The First Fall Open House

Tuesday, July 24th.

As is my wont, I showed up late. I’d volunteered to help out with the first Fall Open House at the McCarl Center on the fourth floor of the Cathedral. The event ran like a well-oiled machine, without much help from me (maybe that’s why).

Course Information Dispensary

I did manage to touch base with some of my fellow volunteers, several of whom have travel on their minds. Jutta Vance is back from a biking holiday in Switzerland and visiting with relatives in Germany. Ruthe Karlin is going on a month-long trip to Japan to immerse herself that country’s art treasures. Ginny Eskridge plans on giving a Brown Bag talk about her adventures traveling with Elder Hostel.

Gail Eiben and Ginny Eskridge

Others have been busy doing their thing here in the Burgh. I talked to Gail Eiben, whose path I hadn’t crossed since the end of spring term. Gail tells me she’s been conducting tours of the Nationality Rooms. I remarked to Vivian Lawski about how much I enjoyed her writing in the Osher Newsletter. Her member interviews are a highlight, and she did an interesting Q&A with Dr. Carol Baker in the latest issue. The interview also included Carol’s helpful checklist for use in preparation for a visit to a doctor.

.
Judi Bobenage covers all the bases in her OLLI program explanation

And John Rose was on hand to compare and contrast OLLI courses with auditing courses. In the picture, above, he’s sitting in the left rear of the room. John graduated from Penn with a degree in business in 1950. Upon retiring in 1985, he decided to add structure to his retirement by learning things that he hadn’t had time for up to that point, what with serving in World War II, his career and raising a family. John spent the ensuing years auditing an astounding 58 non-credit undergraduate courses at Pitt–equivalent to the credit requirement for one and one-half college degrees. So far as John knows, his record has yet to be broken. But he now prefers taking OLLI classes rather than auditing courses. “When I started, I was taking courses with people my childrens’ age. Then later, I was taking courses with people my grandchildrens’ age. Now, I’ve got seven grandchildren, and I think it’s time to draw the line,” he said as listeners chuckled. “But seriously,” he continued, “I think this program here at Pitt is the best deal since 1945, when we veterans came back from World War II and they said, ‘How’d you like a free college education?’ I can’t say enough about the value of this program.”

Neither can we, John. Neither can we.

Len Zapler

Do you have a blog?

We would like to see it and post a link on this blog. Send us your URL.

Ruthe

PodCamp Pittsburgh2 Is Coming

Psst. Have I got a deal for you! A free offer–no strings attached. Wanna learn about blogging, podcasting and other new forms of electronic media? Do yourself a favor and attend Podcamp Pittsburgh 2*, a so-called ‘un’-conference to be held Saturday and Sunday, August 18th and 19th at the Pittsburgh Art Institute, 420 Boulevard of the Allies, Downtown, from 9am to 3pm. You can attend either day or both.

When I went to the first podcamp last April, as well as classes on blogging and podcasting, there were classes on videoblogs, web video, social networking (you tube, myspace, etc.) and new media monetization (making money). Importantly, time periods are set aside where neophytes can spend one-on-one facetime with media experts in these fields. More importantly, it’s all free, including the advice.

Oh, and there’s free refreshments. We’re talking bagels, pastries and coffee for breakfast; plenty of bottled water, soda, munchies, sandwiches, pizza for lunch. If you run into Mark Gup, or Perry Bergman or Myra Carbonell–ask them about it–they were there too.

I’m going back, and not only for the free pizza.

Len Zapler

*Go to podcastpittsburgh for the complete scoop.

From ACLA, With Love

There’s a new and exciting link between the folks at the Allegheny County Library Association (ACLA) and OLLI, thanks to avid OLLI member Ruth Buckley. ACLA is the administrative office for the 44 Libraries of Allegheny County, including the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Ruth, who somehow manages to divide her time between OLLI classes and her important work as Community Consultant for ACLA, has arranged to have a special ACLA team of experts teach an OLLI class on how we can expand our reading pleasure by experiencing more literary genres. The five week class will be taught by accomplished librarians who will bring their unique storytelling talents to the task.

Week One: Tyrone Ward, Director of the Carnegie Library of Homestead, will discuss philosophical novels. He has interests in jazz, philosophy and history. The title of his presentation is, Have You Read a Philosophical Novel Lately? We don’t want to tell you too much about his unusual approach, but suffice to say he’ll show you you’re reading more philosophical novels than you think.

Week Two: Jean Kanouff is the Adult Librarian at the Penn Hills library. Jean’s hobby is presenting fashion shows using vintage clothing. She’ll be talking about biographies we may have missed from an intriguing perspective: Jean will be modeling clothing worn by the biographers’ subjects. Be prepared to meet several historical figures.

Week Three: Anne New is currently a part-time librarian at the Bethel Park Library and an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Science. Anne will explain how historical fiction can serve as a fascinating time machine to take us back to our favorite bygone era, and will accompany herself on guitar as she sings about selected titles.

