So I ‘m not going back and researching this, but my sense is that the Mayor has reversed positions before. Of course there was the famous Act 47 vote, where the Mayor waited until the last vote of several to vote *for* the thing. At the time the Mayor described himself as taking the lead to persuade his colleagues to vote unanimously, to show a solid front. If memory serves he flipped on the Off Duty Police charge thingie. He was agin‘it, because small business would suffer. Seeing as how the small businesses could be identified as the Stiller’s ‘n Pi-urtes, the Mayor sensed a shift in the wind and now he is a-fore it.
The latest situation is that the Mayor is shocked, shocked to find that police who have are accused of domestic violence have been promoted. The Mayor is again vacillating between hanging tough against criticism and bending to the wishes of those who are outraged. After a while, people may come to realize that if they shout loud enough and long enough, this Mayor will fold on just about anything. So far the Mayor has folded on issues that a progressive can be happy about, like the police off duty pay thing and changing the way promotions are looked at. But that is not always going to be the case, I think.
Meanwhile, while I was reading coverage of the DeSantis announcement, I saw the name of Danika Wukich, the Mayor’s campaign spokesperson. Hunh, I knew a Danica years ago. I googled Ms. Wukich, just for the heck of it. Turns out, she just graduated Slippery Rock. She must be 23. Twenty Three. I know the twenty year olds out there are saying “So?”. But for the rest of us, we know that experience counts, and this Mayor badly needs the benefit of someone’s experience. She already mentioned how the Mayor is looking forward to debating DeSantis (she was quick to say that when and how is not worked out). I doubt if the Mayor is looking forward to debating someone who might reference Pericles or quote Orwell.
Plus we get an idea of what the Mayor thinks of us, choosing someone with little or no experience as his campaign spokesperson.
As we know, Dan Onorato got himself on both the democrat and republican tickets for County Executive. The Mayor could have easily done the same for his office in the city, probably would have if anyone had advised him to. The Mayor needs the advantage of experience, but he has asked his (experienced) directors to resign and has a 23 year old campaign spokesperson. I can hear Al Gore sighing already.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Pittsburgh's own John Forbes Kerry?
So I ‘m not going back and researching this, but my sense is that the Mayor has reversed positions before. Of course there was the famous Act 47 vote, where the Mayor waited until the last vote of several to vote *for* the thing. At the time the Mayor described himself as taking the lead to persuade his colleagues to vote unanimously, to show a solid front. If memory serves he flipped on the Off Duty Police charge thingie. He was agin‘it, because small business would suffer. Seeing as how the small businesses could be identified as the Stiller’s ‘n Pi-urtes, the Mayor sensed a shift in the wind and now he is a-fore it.
The latest situation is that the Mayor is shocked, shocked to find that police who have are accused of domestic violence have been promoted. The Mayor is again vacillating between hanging tough against criticism and bending to the wishes of those who are outraged. After a while, people may come to realize that if they shout loud enough and long enough, this Mayor will fold on just about anything. So far the Mayor has folded on issues that a progressive can be happy about, like the police off duty pay thing and changing the way promotions are looked at. But that is not always going to be the case, I think.
Meanwhile, while I was reading coverage of the DeSantis announcement, I saw the name of Danika Wukich, the Mayor’s campaign spokesperson. Hunh, I knew a Danica years ago. I googled Ms. Wukich, just for the heck of it. Turns out, she just graduated Slippery Rock. She must be 23. Twenty Three. I know the twenty year olds out there are saying “So?”. But for the rest of us, we know that experience counts, and this Mayor badly needs the benefit of someone’s experience. She already mentioned how the Mayor is looking forward to debating DeSantis (she was quick to say that when and how is not worked out). I doubt if the Mayor is looking forward to debating someone who might reference Pericles or quote Orwell.
As we know, Dan Onorato got himself on both the democrat and republican tickets for County Executive. The Mayor could have easily done the same for his office in the city, probably would have if anyone had advised him to. The Mayor needs the advantage of experience, but he has asked his (experienced) directors to resign and has a 23 year old campaign spokesperson. I can hear Al Gore sighing already.
The latest situation is that the Mayor is shocked, shocked to find that police who have are accused of domestic violence have been promoted. The Mayor is again vacillating between hanging tough against criticism and bending to the wishes of those who are outraged. After a while, people may come to realize that if they shout loud enough and long enough, this Mayor will fold on just about anything. So far the Mayor has folded on issues that a progressive can be happy about, like the police off duty pay thing and changing the way promotions are looked at. But that is not always going to be the case, I think.
Meanwhile, while I was reading coverage of the DeSantis announcement, I saw the name of Danika Wukich, the Mayor’s campaign spokesperson. Hunh, I knew a Danica years ago. I googled Ms. Wukich, just for the heck of it. Turns out, she just graduated Slippery Rock. She must be 23. Twenty Three. I know the twenty year olds out there are saying “So?”. But for the rest of us, we know that experience counts, and this Mayor badly needs the benefit of someone’s experience. She already mentioned how the Mayor is looking forward to debating DeSantis (she was quick to say that when and how is not worked out). I doubt if the Mayor is looking forward to debating someone who might reference Pericles or quote Orwell.
As we know, Dan Onorato got himself on both the democrat and republican tickets for County Executive. The Mayor could have easily done the same for his office in the city, probably would have if anyone had advised him to. The Mayor needs the advantage of experience, but he has asked his (experienced) directors to resign and has a 23 year old campaign spokesperson. I can hear Al Gore sighing already.
Bobo? Lobo?
At least it wasn't an image from "Triumph of the Will" (http://carbolicsmokeblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/republican-kicks-off-campaign-for-mayor.html)
Monday, June 25, 2007
Report Card?
So the Post-Gazette published a report card for the Mayor, based on their understanding of his goals, and their assessment of how far he has gotten on those goals (http://www.post-gazette.com/downloads/20070624MayorReportCard.pdf, Thanks to the Pgh Comet). My take on the goals and grades might be different. For example, the PG (Rich Lord) gave the Mayor a “B” for requesting the resignations of his directors. I don’t know why, though I guess if this is a recent goal the mayor has made progress on it.
They gave the Mayor a few “A”s, including one for buying back the liens on tax delinquent properties, and then turning around 150 of them for rehab through neighborhood development groups. Well and good, except that I think the buy back was maybe a thousand properties. I’m sure 15% of those bought back were attractive enough to turn around quickly (i.e., since December). The other 85% may not be so easy. But the Mayor gets a pass and an “A”. By the way, he gets a “C” because only 72 of a 1000 new downtown units are affordable. At least the thousand units could go on the tax rolls. Except for that abatement….
Nothing on the report card about transit. Yeah, PAT is a county agency, but it is the city that uses it, counting commuters in to work in town.
They gave the Mayor a few “A”s, including one for buying back the liens on tax delinquent properties, and then turning around 150 of them for rehab through neighborhood development groups. Well and good, except that I think the buy back was maybe a thousand properties. I’m sure 15% of those bought back were attractive enough to turn around quickly (i.e., since December). The other 85% may not be so easy. But the Mayor gets a pass and an “A”. By the way, he gets a “C” because only 72 of a 1000 new downtown units are affordable. At least the thousand units could go on the tax rolls. Except for that abatement….
Nothing on the report card about transit. Yeah, PAT is a county agency, but it is the city that uses it, counting commuters in to work in town.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Meta-blogging n'@
The Burgh Report and 2 Political Junkies separately meta-communicated about their blogs in two different ways. 2 Political Junkies was commenting on how people can take some facts, ignore others, and try to spin the world to their desired position. The Burgh Report wanted to lay down the law.
Interestingly, Stanley Fish in the NYTimes had commented on the 2PJ topic some time ago, using the example of how liberals were pissed that the administration says the economy is going well. Fish noted that the indicators the administration is interested in do show a thriving economy, such as the stock market, corporate profits and economic growth. But wait, say the liberals, what about stagnant middle class wages and a growing income disparity? Not related to the strength of the economy, says the administration. Fish's point, just because someone cites a viewpoint supported with facts that you disagree with doesn't make them evil, just choosy.
The example the 2PJ’s gave was a bit more clear-cut, someone on a call in show saying that the only way to reduce teen pregnancy is through abstinence only education policies (this to reduce poverty). In fact, we do know that abstinence only teaching does not work, but the caller wanted it their own way. 2PJ’s sees it as their mission to make sure the facts are correct.
Over on the Burgh Report was a post laying down some rules. Passions seem to run high on that blog, where the comments often run into the double digits. Partisans of many stripes seem to visit there, and often seem disinclined to control their passions (or vocabulary). I often find myself in agreement with the blog’s authors, so I’m not going to criticize. Still, I have to say if you try to be a lightening rod, you might get shocked occasionally.
