richer Europeans get, the more they move to the suburbs. The more they drive. Despite the fact that most European countries have huge gas taxes, reliable mass transit and the kind of development rules that suburb-haters claim will cure what ails America.

But there is more. What about the politics? Is suburb/city a left/right issue? And is it possible that sprawl is actually good for us? Here is the James Howard Kuntzler post that inspired it all.

Check it out. And for more evidence that you should read TAS more often... a treatise on why people should stop complaining and love Hipsters.

Reverse Migration: Leaving the City, Loving the Hamptons

Cities have long held several well-known advantages over country living. Sure, people living downtown have to pay out the wazoo for real estate, the living quarters are cramped, traffic, noise. Etc. But the upside! Theater! Better restaurants! Beautiful people!

Here's an interesting take on that: Seems that New York's celebrity set is no longer just "summering" in the Hamptons. A growing number are actually living there. It's an entertaining article, but it'll get you all worked up if... you tend to get worked up over such things. A snippet:

But for people like Mr. [Kelsey] Grammer and Mr. [Howard] Stern and, say, Gwyneth Paltrow (who recently annoyed her new neighbors in Amagansett by erecting a giant wall around her manse)—people who aren’t running out to pick up a Philips screwdriver—the Hamptons does have everything. They can trot down to Loaves and Fishes in Bridgehampton and pick up some lobster salad for $100 a pound, or pick up a cappuccino for $6 at Sant Ambroeus. They can peruse the couture produce at the Green Thumb. “Howard and I only eat organic,” Ms. Ostrosky said.

Then again, not everyone is so devoted to clean living.

It was around 2 a.m. on the morning of June 24 at the Pink Elephant nightclub along the Montauk highway. The joint was jumping with pink-cheeked, thirtysomething young men in brightly colored button-down shirts and their female counterparts in this summer’s ubiquitous, unflattering baby-doll dresses, along with Jergens tans.

Owner Rocco Ancarola bragged that numbers for the club are up 30 percent from last year. “I think people are moving out here and they’re finding that they can work out here because everyone has the Internet nowadays, and an apartment on the Bowery—like a one-bedroom apartment—can go for a million or two million!” he said. “Whereas they can come out here and get a really decent house with quality of living. Which is really what life is all about.”

Then there's this bit about fancy prep schools:

Mr. McInerney is one of that increasing number that no longer makes a distinction between “the season” and the off-season. His children from his marriage with Helen Bransford live in East Hampton and go to the Ross School whose state-of-the-art cafeteria menu features macrobiotic food.

“The schools followed the money—there are like five good private schools out there now,” said Ms. Siegal, whose sister’s family lives in East Hampton full time, over the phone the next day. Her niece also attends the Ross School (which has enrolled 17 new students from the metropolitan area for this coming fall) and her brother-in-law commutes to the city. Ms. Siegal believes that “there is definitely a reverse migration going on” from Manhattan...

Got that? The schools are not following density. Or energy. Or buzz. Same as the restaurants. They are following the money. Now, to the extent that rich people like to live downtown, that means the same thing. But to the extent that it doesn't...

I wouldn't expect Manhattan to be a ghost town anytime soon, of course. I'm just saying.

Who Runs the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette? Whose Feet Are the Editors Kissing?

I comment pretty regularly at a blog run by a "public health" doctor who is thinking through his position on workplace smoking bans. He's for them. But he's beginning to worry that the Tobacco Control movement is losing its integrity as it gains influence. But who cares? Far more interesting is a response that one of my comments generated. 

It came from Bill Godshall, a longtime proponent of workplace smoking bans and executive director of SmokeFree Pennsylvania.

I did some complaining about a specific editorial in the Erie Times-News. And I said the Post-Gazette had a habit of running editorials that were even worse. Well, here's part of Godshall's response (emphasis added):

Per Sam's comment about PA newspaper editorials criticizing the PA Senate for exempting casinos, some bars and nonprofit groups from the smokefree workplace legislation, and for preempting more protective local ordinances, I helped generate those editorials and much of the news coverage.

REALLY. That's odd. I wonder how the Post-Gazette would react if, say, The Marlboro Man were influencing the Tribune-Review's editorial meetings. Or generating the paper's NEWS COVERAGE of related events.

And I wonder how the Post-Gazette would respond if it learned that tobacco-friendly activists and lobbyists were making calls to legislators regarding the smoking ban. Oh, wait. We don't have to wonder at all. The paper would develop some disparaging remarks about "kissing the feet" of Big Tobacco, claim that the legislators in question were in the lobbyists' hip pocket, and otherwise claim that anyone opposed to the PG agenda was a sleazy backroom dealer.

Weird. Because now we learn that the other side's lobbyists, some of whom have their own deep-pocketed friends in Big Philanthropy, Big Pharma, etc., have been, you know, calling people too. People at the Post-Gazette and Erie Times-News.

And in this case, the activist in question is helping to "generate" not only editorial positions. But NEWS COVERAGE too.

