The North Shore Connector and The Mon-Fayette/SOuthern Beltway (MFSoB) Turnpike project (Dec. 13, 2006)

[Prefatory note (from 2011): Re-reading this, I'm amazed how much I'm saying now I said four years ago. Precious little has changed.]

Current mood: bitchy

[Prefatory note (from 2006): This is a copy of correspondence I sent to PA Governor Ed Rendell, my congressman, and state senator and representative, concerning the North Shore Connector, in response to a KQV 1410 news radio editorial that is highly critical of the project.]

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KQV Radio has thundered out loudly and often against the North Shore Connector. Well, they're wrong.

Yes, this project is useful.
Yes, this project is wanted.
No, this project will not mess up Downtown traffic.
No, this project is not horrifically overbudget, no more so than any other multi-year construction project.
Yes, this project WILL benefit more than just the two stadiums.

What's going on is that KQV is controlled by people who hate public transit.

Meanwhile, KQV has never said a bad word about the Mon-Fayette/Southern Beltway (MFSoB) project (yes, that's its official name, though for some reason they don't use that acronym), and never mention its cost. The MFSoB's cost is ten times that of the North Shore Extension, four to five billion vs. roughly $400M.

So, in short, yes, go ahead and get the thing built, and please ignore the nay-sayers.

Thank you for your time and attention.

*

So far, the only reply I've received is from State Senator Jane Orie, who, although in general she's against the project, at least listens.

I can and should add more detail here about the need for the NSE, and even more about the MFSoB. Seems, though, that every major transit project gets strangled and dragged to death, while every road project gets rammed and jammed through, regardless.

We barely managed to get the West Busway funded, and only then because some major midwestern transit project fell through at the last moment, freeing up the last $50M or so needed to assure its completion. (In other words, we got Chicago's money.) Even at that, the Wabash Bridge never got built, nor did the separate right-of-way along the railroad tracks. Instead, at the last minute, they built the flyover by the Corliss Tunnel and sent the buses down West Carson Street.

The reason all that happened was because, at the very last minute (I'm not sounding repetitive because I want to but because I have to) bar owner Froggy Morris objected to the already-approved bridge and project and the ensuing furor delayed the whole thing a year or two, during which time the railroad decided they wanted to keep their tracks between Corliss and Smithfield Streets so the busway couldn't go in there. This stall-and-derail tactic also kiboshed Skybus back in 1972, though that was before my time. In that fiasco, Port Authority actually reconstructed the Wabash Tunnel, the project was so far along.

Oh enough already. I'm tired of regurgitating transit stories, I'm tired of KQV and the local right-wing politicians and bigwigs screwing up transit, and I have other things to do. Still, it had to be recorded by someone, somewhere ... and someone, somewhere, had to tell the current politicians that there really is support for this project (the North Shore Extension, that is).

arrogant drivers (Dec. 12, 2006)

Current mood: cold

I was second in line pulling away from a red light at an intersection for which the crossing street has essentially an exit ramp allowing right turns to be made at about 25 to 30 mph, with a yield sign at the end of the ramp. (Just outside Mars, Butler County PA, at PA 228 and Mars-Valencia Road, southbound, if you know the area.) [map] [Google Street View] Prior to this, the car just ahead had not been in a hurry.

Just as we pulled away, a car comes around the exit ramp. It was clearly in front of the car in front of me, one lane over, and moving along at a good clip. So what does the guy in front of me do? Guns it. It becomes a drag race, one on the straight ahead, one on the ramp. I was not involved.

Don't get me wrong; it's not a matter of the guy on the ramp needing to yield right of way. It was a matter of the guy on the straightaway racing up to make the guy on the ramp need to yield right of way. Had the car in front of me pulled away at a reasonable rate of acceleration, there would have been no conflict. But by the time I'd made it out of second gear, he was fully 100 yards ahead of me, neck-and-neck with the guy on the ramp, and they were both going probably 60 mph, one trying to get out of the way, one trying to get in the way.

