Sir: I am writing to protest appallingly slipshod work by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. The secretary (it does not specify which secretary, but it may have been Reginald in the typing pool) has issued an order, and the Board claims to have complied with it. Yet I shall produce evidence that compliance has not been achieved. I hope you will excuse some offensive language, but it is necessary to make my point.

I quote from the front page of the BGN Web site:

In accordance with Secretary’s Order 3404 the BGN has approved replacement names for all official features that included the word “Sq___” in their name. The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has been updated to reflect these changes.

You will notice that the text is in bold, indicating that this is an important initiative. Yet it has not been carried out uniformly, if indeed it has been carried out at all. I was just downtown today having lunch on the Diamond, and do you know what the street signs still say? I will tell you what they still say, though I caution readers with delicate sensibilities: they still say “Market Square.”

Is this not exactly the sort of offensive terminology that Reginald, or whichever secretary it was, intended to replace? No true Pittsburgher can walk by those signs without a feeling of shame and loathing. Every native Yinzer knows that the proper name for the square in the center of a city is “diamond,” and this attempt to mold us into prissy monocle-wearing Boston Brahmins by changing the name to “Market Square” is deeply offensive to everyone whose blood runs black and gold. Yet the BGN has left this work undone. One knows not whether to attribute it to deliberate insult, or mere lazy callousness ’n’at.

Nor is the Diamond the only example of unfinished business around here. I don’t care how much of the center of old Allegheny was blown to bits in the urban-renewal area: there is no such street as Allegheny Square. It is Diamond Street, because there was a diamond on the North Side, too. To be specific, it is East Diamond Street, the only remaining segment of the streets that were once called North Diamond Street East, North Diamond Street West, East Diamond Street, South Diamond Street East, South Diamond Street West, and West Diamond Street. Surely that is not too much to sort out. Well, it is, but anyway all the others are gone, so this one can just be Diamond Street, and not Allegheny Square.

And there is a whole neighborhood in the East End marked “Regent Square,” and you can’t tell me that’s a real place. It’s cobbled together from pieces of four different jurisdictions.

So I should like to draw the attention of the secretary, whichever one it is, to the fact that there are gaping holes in the implementation of this order. I should not like to see my federal government getting into the habit of sloppy work. Who knows where that sort of thing might lead?

Sincerely,
Arbuthnot Squint III
Squatters Run

Sir: Yesterday, for the second day in a row, we had haze and smoke all over the city. In fact, we woke up to a thick blanket of fog-smoke-haze, and I have been trying to think of a portmanteau word for it, like “smog,” but including haze, too, but I get tied up in too many consonants every time I try.

Now, whose fault is this? No need to ask: the culprit has been identified. Once again, it is Canada. It is an old story by now: we import our weather from Canada, and the results are anything but satisfactory. This past Christmas Canada sent us positively miserable weather, but what could we do? Canada does not accept returns.

It is time to face facts. It is time to stop importing weather from Canada, no matter how cheaply it can be manufactured there, because we are getting shoddy goods. Inadequate weather is false economy. We pay more for it in the long run.

This is the season when presidential candidates pop up like toadstools, so here is our opportunity to have our say in public policy. The next president must make it a priority to develop a strong and resilient domestic weather industry.

It may be objected that a weather industry requires a large infrastructure, but this objection is raised mostly by people who like to say the word “infrastructure.” There is plenty of room for large weather mills. McKeesport is mostly vacant at the moment, and its location at the confluence of the Youghiogheny and the Monongahela gives it access to more syllables’ worth of navigable water than most cities its size can claim. Or, of course, we have at least one Dakota too many.

A strong weather industry would be an incalculable boost to our economy. It would employ thousands and make us independent of the Communist menace to the north of us. In the future we might even be in a position to export weather to places that desperately need it, like the Sahara Desert, which could be filled with attractive suburban tract housing if only it had access to suitable weather. But we must make a beginning, and only the federal government has the push and the pull to get the ball rolling. When you are considering candidates in the primaries next year, ask each one, Where do you stand on the domestic-weather question? Only a candidate who gives the right answer is worthy of your consideration.

Sincerely,
Aloysius B. Porridgewelder,
President,
Americans for Meteorological Independence

Hey, look at me!

