When I interviewed Falk on the Burbank Studios lot in 1986 it was easy to see where the lovable Columbo got his eccentricities — and his raincoat. One of my favorite interviews in LA in the ‘80s was with the beloved actor Peter Falk, who died in 2011. 1986 “Columbo” the TV show may have…

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Here’s a look back at how the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s inner-city Catholic schools used lots of love and discipline to give young black kids the education they needed and their parents wanted. In 1994 when I realized the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had not written two words about the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s three inner-city “Extra Mile Schools,”…

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Before two games in 1986 I hung out with the salty-tongued LA Dodgers manager in his office under Dodger Stadium. This is the X-rated version of my quality time with one of the nicest celebrities I ever met. “I get these fucking invitations to weddings,” Tommy Lasorda was saying, his bare feet propped on his…

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On the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, as the country was in shock from the horrible events in New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pa., my job at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review was to go out into the abandoned and strangely silent city of Pittsburgh and report what I saw.  Here’s what I wrote: Empty Downtown offers…

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Here’s a radical concept that will save us a lot of virtue signalling by politicians like Nancy Pelosi in the future: Privatize all statues. Remove all statues from government property and never again use government money or land to put up another one. Statues to leaders and heroes, as we’ve seen, are inherently political. Leaders…

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