What Will the Shell Cracker Bring Along with It?

Orange plastic curtains protect passers-by from blow torch-wielding workers who are learning to weld in a new training facility for Steamfitters Local 449. The building on the border of Butler and Beaver counties represents an $18 million bet on a building boom that economists and government officials say the nearby Shell cracker plant will spur. …

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Ecosystem Health

Bird counts in the Pittsburgh area have improved in recent years and limited data suggest that fresh water mussel populations are also doing well – two encouraging trends that offer insight into the health of the region’s ecosystem. Data from the annual Christmas Bird Count organized by the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania show generally …

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Animal Friends Celebrates Wellness Center Grand Opening

On Sat., July 15, Animal Friends celebrated the grand opening of the new Howard Ash Animal Wellness Center, an $8.5 million, 18,400-square foot facility on Animal Friends’ 75-acre campus in Ohio Township. The grand opening festivities began with a ribbon cutting featuring Allegheny County Treasurer John Weinstein, Animal Friends Board Chair Gina Carlos and Animal …

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Democracy, Populism, and the Tyranny of the Experts, Part II

I launched this series of posts by taking a brief tour of a regrettable society called Acirema, in which a race of experts called Masters, though a tiny minority, lorded it over a sub-race of non-experts called Slaves. We’re back, now, in America and wondering if Acerima society might offer a moral for us. Not …

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4th of July, Pittsburgh

Six years ago it was Chicago, a party at Jeff’s. Nate was still alive. It was the night we made out on the train. I locked myself out of my apartment and had to call Eddie the Maintenance Man, drunk, to let me in, prayed I had $40 in my bank account to cover the …

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Night in the Tropics

The National Aviary’s 15th Annual Night in the Tropics attracted about 1,300 party-goers on Saturday, July 8th. Guests enjoyed delicious food from over 30 restaurants, tropical cocktails, wine and craft beer as they mingled with exotic birds and took in the global entertainment. The over-the-top evening raised approximately $240,000.

Internet Access

The digital divide is narrowing in Western Pennsylvania, if only slightly. Fewer people in the Pittsburgh MSA reported a lack of internet in their households in 2015 than in the previous two years, according to data obtained from the Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS). Slowly connecting Access to computers and high-speed Internet connections has …

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Democracy, Populism, and the Tyranny of the Experts

Is it better never to put your ideas in writing and thus be thought a vacuous fool, or is it better to launch your own blog and remove all doubt? To launch this series of posts with such a mouthful of a title—Democracy, Populism, and the Tyranny of the Experts (hereinafter DP&TE)—we’re going to engage in one …

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Cash is King

Since the end of the Financial Crisis eight long years ago, a notion has settled across the land that “cash is trash.” This is the bunkmate of the “TINA” principle: There Is No Alternative to owning equities. It’s easy to understand how these ideas took root. Since the Bear Market ended in early 2009 stocks …

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Explaining Donald Trump, the Conclusion

I have met the enemy, and he is me. (What Trump, channeling Pogo, should be saying to himself every morning.) Can Trump turn it around? No one knows, of course, but if my only slightly tongue-in-cheek analysis is correct, the best hope for Trump is that his dismal experience to date will prove to be a …

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A Baker’s Ways

Calling it “Joe’s Bakery” would never work. Who wants to buy pastries from some guy named Joe? At least, that’s what Joe thought. And if Joe thought it, others might be thinking it, too. So, he named his bakery in honor of his daughter, Dana. For the past 37 years, Joe has been turning on …

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Cost of Living

The cost of living has increased in the region since 2011, but so has family income. And despite rising costs, southwestern Pennsylvania continues to rank as one of the least expensive places to live overall among the 16 Pittsburgh Today benchmark regions. The region’s composite cost of living index slipped during 2009 and 2010 in …

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Latin Mass

A hawk taloned to a light post above the frozen pond. Two boys shovel a rink. An altar boy in Zagreb, my father-in-law mumbled, in lieu of Latin, the same nonsense I did in Detroit—kneeling at the altar, riffing the Confiteor. Then bodies from war stacked up in pews, and his priest melted away, silent …

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From Pittsburgh to Venice, Through the Looking Glass

Maybe my 6th or 7th Biennale. I can’t remember anymore. The art, the parties, the timeless beauty of this most impractical, magical city blurs my vision, my memories. The Bellini, the Prosecco, the Aperto spritzes, the Veneto wines, the dinners and endless exotic hors d’oeuvres, the European glitterati and the Who’s Who of the current …

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Mattress Factory Celebrates 40th Anniversary

A party 40 years in the making drew a sell-out crowd of 1,400 to the Mattress Factory on June 16, during which founder Barbara Luderowski offered a good-natured response to whether she ever expected reaching such a milestone when the museum first opened in 1977. “No,” she laughed. “I might not be here if I …

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Explaining Donald Trump, Part V

Donald Trump has been such a disruptive agent during his first few months as President that it’s easy to dismiss him as hopelessly incompetent. That would be a mistake: one common way MEPs (mega-entrepreneurial personalities) prevail is because other people write them off as unhinged lunatics. I’ll get to the lunatic aspect of our MEP …

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Three Simple Questions on the Markets, Part III

We asked a group of the region’s leading wealth managers to pen a response to three questions about the markets and how they approach current conditions. Here are their responses to the final question: If you had to put all your money in one asset class today and couldn’t sell for ten years, what would …

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Explaining Donald Trump, Part IV

There is so much emotionalism about Donald Trump—both pro and con—that I’m trying to explain his behavior by looking at issues outside the man himself. I’m looking at how people behave who have very similar personality types (i. e., mega entrepreneurial personalities, or MEPs) and at how people are likely to fare in the Presidency …

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Aaron Smith Takes on Big Issues in Readable “Primer”

Dualism, a philosophical concept, asks thinkers to consider the relationship between mind and body, often leading to inquiries such as: What is the self? What is consciousness? Do the physical and mental influence one another? Plato and Aristotle pondered the topic centuries ago, their questions often leading to more questions as humans continue to be …

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You’re Having a Really Bad Day

Walking the Dog with Dave

Dave has his boss’s dog on a leash. A yippy little black and brown dog the size of a football that is completely oblivious to its unimpressive size, snorting and slobbering its way down the sidewalk near its home on Observatory Hill. It looks like Dave is walking the dog. But the dog is walking …

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Explaining Donald Trump, Part III

I’m claiming to be able to explain Donald Trump—and predict his actions as President—by reference to only two of his characteristics. The first is that he’s what I’ve called a Mega Entrepreneurial Personality, a trait he shares with an infinitesimally small group of Americans. The second trait is something Trump shares with almost all of …

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