Articles Archive - Page 27 of 154 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

“Lucy is dead” was the headline of the March 17, 1902 Pittsburgh Press article that announced the passing of Lucy Juba-Nile, the popular hippopotamus that had been dwelling at the Highland Park Zoological Garden (now called the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium) for the previous three years. Lucy had been ill for about a week. …

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Obituaries

Cohill, Corbett, Walton, Lewis, Wymard, Ford

by PQ Staff

Judge Maurice Cohill Jr., 92A national leader in juvenile justice, Cohill heard hundreds of cases involving juveniles and often had adults tell him how his influence had turned their lives around. He founded the nation’s oldest juvenile justice research organization, the National Center for Juvenile Justice in Pittsburgh, and was its chairman for decades. In …

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Books

Reflections on Masculinity

by Fred Shaw

In his award-winning recent memoir, Punch Me Up to the Gods, Brian Broome lovingly describes the antechamber of the now-defunct Hills Department store in his hometown of Warren, Ohio as smelling “like the emotions of a child. Pre-adolescent bacchanalia. It was dizzying. It was a roasted peanut, soft pretzel factory wrapped inside a chocolate-covered everything. …

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People

The 5th Northumberland Fusiliers

by Len Barcousky

When Jim Zunic was about 10 years old, he got the shock of his young life. After he had enjoyed watching a TV series about Sherlock Holmes, the librarian at McNaugher Elementary School on Pittsburgh’s North Side encouraged him to read some of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories about the fictional detective. “The librarian started …

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Creative Capital

Posture of U.S. Weakness Encouraged Ukraine Invasion

by Greg Curtis

What do Caesar’s Wife, Justice, and Military Deterrence Have in Common? “The lure of appeasement – in essence, a return to the policies pursued in many Western capitals for the past two decades – will be strong.” — Thomas de Maizière, former German defense minister Previously in this series: A Coat of Varnish “It is better …

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Regional News

The View from Erie

by Steve Hallock

Peering out at the choppy waves from the shore of Lake Erie, the businessman sees opportunity. The fisherman envisions a trout dinner. The tourist anticipates a boat ride. The farmer appreciates the plentiful water supply. The environmentalist frets about lake pollution. James Grunke, president of the Erie Regional Chamber & Growth Partnership, sees all of …

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Nature

Pittsburgh’s Urban Forests

by Thomas Saunders

Pittsburgh is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in the world — a beautiful skyline, stunning geography, a city set at the confluence of two rivers that form a third. And this is reinforced by its being such a green city — a city of large parks and of wonderful green spaces …

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People Profiles

A Purpose-Driven Life

by Marianne Dougherty

Arnold Zegarelli would probably agree with the adage: “find a job you enjoy doing, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” For 66 years until his retirement in November at the age of 85, that’s precisely what he did. Dressed in a suit and tie, a pocket square tucked neatly into …

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Creative Capital

A Coat of Varnish

by Greg Curtis

C. P. Snow titled his last book, written a few years before he died, A Coat of Varnish. What he meant, as he put it, was that “Civilization is hideously fragile…there’s not much between us and the horrors underneath. Just about a coat of varnish.” Civilization, that is to say, is like a thin coat of …

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Books Culture

Dressick Packs 63 Quick-hit Tales into Fables of the Deconstruction

by Fred Shaw

Flash fiction wasn’t invented by Hemingway but his classic six-word story, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” stands as a well-known exemplar of compressed emotion. With a word count that runs anywhere from five to 1,500, Writer’s Digest further defines the genre as not “focusing on plot or character development, the writer instead focuses on …

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Pittsburgh Today Regional News

PLACE YOUR BETS

by Julia Fraser

In the mid-1960s, public- and private-sector leaders in southwestern Pennsylvania threw their support behind an effort to diversify the region’s steel industry-reliant economy by developing the emerging rapid-transportation market in their backyard. Their hopes were pinned to Skybus, an innovative, automated transportation system that allowed for congestion-free travel on tracks high above streets and highways. …