Interestingly, Stanley Fish in the NYTimes had commented on the 2PJ topic some time ago, using the example of how liberals were pissed that the administration says the economy is going well. Fish noted that the indicators the administration is interested in do show a thriving economy, such as the stock market, corporate profits and economic growth. But wait, say the liberals, what about stagnant middle class wages and a growing income disparity? Not related to the strength of the economy, says the administration. Fish's point, just because someone cites a viewpoint supported with facts that you disagree with doesn't make them evil, just choosy.
The example the 2PJ’s gave was a bit more clear-cut, someone on a call in show saying that the only way to reduce teen pregnancy is through abstinence only education policies (this to reduce poverty). In fact, we do know that abstinence only teaching does not work, but the caller wanted it their own way. 2PJ’s sees it as their mission to make sure the facts are correct.
Over on the Burgh Report was a post laying down some rules. Passions seem to run high on that blog, where the comments often run into the double digits. Partisans of many stripes seem to visit there, and often seem disinclined to control their passions (or vocabulary). I often find myself in agreement with the blog’s authors, so I’m not going to criticize. Still, I have to say if you try to be a lightening rod, you might get shocked occasionally.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Copy right rules or standards of good taste?
Not being a novelty blog, like the Carbolic Smoke Ball, I don't usually use pictures in my blog. But I have been struck (repeatedly - heh) by how George Specter and the entire city law department reminds me of Ted Buckland, the lawyer from Scubs. I believe using images in the service of satire does not violate copyright or libel laws, although some might argue this is a perfectly nice 72 year old man, who should be enjoying a retirement instead of working 330 day as an acting solictor. Still, the man says things like (and I paraphrase) the Mayor can ask for the resignations of Executive Directors of Authorities, but since they have Boards of Directors, Mr. Specter is not sure what happens if they refuse to resign. Now, I did read the Board Chair's idd ask their Executive Directors to do as the Mayor asked, but I still just hear Ted's whine every time I read something Specter says. It may be a personal problem.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
And on Monday ...
And on Monday, Council took a look at the city code and decided maybe the Mayor was supposed to notify them officially about the requests for resignation, you know, in writing n@. Plus it's not clear the Mayor can ask for the resignations of heads of authorities. They have boards, which might have some say over who asks for the resignation of an executive director.
I wonder, if a director refuses to resign, will the Mayor out right fire him? Could there be lawsuits in Pittsburgh's future? Again? I was going to say the Mayor is playing Machiavelli, but he might just get away with it.
I wonder, if a director refuses to resign, will the Mayor out right fire him? Could there be lawsuits in Pittsburgh's future? Again? I was going to say the Mayor is playing Machiavelli, but he might just get away with it.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Calming Down, but still asking questions
So I asked several of my hysterical questions over at Bob Mayo’s blog (http://www.thebusmansholiday.blogspot.com/), and he responded calmly and rationally, maybe more so than my questions deserved . But still there’s a dynamic here that I find disturbing. The Mayor has sacked ten bosses, without giving specific reasons, except that those were the ten he didn’t appoint himself. Otherwise the Mayor has a vaguely expressed sense that the city is headed in the wrong direction, and that the status quo is not good enough. I don’t see how anyone, either the sacked bosses or an outsider, can apply for one of these jobs under these conditions. I guess it would be easier for an outsider, since you have no idea of the Mayor’s goals for the city, you could take a chance and just cite your accomplishments, see if they catch the fancy of this Mayor. But the current people would need private arrangements with the Mayor to even bother to re-apply. According to the Mayor, their resume contains whatever is wrong with the job done in their position. What would you say?
Considering that George Spector has been living in this situation for 11 months, we have reason to expect that some changes won’t come swiftly (which might make you wonder about why the requests for resignations were done at all). I watch a tape of Wednesday’s City Council proceedings on Sunday, and now I have to say I don’t believe they will do anything about this. My sympathies to the department heads, it appears your period of uncertainty could be a long one.
Considering that George Spector has been living in this situation for 11 months, we have reason to expect that some changes won’t come swiftly (which might make you wonder about why the requests for resignations were done at all). I watch a tape of Wednesday’s City Council proceedings on Sunday, and now I have to say I don’t believe they will do anything about this. My sympathies to the department heads, it appears your period of uncertainty could be a long one.
Friday, June 15, 2007
The Mayor, again, damnit...
I wanted to talk about how the PG and the New York Times both had a similar article about a non-national news story (health care in Pennsylvania and a new report), and I wanted to talk about my recent experiences with and impressions of hospitals. Then the Mayor went and fired everyone and wants to spend money willy-nilly. This is way more important than trying to spoil the surprise of some AmEx card holders who have time and cash to burn on a Monday (SPOILER ALERT !!!! Tiger Woods was there).
So the Mayor suddenly decides the city is not doing so good, although he apparently doesn’t want to blame any one person. In fact, two of the most important departments are doing quite well apparently: Police and Budget. Because of the wisdom the Mayor has shown in appointments to those two positions, crime is down and the city’s finances are going swimmingly.
So the Mayor suddenly decides the city is not doing so good, and decided to exercise his right as Mayor to ask for the resignation of those people he didn’t appoint. Because June 15 is a significant time in the Mayor’s administration. He’s just been … well, he won the primary. It’s not as though he’s opposed … well, a republican couldn’t possibly win. Let’s just pretend that something new is starting. After all, although Council needs to approve the Mayor’s choices for department and authority heads, it’s not as though the general election or next January will bring any changes to Council …
So the Mayor suddenly decides the city is not doing so good, and he wants his directors to submit their resignations. But they can apply for their current jobs. I wonder if the chaps named Costa and Onorato will keep jobs, or even get new, more prestigious posts? Meanwhile, the Mayor wants a national search for new directors. I gather he *might* have a time limit of ninety days. That’s possibly a practical limit anyway. Good thing the Mayor didn’t fire his personnel director. I know nothing about Barbara Trant. Possibly very qualified. How many national searches has she conducted? How many times has she conducted 10 simultaneous national searches? Will the city use headhunters to save time? Will the city use job postings? How far and wide will the net be cast? And of course, since the decision is ultimately the Mayor’s, how many times has he evaluated 10 times the number of candidates that make the cut people for 10 different jobs.
Presidents do this, when they take office. Governors do it. Of course, they have transition teams. The Mayor has money in his campaign fund. Is this what he is going to use? Has he consulted the two Act 47 teams about this move and how it will be paid for?
The likelihood is that the Mayor wants to and will appoint some minorities to several of these positions. They will likely be from Pittsburgh or close by. This Mayor is almost painfully earnest, he really seems to want to do the right thing. But he doesn’t have the experience to know what the right thing is, and he doesn’t seem to be seeking advice (admittedly I’m not sure who he should ask, but I’ll bet some Pitt professors would jump at the chance). There has been buzz on how good Yarone Zober is, I really have no idea. He’s what, about four years older than Luke, may six, seven? Well educated, better than Bill Peduto. But Peduto might have ten years on Yarone, all of it in politics (and besides the age difference, there the time spent in politics while Yarone was getting educated). But the timing is odd on this move and it is a slap in the face of the three democrats who defeated incumbents in the primary.
So the Mayor suddenly decides the city is not doing so good, although he apparently doesn’t want to blame any one person. In fact, two of the most important departments are doing quite well apparently: Police and Budget. Because of the wisdom the Mayor has shown in appointments to those two positions, crime is down and the city’s finances are going swimmingly.
So the Mayor suddenly decides the city is not doing so good, and decided to exercise his right as Mayor to ask for the resignation of those people he didn’t appoint. Because June 15 is a significant time in the Mayor’s administration. He’s just been … well, he won the primary. It’s not as though he’s opposed … well, a republican couldn’t possibly win. Let’s just pretend that something new is starting. After all, although Council needs to approve the Mayor’s choices for department and authority heads, it’s not as though the general election or next January will bring any changes to Council …
So the Mayor suddenly decides the city is not doing so good, and he wants his directors to submit their resignations. But they can apply for their current jobs. I wonder if the chaps named Costa and Onorato will keep jobs, or even get new, more prestigious posts? Meanwhile, the Mayor wants a national search for new directors. I gather he *might* have a time limit of ninety days. That’s possibly a practical limit anyway. Good thing the Mayor didn’t fire his personnel director. I know nothing about Barbara Trant. Possibly very qualified. How many national searches has she conducted? How many times has she conducted 10 simultaneous national searches? Will the city use headhunters to save time? Will the city use job postings? How far and wide will the net be cast? And of course, since the decision is ultimately the Mayor’s, how many times has he evaluated 10 times the number of candidates that make the cut people for 10 different jobs.
