Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 19

Apr 20 2010 Post-Gazette At a time when people can claim to be more connected than ever through Facebook, Skype, cell phones, texting or other forms of social media, we actually may be more like Eleanor Rigby, publicly the face that she keeps in a jar by the privately going home at night to an empty apartment, an empty life. That was Ms. life. had this sense of promises not Ms. White said in a recent interview about her book, in which she argues that the condition of loneliness is a public health issue that has been ignored for too long.

felt cheated, that as someone who was young, fit and healthy, there was supposed to be more in my life, and instead I was stuck with this Whether elderly, college freshmen, divorced, widowed, single or parents, more of us are lonelier than ever. Blame the economy, blame the need to work two jobs, blame long commutes. Blame suburban sprawl, or urban anonymity, or too much television, or the Internet. A comprehensive study published in the American Sociological Review in 2006 found that Americans are far more socially isolated than just two decades ago, with a quarter of respondents saying they have no one to confide in. That number actually doubled in two decades, from 10 percent to 24.

6 percent, the study noted. And it just people living alone. Married people can be lonely. Young people with cool jobs living in crowded apartments can be lonely, too. Anna North, 27, who wrote a favorable piece about in Jezebel.com, an online gossip site seemingly staffed by people engaged in one long party, said the book resonated with her.

was interning at the Atlantic Monthly in Boston, and it was so much fun, but I remember I was also kind of going she noted. Her boyfriend lived elsewhere, she was from California, all the people I worked with were from the East Coast. After her internship ended had a couple of weeks to kill, I was trying to work on my fiction and walking around the feeling lonely. She should have turned to Renta- Friend.com, where, starting at $10 an hour, the lonely can find companionship for hire. (There are 120,000 names registered on the site in the United States and Canada, including about a dozen in Pittsburgh.) Indeed, the service was only a matter of time, writes Abigail Goldman in the Las Vegas Sun, sum E-mail: Phone: 412-263-3859 Web: Questions about delivery or service? Call 1-800-228-NEWS (6397) Magaz ne Ar enter AinMent life WeDnesDAY, AP 21, 2010 Section By Mackenzie Carpenter Pittsburgh Post-Gazette onely: A Who would ever want to read a book about that? Turns out, quite a few people are reading Emily moving disquisition on that most taboo of subjects loneliness and how she, a successful Toronto environmental lawyer, endured an intense bout of it between 2002 and 2006 before it lifted.

Part memoir, part inquiry, (Harper, $25.99) might never make the best-seller list, but developed quite a cult following since it was published in February Alice Sebold, author of Lovely called it a while normally snarky gossip blog Jezebel.com described it as impassioned call to arms on behalf of a condition no one wants to talk Book puts a new focus on growing problem of social isolation By Allen Barra It would seem like scant praise to call the best book ever written about the owner of a football team. call it instead one of the best books on football written so far this century, largely because Arthur Joseph Rooney Sr. was the most interesting of owners. Born of Irish-Catholic parents from County Down, Ireland, in 1901 in Coulterville, a mining patch outside Pittsburgh, Mr. Rooney grew up on the North Side.

In 1933, he paid a $2,500 entrance fee for a National Football League team with money he had won in a parlay of long-shot winners at the Saratoga Race Course. (That is merely one of the many seemingly mythical stories about Mr. Rooney that, happily, turn out to be true.) Until his death in 1988, he was the soul of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the heart of the NFL. come ever written your Rob Ruck, one of the coauthors, once asked him. been written a hundred Mr.

Rooney replied, referring to the hundreds of interviews he had given and scores of histories of pro football he had contributed to over the years. But in truth it had never been told and probably have now except for three amazingly energetic writers: Mr. Ruck, a senior lecturer of history at the University of Pittsburgh, his wife, Ms. Patterson, an associate professor of journalism at alma mater, Duquesne University, and the late Michael P. Weber, author of Call Me a biography of longtime Pittsburgh Mayor David L.

