May 31 2009
President Barack Obama's choice of Pittsburgh as the city where America will host the leaders of 18 nations and the European Union, to review progress in fighting the world economic recession, is a tremendous honor and a great opportunity.
Cities that host such meetings can sometimes be described for years afterward as the city that hosted the G-20 or other summit.
How he chose Pittsburgh we may never know, but cited in the announcement was our city's record of pulling itself up from serious economic loss, in putting itself on a new forward-looking path with biomedical and other technology, and for its early commitment and performance in attention to environmental issues. It is interesting that hosting the 2006 Winter Olympics was the mark of Turin, Italy's recovery from the economic loss caused by a shift in the auto industry.
What is very good in this development is not only whatever notice and revenue the G-20 summit brings to Pittsburgh, but also that the leaders of the world's most prosperous countries will come here, see what we do and perhaps identify the city as a fine prospect for future investment.
But the ball is now very much in our hands. This is definitely not one of those things where we can drink some beer, yell loudly, wave our Terrible Towels and expect success. Although the federal government will put up most of the money for the affair and provide some organization, it is absolutely essential that Pittsburgh prove to be a very strong local partner, with ideas and resources, ready to work effectively with the federal government in making the summit a success.
At a press conference Friday, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl indicated that he and Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato were in the process of selecting a task force to oversee arrangements.
As it is imperative that Pittsburgh's end of the affair be handled efficiently between now and September, the task force needs to be made up of senior officials with resources behind them. No political cronies, please. Each of those heads of Pittsburgh organizations should also provide for the run-up to the summit a senior aide with authority to serve as part of the working group of the task force.
The mayor also anticipated the need for subcommittees to deal with the crucial pieces of the summit. These would include security, lodging, off-site meeting venues, communications, media facilitation, demonstrator relations, translation and transportation. Pittsburgh has resources, including a number of fine universities, museums and foundations. The city needs to see to fixing the holes in the streets and painting the lines. There is no reason for our visitors to see what we are moving away from.
The triple goal of all the effort that we can put into the summit will be that at the end of the day, we can be proud of ourselves, the foreign visitors will have seen Pittsburgh as a place worthy of long-term attention, and our president and the rest of America will be very pleased that we were chosen to be a showcase of America for the world's leaders.
It can be done, but we are going to have to be very serious about the effort, starting now.
May 31 2009
Jay Leno's reign over late night television ended on Friday. The host of "The Tonight Show" gave the keys to the 11:35 pm franchise on NBC to comedian Conan O'Brien, who begins his run as host tomorrow night.
After 17 years as host of "The Tonight Show," where he dominated the ratings for most of that time, Mr. Leno won't be disappearing from America's TV screens. He'll return in the fall with a talk show that will air Monday through Friday at 10 p.m. on NBC.
Asked what he thought the impact of switching to a time slot 90 minutes earlier would have on his core audience, Mr. Leno once quipped that his viewers were getting older and so needed to get to bed earlier.
Last year, NBC offered to move Mr. Leno to the 10 p.m. slot to keep him in the company fold. He will have stiffer competition at that time, but even so, his show will be cheaper to produce than a scripted drama. For NBC, that is the bottom line.
There isn't the same level of sentiment for the passing of the torch from Jay Leno to Conan O'Brien as there was when Johnny Carson retired to clear a path for his successor. Mr. Leno isn't retiring. Still, his departure from 11:35 p.m. represents the passing of an era in late-night television. He may have been corny much of the time, but Jay Leno embodies Americana more than any other comic of his generation. He's the comic equivalent of comfort food.
Mr. Leno will have to figure out how to put America in the mood to laugh when we're used to crime shows and hospital dramas at 10 p.m. But if anyone can find a way to make viewers switch from "CSI" to an interview with Paris Hilton, he can.
May 31 2009
ST. JUDE, the patron saint of hopeless cases, no doubt receives a lot of appeals from Pennsylvania (but not concerning the Pittsburgh Penguins - everyone here knows their Stanley Cup quest is far from hopeless). Political causes often need St. Jude's help but nothing in heaven could put a Republican candidate on the November ballot to challenge Democratic Mayor Luke Ravenstahl - another embarrassment given that Pittsburgh is a major city and yet the local party is so enfeebled it can't field a candidate. Josh Wander, a Republican from Squirrel Hill, decided the Friday before the primary to try to launch a write-in effort. It was almost the definition of a hopeless case and so it proved. By his own count, he received 147 votes compared with 497 for Mr. Ravenstahl and 245 for other people. The mayor will be challenged by two independents, Kevin Acklin (a former Republican) and Franco "Dok" Harris in the fall. Given the mayor's strong showing in the primary, his challengers seem not to have a prayer at this stage.
