Thursday - Current Events: Pittsburgh G20

I am not the sort to get super political. I feel that you and I both have as much right to believe in anything we like and that, as long as we are not hurting anybody, I/you don't have the right to belittle you/me for feeling that way. That said, I'm also a very opinionated S.O.B., and as such will never back down from voicing my opinions on things political, religious, etc....

This G20 summit in Pittsburgh is nuts. I must admit, I've never really paid much attention to it, short of being aware that it was going on and knowing the general locations it was happening in. I did know, however, that wherever it went throngs of protesters and global media networks were sure to follow. Now it's happening in my own back(front)yard and I'm fairly sure I'd like to kick the person who okayed it square in the face. Not that anyone is reading this but should you stumble upon it and are unaware Pittsburgh PA is a fairly small big city. When you look at it on a map, it's essentially four small cities, connected by a slightly larger central one. The unfortunate part of this is that most of the truly urbanized parts are located within this central area, and, naturally, that is the area they've chosen to set up shop for this summit. What this means is that, for about a week, Pittsburghers are going to be living as if they were being held in very luxurious camps of some kind.

If you want a real treat, you can watch the official PPD video announcement of all of the road closures that the summit is bringing us. Because of the various mountains and rivers in the area, there is only room for one major road that links everything in the city together. It's pretty much impossible to plan any kind of sensible trip in Pittsburgh that does not take you onto this road. As this road will, for all intensive purposes, be shut down for the better part of a week, I'm sure you can imagine the hindrance this puts on the residents of the city. Local businesses have been forced to close for the week for no other reason than they must. Even if they could get to work for the day, they would have almost no clientele. I'm sure this means nothing at all to the businesses like US Steel or PNC, but this is going to devastate smaller places that fill our South Side or Strip District (or USS temps who don't get paid for the week they cannot physically come to work >:-O ).

I suppose I tend to ramble. Nobody is ever going to want to read a blog that contains an essay on this kind of stuff. Perhaps Thursdays will be my least popular day? In closing, I find it very funny that the reason Pittsburgh was chosen as the site for the G20 summit was its impressive ability to bounce back from a dwindling economic situation, and that nobody in any position of authority in the city seems able to see that simply hosting it is going to crush it.

bth