AltWeeklies Wire
Decisive Advantage: How We Make Up Our Mindsnew
As an assistant professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, Corey Morewedge spends a lot of time studying why we make bad choices. He's earning a reputation for his innovative way of testing behavior -- an approach that's as likely to find him experimenting on Carson Street drunks as in a lab.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Chris Potter |
04-12-2010 |
Science
Tags: Corey Morewedge
Changed Man: Is the Party Over for Arlen Specter?new
Pennsylvania's best-known party-crasher is facing "by far the most serious challenge he's ever faced."
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Dan Hirschhorn |
04-05-2010 |
Politics
'Creative Nonfiction' Begins Life Anew as a Quarterly Magazinenew
At the recent relaunch party for Pittsburgh-based literary journal Creative Nonfiction as a quarterly magazine, editor Lee Gutkind showed he hasn't forgotten old insults to the genre he's strived to popularize.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Bill O'Driscoll |
03-15-2010 |
Books
The Brother of One of Pittsburgh's Most Famous Authors Speaks Out From Behind Barsnew
Robert Wideman's story is better known than most. His brother, John Edgar Wideman, is a nationally renowned author. The elder brother wrote a book about Robert's struggles, Brothers and Keepers, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1984.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Matt Stroud |
03-15-2010 |
Books
Rebecca Skloot's Real-Life 'Medical Thriller' 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks'new
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks seems to be a hit. Rebecca Skloot's nonfiction book about a woman whose cancer cells have served medical researchers for 60 years has spent weeks among Amazon.com's top-10 sellers.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Kathy M. Newman |
03-01-2010 |
Nonfiction
Labor Pains: A Dispute Among Local Union Activists Has Unfolded Behind Closed Doorsnew
The dispute may yet cause headaches for employers as well: Since the split, UNITE HERE and Workers United have collectively filed 39 charges against area employers. Each union complains that employers have failed to recognize it as the workers' representative.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Chris Young |
03-01-2010 |
Business & Labor
Barry Lopez on a Writer's Responsibility in a Time of Environmental Crisisnew
Every couple of years, Barry Lopez assigns himself a trip that he knows "will knock me over backwards." And it's not the sort of travel you might expect from the naturalist author of such classics as Of Wolves and Men and Arctic Dreams.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Bill O'Driscoll |
02-08-2010 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Permit Pulled: DEP Action Halts Construction of a Waste-Coal Plantnew
Plans for a power plant that would have operated by burning waste coal were scrapped when the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection invalidated its air-quality plan permit on January 20.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Charlie Deitch |
02-08-2010 |
Environment
Todd Smith's Shady Venturenew
If you asked Todd Smith seven or eight years ago what he'd be doing by 2010, the words "online sunglasses entrepreneur" probably would never have come out of his mouth. But after losing his job at Merrill Lynch, he decided to turn his fashionable hobby into a new online business venture.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Charlie Deitch |
01-11-2010 |
Fashion
Tags: stunners, Sunglasses, San Francisco, California, business, web, Bay Area, Pittsburgh, fashion, online
The Cost of Repairing the Murals at St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Churchnew
Painted in the Depression era, the church's murals go well beyond standard religious iconography. Along with traditional Catholic imagery of angels and the Virgin Mary, they include World War I-era soldiers killing Christ, crowned with barbed wire; a worker killed in a mining accident.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
KATE GIAMMARISE |
12-22-2009 |
Art
Paul Ross Spadafora Wanted to Demonstrate His Commitment to Boxingnew
In 1992, a 16-year-old boxing prodigy named Paul Ross Spadafora walked into the Island Avenue Tattoo shop in McKees Rocks. Weeks before, he'd dropped out of his sophomore year at Sto-Rox High School to focus on boxing. A natural righty who fought as a left-hander, he asked to have a paw-print tattooed on his upper stomach, with the word SOUTH inscribed above it.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
SEAN D. HAMILL |
12-22-2009 |
Sports
G-20 Dispatch: Never Mind Civil Liberties -- Did Police Squander a PR Opportunity?new
Going into the G-20, there was a lot of concern that anarchists might ruin a once-in-a-lifetime photo op. It didn't turn out that way. But it's still possible the police might smudge the city's G-20 halo.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Chris Potter |
09-29-2009 |
Civil Liberties
Health Care Reform is On its Way -- But Will it Be Just a Band-Aid Solution?new
This is how screwed up the debate about health care is: When reform critics predict dire results of government intervention, their worst-case scenario is pretty much what we already have.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Chris Potter |
09-21-2009 |
Politics
'Throw Down Your Heart' Would Make a Better Soundtrack than a Movienew
The premise here is simple: Despite its toothless-white-guy connotations, the banjo comes from Africa -- and Grammy-winning banjo genius Bela Fleck is bringing it home. But really, that mission is mostly just an excuse for Fleck to jam with musicians across the continent.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Chris Potter |
09-21-2009 |
Reviews
Ang Lee's Behind-the-Scenes Woodstock Dramedy is a Charmernew
Woodstock happened 40 years ago this month, and we still can't quit it. In Taking Woodstock, director Ang Lee and screenwriter James Schamus do their lovin' best to flash us back to a time when sex wasn't fatal (although some abortions were) and people still had the audacity to keep hope alive.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Harry Kloman |
08-31-2009 |
Reviews
Tags: Taking Woodstock, Ang Lee