I don’t think you realize how cool I am. I’m worthy of your attention. I’m worthy of everybody’s attention. I’m special, and I think everyone should acknowledge that. Look at me! I don’t think you’re looking at me.

A lot of people don’t look at me. I don’t know what’s wrong with them. I drive down the street with the coolest beats rattling the foundations of the storefronts on Carson Street. My truck has a ring of colored LEDs all the way around, and they change colors in rhythm with the music. And yet you’re not looking at me. Why aren’t you looking at me? Hey! Yeah, you! Look at me! Hey! Look at me!

I got myself a T-shirt that tells the world I’m the coolest. It says “THE COOLEST” in letters so big they hardly fit on the shirt. And it has a picture of a tiger! How can you not look at me? Do I have to get a zoot suit?

I’ve been working on my walk for years. It’s something halfway between a saunter and a sashay. It just screams, “Hey, look at me!” And yet you’re not looking at me. Not even when I actually scream, “Hey, look at me!”

I got a tattoo on my arm with a picture of a skull. Don’t you want to see a picture of a skull? It’s so cool! Look at it! I’ll bet nobody else has a tattoo of a skull. Why aren’t you looking at my tattoo? I mean, the ink kind of feathered, so on my pale skin it looks more like a bruise than like a real skull, but it’s still a tattoo of a skull. Don’t tell me that’s not cool!

Don’t you want to be with me? Don’t you want to be cool, too? Don’t you want to ride in the coolest truck in the consolidated metropolitan statistical area? I mean, it’s clean. The passenger seat has never even been used!

I think you should look at me. I think you should look at me right now. Are you looking at me? You are looking at me! Oh boy!

What do you think you’re looking at?

I always wanted to say that.

—Sincerely, Ernest “Big Dawg” Stickelmeyer, Etna.

A correspondent who signs himself “K. J.-U.” writes to inform us that, contrary to the report published yesterday, the happiest place in the world is North Korea, where flowers of loyalty bloom spring, summer, autumn, and winter, and where never is heard a discouraging word, discouragement being a penal offense. The editor regrets the error.

The thirty-fourth annual World Happiness Index was released yesterday, with very few surprises on the list. Sweden edged out Finland for the lead spot this year, a result analysts attributed to the acute Surströmming shortage that affected Sweden in 2022. New Zealand ticked down two points in the rankings, owing to a disappointing season for the All-Whites. At the bottom of the list, for the thirty-fourth year in a row, the saddest place in the world is Walmart.

Sir: It is univerally agreed, and adopted as a principle thoughout our legislation and the court system, that no bad things should ever happen. Therefore, when bad thngs do happen, it is our first and most pressing duty to determine responsibility, so that the guilty parties may be held accountable.

Now, I have been analyzing the news for some time, and I may lay claim to a fair amount of personal experience of my own, so I am in a position to speak with some authority. It has become clear through my researches that one party in particular is responsible for more of the bad things that happen in our city, and almost certainly in the entire world, than any other agent. I will not shirk my duty: when I have discovered unequivocal evidence that this party is guilty, I will allow no timorousness or fear of reprisal to cloud my judgment and stand in the way of my speaking the truth. The agent responsible for more bad things in the world than any other is gravity.

Consider the notorious Fern Hollow Bridge collapse. Making every allowance for poor maintenance, and without ignoring potential design flaws, it is clear that the primary agent in the collapse was gravity. This is true in spite of the fact that the entire bridge was nothing but a machine designed to resist gravity. Think of the millions of dollars that were wasted on that ultimately fruitless endeavor!

Just yesterday I tripped and fell on the sidewalk, and my knee yet preserves the memory of that unhappy event in the form of a somewhat painful scrape. Again, making every allowance for the other circumstances, including the uneven brick surface of the sidewalk and the fact that I was reading a very funny story about my second cousin’s cat on Facebook at the time, it is still true that without the agency of gravity I would not have fallen. I would have remained suspended in the air until I had found the sidewalk with my feet again, and then I would have continued on my way.