Week Four: Don Wentworth is a published poet, and is editor and publisher of the Lilliput Review, which specializes in the short poem. He’ll talk about what poetry is, its origins and why we turn to it during the rites of passage in our lives. Don has picked out a number of pieces that he will use to leaven the discussion, with basic tips on how to read and appreciate poetry.

Week Five: Christine McIntosh is Director of the Baldwin Borough Public Library in South Hills. She has traveled extensively, combining her love of adventure with her love of photography to capture images that tell great stories of people and their culture. You know, Creative Non-Fiction was popularized right here at the University of Pittsburgh back in the 80′s. Christine will explain this seemingly contradictory term with a number of specially selected pieces that are bound to increase our enjoyment of this fascinating literary phenomenon.

Len Zapler

“Expand Your Genres: A Sampling For Your Reading Pleasure.” LI4262. Five Wednesdays from 10-11:50 a.m., commencing September 6th.

Asking the Right Questions

Errol Miller

Cathedral of Learning, Room 313, Thursday, July 12th, 1pm. Errol Miller raises his right hand, the one with the green cast (broken while playing tennis, we learn). “Everybody here? If you’re not here, raise your hand.” A murmer of laughter ripples through the room. In his inimitable fashion, he has called the class, “Questioning the Criminal Justice System”, to order.

Errol’s droll humor is again in evidence when he reminisces about his first criminal case. “I was appointed to represent a man accused of robbing the Mellon Bank at Chatham Center,” he says. “Originally the Court appointed the Reed, Smith law firm to represent him, but there was a conflict of interest because Mellon was the firm’s client. Therefore it could not also represent a man who had been accused of borrowing without interest and making a substantial withdrawal without penalty.” The class erupts in laughter.

Today one of our discussions centers on the efficacy of plea bargaining: the recognized need to keep the case-overloaded judicial system from clogging versus the possibility of innocent defendants having little choice but to plead guilty to avoid a draconian sentence.
Here’s the hypothetical posed by Errol. He says, “You’re young and black. You are arrested because there is evidence that seems to point to your guilt. You know you are innocent–that the police officer who will testify against you is lying. You know that the jury is predominately white, that in the past week five black teenagers have made the news for reasons that would not make their parents be proud. Your lawyer says, ‘You’re a terrific kid who could be admitted to Harvard Medical School and all of that, but let’s look at what we got today when we go to the jury. We got this policeman who says he found the fifty pounds of drugs on you. If you take the deal that’s being offered to you, you’ll be out in three years; if you don’t take the deal and go to a jury and you’re found guilty, you’ll be out in twenty years.’ Is it bad advice for his lawyer to tell him to take the deal? Is that justice? Does anybody think that’s justice? If you follow the stories of people who have been acquitted after long sentences because DNA has proven them innocent, a number of them even confessed although the evidence proved they didn’t do the crime. Is it important to keep the system moving when the system has some rotten aspects? What system can we devise to separate the guilty from the innocent in a better way?”

2:50 P.M. So many questions…so few answers. The course is a serious one and the subject matter can be depressing. Yet Errol somehow manages to bring rueful smiles to our faces, if only to acknowledge the old saw that in any system of human design, what can go wrong, will go wrong. As Errol put it, “Nothing seems to be working, although things are working better than they used to work.”

Len Zapler

***

Errol Miller is an impeccably credentialed attorney (Dartmouth undergrad, Harvard Law) of long standing. His practice over the past forty plus years has been mainly on the civil side (Estates and Trusts). While he has come to study the criminal justice system relatively recently, Errol is a quick study and possesses in spades that lawyer-like ability to see and articulate many sides of some very knotty issues bedeviling our criminal justice system. It is our good fortune to be on the receiving end of his insights and observations. I can imagine Errol teaching an OLLI course in Estates and Trusts, laced with forty years worth of stories to illustrate the points he makes. Now THAT would be fun.

Never Say Never Again

Pat “Picc” Picciarelli and Dave Shifren before start of class

GSPH Building, Room 115, Tuesday, July 3rd, 1pm. I’m here for the third class of the intriguingly titled course, “Never be Lied to Again,” or as one wag put it, how to become a human lie detector.

Instructor Patrick “Picc” Picciarelli is possibly the perfect poster person for the postulate that “Sixties are the new Fifties”: mustachioed, tanned, fit, un-tucked short sleeve shirt, jeans and loafers. Reminds me of Dennis Farina, except for the silver hair and mustache (Picc’s are brown). He’s about the same age as sharp dresser Farina, the Chicago ex-detective who played detective Joe Fontana on Law and Order for 2 seasons. If they haven’t replaced him yet, seems to me Picc would be spot on.

Class kicks off with a discussion of sociopathic characteristics of killers in some of the iconic murder cases. Picc motions toward a list of familiar names on the blackboard, begins to speak. He makes his points forcefully, with the conclusiveness of settled law.