Look. Maybe Godshall means something completely innocent when he says that he "helped generate" the editorials. Maybe he just made a call and gave a heads up about developments. Offered his take. And let the editors make up their own minds.

But if legislators can't do that without being labeled dishonest goons by the Post-Gazette, why can the editors? Why do they get to talk to lobbyist and activists and make up their own minds?

So I guess until they prove otherwise, we can assume that the editors of the Post-Gazette are on the take, kissing the feet and licking the boots of SmokeFree Pennsylvania's Bill Godshall.

Or wouldn't that be fair? If not, I think the Post-Gazette has some apologizing to do. To some legislators.

Last: Exactly how much influence did this guy actually have? To what extent is he driving news coverage and editorial positions? He brought it up. I'm just asking.

In the meantime, here is the blog post in question. I have a few comments, but the interesting one is way down. Like number 60 or 65. Godshall responds shortly thereafter. In fact, he might have responded again by the time you see this. So maybe he explained the situation aready.

Fix a Lawnmower, Save Civilization: An Argument for Better Technical Education

Jeff Kelly, chairman of the National Tooling and Machine Association, has an op-ed in the Post-Gazette about worker training. He says there is a critical shortage of skilled workers. Even here in Western PA. I keep hearing people complain about it. And I know a few people who have added some personal anecdotes. So I will accept that it is true.

Kelly proposes some government spending to provide the training. Which always makes me cringe. After all, lots of companies require specialized training. But a lot of them supply that training themselves. The federal government does not "teach" people to be investment bankers. You learn the basics in high school. A little more at college. But even graduates of elite universities have to enter grueling internship and training programs to make the grade at Goldman Sachs. It takes years. And it costs Goldman Sachs a lot of money.

Be that as it may, I do accept that there is a need for more and better technical education. And that, for better or worse, some of that could conceivably come in the form of government supported education centers. (There are medical schools at public universities, for instance. Law schools, too. Theater programs. But not much in the way of tool and die.)

But what about something more basic? It seems to me that most people generally accept the idea of public high schools. And it seems equally clear to me that the technical training done in many of them could be improved. In a lot of ways. I never took a shop class. I was too busy in "college prep." When was the last time I used calculus? When was the last time I wished I could make a wrench do something? Exactly.

All this is a long and rambling way to make yet another pitch for this fantastic article from the New Atlantis called "Shop Class as Soul Craft."

Read. Enjoy. And envision a world in which the average guy could actually fix his own lawnmower without calling in reinforcements. Or could even conceive of something as basic as "fixing" a lawnmower instead of "replacing" it.

Our Mayor Versus Their Mayor: Kids These Days

A while back I posted a quick little thing about Newark Mayor Cory Booker. Who is quite young. And who played college football. Just like our mayor.

Well, guess what Booker is doing now: Taking on his own party and fighting tooth and nail--uphill, both ways--against the idiocy of the Drug War. Kind of one of those "big issue" things involving civil rights, race relations and justice.

Did I mention our mayor had his picture taken with Tiger Woods?

I kid. I kid.

Betting on Spillover: Casino as Redevelopment

The benefits of casino gambling are supposed to be various and substantial. Yes, there is the immediate impact of taxing the slot machines. Governments can spend that money. And they do. But then there is also the spillover. The "vitality" that the casinos bring to places where they operate.

A prefect example of this is at ailing racetracks. Put in the casinos, the argument goes, and you can generate more money for purses. Which will draw more competitive racing. Which will draw more race fans. And besides, you will draw in thousands of people already predisposed to gamble, thus creating a perfect storm of racing and wagering and vitality. Presto! You've just saved the racing industry!

But does it work? Check this out:

Eleven years after Delaware allowed slot machines at its racetracks, the purses horses compete for are higher than ever and the races more competitive. The grandstand at Delaware Park is spotless, the restaurants are new and the parking (for a mere $3) is valet.

But hardly anyone is there to watch the horses, much less bet on them.

The cheers of the crowd as the horses came down the home stretch one afternoon last week were not quite loud enough to drown out the soft hum of the air conditioners that kept slot machine players cool in the casino attached to the grandstand. Fewer than a hundred people were sprinkled among thousands of empty seats at the track.

Maryland racing officials insist that they need slots at the state's tracks to revitalize their industry, which they say is suffering from competition from Delaware, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, where expanded gambling subsidizes purses and attracts the best horses. But the experience of those states shows that slots have done nothing to attract more people to horse racing.

"There's no correlation," said George Sidiroplois, the West Virginia Racing Commission chairman. "It's inverse, in fact."

Does this say anything about a casino's potential to attract people to a city's museums and sandwich shops and other offerings?

Let's hope not.