Some charitable but mistaken souls may object that there is much to be said in favor of gravity, that its benefits outweigh its risks, and that we are better off with it than without it. But this flies in the face of all legal principle. As a community, we have decided that mistakes and tragedies must not be tolerated. We have a zero-tolerance policy for bad things. Are we to make an exception merely because the culprit has some good qualities as well? Do we pardon serial killers who are kind to their mothers? Is an embezzler let off the hook because he gave a quarter to a street musician? Do we tolerate rain merely because the same clouds gave us pleasant shade? No, we must stick to our principles. No matter what the cost to us in the short term, gravity must be held responsible, or the forces of nature will think they can get away with whatever they like.

This is why I have introduced Bill No. 2023-B-954.88G, entitled, An Ordinance to Prevent Tragedy and Loss Through the Agency of Natural Forces, in the city council. I believe we have enough votes to pass the bill, and Mayor Gainey has promised to sign it, although we did more or less leave him with the impression that it had something to do with transit improvements in Upper Lawrenceville. So don’t get too specific with him when you remind him of his promise. But please do write your own representatives on city council if you are not in my district, and if you could leave your note attached to a six-pack of Duke outside your council representative’s office, that will probably help a lot.

This is only a start. I hope our legislation will serve as a model for action at the state and even federal level. But at least we are making that start. We are showing gravity that we will not stand aside and let it have its way with our best-laid plans. And once we have accomplished that, we shall have a precedent to rely on when we train our sights on momentum.

—Stacey Whatsername
City Council, 11th District

Sir: It seems to me that there are entirely too many people these days who take trees for granted. Trees don’t grow on trees, you know. What I mean is, you can’t just plant a seed and have a tree pop out of the ground. It’s obvious just from looking at the things that each one of those trees had to be crafted by dedicated artists, and the amazing thing is that they make each one by hand, even in our mechanical age. You can tell because each tree is different. Imagine the skill that went into carving and assembling each one of those artistic masterpieces! Now you see why I say we shouldn’t be taking trees for granted. And don’t even get me started on grass! —Sincerely, Ruby Shadwhistle, Arbor Day Foundation of Western Pennsylvania.

Bishop Zubik of the Popish Church went to Rome and unexpectedly returned with a cardinal’s hat. Boy, was Cardinal Zucchino mad! Bishop Zubik says he doesn’t know how the thing got into his luggage and he’ll get it back in the mail as soon as he can get to the post office.

Sir: It is abundantly clear that whoever is in charge of the worldwide conspiracy of all things is falling down on the job. As a rich person, I am supposed to be immune to all inconvenience. Yet only this morning I had to come to a dead stop while some pokey old woman with a walker held up traffic at the intersection of Carson and 18th, as if she had a right to amble across the street at her leisure just because the walk sign was on in her direction. Now, clearly, in a well-ordered conspiracy of everything, there would be no little old ladies holding up drivers in any car above the level of a Lexus. My own car is a Bentley, so I should not even have to think about inconvenient old women.

It is time for drastic measures. I call for the resignation of the leaders of the conspiracy, and their replacement by competent professionals who know how to run a proper cabal. I also call for aging to be made illegal. Clearly a competent conspiracy would be able to eliminate all the inconveniences associated with advancing years.

Since there are no other candidates publicly announcing themselves, I offer myself for the position of generalissimo or archon or supreme pontiff or whatever it is you like to call the head of such an organization. Clearly I am qualified, since I know what is to be done and have a proper Bentley. But if someone else is willing to take on the onerous duties and get the job done, I have no objection. The vital thing is to make sure the rich suffer no more inconveniences. Otherwise they will lose all motivation to remain rich, and then what will become of our economy?

Sincerely,
Standard N. Poor,
Rich Person with a Bentley.

Sir: I was listening to some doubtless inebriated politician ranting about how America is failing to create manufacturing jobs, and it was making me sick. Now, I was also eating two large orders of Freedom Fries from Bob’s Burger Yurt at the time, so I cannot say whether I can attribute my symptoms exclusively to this yammering America-hater, but one way or the other he was wrong, and people should not be allowed to be wrong on the radio. How can he say that America is failing to create manufacturing jobs? America leads the world in designing products to be manufactured in China. Millions of Chinese citizens would be out of work if it were not for our talented American industrial designers. Look it up on TikTok if you doubt me: America is the engine that drives China’s prosperity. The next time you think you want to insult America, Mr. Fancy-Pants Representative from Some Godless New England State, choose a subject where it isn’t so easy to contradict you with a simple TikTok search.

Sincerely,
Roland Ronald Dorlan,
Arnold