“Take Jeffrey McDonald, O.J. Simpson, Scott Peterson. They’re psychopaths, but before they killed, they were sociopaths. They’re all good looking guys who lie about everything, don’t have a conscience. That’s the clinical definition of a sociopath. Sociopaths have a feeling that they’re smarter than anybody else. And if they’re good looking, the usual reaction we have to people like that is–to believe them. So they continue to lie and think that they can get away with it.”
That’s revelatory. Sociopaths must be pretty good actors, too. Apparently O.J. was good enough to get roles in B movies.

Picc discusses some of the rules that govern lie detection: don’t answer a question with a question, don’t ask that a simple yes or no question be repeated, don’t look away from the questioner, etc. Here’s one example: Say a detective asks you if you ever parked your car in a handicapped space when shopping at Walmart. The rule is, don’t say “never.” That kind of answer can get you into a world of trouble. Say, “I don’t think so”, or the ever popular “I don’t recall.” In the O.J. trial, prosecution witness detective Mark Furman stated categorically that he had “never” made racist remarks in his career. It didn’t take long for Johnny Cochran to come up with a video clip proving Furman “lied”. The prosecution’s case took a big hit on that screw-up.

OK then, I think. Picc says take this course and you’ll “never be lied to again.” What if, after the course you find out somebody has lied to you? Does it follow that Picc lied about the course? After all, he did say “never”.
Nah. It’s hyperbole, is what it is. Like what Mark Furman said. To be on the safe side maybe you ought to stick a “probably” in there before the “never”—but then I’m thinking, how many people would show up to take the class?

2:50pm. Class is over. Since my wife is also taking this class, I’d better start taking acting lessons on how to fake sincerity more convincingly.
Hey–just kidding—I’d never do that.

Len Zapler

***
Click here for Patrick Picciarelli biography.

PG Reporter Mike Fuoco’s Class Draws a Full House

Fuoco (left) Introducing Logan

Cathedral of Learning, Friday, June 29th, 10 am: It was time. Room 216 buzzed with anticipation as students filed in and found seats. The second session of Mike Fuoco’s class, “Covering Crime: Inside the Newspaper Police Beat” was about to begin. This time Fuoco would play second banana to his guest speaker, retired Detective Dennis Logan. Logan, whose record of closed cases had become the stuff of legend, was to spend an action-packed hour answering questions about some of the dramatic highlights and comedic hijinks in his career.

Logan is a compact, solidly built man with a courteous demeanor and a ready smile. His speech pattern is steeped in the vernacular of the mean streets he has walked all his life. Calling on questioners, his steady gaze communicates an implicit sincerity that he will respect their thoughts–a skill that has proven so effective in getting confessions. “You gotta get them to believe you understand how they feel…understand their motivations,” he says. “There’s a powerful human need to confide in someone.” And, the irony in “…getting a confession. It’s like a one-night stand. You love each other the night before and hate each other in the morning.”

Occasionally in contact on cases as they were moving up their respective food chains, they got to know each other. Noting Logan’s increasing success in clearing cases over the years, Fuoco approached his editor to lobby for an assignment to write a feature story on the detective.
“I thought, the time is right, he’s great in his job, he pulled himself up from poverty…I like a guy like that,” Fuoco recalled.

The project was green lighted. Over the next few months Fuoco accompanied Logan and his partner, Detective Rich McDonald, as they investigated crime scenes, interviewed suspects and witnesses and dealt with the countless details of criminal procedure. Their acquaintanceship ripened into a deeper respect for the others professionalism and character. Fuoco crafted the article, but he couldn’t put the story to bed. He explained, “Trouble was, I felt, that Denny hadn’t had a case of with the kind of notoriety that would illustrate his full powers.”

Then a crime occurred that had “sensational” written all over it. Eleven-year old Scott Drake was found murdered and sexually mutilated. The prime suspect was a 47 year-old homeless man, Joseph Cornelius.

Logan went to work on Cornelius. A day or so after Cornelius confessed, Fuoco debriefed Logan on his role in the events leading up to Cornelius’ interrogation and–in excruciating detail–the interrogation itself. When Logan had finished, Fuoco knew this was to be the case he would cite as a textbook example of Logan’s unique skills. Fuoco’s editor found the story so striking that she wanted more. She called him in and asked if he had any more anecdotes.

“It was the first time in my career that an editor ever told me to enlarge, not cut, a story. I had ten notebooks of material on the guy that I’d gathered over the past few months. My prayers had been answered,” Fuoco recounted. “The story, complete with a good lede and prominent photo of Dennis, was all set to run above the fold, but at the last minute, John Craig went instead with a story about newly installed spotlights on the Cathedral of Learning. And you know what? It didn’t look any different from before. So my baby–my story (The  Confessor: Dennis Logan is the unassuming Pittsburgh detective who gets murder suspects to speak the unspeakable)–got downsized. What’re you gonna do? He was the editor-in-chief.”

11:50am. Time was up. Applause for the two veterans filled room 216. You had to be there.

Next week: PG reporter and author Robert Dvorchak will discuss the Jeffrey Dahmer case. Mr. Dvorchak is the author of the book, “Milwaukee Massacre”, the story of the infamous serial-killer.

Len Zapler