ALCStudies Journal

An article in Rolling Stone profiles Braddock Pennsylvania and it’s mayor John Fetterman.  Following is a link to the issue. The article is titled Mayor of Hell.

http://www.rollingstone.com/issue1078

Braddock is a skip and a jump from where I live. It’s the setting for Thomas Bell’s Out of this Furnace, a fictionalized account of the immigrant experience in Carnegie’s steel mills. I included a section at the event I did last November at the Carnegie Library. Click to hear and see a video of me reading this. I will likely include it in Working Pittsburgh.

Today Braddock is the focus of Mayor Fetterman’s and community members’ efforts at innovative and ongoing revitalization. Fetterman’s goal is not to deny Braddock’s post-industrial identity, but build from it. The slogan on the town’s web site is “Destruction Breeds Creation”. Nice. Check out what’s going on:

http://www.15104.cc/

In contrast to grim economic news and prognostications of doom in the papers, here’s a success story of young, contemporary workers in the ‘burgh. Derek. Greg and Megan at Franktuary run a small business on Oliver slinging dogs and other tasty stuff. They do a great job making patrons feel at home and seem to have fun doing it.

A final thought for the day:  My understanding is that business corporations are treated as individuals before the law. If some corporations are deemed too big to fail (and thus receive bailout money), why aren’t individuals (the ones who pay taxes to provide the bailouts) deemed too big to fail as well?