Nov 09 2009
I am a little out of the swing of the news. I returned yesterday from Schenectady in upstate New York, from the weekend wedding of my cousin Reggie's daughter, Vanessa. The last time I was in Schenectady was four years ago when my son played his last lacrosse game against Union College. His team lost that day and it rained. This was a happier occasion.
It's beautiful country up there, even if the towns tend to be run down. Schenectady is among those that have seen better days but we stayed at a picturesque old inn, the Glen Sanders Mansion on the Mohawk River, which traces its history to 1658. This is where the reception was held,
The wedding was celebrated about a mile away in the First Presbyterian Church, which itself dates to 1760, older than the United States. The church is beautifully, breathtakingly simple. It was a great setting for a wedding.
My cousin Reggie, who lives in Atlanta, is my only American cousin. When friends and relatives called out, "Hey, Reg," we both turned around.
While I was turning around, Rep. Jason Altmire, said to be a Democrat, was taking the hand of the health insurance industry in unholy matrimony while other defenders of the dysfunctional status quo served as his attendants. Till electoral death do they part. That may come sooner than he thinks.
Silly man. He let the House health-care bill pass without his vote, which will be long remembered by those who sent him to Washington in the first place. And it will be quickly forgotten by the conservative constituents he sought to appease. Given any sort of conservative Republican choice, they will abandon him in a heartbeat.
Nov 05 2009
According to ancient lore, mariners used to be lured to their doom by voluptuous mermaids whose charms were such that ships would be steered carelessly onto the rocks.
Sarah Palin, ex-governor of Alaska and running mate of Sen. John McCain, whose own ship ended up on the presidential rocks, serves such a distracting purpose for the Republican base.
Fresh from planting the metaphorical kiss of doom on the Conservative candidate in the congressional race in upstate New York, thereby helping turn over the seat to a Democrat for the first time in more than 100 years, Saint Sarah is planning a national tour promoting her new book "Going Rogue: An American Life."
But as the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported this morning, in a story across the top of its front page, a space where one day the Almighty's imminent return from heaven might be featured, Ms. Palin is bypassing a number of major cities where book buyers are in abundance and will go instead to such unusual venues at Sam's Club in South Strabane, Washington County, on Nov. 21.
As the sub-head on the Trib story explained, "Palin's Washington County Stop Part of Plan to Avoid Large Democratic Cities." Ah, I get it, the nation's most attractive quitter offers up another rogue profile in courage.
Actually, I don't get it, this crazy, fatal attraction.
I don't get it when going rogue apparently means absenting oneself from a sound knowledge of the world and basic good sense while promoting a brand of mindless patriotism that preys on people's fears and prejudices. You can go a long way with a pretty face but surely not that far.
And while I get that she's going to where her supporters are, such as the wilds of Washington County, I don't get why it is necessary to steer clear of Democrats, who last time I looked are Americans too. If she is so smart and charming, she might sell a book or two and change the impression that she has left among regular book-reading people, i.e., she is such a lightweight that she has to wear heavy boots just so she won't float away.
I don't get why certain sorts of Republicans don't get how toxic she is to people who well remember the recent clueless GOP president and don't ever want another.
I say all this knowing that her book has an initial run of 1.5 million copies and that it has been at the top of best-seller lists for weeks, even though its scheduled publication date is Nov. 17. As signs of the coming apocalypse go, this can't be beat.
Yet some deluded mariners of life, like their ancient counterparts, will hear this siren song and will not see the rocks ahead. Good. Let them revel in the moment.
I am beginning to think that only one thing that can save the underperforming Obama administration and its hapless, spineless, vacillating Democratic crew in Congress.
Ahoy, there, Saint Sarah, keep distracting those who need to be distracted. You can save the day for the liberal cause yet.
With this happy thought, I post my last blog of the week. I am taking a well-deserved day off tomorrow. Have a great weekend. Tune in again on Monday.
Nov 04 2009
See what you missed: I debated Ruth Ann Dailey today about the general election on PG+. I hope you will not take pleasure in the fact that Jack Kelly is ill. He has had a gall bladder problem. I have always said he has a lot of gall - and it turns out that I may have been right.
Anyway, Jack is likely to be out for a bit and Ruth Ann may be his replacement for a while. She and I - like Jack and I - have always had cordial relations.
Perhaps it is naivete or old-fashioned foolishness, but I never hold people's political opinions against them, unless they are actual members of the Nazi Party. You have to be a real jerk for me not to like you but unfortunately some people have managed this feat. Not Ruth Ann, though, she is a nice person, however obnoxious her opinions may seem to me at times.
