Nov 28 2008
When my colleague Tony Norman decried Luke Ravenstahl's fundraiser luncheon with Bill Clinton in his column Tuesday ("Bill Likes Luke; Big Bucks Flow"), my own reaction was more resignation than outrage. If the mayor's would-be opponents were discouraged, I reckoned so what? They could dig up their own celebrities to help them raise money.
Like it or not, that's the system, and if people are silly enough to pay $500 a plate to hear a short speech by the ex-president (and in some cases $10,000 to meet him), well, the way I see it is that counseling is available.
Nothing against Mayor Luke, but you couldn't fit enough delicacies on a plate to get me to pay $500 to eat it and I don't care who the guest might be. But I certainly wouldn't pay even $10 to meet Bill Clinton. I would be happy to make small talk if I met him for free but I haven't got the curiosity to pay for the pleasure - and, come to think of it, I haven't got a sufficiently large wallet either.
Tony's column asked the question: "In today's economy, who has $500 burning such pigeon-sized holes in their pocket that they're willing to throw it at a mayoral campaign that faces no tangible opposition beyond a few feisty blogs?"
My own answer to this question was that vain, celebrity-smitten people were the ones willing to pay big to be with the ultimate political head-turner.
But after reading Rich Lord's subsequent account of the luncheon, I realize now that I was naive. Celebrity-smitten fools may have been in the crowd but the motivation of others was potentially more sinister. It was in their best interests to be there.
As Rich wrote, "One reason no incumbent Pittsburgh mayor has lost since the Great Depression is that they can raise money from companies that deal with city government." He went on to list a number of them.
This is not illegal. This is the system. But when it's rubbed in your face like this, it doesn't smell so appetizing. No free lunch indeed.
Nov 26 2008
As an immigrant to this country, the celebration of Thanksgiving came as a special treat. There was no Thanksgiving in Australia where I grew up, nor in Britain where I worked later. People were just thankful that the pubs were open.
But I have come to love Thanksgiving without being bred to it. This affection is about more than the grand meal, although I have no objection (and some fondness) for occasions of big eating.
What I especially like is the timing of the holiday, just when the icy hands of winter start to throttle a person's spirits.
I like the fact that gifts are not required and hence commercialization is kept to a minimum (yes, the day after Thanksgiving is a huge shopping day, but that is all about the start of the Christmas season).
I like the fact that diverse family and friends are drawn to the table. That happens a bit at Christmas too but I think not as much as Thanksgiving, where the feast almost requires more participants. Tomorrow my family are going to the house of friends where at least a dozen people will be seated.
It may seem a little self-centered and shallow but on my list of things to be thankful are the spirited readers who come to this blog and my columns. Happy Thanksgiving to you all.
Nov 25 2008
My eye was attracted to a front-page story in today's New York Times, under the heading "Santa Monica Journal" and titled "Where the Traffic Median Is a No-Pilates Zone."
It seems that the overindulged California coastal community is enforcing an obscure ordinance against people using the median strip for an open-air gym, which has been going on for years.
Only walking or jogging is permitted on the median strip; no stretching or other exercising is permitted - this after residents' complaints that exercisers had become too loud and intrusive.
Good thing too. Spandex can be an affront to public morals and too many people showing off their bodies is potentially a traffic safety hazard. I wish we had these problems.
Oddly, the story never once mentioned Pilates except in the headline - although it can be assumed that Pilates was popular on the median too, as it's impossible to go anywhere in America without seeing Pilates being performed.
(As I have observed before, it is a wonder than an exercise regimen named after Pontius Pilates ever became popular what with all the evangelicals in this country.)
Still, each to his own. Personally, I don't want to become too flexible; it might start creeping into my thinking.
However, my guess is that the Santa Monica authorities are engaged in a doomed crusade. Pilates and yoga have people's heads where their butts used to be.
Soon Yoga Bear will appear on the median with a pic-a-nic basket, saying: "A big sun salutation to you, Boo Boo!"
Nov 24 2008
The theatrical production I was in for the Child Health Association of Sewickley has now finished its successful three-day run at the Edgeworth Club. The final show was on Saturday night, the occasion of the Child Health Ball
As I wrote in my Nov. 5 column "The Political Song and Dance Flies Away", I had the part of Bird No. 3 in this musical spoof of Sewickley that owed much to Disney fairytales.
The play went very well, all things considered, among them the fact that I cannot normally dance if my pants are on fire. But together with my fellow birds and animals, the minor miracle of singing and dancing at the same time was achieved. Reviews were good - which I attribute to well-stocked bars - and a good time was had by all.
I do not know whether I should go on to bigger parts. With my experience of being a bird, I am thinking perhaps Chekhov's "The Seagull," with me as the seagull.
Or perhaps I could try a stage adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven," with me as the raven. If I can say the single word "yeah" several times in "True Love's Kiss," then I can say "Nevermore" with great dramatic effect. The sky's the limit for a thespian bird.
I find myself at a loose end now. No more the long rehearsals and the sessions in the bar afterwards. No more the theatrical banter after each performance - "Oh, darling, you were great." "Oh no, it was you that was marvelous!" "You are too kind but you were just fabulous etc."
