Oct 30 2009
How embarrassing can the Pittsburgh mayoral election get?
To answer that question, you must go to the op-ed page of the Post-Gazette this morning.
Recently, the newspaper asked the campaigns to have supporters of the three mayoral candidates write columns on their behalf.
It seemed an earnest exercise. Who knew it would be such a revealing public spectacle, albeit one with the potential to make alert Pittsburghers laugh until they cry (or perhaps cry until they laugh)?
The standard was first set Wednesday when the piece written to support Kevin Acklin was written by Dan Acklin, his uncle ("Vote for My Nephew," Oct. 28). Reading this, an average reader might wonder if Kevin Acklin had any supporter not related to him who could offer a credible opinion. But who needs supporters like that when you have family?
This was a hard act to follow. It would require a really good public display of op-ed incest to top.
Unfortunately, Franco Dok Harris did not enter into the spirit of the occasion. He did not recruit a relative with the same name, not even a famous one, to write a piece for him. His oped ("Vote for Harris," Oct. 29) was written by Justin Strong, a local entrepreneur. How credible could he be when he was not identified as a member of Dok's family?
Not to worry. The piece this morning written on behalf on Mayor Luke Ravenstahl was a classic in the Pittsburgh-family school of politics ("Re-elect Luke as Mayor"). It was written by Cindy Ravensthal, Luke's mom, the very woman who gave him his first juice box.
It contains a wonderful paragraph, the like of which has not been seen since Patti Burns and Bill Burns used to co-host the KDKA news at noon - the famously corny Patti and Daddy Show, which set off gagging reflexes all across the city.
Luke's Mom writes: "From the time he was little, Luke has known the value of money. When I would give him a dollar to go to the candy store, he didn't waste all of it getting candy for one day, he would stretch that dollar so that he could have himself candy for a week. I've watched proudly as my son carries those same principles into running the city."
This is not a knock on Mrs. Ravensthal. I am sure she is wonderful woman and means well.
No, this is a knock on those in the Ravensthal campaign - and the Acklin campaign - for threatening people in Pittsburgh with dry heaving and skin crawling up the arm due to chronic civic embarrassment.
Do they really think there is political advantage in treating the people around here like a bunch of overly-sentimental rubes?
Oct 29 2009
Halloween is being celebrated tonight in Sewickley and some adjoining communities from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. A parade will be held in the village on Saturday morning.
Why my adopted home town isn't having the whole celebration on Saturday, which is the actual date, I haven't figured out. Whatever the official explanation may be - too much traffic in the village perhaps? - I just don't believe it. I think the ancient undead of Sewickley simply do not want to disturb the Saturday evening cocktail hour with kids coming to the door. Here! Here! Somebody has got to uphold community standards.
Of all the American holidays, Halloween is the most puzzling to me. It is not celebrated in Australia, where I grew up. I never encountered it when I lived in England, although All Saints Day is a cultural memory. The Mexicans have their Day of the Dead, which is their version of the Halloween, but I can't think of another culture that does anything similar.
Not that I have any objections to this. I am for fun in many forms, especially if it involves candy.
Up the road from me, at the corner of Beaver and Academy avenues, is the spooky house to end all spooky houses. The private family that lives there have an industrial strength Halloween every year, so much so that one of their cars has "Boo Crew" as its vanity licence plate.
A week ago, I saw the man of the house busy in the yard planting corpses and grave markers. The whole house is decked top to bottom with faux ghoulish effects - cobwebs, chains, zombies etc. Tonight, eerie organ music will come from the house as will the sound of clanking chains. Fog will envelop the steps. Hundreds of kids, drawn from miles around, will descend on the house for treats and terror.
I know the occupants of the house - well, the living ones, anyway - and they are exceptionally nice people (so much so, that I do not feel comfortable using their names in this blog without their permission). This is their hobby, their annual extravaganza. Some people collect stamps, others terrify children at Halloween.
And I think this is a wonderful thing - as long as it doesn't disturb the cocktail hour. After all, some things are sacred.
Oct 28 2009
One of the many inconveniences of being dead is that, in the words of the old saying, you can't take it with you - the "it" being wealth.
If the dead still do have some consciousness, a worthy topic by itself in the week of Halloween, it must be doubly galling for them to accumulate money after dying and have no way of spending it. Of course, I am assuming most of the equipment you need for being dead is provided free on-site - wings, halos and harps for the saints, pitchforks for the sinners (plus a TV that plays only WQED pledge drives).
The wealthy dead were the subject of a front-page story in the Post-Gazette this morning under the headline "Gone but Not Forgotten." Among those who continue to earn the big bucks while deceased are Yves Saint Laurent, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Pittsburgh's own Andy Warhol. They occupy different positions on the Forbes list of dead celebrities.
If earning power in life is any guide, this is one list I expect not to be on when I go to the Great Newsroom in the Sky. While I am not jealous, I do think this is unfair - not to the dead but the living. We are here working our butts off while all they do is lie about.
That's capitalism for you, a necropolis of inequitable human endeavor, make no bones about it.