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Creative Capital

Timely Thoughts on a Free America

by Greg Curtis

“The defense of agency is what individual human rights are meant for.” James Griffin Previously in this series: On Agency, Part XII, The Complexities of Institutional Racism Last week I pointed out that controversial policies like DEI, microaggressions, safe spaces, trigger warnings and so on shouldn’t be viewed with so much alarm for the simple …

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Sports

1972: Triumph and Tragedy for Pittsburgh Sports Fans

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

The new decade had started off well for Pittsburgh sports fans. In January 1970, the Steelers used the top pick in the NFL draft to select Terry Bradshaw, a strong-armed quarterback from Louisiana Tech. Drawing comparisons to the comic strip character Ozark Ike, he looked to have the talent to lead the Same-Old-Steelers, after decades …

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Arrivals People

Professionals new to Pittsburgh

by PQ Staff

David Holiday is the director for the Center for Ethical Leadership and instructor of philosophy at Washington & Jefferson College. Prior to joining W&J, Holiday held the position of director of the Jackson Family Center for Ethics and Values at Coastal Carolina University, where he also served as lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and …

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Nature

Nettle: The Weed that Stings

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

What is a weed? A plant in the wrong place is a common definition, or as Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “a plant whose virtues we haven’t yet discovered.” But nettles — weeds to most of us — have virtues long discovered. Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary of eating very good nettle porridge. In Aesop’s …

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Creative Capital

The Complexities of Institutional Racism

by Greg Curtis

Last week we examined the introduction into American law of so-called “group rights” and the failure of that collective agency movement to improve the lives of African-Americans – America’s most disadvantaged group. Previously in this series: On Agency, Part XI, American Blacks and Agency For roughly 200 years the very high individual human agency of …

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People Profiles

A Q&A with Senate Candidate David McCormick

by Douglas Heuck

After leading Pittsburgh high-flyer FreeMarkets, McCormick returns for a Senate run. (Editor’s note: McCormick is the only Western Pennsylvanian in the Republican Senate Primary. After the May primary, we hope to profile whichever Western Pennsylvania candidates remain in the Senate race from either party.) Why are you running for the Senate and what are the …

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Opinion

No More Love Letters

by Samuel Hazo

I have always been amused by Hollywood’s vision of writers at work. The writer is presented seated at a desk on which sits a typewriter or a computer. Suddenly the writer seems inspired and begins typing feverishly. The camera stays on him as he continues to type, and his manuscript grows page by page into …

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Birds

Darken Our Skies to Help the Birds

by David Liebmann

Who doesn’t love the sparkle of the Downtown skyline when cheering on the Pirates at PNC Park? I’ve sat marveling at the view across the water as the Bucs warm up and the stadium lights begin to come on. The glass, metal and stone are iconic of the Steel City. Then I imagine birds migrating …

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People

What do I Know? Leslie Davis

by Jeff Sewald

My family is from New York, and my younger sister and I grew up in a suburban neighborhood on Long Island called “Five Towns,” which is about a 20-minute drive from Kennedy Airport. We were a typical 1970s family, except that my mother was an oral hygienist in a dentist’s office and loved her job. …

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Creative Capital

American Blacks and Agency

by Greg Curtis

In my discussion of the extraordinarily high individual human agency in America, I have deliberately omitted – until now – an important caveat: not everyone in the U.S. has historically been, or is today, vouchsafed the same degree of agency. Previously in this series: On Agency, Part X, The Sniping About America is Nothing New …

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Travel

Burn Beetle, Burn!

by Kate Benz

I am going to torch a massive, 30-foot-long beetle tonight. I will fork over twenty bucks and the local fire department will hand me a long branch that’s been swathed at the top with fabric. It looks like a giant Q-Tip, ready to be dipped in kerosene or gasoline or something easily combustible. They will …

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