Presidents do this, when they take office. Governors do it. Of course, they have transition teams. The Mayor has money in his campaign fund. Is this what he is going to use? Has he consulted the two Act 47 teams about this move and how it will be paid for?
The likelihood is that the Mayor wants to and will appoint some minorities to several of these positions. They will likely be from Pittsburgh or close by. This Mayor is almost painfully earnest, he really seems to want to do the right thing. But he doesn’t have the experience to know what the right thing is, and he doesn’t seem to be seeking advice (admittedly I’m not sure who he should ask, but I’ll bet some Pitt professors would jump at the chance). There has been buzz on how good Yarone Zober is, I really have no idea. He’s what, about four years older than Luke, may six, seven? Well educated, better than Bill Peduto. But Peduto might have ten years on Yarone, all of it in politics (and besides the age difference, there the time spent in politics while Yarone was getting educated). But the timing is odd on this move and it is a slap in the face of the three democrats who defeated incumbents in the primary.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
I got polled yesterday. Poor, uh, souls. It was a DeSantis poll, no less. Where’d he get money? Is the local republican party stepping up to the plate? Gee, I wish I could see the results of the poll.
Got the call around 8:00 last night. A blocked call according to the caller ID, but my mom’s phone comes across that way on our caller ID, so my wife handed me the phone. A political survey call. They wanted to ask a few questions, leading off with (as I remember) what are the biggest issues facing the city? I said our big per capita debt, with no increase in the tax base. The researcher pressed for more (isn’t that enough) I fumbled a bit and then said I was fine with that. Then it was a do you recognize any of these names, and do you know anything about them? Mark Desantis. Yep. Luke Ravenstahl, yep. Dan Onorato. Yep. What do you know about DeSantis? Well, republican candidate for mayor, businessman, wants to merge city and county (at some point I tried to editorialize a bit about that). If election were held today, who would I vote for? (probably DeSantis). Then she gave me some DeSantis statements, which really were fairly amusing. First was the city county merger, then putting all city financial information on the web, improving schools by reducing bureaucracy and something something, the bit about 60,000 population loss (I really wanted to editorialize then) and one or two others. Then a repeat of the election question, who would I vote for? (same answer, probably DeSantis). Then some demographic questions.
I mean, come on, the Mayor has nothing to do with schools, can’t force the county to do anything, much less merge with the city, and DeSantis is over-stating how hard it is to get information. That said, Ravenstahl is worse. Even if DeSantis is distorting some thing’s to play to a lower common denominator, it’s better to talk about things than to ignore them. I don’t know that a city county merger is the only answer or even the right answer, but it has no chance unless the Mayor is onboard. So even to talk about it would seem to require DeSantis in office.
The demographic questions were interesting. After finding out my party affiliation, I think the last question was whether I would *ever* vote for a republican for Mayor (sure, why not). With a question like that in the survey, it makes we wonder whether this survey is just trying to show DeSantis why he has no chance. I wonder if UCSUR is doing the survey? Was this a "push poll"?
I don't want to talk about April 23 except to say someone somewhere must have tipped Ravenstahl off that Tiger Woods was coming since it was supposed to be a surprise to the cardholders attending (or so I have been lead to believe). Also, since it was valued at $900, I am assuming the Mayor is declaring the value of the event somewhere. Well, I will say this more, this Mayor has clearly based a part of his administration activities on his own celebrity. Will it benefit Pittsburgh? Perhaps (Golf Channel commercials?). But its not unusual to have celebrity Mayors (see Rudy Giuliani), and I don't particularly begrudge him that. In fact, I can see where he needed to go to Oakmont on April 23rd, to seize the opportunity for him to be seen with a celebrity. It's hard work maintaining celebrity status, and let's face it, Pittsburgh doesn't give Mayor's too many opportunities for it. But I also think the Mayor needs to take the gift rules seriously, to remove any serious questions about his ethics.
Got the call around 8:00 last night. A blocked call according to the caller ID, but my mom’s phone comes across that way on our caller ID, so my wife handed me the phone. A political survey call. They wanted to ask a few questions, leading off with (as I remember) what are the biggest issues facing the city? I said our big per capita debt, with no increase in the tax base. The researcher pressed for more (isn’t that enough) I fumbled a bit and then said I was fine with that. Then it was a do you recognize any of these names, and do you know anything about them? Mark Desantis. Yep. Luke Ravenstahl, yep. Dan Onorato. Yep. What do you know about DeSantis? Well, republican candidate for mayor, businessman, wants to merge city and county (at some point I tried to editorialize a bit about that). If election were held today, who would I vote for? (probably DeSantis). Then she gave me some DeSantis statements, which really were fairly amusing. First was the city county merger, then putting all city financial information on the web, improving schools by reducing bureaucracy and something something, the bit about 60,000 population loss (I really wanted to editorialize then) and one or two others. Then a repeat of the election question, who would I vote for? (same answer, probably DeSantis). Then some demographic questions.
I mean, come on, the Mayor has nothing to do with schools, can’t force the county to do anything, much less merge with the city, and DeSantis is over-stating how hard it is to get information. That said, Ravenstahl is worse. Even if DeSantis is distorting some thing’s to play to a lower common denominator, it’s better to talk about things than to ignore them. I don’t know that a city county merger is the only answer or even the right answer, but it has no chance unless the Mayor is onboard. So even to talk about it would seem to require DeSantis in office.
The demographic questions were interesting. After finding out my party affiliation, I think the last question was whether I would *ever* vote for a republican for Mayor (sure, why not). With a question like that in the survey, it makes we wonder whether this survey is just trying to show DeSantis why he has no chance. I wonder if UCSUR is doing the survey? Was this a "push poll"?
I don't want to talk about April 23 except to say someone somewhere must have tipped Ravenstahl off that Tiger Woods was coming since it was supposed to be a surprise to the cardholders attending (or so I have been lead to believe). Also, since it was valued at $900, I am assuming the Mayor is declaring the value of the event somewhere. Well, I will say this more, this Mayor has clearly based a part of his administration activities on his own celebrity. Will it benefit Pittsburgh? Perhaps (Golf Channel commercials?). But its not unusual to have celebrity Mayors (see Rudy Giuliani), and I don't particularly begrudge him that. In fact, I can see where he needed to go to Oakmont on April 23rd, to seize the opportunity for him to be seen with a celebrity. It's hard work maintaining celebrity status, and let's face it, Pittsburgh doesn't give Mayor's too many opportunities for it. But I also think the Mayor needs to take the gift rules seriously, to remove any serious questions about his ethics.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
A wee bit about health care, and a word on Fineman
I’ve been thinking about health care for a couple of weeks now, and I intend to try to express myself now. But I just went back and looked at some of my previous posts, because I believe I wrote about health care in the past.
Reading my own writing is like hearing your voice on a tape. Ewwww. Am I never coherent?
Before I start on heatlh care, I want to say something about this Howard Fineman article someone found on Newsweek online, and which has spread like wildfire through the Burghosphere (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19096133/site/newsweek/page/0/). Now, he does get a lot of things right, we do have good schools and fine museums n’at. I guess we used to be a college town surrounded by an industrial city, now we are a college town surrounded by a retirement community (well, there is still some banking and service around, some boutique steel and a few corporations, or at least their corporate services’ offices – Heinz, Alcoa, Mellon). There is one paragraph, though, which I have to say something about …
“Beside the city, there are 129 other independent municipalities in surrounding Allegheny County. The mayor is in a constant tussle with the county, run by County Executive Dan Onorato. The county has the far bigger tax base, and greater access to state funds. The city and county are sharing 911 and purchasing services, but Ravenstahl and other city officials have little interest in giving up what power they have. A merger of city and county—a move made by many other regions—would extinguish Pittsburgh’s “voice,” Ravenstahl told me. “No one would pay attention to urban issues.””
This Mayor is *not* in a constant tussle with Dan Onorato, quite the opposite. I guess Ravenstahl fed that idea to Fineman, who didn’t bother to check. But opposition to the idea of a city/county merger is interesting. For one thing, a merger was Mark DeSantis’ opening salvo. Now, the Mayor of Pittsburgh does not have authority to create a merger, but his is an important voice in its creation. Would a merger mean that our debt would be shared by the county? Depending on the merger, I would almost think it would have to be if we just dissolved the city. Calling for a merger is a way of being serious about tackling Pittsburgh’s long term debts. State legislators and the governor may be interested in something like that (though our suburban legislators would not be happy, to put it mildly).
So Barack Obama has a health care plan and John Edwards has a health care plan. Hillary, amusingly, does not. Maybe she is keeping 1992’s plan in suitcase, ready to swing into action. Paul Krugman talks about single payer plans in his columns in the NYTimes, and I read them and wonder. The efficiencies he talks about in Medicare and the VA health system, the elimination of the middle man insurance companies, could it be that by eliminating emergency room visits for the uninsured, by eliminating costly overhead from insurance companies and by switching to an emphasis on preventative care that maybe my taxes would go up by no more that the reduction of costs when my employer no longer has to provide health insurance for me?
