http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists Brian O'Neill's column en-us Copyright 2010, post-gazette.com. Wed, 8 Sep 2010 09:09:33 -0400 15 http://www.post-gazette.com/includes/2007design/images/150x30pg_now_logo.gif http://www.post-gazette.com/ 144 39 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10248/1084963-155.stm?cmpid=oneill.xml It wasn't his favorite scene when he wrote it, nor when he shot it, but when Bill Mikita saw "Chasing 3000'' on the big screen, the sight of himself, his brother and his grandfather driving to a Pirates game got to him. Sun, 5 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10245/1084370-155.stm?cmpid=oneill.xml Bookstore tourism? Why not? Better to visit these quaint old (and new) shops now rather than wait a few years and tour the ruins. Thu, 2 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10243/1083805-155.stm?cmpid=oneill.xml Mayor Luke Ravenstahl suggests leasing out the city's parking garages and meters, but why stop there? Dan Sullivan, one of my favorite civic gadflies, is set to make a modest proposal to City Council, perhaps as early as today: Lease the elevators in the City-County Building for the next 50 years. Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:47:00 -0400 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10241/1083191-155.stm?cmpid=oneill.xml John Towle was a 19-year-old college student, working at a Wendy's in Oakland and smelling of fries, and he'd go into Jay's Bookstall across Fifth Avenue just for the pleasure that comes from being among books. He's such a book guy that he can browse a shelf once and remember each title, so pretty soon he was answering customers' questions about where stuff was. Sun, 29 Aug 2010 13:47:00 -0400 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10238/1082737-155.stm?cmpid=oneill.xml As I was wading through the tide of bad news that rolled in this week, each successive story more dispiriting than the last, I was suddenly seized with a great comforting thought, the No. 1 Rule that all of us in humankind dare not forget: Everyone is pretty dumb. Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:47:00 -0400 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10236/1082116-155.stm?cmpid=oneill.xml A guy came into Tony Molinero's sprawling beer distributorship in Bridgeville and asked if he remembered what Duquesne beer tasted like. "I said, 'Dude, that was 35 years ago,' " Mr. Molinero recalled. "I can't remember what the beer I had yesterday tasted like." Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:47:00 -0400 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10234/1081501-155.stm?cmpid=oneill.xml A daylong stream of irate transit riders -- that was not the convention that planners had in mind when the new David L. Lawrence Convention Center was built. But they came Thursday to vent frustration with a system in perpetual crisis. Some of the pleas to stop proposed cuts were heart-rending. Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:47:00 -0400 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10231/1081048-155.stm?cmpid=oneill.xml Eric Lidji grew up in Dallas and moved to Squirrel Hill when he was 12. Looking back on this Texas boyhood, he sees it now as a time of island hopping. In the Dallas archipelago, his home was one island, his uncle's house across town another, his school another, the mall another. Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:47:00 -0400 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10229/1080484-294.stm?cmpid=oneill.xml When you live beside what may be the world's steepest public street, as Joe Bonadio has for his 87 years, you stay in pretty good shape. Make that tremendous shape. He shrugs off any compliments on his physique. His father, Santo, lived on the side of a mountain in Calabria in southern Italy, and decided to do the same in America. Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:47:00 -0400 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10227/1079920-155.stm?cmpid=oneill.xml Don't mess with Tom DeRosa. The 68-year-old chairman of the Forward Board of Supervisors finds himself in the middle of a landmark case to reveal the identities of anonymous online accusers, and he recently had a throwdown with Hollywood producers filming in his little township. Guess who's winning both fights? The man who likes to call everyone "bud" but never backs down, that's who. Sun, 15 Aug 2010 13:47:00 -0400 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10224/1079424-155.stm?cmpid=oneill.xml Steven Slater is being hailed as a folk hero, and although that term doesn't quite fit, nobody should be surprised that he has attracted legions of fans worldwide. Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:47:00 -0400 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10222/1078864-155.stm?cmpid=oneill.xml Plenty of folks don't care for pigeons, a truth that Theresa Schultz relearns nearly every time she leaves her apartment with a bag of seed. "They shooed me out of everywhere," she told me early Monday when I phoned her at home in Gateway Towers. "I haven't fed my little ones since last Monday." Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:47:00 -0400