Saturday, February 2, 2019

Disappearing cities and boroughs of the Keystone State: Monessen, Pennsylvania


Thirty years have passed, almost to the day, since the last blasts of the steel furnaces that were the reason for this city’s existence. The steel mill is gone — used to film “RoboCop,” then demolished. Most of the people are gone, too, and those who remain are struggling to find a new purpose for this place. 
[snip] 
In fact, about 71 percent of the steel used last year in the United States was made in the United States, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. The mills in Monessen and other cities along the Monongahela River were not replaced by Chinese factories but by smaller, more efficient factories in other parts of the country.

Source:  Wikipedia

Monessen's population peaked at 20,268 in 1930.  Its 2016 estimated population is 7,413 -- a drop of 12,855 (63%).


The City of Monessen, "The Heart of the Mon Valley", is located in Westmoreland County, 27 miles south of downtown Pittsburgh on the Monongahela River.

Related reading:
Donald Trump's Economic Nostalgia.  (The New York Times, 6/26/2016)
Before Nafta was even a gleam in a trade negotiator’s eye, Pittsburgh had already lost the biggest chunk of its steelworking jobs. The culprit in that era was both international competition and the introduction of mini-mills, which allowed the production of steel with far fewer man-hours. Because of that and other technological innovations that improved productivity, total American steel output is about the same now as it was in 1990, even with far fewer workers.

Other disappearing cities and boroughs of the Keystone State
Aliquippa.  (1/12/2019)
Ambridge.  (1/17/2019)
Arnold.  (1/18/2019)
Braddock.  (1/19/2019)
Bradford, (1/20/2019)
Carbondale.  (1/21/2019)
Charleroi.  (1/22/2019)
Chester.  (1/23/2019)
Clairton.  (1/24/2019)
Coraopolis.  (1/25/2019)
Dickson City.  (1/26/2019)
Donora.  (1/27/2019)
Duquesne.  (1/28/2019)
Farrell.  (1/29/2019)
Homestead.  (1/30/2019)
Johnstown.  (1/6/2019)
McKees Rocks.  (1/31/2019)
McKeesport.  (2/1/2019)
Pittsburgh.  (1/13/2019)
Scranton.  (1/14/2019)

Other U.S. disappearing cities:
Baltimore, Maryland.  (12/31/2018)
Benton Harbor, Michigan.  (1/15/2019)
Buffalo, New York, (1/8/2019)
Cairo, Illinois.   (1/5/2019)
Cleveland, Ohio (1/2/2019)
Detroit, Michigan.  (1/1/2019)
East St. Louis, Illinois.  (1/11/2019)
Flint, Michigan.  (1/7/2019)
Gary, Indiana.  (1/4/2019)
St. Louis, Missouri.  (1/2/2019)
Wheeling, West Virginia.  (1/16/2019)
Youngstown, Ohio.  (1/9/2019)

Friday, February 1, 2019

"Do Your Thing" by the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band debuts on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending February 1, 1969


Making their 2nd appearance on the Billboard Hot 100, Charles Wright and the 103rd Watts Street Rhythm Band just missed the top 10 with "Do Your Thing", peaking at #11.  The band had two other two 20 hits:  "Love Land" in the spring of 1970 and "Express Yourself" later the same year.

In other chart action, Tommy Roe was the big winner with "Dizzy", which spent 4 weeks at #1.  Roe's first single, "Sheila" spent two weeks at the top in the fall of 1962.

"Soul Shake" burst onto the chart at #46, but pretty much stopped in its tracks after that, peaking at #37 and falling off the chart after just 6 weeks.  Surprisingly, it didn't even crack the top 10 of Billboard's R&B chart.  Delaney and Bonnie released a cover version as a single, from their To Delaney from Bonnie album, with similar results.  (Peaked at #43, spent 8 weeks on the chart.)





Related article:
Charles Wright is still expressing himself.  (Philadelphia Tribune, 5/5/2017)
Wright noted that Philadelphia played a major role in the group’s success when a popular regional radio personality and promoter requested the Watts Band to headline a local concert. “‘Do Your Thing’ was out eight months and I got a call from Georgie Woods, who wanted me to come star on his show with Ruth Brown, Chuck Jackson and all my heroes,” said Wright. “[Someone told me] I was number three in Philadelphia. I called the record company and the guy said, ‘Man, we stopped tracking that record three months ago. That guy is pulling your leg.’ So, he called Philadelphia and five minutes later he was on my phone: ‘You wouldn’t believe it! You’ve sold 93,000 records in Philadelphia, alone.’ That’s how my first hit million-selling record started right at WDAS in Philadelphia.”