That is the strawman Krugman dangles in front of us. Get rid of the insurance companies (nationalize them, in effect) and rein in the pharmaceutical companies and the hospitals and doctors (nationalize them, in effect) and all will be right with health care. Well, maybe, but it’s not going to happen anyway. No Congress is going to legislate an industry out of existence, even if we knew for sure the results would be good (and by the way, Krugman is only implying that we should nationalize these industries, kind of a “what a good idea, though I never said that” kind of fing). Pointedly, Edwards’ and Obama’s plans work with the insurance companies.
There was a piece in the NYTimes that captured a different and important piece of the problem. I mean, we have the drain on the system from the uninsured, right, They go to the emergency room, and then can’t pay, so there is pressure on everyone else’s health care costs. Then there are the insurance companies themselves, which employ tactics like guaranteeing hospitals payment from their customers, but in return for the guarantee, the hospital has to accept only 80% of an average of what everybody else is charging for that procedure or hospital stay or whatever. Well, every hospital in the area has an incentive to raise their costs by 5 or 10 percent next year then, to get back what they thought the procedure should have cost anyway. Pretty soon costs are chasing reimbursement all on their own, with their own dynamic. And there are malpractice insurance costs, where the medical associations protect bad doctors to protect their ability to police themselves, and the rest of us pay.
But the piece in the NYTimes (Economx, “Health Care as if Costs Didn’t Matter” 6/7/07) last week was something else again. The essayist commented that Idaho Falls has the highest rate of lumbar fusions per something or other of any city (or something) in the country. Maybe it was Portland, Maine or Oregon that had the smallest number. His point is that there is no real reason for this (though the surgeons in Idaho Falls are surely getting richer), that all the stuff I mentioned before have so knocked medicine from its moorings to science that medical necessity has become at least somewhat variable. I mean, no one’s going to use leeches if you have a cold. The essayist noted that buried in the candidates plans is a call for a national institute to look at what we spend and why on health care procedures. The candidates don’t propose regulating spending or procedure choices, yet. But they may have to.
My wife just had surgery on her foot for plantar fasciitis. Before she had the surgery, there were courses of physical therapy and orthotics, inserts to go in her shoes. Now, she was working a second job as a clerk at a drug store, so she was on her feet for few hours a few times a week. She only quit that job just before the surgery. So there are lots factors going into this, but the bottom line was her feet hurt, particularly her right foot. It still hurts after the surgery, by the way; my wife keeps saying she is overdoing it. (we don’t want to get in the dynamic of how much doing is overdoing).
My mother in law recently went into an assisted living facility. Without getting into how she is doing there (which is its own nightmare and contributes to my wife’s overdoing it), what put her there is interesting. A few months ago she developed pain in knees, bad enough that she found she was unable to get out of bed. It was precipitated by her going up and down the stairs a couple of times in her apartment building. A couple of days later she couldn’t get out of bed, at least, not upright (she crawled to a phone to call us). Now, she was on a pain medication for arthritis, and her doctor prescribed an increased dosage. That was a problem, though, because with her decreased mobility she couldn’t get to the kitchen to take them, and the new pills were too large for her to swallow. They were cut in half, which yielded sharp edges, a new problem, and meanwhile she was not moving much, losing what mobility she had, and not eating (she had not been eating much anyway, but now she was eating less). She didn’t want new pain medications because she was afraid they would make her “loopy”. I should mention she has other issues, like Macular Degeneration and hearing loss (she doesn’t think her ancient hearing aids work, so she doesn’t try them).Eventually, we had to put her in the hospital, so that she could have tests to determine the cause of the pain. A couple of theories were advanced; arthritis in her knees or crumbled discs in her spine. Meanwhile, though, her decreased mobility and inability to take care of herself became issues in and of themselves. She left the hospital and was sent home, but she lived on a third floor apartment in a building with no elevator, so that was a concern. She got a visiting nurse and occupational therapist people coming in, but it turned out that would only be for a month. When she starting leaving the door open and calling to people in the hall to get her a drink of water, back to the hospital she went, and then into the assisted living facility. As far as I know her pain has not ever really been addressed, but the facility has stopped trying to get her to use a walker (a few months ago she wasn’t using anything) in part because she is still in pain and in part because she is slow to follow instructions because she can’t see or hear well. They now cart her around in a wheelchair all the time. All of which is to say that medicine is its own dynamic. Maybe if her doctor could have hit on the right medication and “gotten out in front of the pain”, a lot of this could have been avoided, or maybe it was unavoidable. The fact I could ask the question is, in and of itself, disturbing.
People opposed to a more universal form of health care coverage often say that we have a Cadillac level of coverage now. We have the best science, the best doctors, hospitals, etc. Of course, the people who say this have insurance coverage. Those without coverage, well, like people on the minimum wage, they are going through a transitional phase, they simply need to get training for a better job (they are probably young and healthy anyway). Except that people still don’t get better jobs, and those without coverage get sick and put off getting treatment , and the US still has a higher infant mortality rate and we die sooner that than the people in other industrialized countries.
But universal health care is going to have to tackle doctor’s wages. Those doctors, who engage in more lumbar fusions in Idaho Falls get paid more. Should they? The hospital and now an assisted living facility are getting paid well from my mother in law’s situation, yet she has not been well served by the result. Health care reform is going to have to address physician wages, hospital charges, insurance rates, and how good the care is.
Another columnist in the NYTimes commented (Gawande, “The Obama Health Care Plan”, 05/31/07) on the Edwards and Obama plans. In his view, either one would be an improvement over what we have now. The problem is, we might keep what we have now. That’s what happened in 1992, and the interests opposed to change have, if anything, gotten more powerful. If you think change is inevitable, think again. Read for yourself, study the plans, choose one to support or just rail against the drug and insurance companies and the hospitals and doctors who complain and threaten.
So I don’t know if taxes are going to go up with a more universal health care. Supposedly we will get new efficiencies to offset new costs of coverage. Preventative care would make a big difference, but libertarian opponents of the nanny state may want us all to suffer. Certainly doctors are going to want us to pay higher taxes, to keep them well paid.
Lots to think about.
Reading my own writing is like hearing your voice on a tape. Ewwww. Am I never coherent?
Before I start on heatlh care, I want to say something about this Howard Fineman article someone found on Newsweek online, and which has spread like wildfire through the Burghosphere (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19096133/site/newsweek/page/0/). Now, he does get a lot of things right, we do have good schools and fine museums n’at. I guess we used to be a college town surrounded by an industrial city, now we are a college town surrounded by a retirement community (well, there is still some banking and service around, some boutique steel and a few corporations, or at least their corporate services’ offices – Heinz, Alcoa, Mellon). There is one paragraph, though, which I have to say something about …
“Beside the city, there are 129 other independent municipalities in surrounding Allegheny County. The mayor is in a constant tussle with the county, run by County Executive Dan Onorato. The county has the far bigger tax base, and greater access to state funds. The city and county are sharing 911 and purchasing services, but Ravenstahl and other city officials have little interest in giving up what power they have. A merger of city and county—a move made by many other regions—would extinguish Pittsburgh’s “voice,” Ravenstahl told me. “No one would pay attention to urban issues.””
This Mayor is *not* in a constant tussle with Dan Onorato, quite the opposite. I guess Ravenstahl fed that idea to Fineman, who didn’t bother to check. But opposition to the idea of a city/county merger is interesting. For one thing, a merger was Mark DeSantis’ opening salvo. Now, the Mayor of Pittsburgh does not have authority to create a merger, but his is an important voice in its creation. Would a merger mean that our debt would be shared by the county? Depending on the merger, I would almost think it would have to be if we just dissolved the city. Calling for a merger is a way of being serious about tackling Pittsburgh’s long term debts. State legislators and the governor may be interested in something like that (though our suburban legislators would not be happy, to put it mildly).
So Barack Obama has a health care plan and John Edwards has a health care plan. Hillary, amusingly, does not. Maybe she is keeping 1992’s plan in suitcase, ready to swing into action. Paul Krugman talks about single payer plans in his columns in the NYTimes, and I read them and wonder. The efficiencies he talks about in Medicare and the VA health system, the elimination of the middle man insurance companies, could it be that by eliminating emergency room visits for the uninsured, by eliminating costly overhead from insurance companies and by switching to an emphasis on preventative care that maybe my taxes would go up by no more that the reduction of costs when my employer no longer has to provide health insurance for me?
