TIME MAGAZINE'S annual selection of Person of the Year is one of those cultural events that seems to inspire both skepticism and curiosity. The same can now be said of the selection process. On Thursday night, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl was in New York City seated on a star-studded panel offering suggestions on what person or thing had most influenced the year's news. It was another happy spotlight to fall on the young mayor and the city he represents, although more flattering than significant. After all, Mr. Ravenstahl and the panel were only discussing candidates, not making the final selection. So don't expect businessman John Verbanac, accused in the recent mayoral election of having too much influence with the administration, to be Time's Person of the Year. For that matter, a juicebox -- the item that PG cartoonist Rob Rogers routinely draws in the mayor's hand -- is unlikely to be Thing of the Year.

IF CRIMINAL of the year had been chosen by a publication back in Victorian England, Jack the Ripper might have copped the distinction. Except that his name probably wasn't Jack. It might have been Francis, although admittedly Francis the Ripper doesn't have the same ring to it. Francis Tumblety, an "Indian herb doctor" and abortionist from Rochester, N.Y., who once lived in Pittsburgh, is the prime suspect of local handwriting expert Michelle Dresbold. Nationally known as an authority on handwriting, Ms. Dresbold explained her findings when the History Channel premiered its show "Mystery Quest -- Jack the Ripper" Wednesday night. "If my theory is right, Jack the Ripper definitely lived here," Ms. Dresbold told a Post-Gazette reporter. "I guess that's one person we're glad left the city."

SINCE THEN, Pittsburgh has grown better and better, and thus harder and harder to leave, but if someone does want to leave they'll be able to do it on a bike. Tomorrow, a ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held for a 2,017-foot-long biking and walking trail on the edge of the Mon Wharf. The $3 million project is the first of three phases in a plan to connect Point State Park with the Eliza Furnace Trail and the Great Allegheny Passage, which can carry a cyclist all the way to Washington, D.C. Maybe the Person of the Year is there, although it won't be Barack Obama -- he was honored last year.