Related posts:
August 1968
"I Say a Little Prayer" by Aretha Franklin
"In-a-gadda-da-vida: by Iron Butterfly
"Piece of My Heart" by Brother and the Holding Company 

September 1968
"Fire!" by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
"Hey Jude" by the Beatles
"All Along the Watchtower" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience
"Bang-shang-a-lang" by the Archies

October 1968
"White Room" by Cream 
"Ride My See-Saw" by the Moody Blues
"Love Child" by Diana Ross and the Supremes
"Abraham, Martin & John" by Dion

November 1968
"For Once in my Life" by Stevie Wonder 
"Hang 'em High" by Booker T. & the MG's
"Hooked on a Feeling" by B. J. Thomas 
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" by Marvin Gaye
"Everyday People" by Sly and the Family Stone

December 1968
"Going Up The Country" by Canned Heat
"Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James and the Shondells
"Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" by Bob Seger
"Touch Me" by the Doors

January 1969
"Build Me Up Buttercup" by the Foundations
"Games People Play" by Joe South
"I Got a Line on You" by Spirit
"Proud Mary" by  Credence Clearwater Revival

Dear Louis Woo, If Foxconn is no longer building an LCD display plant in Wisconsin, then you have indeed scrapped your plans. Best, Retiring Guy



Reported in Foxconn Rethinking Plans for Wisconsin LCD Display Factory.  (Bloomberg, 1/30/2019)

That was then

July 26, 2017

July 26, 2017

This is now

January 30, 2019

January 30, 2019
Washington Post

The statement comes after Foxconn official Louis Woo told Reuters in a story published Wednesday that its plans to build liquid crystal display [LCD] panel screens are being scaled back and possibly shelved. 
"In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S.," Woo told Reuters. "We can't compete." [emphasis added]

Related posts:
BREAKING NEWS: Vos, Fitzgerald blame Evers for Foxconn decision to move jobs from China to India.  (1/31/2019)
The only building on the Foxconn campus is as much a research center as the City of Middleton's operations center.  (1/31/2019)
Foxconn be nimble, Foxconn be quick, Foxconn jump over the manufacturing stick.  (1/30/2019)
Two blind men and an elephant.  (1/30/2019)

Here we go again: Trump loyalist sez the guy doesn't have a racist bone in his body


"I said over and over and over again...."

Photo creditCliff Sims:  5 Fast Faces You Need to Know (Heavy, 1/29/2019)

Cliff Sims Proud to Have Served Trump.  (The New Yorker, 1/29/2019)


1/23/2019 update, "Like patriotism, the "racist bone" defense is the last refuge of a scoundrel", starts here.


Headline from the Daily Mail.


6/14/2018 update, "Trump racist bone UPDATE. Fox News:  'Say it with me'". starts here.

Photo credit:  Stubhill News

Trump is not anti-immigrant.  (Las Vegas Sun, 6/14/2018)


3/2/2018 update, "Black and white UPDATE:  Most Americans say Donald Trump has at least one racist bone in his body", starts here.


Nearly half of white Americans think Trump is racist.  (Washington Post, 3!2018)
At this point in Trump’s presidency, few are surprised that large numbers of black and Latino voters believe him to be a racist — especially given his past comments about the Central Park Five and a 1970s lawsuit from the federal government alleging racial discrimination by him and his father at apartments they managed. 
But a recent poll shows large numbers — nearly half — of white Americans also now believe Trump is racist.  [topline results]


2/28/2018 update, "Former ambassador to Finland sez Trump doesn't have a racist bone in his body" starts here.

Photo credit: Celebrity Net Worth

Missä on suomi?


2/13/2018 update, " Herman Cain -- you remember him, don't you? -- arrives late to the racist bone dance", starts here.

He was the frontrunner for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination in the 2nd half of October 2011.


Quoted in Herman Cain says Trump doesn't have a racist bone in his body.  (Yahoo News, 2/12/2018)


1/15/2018 update, "Donald Trump fills in the blanks", starts here.


Quoted in Hopes Dim for DACA Deal as Lawmakers Battle Over Trump’s Immigration Remarks.  (The New York Times, 1/14/2018)

It's a fill-in-the-blank kinda thing.  Strike 'anti-semitic', add 'homophobic'.  Strike 'homophobic', add 'sexist'.  Strike 'sexist', add 'racist'.  What a crazy merry-go-round.



The guy loves to use superlatives when talking about himself.


10/3/2017 update, "Big mouth sez Trump's got no racist bone", starts here.


Quoted in Robinson wrong; Trump no racist.  (Bucks County Courier Times, 10/2/2017)


9/21/2017 update, "Sebastian Gorka doubles down on Trump's lack of racist bone", starts here.


Quoted in Ready to push panic button on Trump?  Ex-adviser Gorka says 'relax'.  (World News Daily, 9/20/2017)


9/8/2017 update, "Sebastian Gorka weighs in on Donald Trump's lack of racist bone", starts here.