That is the strawman Krugman dangles in front of us. Get rid of the insurance companies (nationalize them, in effect) and rein in the pharmaceutical companies and the hospitals and doctors (nationalize them, in effect) and all will be right with health care. Well, maybe, but it’s not going to happen anyway. No Congress is going to legislate an industry out of existence, even if we knew for sure the results would be good (and by the way, Krugman is only implying that we should nationalize these industries, kind of a “what a good idea, though I never said that” kind of fing). Pointedly, Edwards’ and Obama’s plans work with the insurance companies.
There was a piece in the NYTimes that captured a different and important piece of the problem. I mean, we have the drain on the system from the uninsured, right, They go to the emergency room, and then can’t pay, so there is pressure on everyone else’s health care costs. Then there are the insurance companies themselves, which employ tactics like guaranteeing hospitals payment from their customers, but in return for the guarantee, the hospital has to accept only 80% of an average of what everybody else is charging for that procedure or hospital stay or whatever. Well, every hospital in the area has an incentive to raise their costs by 5 or 10 percent next year then, to get back what they thought the procedure should have cost anyway. Pretty soon costs are chasing reimbursement all on their own, with their own dynamic. And there are malpractice insurance costs, where the medical associations protect bad doctors to protect their ability to police themselves, and the rest of us pay.
But the piece in the NYTimes (Economx, “Health Care as if Costs Didn’t Matter” 6/7/07) last week was something else again. The essayist commented that Idaho Falls has the highest rate of lumbar fusions per something or other of any city (or something) in the country. Maybe it was Portland, Maine or Oregon that had the smallest number. His point is that there is no real reason for this (though the surgeons in Idaho Falls are surely getting richer), that all the stuff I mentioned before have so knocked medicine from its moorings to science that medical necessity has become at least somewhat variable. I mean, no one’s going to use leeches if you have a cold. The essayist noted that buried in the candidates plans is a call for a national institute to look at what we spend and why on health care procedures. The candidates don’t propose regulating spending or procedure choices, yet. But they may have to.
My wife just had surgery on her foot for plantar fasciitis. Before she had the surgery, there were courses of physical therapy and orthotics, inserts to go in her shoes. Now, she was working a second job as a clerk at a drug store, so she was on her feet for few hours a few times a week. She only quit that job just before the surgery. So there are lots factors going into this, but the bottom line was her feet hurt, particularly her right foot. It still hurts after the surgery, by the way; my wife keeps saying she is overdoing it. (we don’t want to get in the dynamic of how much doing is overdoing).
My mother in law recently went into an assisted living facility. Without getting into how she is doing there (which is its own nightmare and contributes to my wife’s overdoing it), what put her there is interesting. A few months ago she developed pain in knees, bad enough that she found she was unable to get out of bed. It was precipitated by her going up and down the stairs a couple of times in her apartment building. A couple of days later she couldn’t get out of bed, at least, not upright (she crawled to a phone to call us). Now, she was on a pain medication for arthritis, and her doctor prescribed an increased dosage. That was a problem, though, because with her decreased mobility she couldn’t get to the kitchen to take them, and the new pills were too large for her to swallow. They were cut in half, which yielded sharp edges, a new problem, and meanwhile she was not moving much, losing what mobility she had, and not eating (she had not been eating much anyway, but now she was eating less). She didn’t want new pain medications because she was afraid they would make her “loopy”. I should mention she has other issues, like Macular Degeneration and hearing loss (she doesn’t think her ancient hearing aids work, so she doesn’t try them).Eventually, we had to put her in the hospital, so that she could have tests to determine the cause of the pain. A couple of theories were advanced; arthritis in her knees or crumbled discs in her spine. Meanwhile, though, her decreased mobility and inability to take care of herself became issues in and of themselves. She left the hospital and was sent home, but she lived on a third floor apartment in a building with no elevator, so that was a concern. She got a visiting nurse and occupational therapist people coming in, but it turned out that would only be for a month. When she starting leaving the door open and calling to people in the hall to get her a drink of water, back to the hospital she went, and then into the assisted living facility. As far as I know her pain has not ever really been addressed, but the facility has stopped trying to get her to use a walker (a few months ago she wasn’t using anything) in part because she is still in pain and in part because she is slow to follow instructions because she can’t see or hear well. They now cart her around in a wheelchair all the time. All of which is to say that medicine is its own dynamic. Maybe if her doctor could have hit on the right medication and “gotten out in front of the pain”, a lot of this could have been avoided, or maybe it was unavoidable. The fact I could ask the question is, in and of itself, disturbing.
People opposed to a more universal form of health care coverage often say that we have a Cadillac level of coverage now. We have the best science, the best doctors, hospitals, etc. Of course, the people who say this have insurance coverage. Those without coverage, well, like people on the minimum wage, they are going through a transitional phase, they simply need to get training for a better job (they are probably young and healthy anyway). Except that people still don’t get better jobs, and those without coverage get sick and put off getting treatment , and the US still has a higher infant mortality rate and we die sooner that than the people in other industrialized countries.
But universal health care is going to have to tackle doctor’s wages. Those doctors, who engage in more lumbar fusions in Idaho Falls get paid more. Should they? The hospital and now an assisted living facility are getting paid well from my mother in law’s situation, yet she has not been well served by the result. Health care reform is going to have to address physician wages, hospital charges, insurance rates, and how good the care is.
Another columnist in the NYTimes commented (Gawande, “The Obama Health Care Plan”, 05/31/07) on the Edwards and Obama plans. In his view, either one would be an improvement over what we have now. The problem is, we might keep what we have now. That’s what happened in 1992, and the interests opposed to change have, if anything, gotten more powerful. If you think change is inevitable, think again. Read for yourself, study the plans, choose one to support or just rail against the drug and insurance companies and the hospitals and doctors who complain and threaten.
So I don’t know if taxes are going to go up with a more universal health care. Supposedly we will get new efficiencies to offset new costs of coverage. Preventative care would make a big difference, but libertarian opponents of the nanny state may want us all to suffer. Certainly doctors are going to want us to pay higher taxes, to keep them well paid.
Lots to think about.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
The Republicans smell blood?
Of course there is an anti Ravenstahl tide throughout much of the Burghosphere. And who can blame us, when the kid keeps making mistakes on a fairly big scale. Some of the mistakes are his refusing to talk about other mistakes And its not like I have looked closely at it, but someone mentioned he apparently keeps saying that other people “know they’re wrong”. If true, that’s not a good trait, it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of about 90% of human nature (yeah, I am fairly there is a group of about ten percent of people, including me, who do know they’re wrong).
I doubt there are many Republicans who troll the Burghosphere, but they saw the results of the election, they saw the upsets of newcomers against incumbents. Sure, the primary is all about the democrats, but maybe some voters are ready to be pealed off. So Mark DeSantis got on the ballot and Glenn Meakam went to talk at the African American Chamber of Congress. I wish I had a transcript of Meakam’s speech. I gather he talked a lot about education, as well as drawing some parallels between the region’s economic woes and the street violence in Homewood. Kind of easy targets, but its not clear to me that he is interested in businesses that would help in Homewood at all. It’s a long way from Sewickley to Homewood and I don’t think many who make the trip stay very long. I was trying to read up on Meakam and saw a mention of educational charities involving charter, cyber and perhaps parochial schools. So Meakam could probably help Pittsburgh Promise out a lot, but he would rather undermine public education as it exists today.
DeSantis could have the advantage the President currently has. That advantage is, if you know most of the city is against you no matter what, you can talk about anything. I will have to listen to the podcast of his interview on the “Busman’s Holiday”. I read somewhere that the Republican’s kept DeSantis’s write in campaign largely a secret because the Mayor’s people could find enough reliable Republican’s to write in Luke’s name on the Republican ballot, because the write in candidate who gets the most write in votes gets the official nod.
A random thought, the PG and most news services did *not* carry any information on Thursday’s transit rally. I looked and confirmed that on the PG website.
Yeah, its true, this post has more stuff than usual that I can't substantiate.
Tired. Goin’ to bed, perchance to sleep.
I doubt there are many Republicans who troll the Burghosphere, but they saw the results of the election, they saw the upsets of newcomers against incumbents. Sure, the primary is all about the democrats, but maybe some voters are ready to be pealed off. So Mark DeSantis got on the ballot and Glenn Meakam went to talk at the African American Chamber of Congress. I wish I had a transcript of Meakam’s speech. I gather he talked a lot about education, as well as drawing some parallels between the region’s economic woes and the street violence in Homewood. Kind of easy targets, but its not clear to me that he is interested in businesses that would help in Homewood at all. It’s a long way from Sewickley to Homewood and I don’t think many who make the trip stay very long. I was trying to read up on Meakam and saw a mention of educational charities involving charter, cyber and perhaps parochial schools. So Meakam could probably help Pittsburgh Promise out a lot, but he would rather undermine public education as it exists today.
