Articles Archive - Page 23 of 154 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

David McCarroll has been appointed concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, holding the Rachel Mellon Walton Concertmaster Chair beginning with the 2022-2023 season. McCarroll joined the orchestra as concertmaster for its European tour in August and will make his Pittsburgh debut in September. He performs regularly around the world with major orchestras and as a chamber musician, playing at …

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Books Culture

The Blue Continuum

by Robert McNeilly Jr.

“Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.”— Robert F. Kennedy Policing in any community is only as effective as the elected officials being informed and prudent enough to avoid common mistakes. When officers make mistakes, they jeopardize …

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Creative Capital Money

The Problem with Overselling the Vaccines

by Greg Curtis

I’m claiming that the final group of vaccine-hesitant people – anti-vaxxers, if you prefer – was “nearly all of us.” The reason is that the vaccines, which were actually a wonderful advance, were oversold to us, and as we gradually found that out, our faith in the vaccines – and in medical science itself – …

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Nature Sports & Outdoors

Streaming Views

by John Beale

Nonprofits Nonprofits

UPMC Hillman Gala Raises $1 Million for Cancer Research

by PQ Staff

More than 700 people, including business leaders, oncologists and others gathered last week at PPG Paints Arena to support cancer research, raising more than $1 million for the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. Since 2011, PNC has presented the PNC Elsie Hillman Distinguished Scholar Award to honor theexperts making a difference in the fight against cancer. …

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Pittsburgh Today Regional News

Unemployment Remains Low; Hiring Remains Challenging

by Julia Fraser

Regional unemployment in August remain unchanged at 4.4 percent, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor. “There’s only been a few months in the last 50 years in which the regional unemployment rate has been lower,” said Chris Briem, a regional economist at the University of Pittsburgh University Center for Social and Urban Research. “The …

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Books Culture

Behind a Biography

by Maxwell King

I first got interested in John Kane 20 years ago. I was working at The Heinz Endowments, the large charitable foundation in Pittsburgh, which has a wonderful collection of the work of Pittsburgh artists, going back over 100 years. A local art dealer named Pat McArdle was talking to me about the collection when he …

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Arts Culture

Measuring the Law

by Kathleen George

Many years ago, I worked on a production of Measure for Measure, and many of those lines are still stuck in my head. Shakespeare is of course supremely quotable on any number of subjects. But this difficult and brilliant play about the law as it relates to sex has potent language that keeps floating up …

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Creative Capital Money

The Real Numbers Behind the Vaccines

by PQ Staff

Let’s look at two more vaccine-hesitant groups of people: People who live in rural areas Previously in this series: Panic is a Virus Part VIII: Looking at Vaccine-hesitant People I live within walking distance of two of the best hospitals in the world, but many people are not as lucky. Almost three-quarters of the counties …

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Nature

Surviving Summit Mountain

by Ben Moyer

Snowbound residents of Pittsburgh’s hilly neighborhoods may not share this view, but part of the appeal of being a Western Pennsylvanian is that our natural geography still imposes influence on daily life. Not all regions enjoy, or endure, that dash of topographic spice, but it’s inescapable on my travels over and atop Summit Mountain, looming …

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Birds

This Fall, Look for the Red-Shouldered Hawk

by David Liebmann

Our raptors are ubiquitous but easily confused with one another. In western Pennsylvania, with its thick forests, sloping mountains, and suburban regrowth, we regularly can see sharp-shinned hawks, Cooper’s hawks, red-tailed hawks, broad-winged hawks, and the occasional rough-legged hawk, northern harrier, and northern goshawk. Add in the red-shouldered hawk, and we have some eight species …

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Books Culture

Consequences of Love

by Fred Shaw

With kidnapping and murder in the storyline, a “whodunit” often ensues. But like the Coen Brothers film masterpiece, Fargo, sometimes the crimes are less interesting than how the characters react to their circumstances and the events that led them astray. Stewart O’ Nan, a Squirrel Hill native and Pittsburgh’s preeminent novelist, uses this tactic to …

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Creative Capital Money

Looking at Vaccine-hesitant People

by Greg Curtis

I want to bring this series to an end with a couple of essays on a delicate subject. Vaccine hesitancy, or what some prefer to call the “anti-vaxxers,” has been a seriously divisive issue during the pandemic. I can’t tell you how many times people said to me (Blue people, that is), “It’s those stupid …

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Pittsburgh Today

Unlike Pittsburgh, Detroit is Waging an All-Out War Against Blight – AND WINNING

by Jeffery Fraser

Her city was in trouble when Tammy Daniels joined the Detroit Land Bank Authority in 2015. Detroit’s population had cratered 65 percent from its peak in the 1950s. Well-paying jobs had melted away when the auto industry that defined the city contracted. Foreclosures reached a crisis following the Great Recession. Vacant properties claimed as much …

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Arts Culture

The Pinnacle of My Time at Quantum

by Karla Boos

Dear reader, I think you may benefit from a pitcher of Bloody Mary’s. Or a pot of coffee. Or a screened-in porch with an ancient comfortable chair for a September afternoon, whatever your version of support props. This story has twists and turns that challenge one’s staying power. But I appreciate your lending an ear …

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Culture PQ Poem

Colonial Tea Room

by Catherine Doty

At 5 AM you’re buttering the bagels and waiting for your city sewer man to heave himself out of a hole in Barclay Street and bring you a breakfast order for his crew. The list is smudged and long and flush with desire: burned bacon on a jelly-smeared bialy, cold brisket on a kaiser, side of gravy, and Flop …

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Creative Capital Money

Listing the CDC’s Failures

by Greg Curtis

Last week we discussed the bad science at the WHO and CDC, which ignored asymptomatic spread of COVID – the primary transmission mechanism. The CDC should have recommended that all Americans get tested regularly, whether we had symptoms or not, but they didn’t. So we didn’t – we were following the science. Previously in this series: Panic …

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Culture History

What Happened to Youngstown?

by Vince Guerrieri

It’s a hell of a thing to know your birth coincides with a line of demarcation in your hometown. On one side is prosperity. On the other, ruin. I was born in Youngstown in 1977. At the time, it was an industrial city, known for its steel production and a variety of attendant industries. The …

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Nature

Enjoy Hiking the Improved Trails in the Laurel Highlands

by Thomas Saunders

People in Western Pennsylvania are fortunate to have the beautiful Laurel Highlands nearby as a destination for hiking, fishing, hunting, boating and all kinds of exploring. One of the many great places in the Laurel Highlands to escape and explore is Bear Run Nature Reserve, a 5,100-acre natural area owned and managed by the Western …

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Sports Sports & Outdoors

How Baseball Saved My Life

by Ray Werner

He dove into a garbage dump exploding with flies to avoid shrapnel from a Commie mortar bomb, lobbed just over the hill in North Korea. Diving into that dump may have saved his life. But what really saved his life was diving after a long fly ball and making an impossible catch. Well, not impossible …

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Creative Capital Money

Asymptomatic Spread

by Greg Curtis

We’re going over examples that demonstrate how difficult it is to “follow the science,” especially in the early months and years of something as novel and complex as COVID. Let’s take a look at the phenomenon of: Asymptomatic spread Previously in this series: Panic is a Virus Part V: Bad COVID Science When we say …

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Culture Opinion

A Pittsburgh Wedding

by Douglas Heuck

It all started in March of 2020, when my daughter’s boyfriend flew to Pittsburgh for lunch to ask for her hand. Liking him a great deal, I said yes, not knowing that, thanks to the vagaries of COVID, we would have 30 months to think and rethink the wedding, and experience all the drama accompanying …

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