Tammy Alonso's Blog

Left of Centre

Spotlight on the ‘Burgh

With world leaders, media and protesters set to descend on Pittsburgh next week for the G-20 Summit and attention necessarily focused on everything from security to accommodations to bus schedules, it’s possible that other recent high-profile events hosted by the city may have been missed by those outside of our region. But you’ll have to excuse those of us here in the southwestern corner of the state for being proud of the fact that our area has been fortunate enough to be the center of some quarters of the universe over these past couple of weeks (hey, it doesn’t happen often!).

Who’d have thought that the place once known derisively as “the smoky city” and seen as the symbol of much that was wrong with the country’s industrial base would one day garner such positive attention.

While it may not be a surprise to some, the selection of Pittsburgh to host this year’s ALF-CIO convention this week not only brought appearances from President Obama and, at the behest of her late Uncle Ted, Caroline Kennedy, but also graced us with the world premier of Michael Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, complete with a march to the theater led by the director himself.

And the area’s sports fans were on Cloud 9 last week when, on the same day our Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins made their obligatory visit to the White House, our Superbowl Champion Steelers kicked off the 2009 NFL season with a free concert at Point State Park with Tim McGraw and the Black Eyed Peas followed by a thrilling overtime victory against the Tennessee Titans.

Now if Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato would just decide to officially declare his run for the governor’s mansion, we’d really be in business!