DeSantis could have the advantage the President currently has. That advantage is, if you know most of the city is against you no matter what, you can talk about anything. I will have to listen to the podcast of his interview on the “Busman’s Holiday”. I read somewhere that the Republican’s kept DeSantis’s write in campaign largely a secret because the Mayor’s people could find enough reliable Republican’s to write in Luke’s name on the Republican ballot, because the write in candidate who gets the most write in votes gets the official nod.
A random thought, the PG and most news services did *not* carry any information on Thursday’s transit rally. I looked and confirmed that on the PG website.
Yeah, its true, this post has more stuff than usual that I can't substantiate.
Tired. Goin’ to bed, perchance to sleep.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
voters who make bad choices, and the candidates that love them ...
Pundits, academics and bloggers are mad. They’re mad because even though they are so clever, nobody seems to be enacting their policy suggestions on a national level. Oh, people listen and tell them they’re clever, but the Bush administration keeps going on its merry way; no one seems to be storming the castle gates. Now that the congressional democrats have caved to the administration, the pundits and bloggers have someone new to whine about. With all this anger going around, so much desire to blame, it was inevitable that someone would blame the public. According to the NYTimes Sunday Magazine, in a section called the Idea Lab, a George Mason economist named Bryan Caplan has a new book “The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies” where he argues that “voters are worse than ignorant; they are, in a word, irrational — and vote accordingly.” Apparently the conventional theory (“the Miracle of Aggregation”) is that voters act somewhat randomly, except for a small percentage of informed voters. Given a choice between a candidate with a wise plan for, say, health care and a candidate with a foolish plan, the ill-informed voters will, with their bundle of expectations, tend to split over the candidates, and the small percentage of informed voters will put the wise candidate over the edge. Except that Caplan says this does not, in fact happen. Large groups of voters can behave perversely in a systematic manner, and cancel out the other random and also the well-informed voters. His evidence comes from a survey comparing PhD opinions against average Americans opinions, but the popularity of the book will come (if it is popular) from people thinking about the ’04 election.
What Caplan is really complaining about is candidates, not issues. In our representative democracy, candidates have a variety of influences, and give us (the voters) a variety of statements about their positions. We may feel strongly about a single issue, a general position or simply like a candidate for a variety of commendable or not so commendable reasons (such as smartness or physical attractiveness or party affiliation). The thing is, of course, elected officials can run into unexpected situations, like the President with 9/11. The President’s behavior since 9/11 is the issue he has been judged on in subsequent elections. But I think the issue is more complicated, because the war on terror is so different from other wars. In the past we have given President’s wide latitude of action in dealing with wars, such as Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and Roosevelt’s internment camps. But the enemy in those wars was easy to see and the progress clear. By comparison, the role of the Iraq invasion and occupation is not clear in the war on terror, and the overall progress in the war on terror is not clear. But I think voters have hung onto and supported the President’s explanations as reasonable longer than they might of for a less important issue, such as a recession or immigration policy. We are, after all, supposed to be at war, even if it doesn’t seem like it. Voters should treat war differently. This war is more subtle than the events in Iraq, and I think voters know that. In fact, it is so subtle it is probably nearly impossible to define. After all, we are not at war with the Middle East, but we could be said to be at war with individuals and groups throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world (Indonesia, e.g.). We are not at war with Islam, but those who we are at war with describe themselves as devout followers of Islam. Voters can almost be forgiven for wanting to simplify the issue; I think that was a big part of the initial support for invading Iraq. I think voters still have a collective sense of guilt about that, and so want both to stay long enough to win (still), and leave as soon as possible to put it behind us.
Caplan, for his part, wants to give the Council of Economic Advisors “Supreme Court Status”; that is, the power to veto laws with bad economics. The NYTimes, for their part, argue that voters have been unable to make good voting decisions because the administration has lied to us. Myself, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t support any restrictions on democracy, unless you think campaign finance reform is undemocratic. Better funding of schools, and more college aid would actually probably help the situation some more. And maybe more Aaron Sorkin programs. Or maybe not.
I may come in and edit parts of this post as the day goes on ...
What Caplan is really complaining about is candidates, not issues. In our representative democracy, candidates have a variety of influences, and give us (the voters) a variety of statements about their positions. We may feel strongly about a single issue, a general position or simply like a candidate for a variety of commendable or not so commendable reasons (such as smartness or physical attractiveness or party affiliation). The thing is, of course, elected officials can run into unexpected situations, like the President with 9/11. The President’s behavior since 9/11 is the issue he has been judged on in subsequent elections. But I think the issue is more complicated, because the war on terror is so different from other wars. In the past we have given President’s wide latitude of action in dealing with wars, such as Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and Roosevelt’s internment camps. But the enemy in those wars was easy to see and the progress clear. By comparison, the role of the Iraq invasion and occupation is not clear in the war on terror, and the overall progress in the war on terror is not clear. But I think voters have hung onto and supported the President’s explanations as reasonable longer than they might of for a less important issue, such as a recession or immigration policy. We are, after all, supposed to be at war, even if it doesn’t seem like it. Voters should treat war differently. This war is more subtle than the events in Iraq, and I think voters know that. In fact, it is so subtle it is probably nearly impossible to define. After all, we are not at war with the Middle East, but we could be said to be at war with individuals and groups throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world (Indonesia, e.g.). We are not at war with Islam, but those who we are at war with describe themselves as devout followers of Islam. Voters can almost be forgiven for wanting to simplify the issue; I think that was a big part of the initial support for invading Iraq. I think voters still have a collective sense of guilt about that, and so want both to stay long enough to win (still), and leave as soon as possible to put it behind us.
Caplan, for his part, wants to give the Council of Economic Advisors “Supreme Court Status”; that is, the power to veto laws with bad economics. The NYTimes, for their part, argue that voters have been unable to make good voting decisions because the administration has lied to us. Myself, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t support any restrictions on democracy, unless you think campaign finance reform is undemocratic. Better funding of schools, and more college aid would actually probably help the situation some more. And maybe more Aaron Sorkin programs. Or maybe not.
I may come in and edit parts of this post as the day goes on ...
Monday, May 28, 2007
Anonymity n@
As I have run round electronically and commented this Memorial Day, I have noticed that a couple of blogs don’t allow anonymous comments. The irony here exists on several levels.
Actually a blog like Jonathan Potts’ Conversation has a certain right, he and Chris Briem have made it clear who they are. Of course, commenter’s merely have to choose a handle on Blogger.com, so the no anonymous rule is more of an inconvenience than anything else. But those commenters' that do choose handles and, even more, have the handles linked to a blog are to be commended. They are far more willing to be transparent or at least risk something in the Burghosphere than the legions of anonymous commenters’. But except for Jonathan, Chris, maybe Bram and (mostly) me (and in a weird way the estimable Matt H), we are all anonymous in this political corner of the Burghosphere (I’m sure there are blogs I haven’t stumbled onto yet). The handles we choose can persist, as far as I know. As far as I know my spelling of ”edheath” is protected by a password and unique in the blogging world. But really anyone could link to Cognitive Dissonance, and try a variation of edheath in a silly attempt to be me. On second thought, I can’t see anyone bothering when I am inclined to say things like the definition and defining of “pedantic” could be said to be the act of being pedantic.
Sorry. Anyway, I have commented twice recently on a related subject on different burghospehre blogs. There has been a fair amount recently in the Burghosphere of “is that you, Joe” or “quiet down, Joe Smith, Bill Jones gave you your Golgafrinchan B-Ark job and this is how repay him?” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-Ark#Golgafrincham), or “Who are you, Lord Kitchner, to say who should serve on the Soylent Green distribution committee”. Of course, there is no way to know who any commenter or even most posters are, and lots of the usual and tiring denials. The point I have been trying to make in these comments is the pointlessness of actually trying to identify anyone, because it really isn’t possible.
But I think you do have a right to wonder about the agenda of some blogs. I think we all know the agenda of two PJ’s is to bring down the administration of President Bush, in order for the terrorists to win, because they think those burkahs are really rad. I would suggest, dear reader, that you apply your own judgment to what you think your favorite anonymous’ blogs’ agenda might be. You should consider it like your favorite newspaper, which we know can have a bias, but be mindful of the differences between newspapers and blogs. After all, a newspaper has reporters and editors, people you can reach out and touch. Now, newspaper editorials are often anonymous, but also often reference stories done by reporters. You can tell the bias of an editorial board based on what it chooses to comment on and what stories it references. So too with blogs, I would encourage readers to think of them as anonymous editorial boards, with possible biases. It’s worse if blogs try to release original news (which they rarely do around here), but in any I would encourage readers not to take anything said on a blog for granted. I welcome skepticism on my blog, no matter how irritating I find it (safe for me to say anyway, given my tiny readership).
