Success -- coaching style with USC

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Fiddle Concerts Saturday AM and PM

The XSO (Extreme Strings Orchestra) will perform between 10-11 AM tomorrow (Saturday) at CAPA High School - next to the Convention Center. The concert is free and open to the public. The group will be playing all new music including an Irish fiddle tune "Kesh Jig", an original fiddle composition "Grand Canyon Jump", a jazz tune by Martin Norgaard "Canta Island", and current Pop/Rock hit "Disturbia".

The group's teacher and organizer is Steven Vance.

Grant will be playing. Erik will be at the Pitt Christmas Meet.

Later, at 5 pm, the kids take another downtown stage for yet another concert. This will be in PPG's Winter Garden with PMA, Pittsburgh Music Academy located in Carnegie. That gig will have lots of Christmas music. Also, free and open to the public.

"Green is Good": The Pittsburgh Penguins Award their New Arena's Naming Rights to a Local Coal Company

"Green is Good": The Pittsburgh Penguins Award their New Arena's Naming Rights to a Local Coal Company: "a coal company's name will now adorn the arena of a hockey team named The Penguins

Shaler Area basketball coach, 65, dies

Shaler Area basketball coach, 65, dies Shaler Area basketball coach, 65, dies

I'll coach the team for the rest of the season. But, it would be better to hire Paul Seneca. Coach Seneca is a basketball guy and last I knew he was a teacher in the North Allegheny School System.

Then again, I'm clueless as to the assistant coaching situations at Shaler. If Coach Ruppert was a great coach, he'd have worked hard to have assistant coaches who could lead the team should this occur.

All coaches need to have capable assistant coaches -- just in case. It takes a village.

Good luck team. Rest in peace coach. Our prayer and thoughts to the family and friends. It is my hope that all are able to rise to the challenge, cause this is sure to present many challenges.

Instant Message to Marty Griffin

Yesterday, as Marty Griffin of KDKA Radio, AM 1020, was talking on the air with Pgh Public Schools Superintendent, Mark Roosevelt, I sent in a message that he read on the air with some kind remarks. They were talking about the 50-percent grade policy where no assignment can score ZERO. No matter what, 50% is a guarantee. So, the students are getting half credit for nothing.

On the air, Mr. Roosevelt said that there have been some "unintended consequences" of the policy. Some teachers are upset about the allowance of total slackers in the classroom and throughout the semesters.

So, in response, a new committee is being formed to study the situation. It will be made up of teachers and administrators, so reported Mr. Roosevelt.

My comment was that we need to insist that parents be put onto the committee. The parents were left off of the solution according to Mr. Roosevelt's words. These are our kids. These are our schools. Parents need to have input into the operation of the schools.

Today I take the other side of discussion with Marty. I posted to him as he is cring about the failed bailout vote by the US Senate.

Makers of buggy whips and horse-drawn carriages would have been happy to have you (Marty Griffin) pimping for their clutch on the past.

First, they'll still pull off a bailout even without the vote of the Senators. Bailout version 3.0 is sure to come.

Second, new opportunities will spring to life, for sure.

Change is a life fact. Guarantee.

Car dealers will all be gone. So what! Buggy whip dealers are all gone too. Horse stables do not exist in the city any more. There used to be one in our garage on the South Side. No hay sales for feeding the horse drawn carriages while stabled in the city to pull goods around town.

Cars were not part of the landscape in the time of Ben Franklin. But, freedom was. And we want to keep freedom and let the car industry/customers fend for themselves.

What would you have them do? -- asks Griffin.

I'd have the US Senators worry most about freedom and worry less about props to any one industry.

Let's talk about fairness, says Griffin. It isn't fair to have equity -- unless you go to the roots of principles. Don't give to Peter and rob from Paul.

Ryanair Plans $15 Flights to Europe | Autopia from Wired.com

Let's get Dan Onorato on this and into one of those planes.

Ryanair Plans $15 Flights to Europe | Autopia from Wired.com: "Low-cost Irish monster Ryanair announced that it plans to begin flying from Europe to the US, with economy tickets starting at 10 Euros, or around $13.00.

Folks in Pittsburgh are frugal. We'll eat this up like soft pretzels.

The Big Push 2009 -- Free Software Foundation Appeal - Free Software Foundation

Powerful reading.