Oct 27 2009
The public option lives. So says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who says he will include it in the health care legislation when he brings it to the Senate floor for debate in a few weeks.
But there is no guarantee that the public option won't become the Democrats' public humiliation, as aides say he is several votes short of the 60 votes needed to get it passed.
Curse those Blue Dogs. May all their collars shrink so that they cough up the kibble fed to them by the insurance industry.
And count me among those who believe that the public option needs to pass. It is the least the Democrats can do. It would be a sign that they are not mere invertebrates, worming about making compromise after compromise. Let them rent a spine and get the job done.
Single payer is not even under consideration, for goodness sakes, and the public option would at least be something to give the private insurance companies some competition - to them the scariest specter out there this Halloween.
If the Republicans are going to call even the most mild health-care proposals government-run health care or socialism, the Democrats might as well give them something to really complain about. If you are not prepared to compromise, you deserve what you get. The Democrats are spineless; the Republicans are useless.
By the way, my column tomorrow will look familiar to those who read my last posting about the frat house White House. Mr. Toadsly dismissed this as a "tempest in a teapot" - and he is right. But this was my cup of tea, so I decided to go back to the teapot one more time. Think of it as recycling.
Oct 26 2009
One of the more ridiculous stories this weekend was the piece from The New York Times - which also made it into the Post-Gazette - asking the all-important question: "A Man's World at the White House?"
It began with another provocative question: "Does the White House feel like a frat house?"
I believe the answer to both these testosterone-loaded questions is: Not if Michelle has anything to do with it.
But where did this come from? Apparently President Obama committed the cardinal error of hosting a high-level basketball game with no women players and liberal bloggers and others with time on their hands got on his case.
On to this very thin reed of controversy, the Times reporter added other items to the indictment: The president didn't want to get a "girlie dog" and the young men in the White House call each other "dude." Oh the horror!
So absurd was the story's premise that I began to wonder whether liberals had finally gotten smart and were trying some political jujitsu on the conservatives, who are always going on about how they are better men than liberals are, Gunga Din.
In my mind's eye, I conjured up the planning session of liberal spin doctors who though this one up: "I know, let's try planting a story in The Times that portrays Barack as a regular guy who likes sports and keeps the gals in their place. By manning up the president, we will unman his critics. All the regular guys disposed to hate him will suddenly say to themselves, ‘Hey, he may be a commie Muslim but he's OK by me!' "
Yes, this is the one criticism sure to do the president some good in Neanderthal circles.
Alas, my theory was way too clever. Obama has again compromised in order to pull defeat from the jaws of victory.
This just in today:
Yes, she can: Obama's golfers a men's club no more
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House scored a stroke for gender equality in sports on Sunday.
President Barack Obama's chief domestic policy adviser, Melody Barnes, became the first woman to play in the president's golf foursome. She joined the president, Marvin Nicholson, the White House trip director, and Dr. Eric Whitaker, the executive vice president at the University of Chicago Medical Center, for a round on the Army's Fort Belvoir golf course.
Obama has been criticized for playing basketball with men and no women, most recently in Sunday's New York Times.
White House deputy press secretary William Burton confirmed the first. "He golfed with women on the campaign trail but not until Melody this year," Burton said.
Oct 23 2009
Thursday's front-page story about Richard A. Poplawski, accused of killing three Pittsburgh police officers back in April, included a startling revelation.
Because of negative publicity (and really how could it not be negative given what he is charged with), his defense team is seeking to move the case out of town or bring an out-of-town jury here.
In pursuing this question, Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey Manning polled some 81 potential jurors in the case. Herein lies the revelation. To quote the story: "Eight jurors raised their hands to indicate they had never heard about the case. Thirty-eight said they could not put aside what they knew of the case. And 45 said they already had a "fixed and unalterable opinion" about what the outcome should be."
My question is this: What cave do these eight people live in? How oblivious can anyone be?
In any other city, you might figure that the Unknowing Eight might be newcomers or immigrants but sadly that seems unlikely here.
Those eight were roughly 10 percent of the sample. Could it be that 10 percent of the population of Allegheny County is similarly clueless?
These are depressing thoughts. As jurors names are culled from voter registrations, these people may vote. I wonder whom they vote for? I can guess.
That does it: I think it is time for compulsory newspaper readership.
Have a good weekend, folks.
Oct 22 2009
Today I propose a new dictionary definition:
Cranberry, noun, township in Butler County, Western Pennsylvania; also, any village that hosts an idiot, a refuge for cranks.
A bit unfair but only a bit.
The 12th Legislative District includes many boroughs and townships in Butler County - including Adams, Evans City, Forward, Jefferson, Mars, Penn and Valencia - but state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe comes from Cranberry and Cranberry gets the blame for him alone. Poor Cranberry!
Sure, the people of Cranberry are not entirely to blame. They have plenty of willing accomplices in sending this guy back to Harrisburg every time he runs. What really should be said after every round of electoral madness is what is said in classic detective mystery stories: "The Butler did it."