I’ve always thought of my blog as my only chance to write a continuous series of letters to the editor. After all, the PG only prints four letters a year from any given letter writer (damnit). I used to resort to writing to the Trib, but this is more fun (and safe, no one actually reads this). Reading other blogs is fun too, even if I do get a strong sense of Shakespeare’s sound and fury line; anonymous bloggers seemingly whispering innuendos about public figures and then being criticized by other masked men and women.
So … if you liked Mystery Science Theatre 3000, you’ll like Riff Trax. (that came out of no-where… well, several hours passed and I sat down again at the computer, tightened the editing a bit, and decided I was bored with this post). Actually, I imagine you can NetFlix a lot of MST3000 (hold on while I bop over to NetFlix.com) … (click, tap ..sorry, couldn’t resist). Yep, lot of MST3000.
So … be skeptical but not silly in your blog commenting. Who cares who Amber is; was the last comment coherent? Talk about the words, not the anonymous person. And get a handle and use it. It’s too much trouble having to tie a ribbon on you anonymous commenter’s.
Actually a blog like Jonathan Potts’ Conversation has a certain right, he and Chris Briem have made it clear who they are. Of course, commenter’s merely have to choose a handle on Blogger.com, so the no anonymous rule is more of an inconvenience than anything else. But those commenters' that do choose handles and, even more, have the handles linked to a blog are to be commended. They are far more willing to be transparent or at least risk something in the Burghosphere than the legions of anonymous commenters’. But except for Jonathan, Chris, maybe Bram and (mostly) me (and in a weird way the estimable Matt H), we are all anonymous in this political corner of the Burghosphere (I’m sure there are blogs I haven’t stumbled onto yet). The handles we choose can persist, as far as I know. As far as I know my spelling of ”edheath” is protected by a password and unique in the blogging world. But really anyone could link to Cognitive Dissonance, and try a variation of edheath in a silly attempt to be me. On second thought, I can’t see anyone bothering when I am inclined to say things like the definition and defining of “pedantic” could be said to be the act of being pedantic.
Sorry. Anyway, I have commented twice recently on a related subject on different burghospehre blogs. There has been a fair amount recently in the Burghosphere of “is that you, Joe” or “quiet down, Joe Smith, Bill Jones gave you your Golgafrinchan B-Ark job and this is how repay him?” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-Ark#Golgafrincham), or “Who are you, Lord Kitchner, to say who should serve on the Soylent Green distribution committee”. Of course, there is no way to know who any commenter or even most posters are, and lots of the usual and tiring denials. The point I have been trying to make in these comments is the pointlessness of actually trying to identify anyone, because it really isn’t possible.
But I think you do have a right to wonder about the agenda of some blogs. I think we all know the agenda of two PJ’s is to bring down the administration of President Bush, in order for the terrorists to win, because they think those burkahs are really rad. I would suggest, dear reader, that you apply your own judgment to what you think your favorite anonymous’ blogs’ agenda might be. You should consider it like your favorite newspaper, which we know can have a bias, but be mindful of the differences between newspapers and blogs. After all, a newspaper has reporters and editors, people you can reach out and touch. Now, newspaper editorials are often anonymous, but also often reference stories done by reporters. You can tell the bias of an editorial board based on what it chooses to comment on and what stories it references. So too with blogs, I would encourage readers to think of them as anonymous editorial boards, with possible biases. It’s worse if blogs try to release original news (which they rarely do around here), but in any I would encourage readers not to take anything said on a blog for granted. I welcome skepticism on my blog, no matter how irritating I find it (safe for me to say anyway, given my tiny readership).
I’ve always thought of my blog as my only chance to write a continuous series of letters to the editor. After all, the PG only prints four letters a year from any given letter writer (damnit). I used to resort to writing to the Trib, but this is more fun (and safe, no one actually reads this). Reading other blogs is fun too, even if I do get a strong sense of Shakespeare’s sound and fury line; anonymous bloggers seemingly whispering innuendos about public figures and then being criticized by other masked men and women.
So … if you liked Mystery Science Theatre 3000, you’ll like Riff Trax. (that came out of no-where… well, several hours passed and I sat down again at the computer, tightened the editing a bit, and decided I was bored with this post). Actually, I imagine you can NetFlix a lot of MST3000 (hold on while I bop over to NetFlix.com) … (click, tap ..sorry, couldn’t resist). Yep, lot of MST3000.
So … be skeptical but not silly in your blog commenting. Who cares who Amber is; was the last comment coherent? Talk about the words, not the anonymous person. And get a handle and use it. It’s too much trouble having to tie a ribbon on you anonymous commenter’s.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
We win? redux and more
It looks like to me, per the Pa House website daily report, that SB 218 passed. Of course, I believe it did last year, but Ed Rendell had vetoed it, because its timing would have hurt cities. Now it is here in the spring, and cities have more than six months to prepare.
I have been thinking about the district office thing in district 7. Most council persons do not have a district office, and you can see why. Pittsburgh is a compact city, so a district office is perhaps a poor way to spend discretionary council funds. Still, I interned in federal level congressional offices, and there I came to appreciate district offices.
I have a compromise suggestion, maybe one of many, that may not be feasible or legal, and would require various parties to come on board. In this day and age of mobile offices, you could set someone up with a laptop in a wireless hot spot a couple of evenings a week as a part time district office. A possible venue would be Crazy Mocha, with the owner’s permission, of course (The claustrophobic Union Project would work for a couple *more* nights a week). This person could talk to “walkover” constituents, fill out and electronically file forms for them, and send emails as if from a councilman’s office (in this case Dr. Dowd’s office) to various city agencies as needed, with promises of follow up. You could pay this person as a 1099 subcontractor and possibly kick some money Crazy Mocha’s way for the use of a table (if the possible increased business wasn’t enough). You'd want detailed timesheets, such as the names of people who asked for help. Evening hours would not be convenient for everyone, but they would be convenient for people who in fact usually don’t have the option to visit a councilman’s office. Now, I would apply for (bid on?) this job myself (I can always use a few extra bucks), but I anticipate/hope to be doing taxes from January to mid-April next year. I can see Dr. Dowd assigning the job to a staffer or more likely doing it himself. But hey, if someone wants to bid it out after April fifteenth, you know where to find me (I can be bought for … say 11 bucks an hour).
Maybe this plan would catch on and all sorts of council persons would have to have caffeine fueled evening hours in dimly lit coffee houses. The comparison to the committee man who hangs out in a diner/luncheonette and trades favors for bribes is, perhaps, inevitable.
I guess you can’t help but have noticed email-gate. I am referring, of course, to the Mayor’s silly email to City Council’s President, covered including header and all(?) at the Burgh Report. Good access. I was instantly reminded of Dave Barry’s May 6 NYTimes review of the book “Send”. I think anyone can read the review at http://www.nytimes.com/, but in case I’m wrong, I’ll *refrain* from printing the whole thing here. Meanwhile, I think the Burgosphere should pool it’s collective advertising pennies and send the Mayor a copy. Or perhaps a council person could use some of that discretionary money to do the Mayor a favor and get him a copy. This is my contribution: (http://www.amazon.com/Send-Essential-Guide-Email-Office/dp/0307263649/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-6949789-7904615?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180010023&sr=8-1)
Update: sodmeone else printed the Dave Barry Review here: (http://www.clipclip.org/Sharaith/clips/detail/18822)
it is quite funny.
I have been thinking about the district office thing in district 7. Most council persons do not have a district office, and you can see why. Pittsburgh is a compact city, so a district office is perhaps a poor way to spend discretionary council funds. Still, I interned in federal level congressional offices, and there I came to appreciate district offices.
I have a compromise suggestion, maybe one of many, that may not be feasible or legal, and would require various parties to come on board. In this day and age of mobile offices, you could set someone up with a laptop in a wireless hot spot a couple of evenings a week as a part time district office. A possible venue would be Crazy Mocha, with the owner’s permission, of course (The claustrophobic Union Project would work for a couple *more* nights a week). This person could talk to “walkover” constituents, fill out and electronically file forms for them, and send emails as if from a councilman’s office (in this case Dr. Dowd’s office) to various city agencies as needed, with promises of follow up. You could pay this person as a 1099 subcontractor and possibly kick some money Crazy Mocha’s way for the use of a table (if the possible increased business wasn’t enough). You'd want detailed timesheets, such as the names of people who asked for help. Evening hours would not be convenient for everyone, but they would be convenient for people who in fact usually don’t have the option to visit a councilman’s office. Now, I would apply for (bid on?) this job myself (I can always use a few extra bucks), but I anticipate/hope to be doing taxes from January to mid-April next year. I can see Dr. Dowd assigning the job to a staffer or more likely doing it himself. But hey, if someone wants to bid it out after April fifteenth, you know where to find me (I can be bought for … say 11 bucks an hour).