The Big Push 2009 -- Free Software Foundation Appeal - Free Software Foundation Our community has made enormous progress in creating tools that enhance communication and freedom — with profound effect on people's lives. Free software has become a model for how our society can progress collaboratively, and members of our community are at the forefront in expressing these ideals.

Public Art Displays

From signs

From signs

I love this community blogging project that began in November 2008 called Neighborhoodwalk. It sprang to life at Pittsburgh Podcamp3. Everyone and anyone can play along. This month's assignment -- "public art."

Flowers present a great option for public art.

From Mark Rauterkus & Running Mates ponder current events

Love in red flowers shown in this photo is for a bride in China. In China, the brides generally where red, not white.

From Mark Rauterkus & Running Mates ponder current events

Pittsburgh's public art is nice. We've got these public dinos littered around town. These A-B-Cs came from the skin on the Alphabetsaurus that was designed by our neighborhood Elementary School, Pittsburgh Phillips K-5.

From Mark Rauterkus & Running Mates ponder current events

From signs

From Mark Rauterkus & Running Mates ponder current events

We like to travel and with that comes an expansion of perspectives. So, this tour goes where we've been.

One of my favorites, this roadside speeding guy, looking a lot like Mercury with ribbons behind. He was seen while on one of our four trips to China.

From Mark Rauterkus & Running Mates ponder current events

The slide show that follows has 64 images, each with comments. I am tickled by the functional art. Best best art to me is action and play among people in the streets and neighborhoods. There is plenty of art within a bike that serves as a carrier for parent and kids or else parked to hold flowers. There is art in the sidewalk stones -- and the Pennsylvania hex signs too.

Slideshow:

Do go and drink up the other offerings from the others presenting the Rustbelt Public Art Neighborhood Walk.

From signs

Bnus art image:

Why More And More Politicians Are Rotten To The Core -- Matt Towery -- GOPUSA

Why More And More Politicians Are Rotten To The Core -- Matt Towery -- GOPUSA That the governor of Illinois would attempt to sell a U.S. Senate seat didn't shock me. Across America, there is a growing sense of entitlement among more and more elected officials. Not all, of course, but too many.
From city councils to Congress, elected positions have evolved from their intended part-time status to full-time obsessions. And as governments have grown, so have their access to big money. Political leaders now hold life-and-death fiscal power over people and businesses.

Zombies are popular for new high school sports mascot

The Zombies can be the new sports mascot for sports teams at Pgh Public Schools newest high schools -- Science & Technology and Univ Prep (joint athletic squads).

Zombies would be the greatest sports nickname ever. = 58%.

Zombies is okay given Pittsburgh rich Zombie legacy. = 33%.

Sure. Whatever. = 8%.

The Zombies is just too radical for these botique schools.Be more traditional and get something else. = 0%

To be honest, in person I've talked about this concept with more than 100 people. Only one has ever said that Zombies is not such a good mascot. ONE.

Police: Man Stabs Brother Over Hot Water Incident - News Story - WPXI Pittsburgh

Police: Man Stabs Brother Over Hot Water Incident - News Story - WPXI Pittsburgh: "A man is accused of stabbing his brother on Pittsburgh's South Side late Wednesday afternoon after the brother threw hot water on him, police said.

In other news, a guy got run down the other night on the South Side.

Plus, the other died in the stairwell of a joint the other night too -- with knife wounds.

So, does Bruce Kraus, one of the guys who is responsible for the cleaning of guns out of the city with one goofy ordinance, going to come to the rescue with all these other acts too? Is Bruce Kraus going to outlaw knives, hot water and cars?

A guy jumped off the Clemente Bridge the other day. Can they put up signs to not do that and build a 15-foot fence on all bridges to make it harder for bridge jumpers?

Perhaps they can dedicate those red light cameras from homeland security sources and have them installed onto the roof tops of area hospitals -- so as to catch those looking for the stairway to heaven.

Thousands Of Local School Children Rewarded With A Trip To Penguins Morning Skate

If the Penguins really cared about school performance of our kids, don't you think that the Pens would have been certain to NOT pull them from school to attend a practice?

kdka.com - Thousands Of Local School Children Rewarded With A Trip To Penguins Morning Skate As part of their effort to reach out to local schools and emphasize the importance of education, the Pittsburgh Penguins invited children from every local school district to attend their morning practice at Mellon Arena.

This makes little sense. It goes against the stated principles of the goal.