I shall miss all that - it's not what I usually hear.
I include a picture of me and the other birds and animals. I am the bird with the red feathers at the back of the princess. With this goes any chance of me running for public office.
Nov 21 2008
Crikey, I see that the Royal Australian Navy is planning a two-month stand-down over Christmas as a boost to recruitment and retention of sailors, or so the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
A frigate will remain in the Middle East on oil-well guarding duty and some patrol boats will keep an eye on Australia's northern coasts but otherwise the fleet of 50 or so ships and submarines have been ordered home so that their crews can tuck into the Christmas pudding and sing ho, ho, ho to their wives and girlfriends, who will greet the mariners with the traditional: "Is that a funnel you've got there or are you just glad to see me?"
It seems a bizarre idea for a Navy to take a long break for Christmas but there is plenty of historical precedent for military activities to be curtailed over the holidays.
The most famous one occurred in 1914, the first year of the First World War, when British and German troops left their trenches and socialized in no-man's land, exchanging small gifts such as cigarettes. (Poor fellows, they did not know that cigarettes were harmful to their health, but, then again, so were the artillery barrages.) Even during Vietnam, there were Christmas truces.
Perhaps this could be the answer to the quest for world peace. Give a big break for Christmas, extend it into Easter and spring break, then add on summer vacation, pick up the Muslim holidays like Ramadan, then Thanksgiving and back to Christmas and Kwanzaa.
The swords will be beaten into plowshare after the leave passes are extended. Crikey, sounds good to me.
Answer to Little Minx,
who asks what I think of the anonymity of people who comment on this blog. Are they in a different category to people who write blogs?
Yes, to some extent, I think so. The PG allows responders to be anonymous and so all responses are welcome - better an anonymous response than none at all. Better yet, however, are those who have announced their identity.
For example, how do I know you are a Little Minx? You could be a Medium Minx or a Big Minx, all of which could influence our perception of you.
Nov 20 2008
I do not know what to make of President-elect Barack Obama's consideration of Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. I don't doubt she has the qualifications to be a good secretary of state - but she is not alone in being so qualified.
I do have doubts whether she is a team player - despite what your old basketball coach told you, I reckon that the Clintons have always spelled team with an "I" in it. This would make me worried if I were Obama.
Even while I can't understand why he would want her, I am further puzzled as to why she would want him as her boss. Being a senator is not chopped liver, despite the best efforts of Republicans to diminish Obama's senatorial service during the campaign. And it isn't a case of making a breakthrough for women: Condi Rice is a woman and there was Madeleine Albright before her.
And how does being secretary of state advance Hillary's quest to be president one day? Her future stocks would rise and fall on his success or failure. If he lasts eight years, she will be in her late sixties, and being older isn't a great advantage (ask John McCain). If Obama doesn't succeed in winning re-election in four years, she would be younger but still toast for being linked to a failed administration.
Perhaps Obama figures that she would be more trouble in the Senate than at Foggy Bottom. Perhaps he is really a heavy sleeper and if she is so eager to answer the phone at 3 a.m, he might as well let her.
But it sounds like trouble to me.
Nov 19 2008
This is the part in which I reveal how out-of-synch I am with the modern world, and, even when I blog, I am no better than a guy who ties messages to the feet of carrier pigeons.
The occasion for this is the decision of PittGirl to quit her popular blog.
I take this departure as a sadness and a loss to the general conversation. My remarks here should not be taken as a personal criticism of PittGirl, despite my mention of pigeons, which she hated. Clearly, she turned a very frisky phrase and her talent made her unusually successful. I begrudge her none of it and I admire her for it.
My problem always was with her anonymity - the very thing that made her attractive and alluring to her fans. The blogosphere allows people to lie anonymous in the weeds. In my out-of-step way, I am all about standing up and being counted. I can't say this makes me a better person; I am sure it makes me seem quaintly old-fashioned.
You may say (because I know your type - you are argumentative) that the Post-Gazette editorials which I help write are anonymous - they appear under the paper's masthead on the editorial page and are not signed. That is because they represent the collective view of the paper's Editorial Board, not necessarily that of the individual writer.
But the truth is that the authorship of these unsigned editorials is no great secret. There's usually a box under the editorials listing the various members of the Editorial Board. And if you are particularly offended by an editorial, you could call me up and I'd be happy to tell you that Tony Norman wrote it.
Seriously, if you called up and asked, someone would tell you. By contrast, PittGirl quit because she was fearful of being outed. That doesn't sit right with me. It's like your mother said: If you don't want remarks about another person attributed to you, then perhaps you shouldn't be making them in the first place.
In life as with blogs, you should have the courage of your convictions. For the life of me, I don't see how a new technology should be the reason to upset basic decencies.
Sorry, PittGirl, and best of luck to you. But I have been attacked by too many e-mailers lurking in the tall grass of anonymity to have much sympathy for those who try to hide their identity in any electronic forum.
I'll go off now to feed my carrier pigeons.