But that won't catch on, because, once again, Cranberry's own Daryl Metcalfe has killed good sense and left us the corpse to puzzle over. This is what he does - he is a serial offender when it comes to outrageous comments and his constituents seem to love it. They don't ever realize how stupid he makes them look. He is the walking, talking example of the classic know-nothing conservative. It's a wonder he doesn't have his own radio talk show.
Fortunately for me, his recent contemptible outburst against veterans who dare to disagree with him on climate change, calling them "traitors," does not need rebuttal from me. Letter writers to the Post-Gazette did a grand job of it in this morning's letter section.
If I lived in Cranberry, I'd be deeply ashamed. The Butler may have done it but Cranberry is going to get the blame. Rise up, Cranberrians, you have nothing to lose but your soiled reputation.
Oct 21 2009
The newspaper industry has changed to an extraordinary degree in the more than 40 years that I have worked in it (who knew in 1967 when I started that there would be such things as blogs?).
But the biggest change has been the characters. Journalism used to teem with characters but today they are an endangered species. Which brings me to the sad passing of Post-Gazette reporter Alvin Rosensweet, whom I knew well.
Alvin was a great character. His many talents and rich life are set forth with characteristic grace by Dennis Roddy in his obituary today (Dennis is a character himself and in my opinion the best writer at the Post-Gazette - if I should die, I can only hope for Dennis to take care of the last writes and literary undertakings associated with my demise).
Characters are very appealing and often lovable but those words don't translate as easy. Alvin wasn't always easy. I was his boss - Huh! What a joke! Cat herding it was! - for 20 months starting in 1987 when I was appointed City Editor.
Alvin and another Post-Gazette reporter, now deceased, sat near each other in the newsroom and kept up a constant banter about the imagined wrongs and slights that I visited upon them. To those veterans, I was just a wet-behind-the-ears 30-something kid with a funny accent (they were right, of course).
This experience nevertheless did not inhibit my growing fondness for Alvin or apparently his evolving regard for me. When he retired, he used to call me up from time to time to say hello.
His last years were very hard. Among other woes, he lost much of his sight (to his great credit and my shame, Peter Leo, the dean of Pittsburgh humor writers, went to see him regularly).
I have never much liked the phrase associated with those cases when people say death came as a blessing, as they might say here. Life is the blessing. Knowing Alvin was the blessing. Good night, Alvin, sorry I was such a pain.
Oct 19 2009
Unless I am missing something, it is strangely quiet on the issues front. So paltry were the new subjects today, Jack Kelly and I found ourselves agreeing with each other in our PG+ face-off at noon. (I know, I know - counseling is available).
So today I merely offer two great quotations that caught my eye in the Post-Gazette over the last few days. The first concerns the rhino that bit its keeper's thumb. The Pittsburgh Zoo wouldn't release the name of the bitten employee and, more to the point, would not say which of the zoo's two rhinos chomped down on the keeper.
As zoo CEO Dr. Barbara Baker explained: "We're not disclosing that information. We don't want people to come and in any way disparage the rhino."
Who knew that rhinos were so sensitive and thin-skinned?
The second came in this morning's story about the great balloon caper (this ridiculous story was one of two things that Jack and I found agreement on).
To quote the AP story: "Richard Heene, 48, a storm chaser and inventor, has described himself as an amateur scientist, but Sheriff Alderden said Mr. Heene has only a high school education.
"He may be nutty, but he's not a professor," Sheriff Alderden said.
That is true of so many of us.
Oct 16 2009
In an age when Wall Street executives get princely bonuses even after getting bailed out by the government, I would be a miserly sort of fellow to begrudge senior citizens on Social Security a $250 payment next year, courtesy of President Obama, just before the congressional elections. See this morning's story, "$250 to Seniors Gaining."
Well, count me a miser. I am not in favor of bribing seniors for political gain. Because hell hath no fury like a senior scorned - a situation previously restricted to a woman scorned - it is time to stipulate that I become eligible to SS benefits myself come January (not that I plan to take them, with luck I will continue to work here for a number of years to the vexation of my critics).
This payment is in lieu of the cost-of-living adjustments usually made. That would be terrible if inflation had eaten their benefits, but currently it is negative.
So stop coddling seniors already. There's no inflation, so there's no need for the payment. Give the money to families with children hit hard by unemployment, if economic stimulus is further need. Stimulated seniors are not what we need. As it is, many of them have become so spoiled by constant political fawning that they have forgotten their manners, as I know well from reading my mail.
That is another thing. If Obama thinks he will get seniors to like him by giving them $250 before next year's congressional elections, he is dreaming. They are the ones most inclined to dislike him. They are the ones who say they like their health care and to heck with everybody else. (There are some honorable exceptions, of course.)
If they showed as a group just a smidgen of interest in other's people's problems, I would be much more inclined to reward them with the $250.
But to amend what the bar girls used to say in old Saigon - "No money, no honey" - I say, "No honey, no money."
PS: Just kidding. I love seniors. (But I am still against giving them $250).
Have a happy weekend, everybody.
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