Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 13

THE INSIDE LOTTERY 2 OBITUARIES 5 DEATH NOTICES 5 NEIGHBORHOODS PAGE 3 STATE SECTION PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1998 Forced to cancel a fund-raising appearance in Westmoreland County, the U.S. House speaker sends a cardboard stand-in instead. TONY hi iW MiMMJimMM) v. in UUIWIWJH' IMIW II I 11 11 vtn 's t-y-i. V.

rf. Vlj I 10. ov --iwi--ii I 1 y- 4 Adams seeks justice in Ulster Me refuses to link disarming factions to accord progress By James OToole Politics Editor. Post-Gazette Gerry Adams told a cheering Pittsburgh audience yesterday that a peace agreement for Northern Ireland is a good thing, but it is not the same as peace. Adams, leader of the Sinn Fein Party and one of the key negotiators of the breakthrough Good Friday accord, said the agreement would not evolve into a true peace settlement until guarantees of equality are institutionalized in Northern Ireland.

"What we have to do is have justice," he told a crowd of more than 1,000 at Duquesne University's student union. "Peace is not just about the absence of violence; peace is about the presence of justice." Adams, the leader of the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, often struck a cautionary note in his speech and answers to questions later, but his overall message was not a pessimistic one. "We haven't yet got a democratic peace settlement; much more needs to be done," he said. "But I NORMAN Pride, prejudice and prophets Revolutionary ideas can come upon you in the strangest places. These days, the last place one expects to hear a truly shocking message is in church, where it seems more and more scoundrels seeking spiritual comfort have taken refuge lately.

Sitting near the back of the Sanctuary at Grace Episcopal Church on Mount Washington Sunday, I leaned forward in the pew expecting, as usual, a first-rate sermon from the church's associate priest, but nothing shocking. After evoking the blessing of the Holy Spirit in his customarily poetic way "come as the fire and burn, come as the wind and cleanse, convert and consecrate our lives" Father Paul Gratz stepped into the front of the congregation and stretched lightly, giving voice to the calcium deposits in his joints. The congregation adjusted long ago to Paul's habit of preaching from the floor and prowling back and forth in the nave like the lion he superficial Annie O'NeillPost-Gazette Westmoreland Country Club executive chef Martin Thomas, left, and chef Steven J. Hill share the kitchen office with a cardboard cutout of U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich yesterday.

The cutout was later placed at a podium while Gingrich, via a speaker phone, addressed those attending a fund-raiser. Gingrich phones in i port for urzai sup By Jan Ackerman Post-Gazette Staff Writer epublicans who paid big bucks to hear yesterday House Speaker Newt Gingrich extol the virtues ot Republican congressional candi tion. Turzai told Harold Hayes of KDKA-TV that his contest had been receiving attention from the national party before Aug. 17, when President Clinton acknowledged that he had an inappropriate affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. "We were in that direction regardless of the president's scandals or foibles," Turzai said.

Hayes asked Turzai whether he believed that the contest was a referendum on Clinton. "I don't. I don't. This race is about Ron Klink and me and who represents the better vision for the 4th District," Turzai said. About 175 people who attended the fundraiser heard Gingrich speak to Turzai through a telephone hookup from Washington.

Gingrich told the crowd by phone that Pennsylvania is "an area that is really dramatically moving in the right direction," having elected Sen. Rick Santorum, and Gov. Ridge. Turzai, of Bradford Woods, is opposing U.S. Rep.

Ron Klink, D-Murrysville, in the Nov. 3 election for the 4th Congressional District seat. Gingrich's political action committee donated $5,000 to Turzai, and the National Republican Party has targeted the race between Klink and Turzai for special atten am certain we are going to get there." Adams appeared to downplay dif-: ferences with David Trimble, the Unionist first minister of the new Northern Ireland Assembly, over the decommissioning or surrender of arms by the IRA and other paramilitary forces on both sides of the sectarian conflict. Trimble, who appeared in Pittsburgh as part of a trade mission Friday, has cited inaction on decommissioning as an obstacle to progress on the peace agreement. Adams said senior Sinn Fein officials were working to see that the arms surrenders take place, but that there should be no linkage SEE ADAMS, PAGE B-7- Groups mark Gammage date Mike Turzai heard the speaker's voice but saw only a life-sized, cardboard cutout of him.

At the last minute, Gingrich was forced to cancel a personal appearance at a $500-a-plate luncheon for Turzai at the Westmoreland Country Club, in Export, because of ongoing budget negotiations in Washington, D.C., said Mike Shields, his political communications director. Murphy: Develop Lawreeceville death Detail Area kL WUA- Allegheny (wi eterY ly resembles. Bearded and broad-shouldered, his salt-and-pepper hair is sometimes swept back as if he's just returned from some strange business on Sinai. Only his glasses, owlish and vaguely modish give any hint that he's even of this century. The first time I heard him preach, I wondered where he kept his stash of honey and wild locusts.

It soon became clear that he was a preacher of extraordinary ability. If Arnold Klukas, Grace's intellectually adroit vicar embodies the best things about an Oxford education and Seminary training, Paul comes across as a two-fisted prophet who'd just as soon mix it up with you in a bar as debate the fine points of Anglican doctrine. Either way, you get the feeling he'd win handily. Still, one adjusts to even the most idiosyncratic style. But after expounding on the reading from Ruth and the tale of the 10 lepers whom Jesus healed in the Gospel of Luke, Paul stroked his beard and said something that truly surprised me: "God doesn't have prejudices." Earlier, he asked the congregation to think about its biases, whether ideological or inherited prejudice.