She was a happy person too after the election Tuesday night and she was wondering if I was feeling blue because of the Republican successes. Nah! I see Republican gains as merely a healthy restorative to the unbalanced two-party system.
I am only worried about the Republicans insofar as they advance the cause of hard-core conservatism, which I think is a reactionary, wounding, dead-end way of making the most of our changing world.
Yet what I read is that the successful Republican candidates in New Jersey and Virginia went out of their way to court the moderate middle, where I and millions of others live. If the Republican Party was more about moderation, not far-right lunacy, I would have no problem with it. You'd think elephants would understand the wisdom of having a big tent.
I was also encouraged by the result in upstate New York, not because a Democrat won the congressional seat for the first time in a century but because the Conservative candidate anointed by Sarah Palin lost. Hurrah!
Still, I was left feeling a bit blue after Maine's voters rejected gay marriage, making that famously independent-minded people no more sensible than any other prejudice-bound cohort of holy rollers. Sadly, conservatives talk a lot about freedom but always seem very keen on depriving the people they don't like of the freedom that others take for granted.
I have said it before and I'll say it again: If you don't like gay marriage, then don't marry a gay person. At the same time, keep your nose - and the government's - out of other people's personal business. Otherwise, and to paraphrase Janis Joplin, freedom's just another word for making other people have nothing much to win.
Nov 03 2009
I am writing at 5.15 p.m. on Election Day. The tension and excitement are palpable. The community pulses races. Which one of the three boy mayor candidates will become the boy mayor of Pittsburgh?
What about those judicial retention contests? And how can we wait to hear who has been elected to Commonwealth Court? For that matter, can the write-in candidate in Ward 2 of Sewickley borough beat the incumbent councilman? (Not if my vote has anything to do with it).
Ho hum! Yawn! While we wait for the results, let us discuss the so-called shaming penalty for the woman who stole from a 9-year-old girl on her birthday - and was made to hold a sign to that effect outside the Bedford CountyCourthouse today. The story is posted on the PG Web site.
Not to confirm every stereotype about liberals, but I am opposed to such penalties. Oh, yes, she did a bad thing, but if she did a bad thing then she should be jailed. This sort of penalty is not far removed from the stocks - and is demeaning both to the perpetrator and to passers-by who rejoice in her humiliation.
In fact, I am not sure this treatment doesn't do her a favor. I am not sure you can humiliate someone who would steal from a child on her birthday. In the picture on the Web site, she looks grumpy but not humiliated or contrite.
What say you, oh wise Reg-ulators?
And, by the way, did any of you go to the Tom Wolfe lecture last night? My wife did and she said he stunk. As she says this sometimes about me, I would be grateful for other opinions.
Nov 02 2009
Herewith, fevered thoughts from a fevered mind supposedly rested by a weekend break:
In the first place, one subversive thought remains in my mind from prior to the weekend. On Friday, the Post-Gazette had a front-page picture of the finishing touches being made to the key-hole shaped opening in the bridge pier on the North Shore. It will serve as a remembrance to the beloved Fred Rogers, he famously of The Neighborhood.
When the 10-foot high bronze statue of Mister Rogers is placed there, it will make an impressive sight. But I wonder what future generations, while appreciative of a little park dedicated to children, will make of it.
My guess is that in 20 years most Americans, especially children, will have forgotten Mister Rogers, whose lasting fame depends on re-runs, which already get less air time than they once did.
The world constantly renews itself. Fame is fleeting and I fear that all the bronze cast for a good man can't change that fact. In short, I think we have erected a fine curiosity for the ages. I hope I am wrong.
Fevered though No. 2: I strongly disagree with Maureen Dowd's column this morning. Goodness knows, I have been a harsh critic of George W. Bush, but I don't think it is fair to criticize him for not ever going to Dover Air Force Base to witness the return of fallen servicemen. It was great that President Obama made this sad visit last week but what he did differs only in style - not in substance - from what Bush did in his private meetings with grieving families. Fair is fair.
Fevered thought No. 3: In response to my last posting about the mayor's race op-eds, Kevin Morris wrote: "Your paper requested crap, and the candidates delivered. It is kind of hypocritical for you to complain now."
No, it is not, for the elementary reason that we did not request crap. There was no letter saying, "We are in need of some crap to fill our op-ed page and we are hoping you can oblige."
That the candidates delivered crap was entirely their choice and it was revealing that they did so. A discerning voter - at least not one disposed to blame the Post-Gazette for making a fair-minded effort (that would be you too, Mr. McCloskey) - could take a lesson from this.
The fact is that a paper that serves the community should devote some of its space to provide candidates the chance to speak directly to the voters in their own unfiltered voice. What? You think differently?
If someone squanders this decent gesture, I reckon it is on them.
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.
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