Photo credit:  Wikipedia

Donald Trump's former security aide tells Sam Delaney: 'America has many, many tools beyond total war'.  (Live Radio, 9/7/2017)

"Those people."  Yeah.

9/1/2017 update, "Another family member sez Trump doesn't have a racist bone in his body", starts here.


LISTEN: Eric Trump says his father ‘tunes out’ criticism so he doesn’t commit suicide ‘out of depression’.  (Raw Story, 8/30/2017)

Uhhhh.....Eric......this is an example of what happens when someone criticizes your dad.  A Twitter rant.



8/27/2017 update, "Lara Trump herself doesn't say that Donald doesn't have a racist bone in his body", starts here.

Photo credit:  CelebNest

Quoted in Polls: Trump Least Liked POTUS Ever At Current Point.  (America Now, 8/25/2017)


8/25/2017 update, "Dallas preacher Robert Jeffress on Trump:  "There is not a racist bone in his body", starts here.


Evangelicals Are Bitterly Split Over Advising Trump.  (The Atlantic, 8/23/2017)

Other Jeffress post:
Tales of hypocrisy: Pastor Robert Jeffress has no problem preaching when he's not in the pulpit.  (8/11/2017) 


8/24/2017 update, "Arizona man who disappoints Mom adds to racist bone pile", starts here.


Reported in Police lob pepper spray at protesters after President Donald Trump rally in Phoenix. (ABC7.com, 8/23/2017)

8/23/2017 update, "Methinks he doth protest too much with this doesn't have a racist bone in his body sniveling", starts here.


Quoted in Republican leaders dance around Trump remarks.  (Washington Post, 8/16 /2017)

Perry on LinkedIn.  And yes, he's not a rocket scientist.


8/22/2017 update, "Golfer John Daly on Trump:  'Not one racist bone in his body'", starts here.


DONALD TRUMP WILL HELP BLACKS... More Than Obama Did.  (TMZ Sports, 11/10/2016)


8/21/2017 update, "Former Trump butler sez of his boss: "There isn't a racist bone in his body"", starts here.


Donald Trump's former butler says 'There isn't a racist bone in his body'.  (Tampa Bay Times, 6/8/2016)
From someone "who has faced questions of racism himself".  Senecal has stirred his own controversy with comments about President Obama posted on Facebook. “With the last breath I draw I will help rid this America of the scum infested in its government," he wrote in May. He said Obama should be dragged from the “white mosque” and hanged “from the portico — count me in !!!!!” 


8/20/2017 update, "Repeat after me:  Interesting how all these bros insist that Trump 'does not have a racist bone in his body", starts here.

Photo credit:  Liberty University

Quoted in Jerry Falwell: President Trump “doesn’t say what’s politically correct, he says what’s in his heart” .  (Salon, 8/20/2017)

Related reading:
Some Liberty University Grads Are Returning Their Diplomas To Protest Trump.  (NPR, 8/20/2017)
Chris Gaumer, a former Student Government Association president and 2006 graduate, said it was a simple decision. "I'm sending my diploma back because the president of the United States is defending Nazis and white supremacists," Gaumer said. "And in defending the president's comments, Jerry Falwell Jr. is making himself and, it seems to me, the university he represents, complicit." 



Original 8/190/2017 post, "Well, guys, all we can conclude is that Trump has many racist bones in his body", starts here.

TMJ4.com (8/18/2017)

Daily Mail (8/17/2017)

Fox News Opinion (3/6/2016)

Photo credit:  Facebook

Reported in  Black Voices on Turmoil in Charlottesville: ‘The World We Live In’.  (The New York Times, 8/16/2017)
To them, the images of white supremacists marching through streets — along with the deaths of three people — and the president’s response to racial violence were upsetting, but not shocking. Instead, they were proof that more work needs to be done. Continue reading the main story 
“I’m not surprised,” said Harold Harris, 41, a barber in the Sweet Auburn neighborhood in Atlanta. “This is the world we live in; this is the country that we live in. We have a lot of racism embedded in our country, in our history.”

Disappearing cities and boroughs of the Keystone State: McKeesport, Pennsylvania


Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/3/2014
National Works employed 4,500 workers in the late 1970s.  The demand for tubular products as a result of the oil and natural gas boom prompted U.S. Steel to resume production at the plant in May 2011. The company took over the operation from Camp Hill Inc., which had leased the mill from U.S. Steel. The pipe mill is on the site of the former U.S. Steel National Works, which once employed thousands and gave the city its moniker, "Tube City."

Source:  Wikipedia

McKeesport's population peaked at 55,355 in 1940.  Its 2016 estimated population is 19,273 -- a drop of 36,082 (65%).


The City of McKeesport is located in Allegheny County, 12 miles southeast of downtown Pittsburgh at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers.

