SUMMER IS HERE It officially started with the solstice at 7:59 p.m. Friday, the longest day of the year. Yet our boys of summer, the Pittsburgh Pirates, appear to have already laid the groundwork for another doomed season and the usual winter of discontent. They can't crack .500 and every day they are in the field feels like the longest day. The Chicago White Sox outscored the Pirates 37-15 last week, the greatest offensive output in any three-game series against Pittsburgh since June 1950. Go, Bucs! Please! If this keeps up, there will be more solstice-loving Druids than baseball-worshipping Pirates fans.

WINNERS are still in our midst, but not always in the places we expect to find them. Nearly two years ago, three teens organized an assembly on sexual harassment at Shaler Area High School, to raise awareness about rape and sexual violence. The message spread. Last week, their good work was honored in Washington, D.C. After being among the winners in the 2007 Jefferson Awards (co-sponsored by the Post-Gazette), Erin Drischler, 18, and Jackie Betz, 18, both of Shaler, and Megan Neuf, 17, of Reserve were named one of the five winners of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award, one of the nation's highest honors for humanitarian service. Congratulations to these young women who sparkle like diamonds.

IF THE PIRATES walk the plank, the Steelers can always cheer us up. The good news is that Steeler Nation is Steeler Universe now that an asteroid has been named for late, great broadcaster Myron Cope. It has been dubbed 7835 Myroncope at the urging of Dr. Eric Mamajek, a Bethel Park native at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. The International Astronomical Union approved the name late last month. Out of this world! The sky's the limit for the Steelers! Double yoi!