Clairton
This is one I got wrong.
Downtown Clairton is pretty much a ghost town. The storefronts are mostly boarded up. There aren’t a lot of people.
It’s uphill from the U.S. Steel Clairton Works, which pollutes the air and is the object of considerable controversy as residents suffer the effects in what looks for all the world like a classic case of environmental injustice. It’s in what locals call “Mon Valley,” the Monongahela River Valley, which is not, in this stretch, no way, no how, a tourist attraction. The communities here are working class at best.
We’re looking at a lot of poverty and a lot of problems associated with poverty.
In the middle of this, all of a sudden there is suddenly a project to restore an old hotel. The sign calls it a multimillion dollar undertaking. I’m interpreting all this as a tourist hotel restoration and thinking it doesn’t make any sense at all.
You can imagine the dark theories rolling around my head. Who sinks this kind of money into a place like this? And why?
Frankly, I was thinking of a restaurant in the South Bay (San Francisco Bay) which, I was told, never seemed to have any customers but where the food and service were great. I don’t know if it’s still there, but apparently it had been there for some time. My sources suspected it was actually a money laundering operation.
As I said, I got it wrong. It turns out this is mostly affordable housing. People should be moving in in late August. I’m not quite clear on the financing, but it appears tax incentives were involved.[1]
They’re hoping this development will be the beginning of a revitalization for downtown Clairton.[2] It’s obviously a leap of faith but we can certainly hope they’re right.
Linda Wilson Fuoco, “Clairton Inn Apartments created from old hotel,” PIttsburgh Post-Gazette, July 29, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/life/homes/2022/07/29/clairton-inn-apartments-hotel-mon-valley-initiative/stories/202207290054
COVID-19 Pandemic
I’m late finding this article but it appears that the dominant theory of the origins of COVID-19 as being in a Wuhan live animal market is now on more solid ground. Even some erstwhile proponents of the ‘lab leak’ theory are now saying they now think the pandemic began with two separate nonhuman-to-human animal transmissions in that market.[3] This much more directly implicates our relationship with nonhuman animals.
Corinne Purtill, “New studies say Wuhan market is the only ‘plausible’ source of COVID-19 pandemic,&Rdquo; Los Angeles Times, July 26, 2022, https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2022-07-26/new-studies-say-wuhan-market-was-the-only-plausible-source-of-covid-19-pandemic
Gilead
Gilead competitive authoritarian regime project
If you can get out of the country, it would be a good idea.
Brynn Tannehill, “It’s Going to Take Several Miracles to Stop the Republican Party From Turning America Into Hungary,” New Republic, July 26, 2022, https://newrepublic.com/article/167100/republican-party-turning-america-into-hungary
Mark Scolforo, “Gov. Wolf sues to stop GOP-backed amendments on abortion, voting,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 28, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/governor-wolf-sues-amendments-abortion-voting-20220728.html
- [1]Linda Wilson Fuoco, “Clairton Inn Apartments created from old hotel,” PIttsburgh Post-Gazette, July 29, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/life/homes/2022/07/29/clairton-inn-apartments-hotel-mon-valley-initiative/stories/202207290054↩
- [2]Linda Wilson Fuoco, “Clairton Inn Apartments created from old hotel,” PIttsburgh Post-Gazette, July 29, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/life/homes/2022/07/29/clairton-inn-apartments-hotel-mon-valley-initiative/stories/202207290054↩
- [3]Corinne Purtill, “New studies say Wuhan market is the only ‘plausible’ source of COVID-19 pandemic,&Rdquo; Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2022, https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2022-07-26/new-studies-say-wuhan-market-was-the-only-plausible-source-of-covid-19-pandemic↩