Articles Archive - Page 39 of 152 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

The Pittsburgh region shed more jobs in December, offering further evidence that the local economy’s recovery from the coronavirus recession has slowed. The seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area lost 5,300 jobs from November to December last year, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. And employers shed 86,300 workers from their payrolls in November …

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Creative Capital

The Real Lessons of the Iraq Wars

by Greg Curtis

“If someone is victorious in battle and succeeds in attack but does not exploit the achievement, it is disastrous.” — Sun Tzu, “The Art of War,” Chapter 12 As we approach the end of this long series on The Art of Peace, let’s take a look at America’s adventures in Iraq. Iraq I Since the …

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Obituaries

A Reflection on the Life of Dick Thornburgh

by David Bradford Thornburgh

Written by his son David Bradford Thornburgh, read by his granddaughter Blair Elizabeth Thornburgh at Shadyside Presbyterian Church on Jan. 16, 2021. It’s my great honor to read the following reflection about the life of my grandfather, as written by my father, David. In my dad’s words, about his: I’m sure all of us have …

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Homes

Eleven Mile Farm

by Marylynn Uricchio

“To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose, under heaven.” So says the book of Ecclesiastes, pirated by Pete Seeger for a song recorded by the Byrds. Those words come to mind when visiting Eleven Mile Farm, an old sheep farm in Indiana Township that has found new life with new …

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Profiles

Just Askin’… Anne Kraybill

by PQ Staff

Q: What’s the most interesting thing about your job? A: Meeting artists! I love going to artists’ studios and learning about their process and background. This region has such a rich history of creativity that persists today. Q: What’s the best advice anybody ever gave you? A: It is not about where you are, but …

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Creative Capital

Why We Ended the Program That Worked

by Greg Curtis

“There is nothing more difficult than military combat.” — Sun Tzu, “The Art of War,” Chapter 7 In 1966, roughly 6,000 people lived in the village of Binh Nghia, a series of hamlets strung out along the Tra Bong River in far northern Vietnam, near the coast of the South China Sea, a mere 40 …

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Health

How Can I Improve My Flexibility?

by Joseph A. Luxbacher

Question: “I am becoming less flexible as I get older. Simple tasks such as bending over to pick up a bag of groceries have become more difficult. What can I do to improve, or at least maintain, my flexibility?” Your situation is not unusual as most people become increasingly less flexible as they get older. …

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Birds

Tap Tap Tap

by David Liebmann

Set aside that steaming cup of cocoa and watch. Your bird feeders, flecked with last night’s early snow, beckon. That black and white blur is the first downy woodpecker of the day. There is a red streak on the head: the male. He’s a regular. The chickadees and titmice are his winter companions. They flock …

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Food & Wine

A Cozy Winter Dinner

by Lidey Heuck

It’s been the year of cooking at home. When COVID hit, there was a mad dash for canned items and other pantry goods. We cooked and cooked and cooked, then went out and restocked, and cooked some more. Sourdough, banana bread, homemade pizza, the list goes on. And yet after so many months and so …

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Business

Seeking a Broad-Based Pittsburgh Economy

by Douglas Heuck

Q. What is Pittsburgh Works? How and why did it come about? A. Pittsburgh Works is a coalition that believes in the importance of having a strong and balanced local economy that includes and appreciates all of the important industrial sectors, including energy and manufacturing. We need jobs of all kinds for all kinds of …

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Creative Capital

Ignoring What We Knew

by Greg Curtis

“One who excels at sending forth the unorthodox [army] is as inexhaustible as heaven.” –Sun Tzu, “The Art of War,” Chapter 5 In the case of Vietnam, we don’t need to speculate about how Gen. Sun Tzu would have conducted the war, for the simple reason that the U.S. military already knew how to conduct …

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PQ Poem

For the Small Hairs on My Ears

by Jeff Oaks

If I am turning wolf-like, a wolflight growing up within me now, how past fifty feels, fur just waiting to bristle, thistle, thorns, an urge to sleep at noon, pace the house all night, staring out through glass at strangers coming back from nearby bars— If I’m becoming something else, listening at the crack in …