IN THIS purgatory of traffic detours and disruptions, motorists using Route 65, Ohio River Boulevard, have had to endure a special punishment - for going on 21⁄2 years, the two-lane road northbound has been reduced to one lane after a huge landslide at the site of the former Dixmont State Hospital, which was then being prepared for a development that included a Wal-Mart Super Center (wisely, the project was later dropped). But on June 8, work is expected to begin on restoring the road to the four lanes that existed before the earth moved. The job, which is being paid for by Wal-Mart, will take two months and the first month will see traffic restricted to one lane in each direction. Whom should we thank? The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, which pressed Wal-Mart to get going? Wal-Mart, which in the eyes of PennDOT made a good-faith effort? Maybe St. Jude deserves the credit. Motorists had to have said some prayers for what seemed for a long time like a hopeless case.
May 30 2009
President Barack Obama sat down Thursday in Washington with Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the third in a series of Middle East-related meetings that have included Jordan's King Abdullah and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well.
These meetings come in advance of an important speech Mr. Obama will deliver in Cairo on June 4, designed to re-launch the Middle East peace process leading to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian question, as well as seeking to improve general U.S. relations with the Muslim world.
It was important for Mr. Obama to talk with Mr. Abbas, although there were some twists to the meeting. First, although Mr. Abbas was elected Palestinian president in 2005, his term expired in January of this year. He extended it by a year unilaterally, a move that was not accepted by Hamas, the other Palestinian group, which controls Gaza and which won the Palestinian elections against Fatah, Mr. Abbas' party, in 2006.
A second matter that is relevant to the future of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is the need for the Palestinians to achieve a greater degree of unity among themselves before going into serious negotiations with the Israelis. The Egyptians have struggled mightily to get Fatah and Hamas to work together, in at least five meetings in Cairo, but, so far, without success.
The third matter still very much on the table is the future of the hundreds of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, both lands that Israel seized in the 1967 war. Most or all of the West Bank would go to the Palestinians in an agreement; the Golan Heights would go to Syria in any accord reached between Israel and Syria.
At one time the question was the Israeli government withdrawing all of its settlers from the West Bank. In recent years, the number of settlers and settlements has continued to grow, with no action on the part of the United States in spite of the barrier to an agreement that development constitutes. Now, discussion seems to turn on freezing expansion of settler presence and construction, as opposed to getting them out of the West Bank altogether to provide land for a state for the Palestinians - the "two-state" plan - and resolution of the conflict.
Mr. Obama has clearly decided to address this now 61-year-old problem. His meetings so far have likely served to underline how important, but how difficult, a task he has set for the United States under his leadership as president.
May 30 2009
Dozens of Pennsylvania middle schools are on the vanguard of a health and nutrition revolution that could dramatically reduce the body mass index of teenagers by increasing cardiovascular fitness, aerobic activity, muscle strength, bone density and flexibility with 30 to 60 minutes a day of vigorous activity.
Pennsylvania Health Secretary Everette James and Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak have introduced a statewide initiative that will reward some schools with $15,000 physical education grants for developing programs to achieve this goal.
All Pennsylvania schools receiving federal funds for after-school and summer programs have a mandate to get students from grades 6 to 8 moving around for an hour a day. What's innovative here is that Pennsylvania is offering financial incentives to middle schools that succeed in reducing the body mass index of their students. The money comes from federal block grants and from organizations with an interest in a healthy population.
In recent years, the Point Marion, Fayette County, school district has reduced the body mass index of its students by 20 percent by adjusting school lunch menus and increasing students' daily physical activity, so there is a record of success for other schools to emulate.
Statewide 40 schools will be chosen to receive the Active Schools grant. These schools are on the road to reversing the grim health statistics that prompted the grants in the first place.
May 29 2009
It is amazing the ends to which a despotic regime will go to stifle opposition to it.
The current trial of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the main opposition leader to the generals ruling the country formerly known as Burma is a prime example.