Nov 17 2008
On the front page of The New York Times this morning, an Associated Press picture shows jubilant Iraqi policemen (and a U.S. Army soldier) dancing on Sunday, the day that Iraq's Cabinet approved a security pact that calls for a full withdrawal of American forces by the end of 2011. 
The pact also calls for a U.S. military pullback from urban areas by June 30.
In the picture, the Iraqis appear to be doing the equivalent of the Iraqi hokey-pokey, which, as you know, goes likes this:
You put your ground force in
You pull your ground force out
You do the hokey-pokey
And you screw about
(That's what it's all about)
That's what it's always been about, and it's funnier for us than for the poor guys - ours and theirs - who have been caught in the middle.
But now this merry dance is coming to its inevitable conclusion. After negotiations with the Bush administration, which once said that timetables would only be a help to the enemy, a timetable has been agreed upon. We are going, ready or not, and no more talk about how timetables are bad. That was all just political propaganda anyway, convenient to George Bush's political purpose at the time but not convenient anymore
Now, you could say (and you would be partly right) that the improved security situation brought by the surge is allowing us to get out. Yes, but the situation is far from perfect and we are going anyway because the hockey-pokey always comes to an end sooner or later.
When the Iraqis burst into dance at the prospect of us leaving, it's a fair sign we have long overstayed our welcome. I suppose it's possible that these happy-feet policemen were not celebrating the pact but were just practicing for the Baghdad version of "Dancing With the Stars" but clearly the pact itself is an expression of Iraqi national feelings - i.e., Goodbye, America, it's been real.
Nov 14 2008
As I wrote in my column on Wednesday, in warning the Democrats not to become too cocky after their victory in the presidential election, "Every victory brings the seeds of a future defeat."
The corollary, however, applies to the Republicans: "Every defeat brings the seeds of a future revival." How they choose to nurture those seeds is the question of the hour.
In a wise column published in the PG Wednesday, the moderate conservative David Brooks of The New York Times said the battle for the party's future vision will be won in the near term by those who believe the GOP has suffered because it "has strayed from the true creed of conservatism" - he calls this group "The Traditionalists." His conclusion is that "the Republican Party will probably veer right in the years ahead, and suffer more defeats." I think that's absolutely correct.
It's not necessarily good news for the country, however, because someone in Washington has to keep the Democrats honest by providing a counterweight. In my view, if the Republicans move to the middle, where most Americans live, they will do better more quickly, especially if the Democrats water their own seeds of destruction by vacating the middle in a drift to the left.
Which brings us to Sarah Palin, whom Brooks rightly identifies as the favorite of the Traditionalists. That is why, my friends, I am not worried about her chances in 2012, despite her best efforts after the election to talk up her cause.
It seems to me that the boat that carries her hopes is caught on a receding tide. She is the darling of a group that feeds on the very things that were so repudiated in this election - disunity, belligerence, bitterness, fear, character assassination. She looks nice, makes a good prepared speech, but isn't going to become miraculously more thoughtful or eloquent off the cuff, even if she spends the next four years studying Africa.
Her appeal will remain strictly with the red-meat eaters in the red states. Everybody else will go on seeing her as a female George W. Bush, capable of giving a nice hug but generally clueless.
After Bush, this isn't the path to future election victories. The American public was hit on the head by two by fours long enough that they finally woke up.
Of course, Barack Obama could be another Jimmy Carter, or else the economy could stay bad for four more years, and then all bets are off.
But, with those caveats, I say bring her on. She's just the one to lead the conservative charge to the rear.
Nov 13 2008
As I was driving to work today, I saw a small, forlorn sign tacked to a utility pole in Osborne where Beaver Street meets Route 68, Ohio River Boulevard. It advertised Endless Variety Entertainers.
Endless variety! What a vision that conjured up! All about me was the gloom of dreary morning - grey clouds, sullen light, dispirited motorists. Yet on that boulevard of broken dreams, life and laughter beckoned.
One phone call away, according to the little sign, were singers, dancers, mimes, DJs, magicians, comics, cartoon characters, Elvis and - best of all, in my reckoning - sumos.
I imagined large Japanese gentlemen sitting around Pittsburgh waiting for the phone to ring so that they could trudge over in order to make my living room appear smaller.
(At work, I googled this happy outfit. It is apparently run by some guy in McKeesport and the sumos on offer are, in fact, "deluxe sumo suits," which was a bit of a letdown for me. I wanted real fat guys who eat loads of noodles).
The overall impression of that sign was one of great pathos. How could one utility pole break the stranglehold of boredom and despair that hangs heavy on the land?
Even if a platoon of singers, dancers, mimes, DJs, magicians, comics, cartoon characters, Elvis and sumos were summoned by a desperate call to the number on the pole, would it not be sort of pathetic for the would-be audience to admit how un-entertaining real life is?
And if all that motley crew couldn't help to amuse a grim-faced crowd, what does it say about the chances of a newspaper columnist who works on the proposition that many a true word is spoken in jest? After all, I am no sumo, although lately I have become a little plump amidships.
Then another thought struck me: Why can't I just go to work like a normal person without being invited by utility poles to go on a flight of fancy?
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