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Business

Where the Dead Go

by Ben Wecht

Stroll through Pittsburgh’s historic Homewood Cemetery on a clement day, and it’s hard not to feel oneself shuffling off this mortal coil for a spell. The serenity of the rolling, tree-lined hills against the backdrop of Frick Park; the acres of carefully maintained plots featuring everything from angels to obelisks to massive granite mausoleums; the …

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Regional News

People Are Finding New Pandemic Diversions—Both Outdoors and In

by Bill O'Toole

Restaurants, bars and movie theaters were shuttered. Kennywood wrapped up its season more than a month early. The Pirates banned fans. The Steelers banned tailgating. COVID-19 has upended many favorite social, cultural and leisure pastimes that offered southwestern Pennsylvanians moments of respite. But at the same time, pandemic-related disruptions of traditional entertainment have fueled surging …

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Pittsburgh Tomorrow Podcast

Closing the Word Gap: The Words We Inherit

by Donald Bonk

Donald Bonk interviews Anthony Hamlet, superintendent of Pittsburgh Public Schools, as part of the Pittsburgh Tomorrow podcast series. This interview was conducted before COVID-19. The transcript is abridged and edited for clarity. View the episode archive here. View Anthony Hamlet’s profile here. “We need to increase internships and externships, and also expose our kids early …

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Regional News

Unemployment Drops to 6.5 Percent

by Julia Fraser

The seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 7.2 percent in October to 6.5 percent in November, according to Pennsylvania Department of Labor Center for Workforce Information & Analysis program data. “The unemployment rate is high, but not exceptional,” said Chris Briem, regional economist at the University of Pittsburgh Center for …

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Creative Capital

How We “Lost” Vietnam

by Greg Curtis

Happy New Year! After all the stupidity, all the lies, all the inflated body counts, all the unnecessary deaths, in spite of it all, by 1968 an American victory in Vietnam was within easy grasp. Even Westmoreland could have managed it. Why? Because the enemy had made a spectacular and unforced error: the Tet Offensive. …

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Profiles

Cameron Heyward, Gridiron Philanthropist

by Jeff Sewald

I was born in Pittsburgh on May 6, 1989. My grandma still lives here. When I was young, we moved around a lot because my dad, Craig Heyward, played 11 years in the NFL for five different teams. When I was 6, we moved to Atlanta so that my dad could play for the Falcons, …

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Sports

Pittsburgh’s First Great Hockey Rivalry: The Needle and the Great Wall

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

In the 1950s, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns were well on the road to what eventually became known and celebrated as the Turnpike Rivalry. But that wasn’t the only rivalry at that time between sports teams from Pittsburgh and Cleveland. While Pittsburgh sports fans were in the early stages of hating the Cleveland Browns, …

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Health

How Many Calories Do I Require Each Day?

by Joseph A. Luxbacher

Question: “How can I determine how many calories are required daily to maintain my present weight?” Calories are units of energy obtained from the proteins, fats and carbohydrates that we eat and drink. Maintenance calorie requirements can vary widely from one individual to the next due to a variety of factors that include age, gender, …

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Creative Capital

“True, but Irrelevant”

by Greg Curtis

Speaking of peace, Merry Christmas! As noted last week, some aspects of the domino theory were correct. Following the defeat of the Nationalists in China, South Korea would certainly have become Communist absent U.S. intervention. The same can be said for South Vietnam, although in that case the Communist takeover was only delayed (albeit by …

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Nature

A Peaceful Respite

by Don Feigert

At the bottom of the steep, rutted trail lay a deep green five-acre pond, lush at its shorelines with cattails, multiflora rose and staghorn sumac, its surface glossy in the early-morning mist. Ridges rose abruptly on three sides, sporting stunted red pine and white spruce near the swampy bottomlands with red oaks, silver maples and …

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