I love sports. I love scholarship too. Sports should be a part of the school experience -- after the dismissal bell.

Sure, there are exceptions. But, those exceptions should involved the kids being the performer -- not the spectator. Live isn't about being a spectator.

Another way to support the school children would be if the Pens played more games at better hours to allow for the kids to watch. Start some school night games at 6 or 6:30 pm. Hold more weekend afternoon games.

Oregon Government 2.0 bill - PdxWikiWednesday

Oregon Government 2.0 bill - PdxWikiWednesday: "In the 2009 legislative session, Oregonians have an opportunity to take a significant ownership stake in their government and the work it produces. This web page will be used as a work space to develop a bill that will place works of state government legally in the public domain, and make them more accessible to the public in a practical sense."

Deadline is lifted. Not dead yet.

City schools extend magnet-application deadline

Pittsburgh Public Schools has extended the deadline for magnet registration because of high interest and a new process.

Applications must be postmarked by Dec. 19 for about 30 magnet options. The deadline had been this Friday.

Previously, those interested applied at a particular school. This time, the applications are being handled centrally, with applicants permitted to name three top choices.

The extension applies to all magnet options except for Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12, which had a Nov. 21 deadline.

More information on the choices and procedure are available on the district's Web site, http://www.pghboe.net.

If you miss the deadline, you should go onto the waiting list. If all the slots are not filled, then you have a rolling admission.

If they need to extend the deadline, I'd like to have an extra point or two be awarded to the lottery system to those that do and turn in their homework on time.

Western Standard and Ron Paul's target guy

Western Standard: "Ron Paul economic adviser Peter Schiff was right about, well, everything

Listening to National Public Radio (NPR) the other day, they did a little piece on Peter Schiff, former Ron Paul economic adviser, president of Euro Pacific Capital, and an advocate of the Austrian school of economics. Schiff is often on various financial and business shows as a talking head. On all of them, over the last three or four years, Schiff has been busy predicting an economic catastrophe."

The Burgh Report gets an insightful quote from City Councilman, Bruce Kraus

The blog reads:

The Burgh Report'Oh bite me,' Bruce Kraus volunteered to the Burgh Report when asked for his own reaction. 'You can put that on the record.'

Splendid quote from such a deep thinker.

Personal Health - All That Noise Is Damaging Children’s Hearing - NYTimes.com

New York Times covers noise exposure for kids.

Personal Health - All That Noise Is Damaging Children’s Hearing - NYTimes.com All That Noise Is Damaging Children’s Hearing

Hearing loss among kids and young adults is on the rise in the US, sadly.

Five million children have an entirely preventable disability that will stay with them for life.

Once the ringing in the ears begins, without the music playing, it is too late to turn it down or use other protective measures.

Get this, toys can be as loud as 138 decibels yet workplace noise is limited to 85. I'm not for more laws. But, more vigilance. Parents and adults need to step in frequently on the frequency and intensity.

My wife has been a board member of the American Academy of Audiology.

No its not. Yes it is. CNN interview with book author

A bit of an econ lesson by a book author.

Fed is to blame.

Crash Proof!

Congratulations Barak Obama, story from Chris Chandler

I enjoy this guy's newsletter. This month, he talks of the election and sports -- Georgia style and all.

M.U.S.E. .A.N.D. .W.H.I.R.L.E.D. .R.E.T.O.R.T.
By Chris Chandler
www.chrischandler.org
Vol X issue iii
December 1, 2008
Washington, DC

Sorry so late this month. I have been in my home town of Stone Mountain, Georgia. This is the first news letter since the election.

I was in DC on Tuesday, November 4th. Holy Cow!

From 11:02 (the moment the polls closed on the west coast and the media announced the election) till the wee hours of the morning a traffic jam formed on the blocks that surround the white house. People laid down on their horn. All night long George was treated to one continual thousand car horn salute.

People were excited. Excited for the change Barak Obama has professed will come.

Upon his election last month yes, in 2008 -- there are people alive on this earth whose parents, not great grand parents, not grandparents parents were slaves. If you were born in 1863 and sired a child in your 50s, that child is now in their 90s. It has been a short time. It has been an eternity. Change.

In the year of my birth, Martin Luther King said in his I Had a Dream speech, "Let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia." Because he longed for change to come to America.