Now had there been an accident of some sort (there wasn't), and had I not been there to act as a witness, probably the guy on the ramp would have gotten a ticket for not yielding right of way. Well, there wasn't any need for him to have done so, since when he looked to merge there was only one car, and it was five, maybe seven, car lengths back, far enough that there shouldn't have been a problem.

What really got me was that this idiot pulls off onto a side road barely a half mile after this!

My new identity: UnicycleInTransit (Dec. 7, 2006)

Current mood: accomplished

I finally decided on a MySpace.com URL: UnicycleInTransit

This combines my two transportation loves, unicycles, and public transit. Rare is a day when I do not ride one or the other, or both. In fact, I'm more likely to do one or the other, or both, than drive my car. I've even been known to take the wheel with me on the bus. Some explanation is in order.

Unicycles have been part of my life since Christmas 1973, when my sister got one as a present. Even in the snowy Buffalo ski hills where I grew up, I managed to master the thing before springtime, and in May 1974 rode a marathon-length bike ride. (Note: I never did that again ... by choice! Ouch!)

Soon I was riding to and from school each day (four miles each way), and in May 1975 a Buffalo TV station did a brief feature story on me. The wheel went to college with me in 1976, and in the five years I was there, I estimate that I put several thousand miles underneath me, wheeling back and forth among classes, major activities and my room. This included winter, and remember, we're talking Western New York here. There always was snow.

Buses are a more recent development. In mid-1990, when my commute consisted of a 25-mile ride straight through Downtown Pittsburgh, I owned four cars, two of whom were 1970s-era behemoths with huge V8 engines. Saddam Insane's invasion of Kuwait caused a brief spike in gas prices (from roughly 85 cents to roughly $1.40), making me pay $5 daily in fuel alone, in addition to waiting in traffic to pass through two tunnels, 55 minutes each way. I sought a better way to get back and forth. Carpools existed, but didn't really work out.

Then I found the bus system. This wasn't difficult; there was a bus stop directly in front of the house, and I often followed the bus into town each day. Granted, it took a long time to go point to point, 90 minutes on average, but it was kick-back-and-relax time, not white-knuckles-on-the-steering-wheel time, with a built-in chance to run errands en route without adding to the net travel time. Also, the two-ton-tin-cans-on-wheels now needed a refill once every three weeks, not weekly. The buses quickly became a habit.

Not long after this, I had a residence change. Unlike past moves, this time I seriously considered being near a transit line. More specifically, I only looked at houses that were within walking distance of a bus stop. One evening early in the hunt, I sat on the floor of a nearby school's gymnasium, surrounding myself with every bus schedule for routes that went near the area I was moving to (northern suburbs of Pittsburgh), and a map of the area. On it I marked every road that had any sort of bus service.

Without getting too scientific about it, I tried to note the difference between roads with any service versus roads with plentiful service. One house under consideration was just towards town from where there was a three-way split in a particular route. Beyond the split, any one fork might get six to 10 trips a day; within it, close to 30. OK, easy choice. That house made the short list, and eventually we chose it, moved there, and it's been home ever since. In fairly short order, too, we got rid of three of the four cars and invested in an annual bus pass. With the thousands of dollars I saved each year, I weathered a major downsizing at work, and paid for a masters degree.

To this day, I find I can go a lot of places on foot alone (drug store, grocery), frequently assisted by unicycle. Where feet or wheel can't get me, the bus usually can. And if all that fails, I still have the car.

I'd like to think I live by example, or maybe it's lead by example. How many other people even think about buses when choosing a house? How many make transit a primary condition when making a choice? If they do, the decision is usually not to, and that is guided by it seeming to be a long way from house to bus stop. Well, that's why we have wheels. Granted, not many people use a unicycle, but bicycles are fairly common, and someday maybe the Segway will catch on, too.

The point is, anyone can decide to be near a transit line, and can decide to use transit to get around. It saves incredible amounts of money, and while often taking longer, the ride offers enough benefits to provide balance.

