Pittsburgh
Jenn and I went to Pittsburgh for the first time this weekend. Some friends of ours, die-hard Steelers fans, love Pittsburgh, and they wanted us to see it through their eyes. We literally did the tour: seeing the stadium, the old Fort Pitt (the original point of civilization in the American frontier,) ate at a Kelly O’s Diner (as seen on TV,) had awesome meatballs in a restaurant on Penn Street.
In Pittsburgh they have San Francisco-like hills leading from the rivers that surround the downtown. And like San Francisco, Pittsburgh built cable driven cars to go up the incredibly steep hills, called “Inclines.” Two are still working, and on Saturday morning we went to the top the top of the Duquesne Incline. After seeing the awesome view, we rode back down to river level, waiting for our tour bus.
From all over town came the wail of sirens: police heading through the maze of tunnels and bridges and “uptown.” One of our friends, a police officer, thought it seemed like a mass shooting kind of response. A new acquaintance we met in the Incline car from Northern California turned his phone into a police scanner, and we began to hear the awful news. It started with this broadcast to police, “…don’t go out on Wilkins Avenue, you’ll get shot!!” We watched the armored SWAT vehicle race through town, then more police, and then ambulance after ambulance.
Our next stop was the Rivers Casino where we saw the tragedy revealed on television. Pittsburghers were saddened, worried about the dead and wounded, and about the police officers that were injured trying to end the carnage. But they also were resilient; it’s a big town with a lot to do, and a lot of people there for all sorts of different reasons. So we went on, seeing the monument to Mr. Rogers (the attack was in Mr. Rogers’ actual neighborhood) and following the news on our phones.
That evening we went to an Irish pub on the “Strip Section” (not from strippers, but from strip mining that leveled the area in the late 1800’s.) The owner was holding a benefit for Haiti, but he spent time talking about the members of his “pub family” who were affected by the attack as well. We sang Amazing Grace in their honor, and Haiti relief did very well, especially from the visitors from Ohio who became part of the Malaney “pub family” for the night.
Sunday most of the guests in our hotel were headed to the Steelers/Browns game. But while the inevitable talk was about the game (and how the Steelers would win: they did) there was always a pause, and sad eyes, and “what is wrong with the world” conversation. On TV was the Mayor of the city, exhausted, talking about gun control and AR-15’s. The rest of the media world wondered: how can we, in this week of attempted bombings and a completed mass shooting: how can we get our nation to stop raising the rhetoric so high that those on the edges fall into madness?
And in our little hometown of Pataskala, there was outrage about the “Haunted Hoochie” (a series of barns where they scare the hell out of you for $25 – it’s Halloween) who decided that Saturday night was right for “swastika night.” Wear a swastika as part of your costume (or painted or tattooed on your body) and you get in free. They argued that swastikas represented real horror; but a lot of the community commented that it never was acceptable, it certainly wasn’t the night when eleven Jewish folks were murdered in their Synagogue by a racist with a rifle. There were a few who didn’t get it, and there probably were a few in Pittsburgh who didn’t either. But most of the town was outraged.
It has to stop. We need leadership who backs civility, not pays lip service to it then jokes about having a “…bad hair day.” We need the President to stop calling the news the “…enemy of the people (Trump-10/29/18 am);” and dabbling in conspiracies like a “…Soros funded Caravan from Central America.” It isn’t that the President and these others are causing violence, but they have contributed to the climate.
President Trump is not anti-Semitic. His daughter and son-in-law are conservative Jews, he could have been at the service on Saturday. And Trump sees himself as a great supporter of Israel. But he has allied himself with some who would use anti-Semitism to further their political goals: the dark conspirators on the internet, who see George Soros and Tom Steyer and Chuck Schumer not as loyal Americans, but as a part of a Jewish cabal looking to take over the world.
Next week’s election may not change that. Changing the President might not either: Trump is a symptom, someone who caught onto this, not the creator. It will take a lot of communicating for all sides to get back to what America can be. The Steelers and the Browns fans rose together for a moment of silence on Sunday, maybe there’s a way for all of us to find common ground for talk, even if we disagree. That’s what our leaders need to do, from whatever party or view they represent. Common ground to end the killing ground we are creating.