That is not to say that she does not constitute formidable opposition to Myanmar's generals, currently ruling under the name State Peace and Development Council, in power now since 1962. Her party, the National League for Democracy, won the country's most recent elections, held in 1990, which resulted in her having been kept under house arrest for the most part ever since. Her father, Gen. Aung San, was considered the father of his country's independence, although he was a controversial figure who was ultimately assassinated.
The generals have scheduled elections of a sort for Myanmar for next year and would like to have Ms. Suu Kyi, 63, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, off the scene for them.
To that end, they have taken a very strange incident involving an American as reason for putting her on trial, charged with having broken the terms of her house arrest. On the night of May 3, John Yettaw, 53, swam across a lake adjacent to Ms. Suu Kyi's residence, turning up on her doorstep saying he was too tired to swim back. From politeness she and her staff took him in, thus opening herself up to charges that she had violated a "no unauthorized foreign or overnight visitors" clause in the terms of her house arrest.
The weird part is that Mr. Yettaw had with him a collection of articles, including two signal lights, black Muslim women's robes and swimming goggles, that someone with a vivid imagination or advanced paranoia about the CIA might think could be used by the Myanmar opposition leader in a reverse swim across the lake to freedom. Her lawyer has described Mr. Yettaw as "a fool."
The guess is that the Myanmar court will find Ms. Suu Kyi guilty and extend her house arrest by five years, until well past next year's elections.
What the military junta, led by Senior Gen. Than Shwe, doesn't seem to grasp is that persecuting Ms. Suu Kyi serves no purpose in terms of reducing her popularity among the Myanmar population and only improves her party's prospects in the elections. In spite of wishing the generals ill, as we must, they are dishonest despots with no respect for democracy or human rights, it is nevertheless the case that the best outcome of this trial would be for the Myanmar government to dismiss the case, basically laughing the charges against her out of court.
May 29 2009
The boarded-up building that sits rotting next to the Monongahela Incline has been an eyesore on Mount Washington for the last three decades, marring the view and attracting seedy late-night activity.
Now a Chicago developer is proposing to dramatically transform the spot with an $80 million plan for a luxury hotel, condominiums, a fitness and spa facility, and a pair of restaurants overlooking the Pittsburgh skyline.
One Grandview Avenue, at the corner of Wyoming Street, would replace The Edge, a restaurant that closed in 1979. The prime location has failed to attract successful development since then, with the most notable disappointment a proposed Ritz-Carlton in the 1990s that never materialized after encountering community disapproval and financial trouble.
Before developer Steven Beemsterboer and his associates can move forward, they need approval from city officials because the building, at 19 stories, would exceed the neighborhood height limit of 100 feet. In addition, the project would cut into the Grandview Scenic Byway Park, green space that encircles Mount Washington and Duquesne Heights.
One Grandview is full of promise and deserves support from the city Planning Commission, City Council and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, as long as no one loses sight of the significance of its position on the summit. Its scale is large, but the building cascades to fewer floors on its eastern side and would present a bookend to the scenic stretch of Grandview Avenue, with the Trimont condominium building at the western side of the ridge.
Although One Grandview Avenue would take a slice out of the scenic byway, the developers have answered this concern by proposing walkways and stairs that would provide access to the green space protected in 2006.
The only other question mark is Mr. Beemsterboer's $10,000 contribution to Mr. Ravenstahl's re-election campaign, a gift that should not influence decisions about the project.
One Grandview would reinvigorate a plot of prime real estate that has languished in disuse for far too long, and should it fail to win approval, it could be a long time before another worthy project comes along.
May 29 2009
If you can't believe the nutritional information printed on a Cheerios box, what can you believe?
No, this is not a shameless plug for a popular breakfast cereal. The question lies at the root of the reason the Food and Drug Administration had to call out General Mills, which makes Cheerios, for improper -- and illegal -- health claims.
Because consumers are influenced by claims they see on food labels, companies are restricted in what they can say to sell their products. "New and improved" is one thing, but claiming "You can lower your cholesterol 4 percent in six weeks," as General Mills did in the case of Cheerios, is different.
By claiming that the cereal is "clinically proven to lower cholesterol" along with similar assertions about the supposed cancer-fighting, heart-healthy properties of Cheerios, General Mills promoted what the government said amounted to "unauthorized health claims."
The FDA gives food and beverage makers leeway to make health claims backed by scientific studies but draws the line when the claim goes beyond what the science supports. General Mills said the Cheerios health claims have been approved for 12 years and the FDA's complaints deal with the language on the box.