Since I've reserved for myself the luxury of certain hatreds, I immediately thought of a colleague and several political systems I'd love to see nuked. I pride myself on hating the right things. But Paul upended the notion with a subtle, but powerful lesson about a despised Moabite woman and a Samaritan leper embodying God's mercy far more faithfully than the so-called "children of the kingdom." We routinely operate under the assumptions that some people are devils, period. They very well may be, but Paul insisted that we shouldn't be surprised if "our prejudices aren't shared by God: "I don't think God has any prejudices," Paul repeated, allowing the notion to sink in. "Isn't it surprising," he added, "that the most despised have become instruments of God's kingdom," or something to that effect.

Sure, it's common "sense, but how many of us believe it? Prejudice is a two-edged sword guaranteed to wound the wielder in the process, causing "a loss of perspective that always leads to pogroms, jihads, inquisitions and mushroom clouds. In my own life, it has led to the expenditure of a depressing amount of energy. I don't have any of the marquee hatreds that periodically lead to the end of the world, but I can be a petty guy. Paul reminded me that self-righteousness itself wouldn't be possible if we'd take seriously the morality we profess to live. Tony Norman's e-mail is: Riverfront eyed between 62nd and 40th streets By Timothy McNulty Post-Gazette Staff Writer The Lawrenceville riverfront a hodgepodge of industrial businesses, row houses and vacant, polluted properties will be the next target of economic development in the city, Mayor Murphy said in his 1999 capital budget address yesterday.

Murphy said other brownfield sites such as the Pittsburgh Technology Center in Hazelwood, Washington's Landing and the former LTV steel works on the South Side will be largely filled with businesses and homes by the end of 2000. New space is needed for development, he said, and the Lawrenceville riverfront corridor between 40th and 62nd streets is where it should occur. "This site provides an opportu nity to attract new and existing businesses that want to locate in the city. Given the vibrancy of the Strip District and the strong commercial district in Lawrenceville, there is no doubt this development will be a success," he said. Murphy said development was in only the planning stages, and that as yet there was no private partner.

At the moment, that planning involves studying infrastructure needs along the corridor, reviewing vacant and abandoned properties, and working with existing businesses, he said. The planning will take two to three years, Murphy said, and will put Lawrenceville in the pipeline for federal funding. When the planning is finished, he said, the goal is to have 75 to 100 acres ready for development. The 22-block area Murphy has targeted stretches roughly from the 40th Street Bridge, near the new National Robotics Engineering Consortium building, east to a hulking, partially vacant industri- Steve ThomasPost-Gazette probably new roads, especially to handle the truck traffic that is now routed onto Butler Street, Lawrenceville's congested main drag. Though the riverside is several blocks north of Butler SEE DEVELOP, PAGE B-2 al park near the 62nd Street Bridge.

It is a checkerboard of active and vacant industrial businesses and warehouses, small brick row houses and rotting mill sites and rail yards. If new business is brought to the corridor, the greatest need is By Jim McKinnon Post-Gazette Staff Writer First, they asked that everyone remain silent for a moment at noon to remember Jonny E. Gammage. Then, they called on Congress to pass a law requiring the U.S. Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor in all cases of police brutality.

The various groups gathered yesterday in the offices of Citizens for Police Accountability in East Liberty were there to mark the third anniversary of Gammage's death. Also yesterday, in Gammage's hometown of Syracuse, N.Y., more than 100 people held a rally there, and they, too, urged Congress to -pass the law. "There ought to be a law that prevents the local and state judiciary from having the full authority over a case where one of their own has violated the life of a human being," the Rev. Larry Ellis said during an hour-long rally at a downtown Syracuse church. The idea for the law, known as the "Jonny Gammage Law." came from the Concerned Citizens Against Police Abuse in Buffalo, N.Y., and the Jonny Gammage Federal Law Initiative Committee in Syracuse.

The idea has been endorsed by several other groups here and in New York, including the Pittsburgh and Syracuse branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Parents Against Violence; the Black and White Reunion; the United Concerned Christians at Work; and a host of other agencies. Gammage, 29, died Oct. 12, 1995, after struggling with five suburban police officers following a traffic stop on Route 51 in Overbrook. SEE GAMMAGE, PAGE B-2 70 -year -old Welcome Wagon not welcomed enough and a professional way," Radnor said. Welcome Wagon got its start in 1928, and at its peak in the 1960s, representatives made 1.5 million home visits.

That number is now around 550,000. Business owners who wish to participate provide samples, coupons or other incentives for the Welcome Wagon baskets. The Welcome Wagon representatives, usually women, personally deliver the baskets they never leave them on doorsteps and meet witn the recipients to talk about the businesses. They also discuss other services available in the surrounding areas. Soon, though, that will all change.

By Johnna A. Pro Post-Gazette Staff Writer For the last 18 years, newcomers, the newly engaged and new parents in Peters could count on a visit from Fern Michaels, bearing her trademark basket of goodies. But come Dec. 30, Michaels will no longer be delivering coupons, maps, rulers and other samples from local merchants to people with something to celebrate. The reason: Michaels is one of 2,200 Welcome Wagon representatives nationwide who recently received the unwelcome news that she was losing her job.

"We're are just bummed out," said Michaels, an ex-schoolteacher. Welcome Wagon's parent, New Jersey-based Cendant has ended the 70-year tradition of sending representatives to knock on doors. Instead, new arrivals, along with new parents and newly engaged women, will get a bound advertising directory mailed to them. "The world is changing. People are not home, moms are working," Cendant spokesman Elliot Bloom said yesterday.

"This is not an effective way to reach people." Not everyone agrees. "We're very upset at what they are doing," said Dr. Leonard Radnor, a cosmetic dentist in Peters who has used the service for five years. He credits Welcome Wagon for helping him build his business. "It was a really good way to advertise in a classy manner.

was done in a nice social way SEE WELCOME, PAGE B-2 A.