Posts by Bill Steigerwald
Q&A: Peter Falk — actor by accident?
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…
Read MoreHope and a prayer — and a choice
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,”…
Read MoreRemembering fricking Tommy Lasorda — a nice guy in Blue
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…
Read MoreDowntown Pittsburgh, Sept. 11, 2001 — A city in shock
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…
Read MoreWestern PA. to Gov. Wolf — We’re dead. Please remove your knee.
For all you folks who think Gov. Wolf’s strict strangulation of Western Pa. to fight the Covid-19 ‘pandemic’ is justified and that schools should remain closed to protect the children, please wake up, look at the facts and get a grip. Kids rarely catch Covid-19, don’t readily infect others and don’t ever die from it…
Read MoreGoing to school in the Age of Covid is not going to be fun — or funny
OK, let’s pretend that Covid-19 is especially lethal to kids and that extraordinary steps need to be taken to open and operate our public schools safely. Let’s pretend that the state of Pennsylvania’s guidelines for reopening schools are not totally insane, laughable and unrealistic. Let’s pretend that the nannies and medical experts who came up…
Read MorePittsburgh’s Phantom Pandemic — as misreported by The New York Times
‘Pittsburgh Seemed Like a Virus Success Story. Now Cases Are Surging’ ‘Pittsburgh, a sister city to Wuhan, China, saw only modest cases for months. In the last two weeks, cases are suddenly soaring’ The headline and content of this July 12 article about how Pittsburgh has dodged the Covid-19 bullet are a perfect example of…
Read MorePittsburgh’s Phantom Pandemic, IV — Numbers you need to know
Zero. Everyone in Allegheny County — especially the local media — needs to know that number. 0. That’s how many people in Allegheny County under 20 years of age have died of Covid-19 — in four months. Here’s another number you should know — one that the local panic media might want to mention now…
Read MoreQ&A: Tucker Carlson, before he became King of Cable — and GOP presidential timber
Tucker Carlson of Fox News has risen to the top of the cable news heap to become the most-watched, most-hated and most influential commentator in our politically fractured and deeply divisive country. He’s so popular, now he’s being touted as a Republican presidential candidate for 2024. The Washington Post, his former colleagues at MSNBC and…
Read MorePrivatize all statues
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…
Read More