Lawrence. The handsomely packaged, lavishly illustrated (with more than 40 photographs, including everyone from Byron captures odyssey White Bean Salad PG tested This light dinner salad, served atop garlicky cannellini beans, marries two great tastes: solid white tuna in a can and fresh baby spinach. We found the dressing almost too light, so I tripled the amounts of oil and vinegar and also added a good squirt of Dijon mustard. I also doubled the amount of olives. Even with the extra ingredients, the salad is still healthful enough that you feel guilty slathering a piece of bread with butter.

2 15-ounce cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided 2 garlic cloves, minced Coarse salt and ground pepper 5 ounces baby spinach 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon red-wine vinegar 2 5-ounce cans solid white tuna, drained and broken into chunks 1 4 cup green olives, pitted and roughly chopped 1 2 small red onion, thinly sliced 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley Crusty bread, for serving In a medium saucepan, combine beans, 2 tablespoons oil and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium-high, stirring, until beans are warm, about 4 minutes. Remove pan from heat. In a large bowl, combine spinach, 1 tablespoon oil and 1 teaspoon vinegar; season with salt and pepper and toss to coat.

Divide spinach among 4 plates. Transfer beans to bowl and stir in 1 tablespoon vinegar, tuna, olives, onion and parsley. Season with salt and pepper. Top spinach with bean and tuna mixture and serve with bread. Serves 4.

Everyday Food, May 2010 FOR GRC MCK By Mary Thomas Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is a book about artists as Those eight words, both a synopsis and a gentlemanly argument, comprise the first line in noted historian Roger G. recently published Art Worked: The New Deal, Art, and (Rizzoli, $75). Combining the words and in a sentence may seem antithetical, as artists are stereotypically presumed to be rebellious and operating outside of structured systems. Mr. most recent book, then, is as much a challenge to thinking about the social roles of artists and art as it is a generous recounting of the bountiful accomplishments of the New Deal art alliances and the distinctive if unlikely personalities that shaped them.

The author will present a free lecture of the same title as his book at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg. A book-signing will follow. The reader is hooked before the title page by a stirring selection of images that set the visual tone, beginning with a jar made in the 1930s by Acoma Pueblo potter Mary Histia and inscribed President Franklin D. and We do our They conclude with a two-page spread of the kinds of posters that earned their own niche within New Deal art, representing programs ranging from tourism promotions to presentations of the WPA Federal Theatre Project.

These preview approximately 450 engaging images that bring to life the spirit and experiences of the 1930s as the nation faced one of the most challenging periods since its inception. They were judiciously selected by David Larkin, an editor, designer and authority on vernacular styles. Each is illustrative of a specific aspect of this rich era, each a prize. The images range from solemn Walker Evens photographs of impoverished rural America to the generally celebratory murals that were painted in post offices across the country. Artists represented include the great regionalist Thomas Hart Benton as well as members of the Milwaukee Handcraft Project, begun in 1935 to teach skills to workers deemed unemployable because of age or a disability.

The scope of the book reaches beyond painting, printmaking, photography and sculpture, to other artistic disciplines such as architecture, film and theater. And, because President Roosevelt was above all a conservationist, the projects of land-driven organizations like the Civilian Conservation Corps are featured prominently. SEE ART, PAGE C-5 Author gives new perspective on social role of New Deal artists IN THE FRAME Quintessential Pittsburgh artist Robert Qualters invites viewers into his West Homestead studio for this In the Frame: Artists in Their Own Words at post- gazette.com/ae. Above is a detail of his Mary E. of is part of the exhibit the 1930s in Art: Paintings From the Schoen at Westmoreland Museum of American Art where author Roger Kennedy will speak tomorrow.

Stacy The pain of being SEE LONELY, PAGE C-2 A Sporting By Rob Ruck, Maggie Jones Patterson and Michael P. Weber University of Nebraska Press ($36.95) SEE ROONEY, PAGE C-2 HEALTH SCIENCE PAGE C-8 Art Rooney Sr..