Having the wheel in hand, or a bicycle at the bus stop, seals it for me. I see it as quite likely I will still be riding both as long as I am able.

How and why we should change our pocket change (Nov. 29, 2006)

Today's headlines contain the story that changes are planned for U.S. paper money so that the visually impaired can tell different denominations apart. Good idea, but not good enough. What's really needed is a wholesale revamping of our coins and paper money.

Cut to the quick: Every denomination below $10 should be modified or retired.

Inflation is the main culprit. Fifty years ago, a nickel and dime could buy you what you pay a dollar for today, and 100 years ago, you'd only need the nickel. Working from that single fact alone, we could eliminate not only the cent, but also the nickel and dime, but I won't go that far.

The problem is in the lack of truly useful coin denominations. Cents and nickels, and to a lesser extent, dimes, make up the bulk of the coins in our pockets, both in terms of count and weight. We have two larger denominations theoretically in circulation, the 50-cent and one-dollar coins, but few people use them. Similarly, I contend that the cent and nickel do not circulate, either. You get them, pocket them, and put them in jars, but rarely spend them. Most cents and nickels in circulation today grade at least XF-40 on the 1 to 70 scale of coin wear, which means they're just not getting used. A coin can be as low as 50 on that scale and still have some of its original shine.

A second problem is that we Americans don't like anything to change. We're still using the same denominations we had in 1796, excepting the half-cent piece, which was discontinued in the 1850s, and paper money replacing gold coins. To give an idea where silver stopped and gold began, the $2.50 gold coin, our smallest, long-running denomination, had the buying power in 1906 that a $50 bill does today. (As an aside, outside of western states, the silver dollar coin never did get a lot of use, similar to the 50-cent coin today.)

Silver (and gold) dollars themselves were not all that common back then, but 50-cent silver coins got the snot beaten out of them. A century-old 50-cent piece will be typically found worn almost flat from use. Now, think of the use a $10 bill sees today -- back and forth and on and on, in constant motion. It's that "20x" factor again.

So here is my proposal:

• One-cent coin: Discontinue now.
• Five-cent coin: Discontinue after further changes are made.
• Ten cent coin: No changes at all.
• 25-cent coin: Discontinue after further changes are made.
• 50-cent coin: Shrink in size, make octagonal.
• $1 bill: Discontinue now.
• $1 coin: No changes at all.
• $2 bill: Discontinue after $2 coin is in place.
• $2 coin: Introduce along with $1 bill discontinuance.
• $5 bill: Discontinue once $5 coin is in place.
• $5 coin: Introduce along with $1 bill discontinuance.

This would give us coin denominations of 10, 50, 100, 200 and 500 cents; and bills of $10, 20, 50 and 100. This would make things quite similar to 1906, when we had circulating coin denominations of 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50 cents, and bills of $1, 2, 5, and 10. Higher denominations of each existed, of course, but were little used by the general public.

Unstated so far is rounding, so let's tackle that straight on: We round to the nearest ten cents for every cash transaction. We didn't need the half-cent 100 years ago; we didn't need it 150 years ago, either. It was discontinued after 1857. Today's dime functions as the 1850s half cent. Really we could dispense with the dime altogether, too, but that's going to be too much of a leap for now. But we no more need the one-cent or five-cent denomination than we needed to make the one-mil (one-tenth of one cent) coin in 1793. It now takes two one-cent coins to comprise the value of the 1793 mil. We are far beyond time to trash the cent, so far beyond that the five should go, too, and as I said, even the 10. But for political reasons, I advocate just rounding to a dime, at least to deal with at this end of the 21st century.

What of the nickel and quarter? The quarter is the only coin that sees true circulation today, and so cannot just be discontinued. Similarly, the nickel is needed to make even change for the quarter. But with 10- and 50-cent coins doing the work of small change, the quarter will eventually become unneeded. With it will also go the five-cent. Properly, they should both be eliminated now, but the quarter's entrenchment will make that difficult.

