Articles Archive - Page 74 of 154 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

A calm that might seem unusual at this time of year could add to your seasonal enjoyment and generally make life easier. There won’t be a lot of planetary action, although there will be many interactions you may want to seize upon so they can be used to your advantage. Sunday and Monday will seem …

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American Spirit

A Barbershop That’s Hair-Raising

by Kate Benz

It’s 10:30 on a Saturday morning, there are already four guys waiting in line for a haircut, and no one knows where Tony is. “He’s not here?” Dante Folino Gallo asks, holding the door open for his father, Salvatore, who uses a walker to shuffle past a towering, 40-year-old Schefflera plant, a millennial buried in …

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Regional News

Paychecks on the Rise

by Julia Fraser

Wages in southwestern Pennsylvania are rising steadily. In fact, the rate of increase was greater than all but two of the 15 Pittsburgh Today’s benchmark regions in the second quarter of 2018. The average weekly wage in the seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area was $1,042 in the second quarter of 2018, according to the latest …

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Creative Capital

The Dear John Letter (to your Financial Advisor)

by Greg Curtis

For many people, the worst part of the process of terminating an advisor happens at the very end, when you finally have to tell the guy the relationship is over. Think about that love affair that just wasn’t right. You knew that he/she was wrong for you, but actually breaking off the relationship filled you …

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Books

An Elegy of the Marcellus Shale region

by Fred Shaw

When U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler visited Pittsburgh on October 24 last year, his first order of business was to visit a Range Resources well-pad outside Washington, Pa., announcing that the EPA would continue “removing regulatory barriers and leveling the playing field for American companies.” Politicians, billboards and commercials on local TV …

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Innovation

Robert Taylor: Demanding Coach

by James H. Morris

James H. Morris is a retired professor of computer science and dean of the West Coast campus of Carnegie Mellon University. In a series of blogs for Pittsburgh Quarterly he writes about some of the computing pioneers he encountered during his career. As I struggled with the rigors of being an assistant professor at University …

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Profiles

John Kasich, Government Leader

by Jeff Sewald

I was born and raised in Mckees Rocks, Pennsylvania, not far from Pittsburgh. It was a working-class, blue-collar town, but it was a positive place. I loved it there. As a kid, I played a lot of sports, and learned a great deal from that, about working together and trying hard. I was also blessed …

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This Week’s Astrology: Dec. 6–12, 2018

by Judi Vitale

Everyone’s wheels will come unstuck, in a manner of speaking, when Mercury Retrograde ends this week. By and large, you will feel some relief from the communication, technology and travel travails that have been in your way these last few weeks. The blessed event will occur on Thursday, so you’ll be able to celebrate the …

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Regional News

Housing Prices Rise

by Julia Fraser

Housing prices in the Pittsburgh region continue to climb, but not at the same rate as the hot real estate markets in some of Pittsburgh Today’s benchmark regions. Houses in the seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area appreciated 6.23 percent from the 3rd quarter in 2017 to the 3rd quarter this year, according to data from …

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Spotlight

Soda Tax Works in Philly, but Officials Here Aren’t Sure They Can Do It

by Julia Fraser

Taxes on sugary beverages seem like a sweet deal with their potential to whittle down obesity and diabetes rates while boosting city revenues to help pay for things like better schools and parks. Yet, they require broad public and political support to adopt over industry opposition. Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle and several other cities …

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Creative Capital

Firing Your Financial Advisor, Part III

by Greg Curtis

Now that we know why we’re going to fire our financial advisor, let’s talk about when to do it. Obviously, if any of the issues I detailed in my last post are operating, the time to fire your advisor is ASAP. But even if no hot-button issues have raised their ugly heads, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all is …

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Innovation

Alan Perlis: The First Computer Scientist

by James H. Morris

I was a teenager in 1957 when the Russians launched Sputnik. In the national reaction to it I was inspired to pursue science. I was all set to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the California Institute of Technology to become a physicist, when the Carnegie Institute of Technology offered me a full …

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Arts

Carnegie International Opening Weekend Through the Lens of an Outsider

by Casey Kelbaugh

Though my visits to Pittsburgh have been few and far between, I’ve always known that my family had deep roots in the Iron City. Along with that came a vague whisper of prominence verbally imparted by my grandparents. But until my visit to the opening weekend of the Carnegie International in October, I had no …

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The Pulse

Airing Concern

by Jeffery Fraser

Historically lower ozone pollution levels in southwestern Pennsylvania do not impress residents of Allegheny County whose concern is rising over the quality of the air they breathe. Seven years ago, air quality wasn’t a problem in the minds of 47 percent of county residents. Today, only 32 percent of Allegheny County residents share that view, …

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Arts

The 57th Carnegie International: Looking Forward While Mindful of the Past

by Vicky A Clark

The Carnegie International is here again, the 57th in the series inaugurated by founder Andrew Carnegie in 1896. While international exhibitions have proliferated in the last 50 years, the Carnegie International remains one of the few based in a museum with its own identity—one rich with diverse offerings ranging from a museum of art to …

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This Week’s Astrology: Nov. 29–Dec. 5, 2018

by Judi Vitale

If you haven’t noticed the confusion, static and difficulty of Mercury retrograde as of yet, it might become more obvious this week as Mercury slides back into the sign of Scorpio. Attend to problems with communication and technological issues that may have begun over the last few months, and they will be fixed once and …

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Regional News

Unemployment Stays Low

by Julia Fraser

Southwestern Pennsylvania still enjoys relatively low unemployment, but the region’s rate remains higher than the national average. The Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased from 4.8 percent in October 2017 to 4.2 percent in October 2018, according to recently released data from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. The U.S. unemployment rate was 3.7 percent in October. “The nation’s unemployment …

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Spotlight

Healthier, Wealthier and Wiser: Are Cities with Soda Taxes Better Off?

by Julia Fraser

Improving city schools and parks may not have been novel campaign promises, but when it came to funding such aspirations, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney had something new to say. He championed the Philadelphia Beverage Tax, a 1.5-cents-per-ounce tax on sweetened beverages to help fund schools, pre-kindergarten classes, parks and libraries. Last year, Philadelphia became the …

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Creative Capital

Firing Your Financial Advisor, Part II

by Greg Curtis

If you Google “Should I fire my financial advisor?” you will land on a lot of brain-dead articles. If any of the reasons listed in those articles apply to your financial advisor and you haven’t fired him, you’re probably hopeless. But in the interest of comprehensiveness, let’s take a quick look at reasons to fire your advisor right …

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PQ Poem

At Western Psych

by Angele Ellis

On the dayroom TV screen, the Gladiator hallucinates in the desert. Golden lions and ghost horses scream. Filmed light flickers like tears on drugged un/watchful faces. Everyone is shoeless, their socks dark green. The water fountain is bandaged in a towel, leaking like a bad burn. The inmates queue to drink the dribble, scolded by …

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Culture

Indiana County Tree Farmers Keep the Green in Christmas

by John Beale

When your friends in Florida or your relatives in Virginia gather around their live Christmas tree this season, there’s a chance the evergreen was grown and harvested from a hillside in Indiana County, Pa. Flemings Christmas Tree Farm in Indiana is just one of 20 tree farms in the county that claims to be “The …

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Opinion

A Turning Point for Troubled Times

by Douglas Heuck

By almost any objective measure, life in America has never been better. We’re not at war. Poverty is low, unemployment’s even lower, and stocks are sky high. Homicide rates are about where they were in 1950 and half of what they were in 1980. And medical care is better than ever with dramatic breakthroughs occurring …

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