"According to legend, an ele-phants' graveyard is where old pachyderms instinctively go off to die. In Pennsylvania, the custom is for enlightened recommendations to pile up as dead bones, because the instinct of officials to preserve the status quo trumps everything.

In this political landscape, good ideas die the death of a thousand excuses. They die bogged down in the old bog of tradition and inertia. They die to the chant of "same, same old." And, by degrees, the vitality of the region dies with them."  For the rest of the Post-Gazette artlcle, please click here.