Well, that's enough for one argument.

To eliminate abortion, eliminate its need (written 1/1985)

I wrote the following essay in early 1985, age 26, after I was married but long before I had kids. I tweaked the wording from time to time over the next couple of years, but really haven't touched it since 1990. I still think it holds up well, over 26 years later.

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STRAIGHT TALK ON ABORTION

(or TO ELIMINATE THE EVIL, ELIMINATE ITS NEED)

Several letters, articles, surveys, syndicated editorials, and papal pronouncements have appeared in the news over the last few months concerning abortion, pregnancy, and teen-age sexual activity. Pro-life people quote the statistic of millions of murdered fetuses per year, while pro-choice people say it's none of anyone's business what they do with their bodies. Still others are upset over teen-agers' use of The Pill. Nobody agrees on anything, it seems, though everyone has an opinion. We need fewer opinions and more serious discussion.

In all the melee and furor of marches, protests, letter-writing campaigns and abortion clinic bombings, an important point is being missed entirely. There were millions of unwanted pregnancies last year to teen-agers and non-teens alike, and untold millions more which were not aborted. America, let's address the REAL problem: pregnancy prevention.

While many will say that the answer to that is simple, that not enough couples are using the word "No", it is not that simple. "No" is definitely a viable way of dealing with pregnancy prevention, but first it must become more widely used and effective. I intend to shed some light on why "No" doesn't seem to be as effective in 1990 as some would like it to be, and what should be done about it.

Avoidance of pregnancy is a difficult, three-step process for most American adolescents and adults. First, there is the decision to engage in sexual activity -- the initial loss of virginity. At this point, common sense and the word "No" work pretty well, which is good. The biggest problem here lies in the couple's ability (or lack of it) to realize what all is involved with being sexually active if they say "Yes". This calls for good judgment and maturity, traits not commonly associated with teenagers (and some adults, too). Parents, take note: If you don't want kids to get started, the aforementioned traits must be fully developed before the onset of potential sexual activity, and by that I don't mean programming them to say "No" all the time. They have to understand WHY they should say "No". They have to know how to gather information from reliable sources and make decisions.

Teens must also be able to recite and understand all the ramifications of having a sexual relationship. Just for starters, they take more time, use more thought energies and result in more emotional anguish than non-sexual ones, and saying "No" becomes more difficult with each successive "Yes". This subject requires a discussion unto itself.

Once sexual activity has begun, at whatever age, prevention of pregnancy must be handled on a situation-by-situation basis. Simply put, "Should we or shouldn't we do it?" I used the word "we" here; often "I" is the proper word for the situation. In a given situation, if only one half of the couple is thinking about pregnancy prevention, there is only half as good a chance, at best, for achieving it.

Don't look for much common sense and clear-minded thinking with a couple just minutes away from potentially making a baby. Temptation and impulsiveness are the rule here. Human resistance to the temptation of the sexual urge is every bit as difficult as (if not more than) a hungry dieter's resistance to the temptation of a chocolate bar within arm's reach. It's the same thing. If you don't think it's difficult, just ask anyone who's gained back lost weight. Some can resist it, some can't, and some don't care. But they certainly do worry when a period is overdue!

Impulsiveness is a little easier to handle. It is related to time. The closer time gets to the moment of impregnation, the more impulsive the couple tends to be. Conversely, an hour before making a baby, it is more likely that one or the other could mention that pregnancy, and resultant parenthood or abortion, are not wanted, and intelligent discussion about that, sex, and contraceptives would take place. This conversation will practically never occur when they are less than a minute away -- they're too busy! This is where a "No" decision could be made, but it isn't happening much in 1990. One measure of maturity is being able to recognize such a situation with enough time beforehand and starting the conversation. Teens, are you listening?

The third step in the prevention of pregnancy comes into play when couples decide to go ahead (or just go ahead) with sexual intercourse. In order to prevent it here, education in advance is needed about the methods and proper use of contraceptives. Regardless of your feelings about sex education, contraception and abortion, the bottom line is that your feelings mean absolutely nothing to couples at this point, no matter who you are.