Related reading:
Mr. Baron works at U.S. Steel's national tube plant in McKeesport, Pa. Usually he works in quality control, he says, but, as with many steelworkers, reduction in steel production has meant he is ''working all over the mill,'' meaning one job this minute, another the next. Mr. Scott, normally a bargeman at U.S. Steel's Clairton Works, has been employed in the steel business 27 years. He says that he is now working four days a week and that he has also had to work beneath his normal position, at one point as a laborer. ''He's picking gravel like the chickens,'' Mr. O'Brien said.
Other disappearing cities and boroughs of the Keystone State
Aliquippa.  (1/12/2019)
Ambridge.  (1/17/2019)
Arnold.  (1/18/2019)
Braddock.  (1/19/2019)
Bradford, (1/20/2019)
Carbondale.  (1/21/2019)
Charleroi.  (1/22/2019)
Chester.  (1/23/2019)
Clairton.  (1/24/2019)
Coraopolis.  (1/25/2019)
Dickson City.  (1/26/2019)
Donora.  (1/27/2019)
Duquesne.  (1/28/2019)
Farrell.  (1/29/2019)
Homestead.  (1/30/2019)
Johnstown.  (1/6/2019)
McKees Rocks.  (1/31/2019)
Pittsburgh.  (1/13/2019)
Scranton.  (1/14/2019)

Other U.S. disappearing cities:
Baltimore, Maryland.  (12/31/2018)
Benton Harbor, Michigan.  (1/15/2019)
Buffalo, New York, (1/8/2019)
Cairo, Illinois.   (1/5/2019)
Cleveland, Ohio (1/2/2019)
Detroit, Michigan.  (1/1/2019)
East St. Louis, Illinois.  (1/11/2019)
Flint, Michigan.  (1/7/2019)
Gary, Indiana.  (1/4/2019)
St. Louis, Missouri.  (1/2/2019)
Wheeling, West Virginia.  (1/16/2019)
Youngstown, Ohio.  (1/9/2019)

Thursday, January 31, 2019

"Proud Mary" by Credence Clearwater Revival debuts on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending January 25, 1969


Credence made their 1st of 9 appearances in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.  Although they reached the #2 position five times, they could never claim the top spot. 

In other chart action, "I'm Livin' in Shame" had a very strong debut but couldn't maintain the kind of momentum its predecessor, "Love Child", built up during its rise to the top.  It spent just a week in the top 10.  The bubblegum earache "Indian Giver" managed to spend 4 weeks in the top 10, no doubt resulting in preset buttons on millions of car radios receiving a major-league workout.





Related article:
John Fogerty Talks About Writing ‘Proud Mary’.  (Best Classic Bands, 9/30/2017)

Related posts:
August 1968
"I Say a Little Prayer" by Aretha Franklin
"In-a-gadda-da-vida: by Iron Butterfly
"Piece of My Heart" by Brother and the Holding Company 

September 1968
"Fire!" by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
"Hey Jude" by the Beatles
"All Along the Watchtower" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience
"Bang-shang-a-lang" by the Archies

October 1968
"White Room" by Cream 
"Ride My See-Saw" by the Moody Blues
"Love Child" by Diana Ross and the Supremes
"Abraham, Martin & John" by Dion

November 1968
"For Once in my Life" by Stevie Wonder 
"Hang 'em High" by Booker T. & the MG's
"Hooked on a Feeling" by B. J. Thomas 
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" by Marvin Gaye
"Everyday People" by Sly and the Family Stone

December 1968
"Going Up The Country" by Canned Heat
"Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James and the Shondells
"Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" by Bob Seger
"Touch Me" by the Doors

January 1969
"Build Me Up Buttercup" by the Foundations
"Games People Play" by Joe South
"I Got a Line on You" by Spirit

How America makes electricity in 50+ maps


Now in print!



How Does Your State Make Electricity? 
The New York Times, 12/24/2018.





Scott Walker rides the train to nowhere



Point/counterpoint: God's influence in the 2016 presidential election



Sources:

The only building on the Foxconn campus is as much a research center as the City of Middleton's operations center


Screenshot from drone video that accompanies online J-S article

Foxconn may drop manufacturing as part of drastic rethinking of Racine County campus.  (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 1/30/2019)

The award-winning building pictured below is the Middleton Operations Center, an 88,000-square-foot facility shared by the Public Works and Public Lands departments.  A portion of a 22,000-square-foot cold storage facility is seen in the lower-right corner.

Photo credit:  MG&E

Related post:
Foxconn be nimble, Foxconn be quick, Foxconn jump over the manufacturing stick.  (1/30/2019)

YUM! When the rubber meets your stomach



Tyson recalls chicken nuggets over rubber contamination.  (CBS News, 1/30/2019)

For those who can't get enough of this kind of highly processed food.