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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 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, 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 MoreThe Day I Lived under Communism — A Replay
In April of 1988, when the Soviet Union’s evil empire was teetering and the Berlin Wall was about to fall, I caught up with my brother Dan’s touring rock band Kingdom Come in Germany. One of the articles I wrote for the L.A. Times was my search for a popular cafeteria in shabby East Berlin.…
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