Sex education in some form should begin at birth and go on continually in some form until the time of death. It certainly should not be restricted merely to one class in high school and a little talk by one parent around age 10 or 12. Open, frank, non-hostile and informed, two-way discussion about it should take place regularly at home and at school, and by this I don't mean the one-way outpouring of beliefs and opinions. I mean facts -- facts about how the human reproductive system works (mature, informed members of both sexes know in detail how both sexes' systems work), how contraception works (regardless of beliefs and preferences), and about all the feelings and emotions involved with sexual awareness.

Parents, please talk with your kids (not TO them or AT them), and for their own sake, listen to what they have to say without anger, criticism or judgment. If you can't do this, please get help. They're not only your kids, but you're their closest friends -- I hope. Teens, if you can't get any straight answers from your parents, please get your information or counseling from someone reliable. You'll do well by teen hotline numbers. They're in the phone book.

Of foremost importance is the information. Every adolescent and adult in this nation who ever expects to experience sexual intercourse any more than one time more than he or she will have children, must study about contraceptive methods, make a choice, and then make the arrangements to have that choice on-hand for when the time comes. (This CAN BE the so-called "rhythm method".) Why is it that such a rational, reasonable concept as this gets so much debate, especially when the Sex Ed curriculum in the schools is undergoing an update? The only debate that should occur is how to fit it all into 13 years of formal schooling in such a manner that the children can understand it, handle it emotionally, and discuss it rationally with parents and friends, and later on, their mates -- and eventually their own children. I should know -- I was a teen-ager myself ten years ago and I know what my own attitudes were back then. I know that I've developed a more mature attitude toward the subject through information and rational discussion.

If it sounds like I'm overstating it, just keep in mind that the pro-life people consider this a life-and-death matter. Elimination of abortion via legislation is not a viable goal, given the current situation: Some people think abortion is murder, but many people do not. There is just too much controversy. Whether it is murder or not is irrelevant to the problem I am addressing here, the termination of pregnancies that can be prevented. Pregnancy prevention is the key, but a wholesale change in people's beliefs on many subjects is necessary in order to resolve this problem, let alone that of abortion itself.

By the mid-1990s, the children born after 1980 will be of reproductive age; hence, the time to educate them about the processes of fact-gathering and decision-making is now. For each of our own family members, the time to discuss these subjects is now. If you have teen-age family members, have them read this, for a start. The sooner we get started with such teaching and changes, the sooner that unwanted pregnancies can be avoided, and as a result, the sooner abortion can be eliminated.

Stuart M. Strickland

Original draft: March 1985

Last modification to this text: 1990

Four of the five final paragraphs appeared in the Greensburg Tribune-Review in April 1987.

Email that says "You've received a greeting from a family member!" (Nov. 17, 2006)

Current mood: aggravated

I pride myself on never having been seriously affected by PC viruses. Add to that things like spyware, trojan horses, tracking cookies, popups, and other subversive "malware" that somehow finds its way onto many people's computers. Not that I never have been infected, just that I have never been laid low by them.

I run a pretty tight ship:

* Up-to-date anti-virus software
* Up-to-date operating system service packs and weekly fixes
* Three different anti-spyware packages
* Daily (overnight) automated scans of my entire computer by some combination of these

Beyond that, I avoid Microsoft products in favor of Mozilla for my browser (Firefox, v2.0 just released) and email system (Thunderbird), since they are less likely to be piggybacked-upon by such malware, and more likely to catch it in the first place. They're also free, and run on anything.

Still, beyond all the protection software available, it all comes down to how vigilant one is about recognizing and avoiding malware. This past week, one of them fooled me, so I'll share my newfound wealth of knowledge.