He mentioned my home town because at the time it was the home of a very powerful Ku Klux Klan reeking terror throughout the south land in which I was born. Because of the Klan, it is also the home of the world's largest carving the Confederate Memorial where the stone images of the three Confederate leaders are indelibly chiseled to the side the mammoth slab of granite that inexplicably protrudes from the Georgia red clay larger than Mount Rushmore itself.

In 1915 the modern Klan was formed on this site in a ceremony that involved burning a cross from the mountain's summit. The inferno was so large it could be seen from the city of Atlanta some 20 miles away. The inferno it represented was much larger. The rebel revelers longed for no change to come to America.

It was in that setting that I came into this world. I saw my town of three thousand grow on rally days to ten thousand hooded heroes march through the town as young girls through flowers at their feet. How could I not long to be among them. I did.

Yes, I grew up a racist, how could I not? You could blame me. I was a kid. You could blame my parents but how could they know any better? Growing up in rural Alabama during the depression, it did not seem like a place that change was going to come to. You could blame my grand parents. My grandmother was sixty at Brown Vs. Board of Education. She did not know there needed to be change in America.

Upon the outcome of Brown Vs Board of Education, the state of Georgia changed her state flag to add the Confederate battle flag as if to say, "Change was never going to come to America."

I am probably the youngest person you will likely meet that went to a segregated school. In 1970 Jimmy Carter defeated Lester Maddox for governor and went about practically desegregating the last of the segregated schools. Change was coming to Georgia. I was in the first grade.

I played football on the first desegregated little league team in my county: The Central De Kalb 85 lb Packers. Before they were the Packers they were known as yes The Crackers. Donning a "University of Georgia G" on our helmets I found myself on the opposite end of the America I had known. I learned to depend on, play with, sacrifice for my black team mates. Team work. When The Packers played teams in counties more isolated than De Kalb I found my team and therefore myself on the receiving end of jeers and threats and even getting into sand lot brew-ha-has defending defending.. well, my team but vicariously desegregation. Change was a foot (ball.)

As I was growing up, Stone Mountain was a white trash trailer court. But this too was changing. Atlanta, the city too busy to care, beat Birmingham in a bid for a major airport and sprouted like the Kudzu on either side of the Hank Aaron Highway. A city with no navigable waterway instead became -- not a port city but -- an airport city. Change was coming to the world. She grew from 300,000 to 4 million. The dirt road I grew up on is now a four lane highway with a traffic light. Co-Cola, CNN, Home Depot and the rest.

The growing city won a bid for the Olympics in 96. The long distance marathon event ran round Stone Mountain itself now an Atlanta suburb -- with the finish line in front of the monument. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis' granite gaze cast down upon a Kenyan runner, black as the population of Stone Mountain, throwing his hands into the air passing the finish line with Georgia's Confederate battle flag blowing in the breeze. Change was coming to America. Georgia changed her flag.

The white flight that inevitably parallels a growing city blew right past Stone Mountain leaving in its wake a suburban black middle class. The words "Stone Mountain" were on the pages of the New York Times for a second time in her history when the town that Martin Luther King singled out elected a black mayor. Change was brewing in America. Only some old timer whites remain. My mother is one of them.

I came to visit her recently. At the corner of Rockbridge Road and Cynthia McKinney Blvd (another African American that ran for president this year) there is a shell station down the street from my mother's house. A young African American man approached me wearing his mall bought Negro League baseball jersey (made in Bangladesh) and blood-diamond bling saying, "You have no idea where you is."

I do. One visible sign that change is at hand is that a black teenager was willing to take a ride with a middle aged oddly clad bald white man. I took him to the old city hall, now a museum. I showed him the bell presented to the town by the King foundation to let Freedom Ring. I took a drink from the colored water fountain I would not have been allowed to drink from as a child. He in turn drank from the "white." Parts of my childhood I am glad to have relegated to the annals of small town museums.

The city of Stone Mountain carried Barak Obama , but not the state of Georgia. But more importantly he carried the nation, and the vote of my mother.

Change has come to America. "Let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia."

Congratulations Barak Obama.

Peabody best site for IB program, panel says

Peabody best site for IB program, panel says: "A 30-member site-selection committee has unanimously recommended the Pittsburgh Peabody building as the best permanent home for the International Baccalaureate program for grades 6 through 12 in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Full article:

Peabody touted as home of IB magnet: "Peabody touted as home of IB magnet"