Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “‘It was all students and no protesters — it looked like any Friday night in Oakland but with more people,’ said Nathan Lanzendorfer, 23, of Mt. Lebanon. He went to Oakland out of curiosity to see the protests. Shortly before midnight he was caught on Forbes Avenue, with police deploying OC gas from two directions.
“He was hit with a rubber bullet in his right leg and his left, started to run, and was then hit in an arm and his lower back.
“‘I never heard any warning to leave the area — all four [rubber bullet] shots were within five seconds,’ he said. ‘All the wounds on my back. If I was opposing [the police] at all you’d think I’d have a front wound.’
“Mr. Lanzendorfer went to UPMC Presbyterian for treatment of his contusions, one of which is softball-sized, he said.”
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
is the entire Pitt student body white? i don’t think white people know how to riot properly, or the police aren’t defining a riot a properly. and i seriously doubt the tear gassing of those students on the steps was intentional, i mean, they didn’t mean to trap them there maliciously and make them inhale all that shit, they probably just don’t know the lay of the campus. i know it’s your right to assemble, but, seriously, if there are fucking marauders with black flags outside it’s good not to be in that same group of people, mask or not, guilt by association and that shit, it’s just common sense, you can’t expect the riot guys to tell the difference between the retards and the non-retards.
i was just wondering, is there some overriding law that can declare a gathering unlawful, what caused them to do that, declare it an unlawful assembly, or were they just trying to nip the situation in bud–infringe on rights–so the night went smoother.
in all, i think the police fucked up to some degree and some of the kids, too (the marauders and some students). but that’s based on watching this video.
one more side note: i kind of get the feeling that some of these kids are looking for the man to put them down, the kid describing the grenade canister and the kid who got fucked up by a canister both seemed a little to elated about the situation. Like, we’re upper-middle class white but we’re getting fucked with, too, and we’re not gonna take it, no we ain’t gonna take it, we’re not gonna take it anymore. take us out, Dee…