Making Movies in Pittsburgh

Carl Kurlander has a pretty lengthy column in the Post-Gazette about how to make Pittsburgh more important in the film industry. Which I guess would be a good thing. But... Would it? I am sure there are lots of positive externalities. Hot starlets skulking around. Jobs for best boys. Etc. An industry is an industry. And if people can work in it, swell. Still, some of Kurlander's points seem to demand more analysis. For instance, here is how he prefaces his list of action points:

So what is to be done?

What is to be done? By whom? Why? The city? The state? Pitt? Carnegie Mellon? The Heinz Foundation? Independent, profit-minded investors?

The passive construction of the question makes it impossible to know. But it is an important question. Particularly because some of the action points... well:

4) Invest in emerging talent (i.e. young people). The entertainment business attracts and is often driven by the efforts of young people. I was 24 when I wrote the screenplay for "St. Elmo's Fire." The 35-year-old head of the studio said I should go back to Pittsburgh and raise the money for the film. I didn't do that, so Columbia pictures bet $10 million on a film that made $60 million worldwide and many times over that on DVD and elsewhere.

OK. Great. I would love to make $60 million. But who, exactly, would benefit if more screenwriters lived here? Or got their funding here? Maybe there is some obvious, wider benefit that the region would see. But I don't get it.

I would apply this to my own industry. I write books. But let's say J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books,  lived in Shadyside. Would Pittsburgh be better off? Why? Better off enough to justify spending someone's money on getting her to live here? Who's money? How much? I guess it take more people to make a movie. But is it obvious that more movies get made where screenwriters live? Would St. Elmo's Fire have been filmed here if the movie had been written or funded here? Do movies get filmed in Hollywood because that's where they get written? Or do they get written there because that's where they are made?

OK. I guess if we had our own version of "Columbia Pictures" that invested $10 million in movies that made $60 million, that studio would likely have a big office and hire some accountants. Is that the upside? Is the goal to recreate the Hollywood system here in Pittsburgh? To get people with money to dump more of it into movies? Or is it to get 24-year-old writers to move here?

Like I said, I am open to the idea that there would be benefits. And the more smart people a region has, the better. But whose money are we talking about here? And what's the end game? We already have the film office. Right?

Pittsburgh Echo Chamber! (Pittsburgh Echo Chamber!)

Mike over at Pittsblog riffs off a Bill Toland story about the Pittsburgh Diaspora and mentions Antirust in the process.

I respond at Pittsblog in the comments section. By trying to explain why the center of authentic Pittsburgh-ness might well be in Baltimore.

Excellent.

Echo!

Downtown as Main Street: Feeling Good... In the Neighborhood?

Here's a story about how Pittsburgh is becoming a hub of the "main street" retail trend. Which I guess is true. But I wonder what it means. This trend is nothing new, of course. I remember way back in the late 90s, someone built something called "The Avenue" right across from the White Marsh Mall outside of Baltimore. It was supposed to bring a little "neighborhood" to the suburbs. But it was really just chain stores lined up on a fake-looking street instead of in a mall. So you got wet when you walked from Chili's to Barnes and Noble. (Kind of like that back section of The Waterfront, where the Gap and Panera are located.) It was a nice enough place, though. No complaints. But I wonder about this:

"Pittsburgh is looking for a unique product. Cookie cutter isn't working," said Katie Pliscott, who is working to lease retail space at a garage built to serve the Strip District project.

I'm not so sure. And my questions go all the way back to the beginning of the Piatt project (which is featured prominently in this story.) Remember? Someone promised that we were going to get "charm" as part of the development. You know, none of that cookie-cutter stuff.

Well, hows that going so far? The Piatt Project will include a Capital Grille. (A chain.) And the chains seem to be filtering into a lot of the other "Main Street" projects going in around the area:

Tijuana Flats Burrito Co., a restaurant chain based in Orlando, Fla., plans to open its first area location at Brentwood Towne Square in August but the franchise operator has the right to put several more sites in Allegheny and Butler counties.

Hair salon chain Great Clips, out of Minneapolis, has sites in the market already and plans to add several more in the next two years, said Dan McCall, real estate manager.

... Other tenants looking for sites included office services chain FedEx Kinko's, Ace Hardware, grocery chain Aldi and First Watch, a restaurant company that opened its first area site in Cranberry this spring.

Look, I'm no retail snob. I'll go to Target. And I'll eat at Chili's. And be happy enough about it. But if those things aren't "cookie cutter," I don't know what is. And they certainly aren't "charming." When was the last time you took an out-of-town guest to the FedEx Kinkos for a bit of local flavor?

In the end, I guess I am just sort of confused about why these people feel compelled to say these kinds of things about their projects. In White Marsh, "The Avenue" was constantly crammed with customers. People liked it. So there you go. But I see no reason to act like the place was a 50,000-acre cattle ranch. No reason to act like it was a steel mill. No reason to act like it was a 12th-century medieval castle.

And no reason to act like it's a "main street."

Maybe the cookie looks a little different than it did in the 1980s. But there is still a cutter. These places are going up everywhere, and have been for years. Enjoy them. But let's call them what they are.