It came as an email to my wife, arriving the morning of her birthday a few days ago. The title was "You've received a greeting from a family member!", and landed in our generic Inbox. (I have a collection of filters to redirect incoming mail to any of several subfolders.) Since she receives emailed postcards from various friends and family on a consistent basis, I just manually moved it, unopened and unpreviewed, to one of her folders, and didn't give it another thought.

Fortunately, she picked up on its potential for scam, scum and spyware.

* It was not clear that it was sent by any identifiable person, known or otherwise
* It was not clear that it was to her in particular
* It was not clear exactly what company it was emanting from (not Hallmark, etc.)
* It was not clear that it had anything to do with her birthday, or any other occasion
* Thunderbird identified it as a potential scam

What it contained was a link. This part almost fooled me. What it appeared to be was not what it was. If clicked, it would try to download and execute a program. Furthermore, the text of the link -- the part that showed in the email -- did not match what actually got run. If you have your status bar turned on (click View on the top menu, and see if Status Bar is checked), and hover over the link, you should see what the link really does.

As an example, try this one. This link, if clicked, will not take you to Playboy magazine: http://www.playboy.com. Go ahead; click it! You won't be sorry! Or, instead, hover over it, and look at your status bar. You should see http://www.vatican.va/phome_en.htm, the English home page for The Holy See (i.e., The Vatican). The email contained a similar underhanded switcheroo.

So you see, on the Internet, unless you're very careful, what you see might not be what you get!

How I figured out that the email was a scam was to do a Google search on the name of the program it was trying to run, "postcards.exe", as well as a search on "virtual postcard from a family member", a key phrase in the email. Both of these returned several hits which explained the scam.

What the thing would have done, had I bit, is to install a program, without my knowledge or permission, which would converse with some server somewhere, accepting commands from that server to do who-knows-what on my computer. Details, go here: http://research.sunbelt-software.com/threatdisplay.aspx?name=Backdoor.IRC.Zapchast&threatid=43753


Consider yourself warned. caveat clicktor

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Comments

Stuart Strickland This must have been the beginning of a trend. Since this post, hundreds of "You've received" spam emails have come my way. Rarely a day goes by that I don't get 10 or more! Argh!!

4 years ago

buying a 78 (Nov. 6, 2006)

Current mood: surprised

My son has taken to playing "We'll Meet Again" on the ukulele incessantly for the past few days. The song was a huge hit for Benny Goodman in the 1940s. Since my daughter is also very much into the clarinet at the moment, I thought it would be trés cool if I could play for them the original 78 rpm record featuring Benny, with vocals by a very young Peggy ("Is That All There Is?" and "[Gimme] Fever") Lee.

Alas, my extensive 78s collection was missing that precious recording! Horrors! (Doesn't everyone have thousands of 78s in the house, with a 78rpm-capable phonograph or two sitting at the ready?)

Armed with knowledge of that void, and finding myself in my local used record shop this morning, I decided I'd get them a "just because" present and see if I could find that 78.

I stroll in and make a beeline to the 78s department. The shop used to be a nightclub, and the 78s occupy what was once the stage. The lights are normally off, since so few people peruse 78s. They're arranged in no order at all -- literally stacks of disks, easily 10,000 -- not separated by genre, artist, decade, or even size of disk. Most don't have envelopes, though usually the labels are readable. Yes, you can turn the lights on. I didn't bother.

I hadn't a hope of finding that record, let alone expectation that I might get out of there in less than three hours. Imagine trying to find a friend's house "somewhere within 10 miles" without address, directions, or a description of the house. (I was on foot, and every 78 weighs half a pound, so that somewhat limited what I could carry out of there.)

Nevertheless, I started flipping through a stack of 10" shellac disks. I doubt I touched 75 records, maybe not even 50. Bingo, there it was! It couldn't have taken me two minutes.

Fifty cents.

I bought a Peggy Lee LP to go along with it. (Do I really have to explain what an LP is?)

[Side note to MySpace: The "Tell us what you're ... listening to" does not very well accommodate those of us who listen to 65-year-old records on 50-year-old equipment.]