That's it, exactly, responds the FDA. The statement on the cereal box that the product can reduce cholesterol qualifies the cereal, under current U.S. regulations, as an unapproved new drug.
It's not a question of safety, insisted agency officials, it's a matter of allowing only scientifically authenticated information on food packages.
The FDA is right. Consumers are pulled every which way with all sorts of advertising claims, but we believe they will welcome accuracy for a change.
May 28 2009
When President Barack Obama announced federal appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, she described herself as "an ordinary person who has been blessed." Humility aside, she is an extraordinary person who, in the president's words, has made an "extraordinary journey."
Born into a family of immigrant Puerto Ricans living in a Bronx housing project, Judge Sotomayor, 54, went on to excel at Princeton University and Yale Law School, then as a prosecutor, private attorney, federal district judge and appeals judge. But the blessings that propelled her to success are now curses in the mouth of her critics.
As with any nominee whom this president would have nominated, Judge Sotomayor comes pre-demonized. For right-wing interest groups, she is presumptively liberal and activist. Her record has been thoroughly scoured to find the evidence to fit this stereotype, but a fair reading of it doesn't justify the alarms.
To be sure, she seems a fair approximation of Justice David Souter, the retiring liberal-leaning justice she would replace on the bench. But her record also includes favoring police and prosecutors over defendants. It even includes a 2002 opinion rejecting an abortion rights group's challenge to the Bush administration's gag rule affecting overseas abortion providers.
Certainly, there are cases -- the most famous one being the white firefighters whose claim for discrimination in New Haven, Conn., she joined in rejecting -- which argue for her being a conventional liberal. But is she further to the left than Chief Justice John Roberts or Justice Samuel Alito -- President George W. Bush's nominees -- were to the right? Probably not.
Some of the critical commentary has been downright childish or unhinged -- she's a reverse racist to the dubious Rush Limbaugh, not sufficiently smart to the patronizing Karl Rove. This side of the nomination hearings, most of her opponents have their prejudices but not her true measure.
The American people know what they see: a historic nomination of a well-qualified jurist who would be the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court and only the third woman. Barring some revelation, her nomination looks enlightened.
May 28 2009
Democracy in practice is fickle. Votes coming up in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq could come out wrong from the point of view of the United States.
First will be parliamentary elections in Lebanon on June 7. They also will ultimately determine who will hold the presidency in Lebanon, since the parliament elects the president. Polls at this time show an opposition coalition headed by Hezbollah holding a large lead.
Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim organization, supported by Iran and Syria. The Shiites are Lebanon's largest religious group, and Hezbollah dominates them in Lebanon. Hezbollah held on in the face of an Israeli invasion in 2006, in the process, in the eyes of many, achieving victory through survival. Hezbollah's lead is based as much on its social policies, with a particular stress on education, as on its military capacities.
The next elections after that will be in Iran on June 12. The race for the presidency there is led at the moment by Washington's unfavorite Iranian, incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He faces opposition in the form of three challengers, Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mohsen Rezai. Mr. Ahmadinejad jangles the nerves of many Iranians, perhaps even including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
At the same time, his skills as a politician should not be underestimated. His latest tour de force included a summit in Tehran, with great visual coverage, where he conferred with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari. Both were recently in Washington to meet with President Barack Obama.
Who knows what Mr. Ahmadinejad's prospects are in the elections, but there is definitely no reason to count him out. Iranians are basically conservative, and his pronouncements sometimes make them nervous, but he is skillful at playing on their nationalism, which can verge on xenophobia. Israeli threats to bomb Iran, to eliminate its nuclear program, help Mr. Ahmadinejad's chances. If such bombing led to war, he could be ferocious as a military leader of that nation of 66 million.
A Hezbollah victory in Lebanon would strengthen Iran's hand in general.
The third vote is scheduled to take place before July 30, in Iraq, a referendum to approve or reject the status-of-forces agreement that determines the legality of the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq. The accord was negotiated between the United States and the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki. The vote is important, to the degree that the United States as occupying power continues to wish to recognize the authority of the al-Maliki government, with the idea of turning power over to it. The agreement might be rejected by the Iraqi electorate, as much as anything else from general discontent with the al-Maliki government. It is hard to say at this point.
Democracy in action could make a painful summer for American policy in the Middle East. Mr. Obama will attempt to set the scene with an important speech in Egypt on June 4.
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