Maybe this plan would catch on and all sorts of council persons would have to have caffeine fueled evening hours in dimly lit coffee houses. The comparison to the committee man who hangs out in a diner/luncheonette and trades favors for bribes is, perhaps, inevitable.
I guess you can’t help but have noticed email-gate. I am referring, of course, to the Mayor’s silly email to City Council’s President, covered including header and all(?) at the Burgh Report. Good access. I was instantly reminded of Dave Barry’s May 6 NYTimes review of the book “Send”. I think anyone can read the review at http://www.nytimes.com/, but in case I’m wrong, I’ll *refrain* from printing the whole thing here. Meanwhile, I think the Burgosphere should pool it’s collective advertising pennies and send the Mayor a copy. Or perhaps a council person could use some of that discretionary money to do the Mayor a favor and get him a copy. This is my contribution: (http://www.amazon.com/Send-Essential-Guide-Email-Office/dp/0307263649/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-6949789-7904615?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180010023&sr=8-1)
Update: sodmeone else printed the Dave Barry Review here: (http://www.clipclip.org/Sharaith/clips/detail/18822)
it is quite funny.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Important request
Kristie Weiland, from Just Harvest, sent me this. Just Harvest was the VITA tax site where I worked this past spring. The state rep for Morningside, Highland Park, Stanton Heights, Bloomfield (I think) and north to Ross Township (including Aspinwall and Reserve) is Lisa Bennington (LBennington@pahouse.net, (717) 705-7011). I think - I'm sure about Moringside and Stanton Heights.
SB 218 will be voted on in the State House either Wednesday or Thursday! Please call your Representative now and urge him/her to vote yes on the bill, including an up-front exemption for low-income workers.
The current $52 Emergency and Municipal Services (EMS) Tax is collected from every worker in about 65% of municipalities in Allegheny County (municipalities, other than Philadelphia, can choose this tax instead of a smaller occupation tax, most of them have). The entire $52 is withheld in the first month of work creating a large burden on low-income workers, part-time workers and students. Some municipalities offer a refund of $42 to low-income workers, but each defines "low-income" differently.
SB 218 would change collection of the tax to $1 per week and mandate refunds for low-income workers earning less than $12,000 per year. The House Finance committee has added an amendment that would offer an up-front exemption to low-income workers so they wouldn't have to pay the tax then wait a year for the refund. They've also added an amendment that would create a uniform form that all municipalities would use for the exemption (this would make it much easier to access the form, especially for those of us who do taxes for people working in multiple municipalities). Just Harvest supports SB 218 and the 2 House amendments.
A similar bill was passed last year in November but then vetoed by Rendell because municipalities wouldn't have enough time to prepare. It is important that this bill be passed soon so that doesn't happen again!
You can find your state representative and their contact information at http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm
Please contact me if you have any questions or need more information. Feel free to forward this alert to others.
Kristie Weiland
Community Organizer
Just Harvest
16 Terminal Way
Pittsburgh, PA
15219
412-431-8960
SB 218 will be voted on in the State House either Wednesday or Thursday! Please call your Representative now and urge him/her to vote yes on the bill, including an up-front exemption for low-income workers.
The current $52 Emergency and Municipal Services (EMS) Tax is collected from every worker in about 65% of municipalities in Allegheny County (municipalities, other than Philadelphia, can choose this tax instead of a smaller occupation tax, most of them have). The entire $52 is withheld in the first month of work creating a large burden on low-income workers, part-time workers and students. Some municipalities offer a refund of $42 to low-income workers, but each defines "low-income" differently.
SB 218 would change collection of the tax to $1 per week and mandate refunds for low-income workers earning less than $12,000 per year. The House Finance committee has added an amendment that would offer an up-front exemption to low-income workers so they wouldn't have to pay the tax then wait a year for the refund. They've also added an amendment that would create a uniform form that all municipalities would use for the exemption (this would make it much easier to access the form, especially for those of us who do taxes for people working in multiple municipalities). Just Harvest supports SB 218 and the 2 House amendments.
A similar bill was passed last year in November but then vetoed by Rendell because municipalities wouldn't have enough time to prepare. It is important that this bill be passed soon so that doesn't happen again!
You can find your state representative and their contact information at http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm
Please contact me if you have any questions or need more information. Feel free to forward this alert to others.
Kristie Weiland
Community Organizer
Just Harvest
16 Terminal Way
Pittsburgh, PA
15219
412-431-8960
Monday, May 21, 2007
Arrggghhh
Chris Briem, of Null Space (http://nullspace2.blogspot.com/) has a post up entitled “rethinking price elasticity for gas and Curitiba”. I want to say something about the price elasticity part, echoing sentiments which have been echoing around a few blogs around here since a report on Philly’s transit came out (http://www.economyleague.org/files/File/The%20Price%20of%20Inaction.pdf). By the way, the Philly study is about what happens *if* no one gives them a hundred million.
The thing is, as gas prices approach and pass three dollars, we seem to hit a point of shared unconscious memory. Gas is reaching that point where it is now more expensive than it ever was before, in real terms (i.e, adjusted for inflation). Now, considering that the bottom 90% of us have not seen a whole lot of growth in our wages in real terms since the last time gas hit a high over twenty years ago, we are all getting nervous. Gas jokes are going to dominate the late night monologues for a while. The administration is going to hope for some Congressional committee to call Alberto Gonzales or Paul Wolfewitz (sp?) to testify to distract us. And we might think about taking the bus.
Oh wait, bus fares just went up. And I have to arrive an hour early to work if I take the bus.
You know, the state legislature has been relatively generous, but stopped increasing the amount it gave PAT for five or six years starting in 2000. Surprise, we developed a short fall. But now, if we could avoid the cuts and the fare increase, PAT’s ridership might go up, with lots of new middle class riders. PAT might turn the corner. Are you listening, Dan Onorato?
My State Representative, LisaBennington and State Senator, Jim Ferlo, need to get on the stick too. Their districts extend far away from the city, and to the extent they have commuters, they need help too. Even if it is the rest of us who ride the bus, the reduced demand for gas will make the price the commuters pay fall too.
The thing is, as gas prices approach and pass three dollars, we seem to hit a point of shared unconscious memory. Gas is reaching that point where it is now more expensive than it ever was before, in real terms (i.e, adjusted for inflation). Now, considering that the bottom 90% of us have not seen a whole lot of growth in our wages in real terms since the last time gas hit a high over twenty years ago, we are all getting nervous. Gas jokes are going to dominate the late night monologues for a while. The administration is going to hope for some Congressional committee to call Alberto Gonzales or Paul Wolfewitz (sp?) to testify to distract us. And we might think about taking the bus.
Oh wait, bus fares just went up. And I have to arrive an hour early to work if I take the bus.
You know, the state legislature has been relatively generous, but stopped increasing the amount it gave PAT for five or six years starting in 2000. Surprise, we developed a short fall. But now, if we could avoid the cuts and the fare increase, PAT’s ridership might go up, with lots of new middle class riders. PAT might turn the corner. Are you listening, Dan Onorato?
My State Representative, LisaBennington and State Senator, Jim Ferlo, need to get on the stick too. Their districts extend far away from the city, and to the extent they have commuters, they need help too. Even if it is the rest of us who ride the bus, the reduced demand for gas will make the price the commuters pay fall too.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
See, it's funny n@
See, I’m surprised people actually read this, which is the big thing to come out of what I did last night. Although I also watched “Night at the Museum”, which was a satisfying experience.
Right now, I’m trying futilely to channel Nick Hornby, who has written several good books and whom I can recommend in print or on film (though I haven’t seen either Fever Pitch). I was reading one of his collections of book reviews this morning before I logged on, and true to form I am a pathetic sponge, my inner voice has now taken on a slight English accent. If I had read Robert Parker I would be trying to be self deprecatingly tough and terse (and I am sure the terse part would be a welcome relief).
Well, I went to a Dowd campaign victory celebration last night. I had stayed at one remove from the campaign throughout the campaign, for reasons both real and (in my mind) cowardly. Of course, I should point out “The Candidate” is one of my favorite movies, so I have high standards in my mind for the life of a campaign. But I met several very nice people there and was somewhat flattered, unfortunately, because then you feel tortured later. In the real world, candidates do let you down.
As an aside, Hornby wrote about reading Candide, which I gather, in my illiterate way, is an attack on optimism. I think we get the suppression of overt optimism done sometime around the third grade these days, replacing it with a cheerful if world weary and familiar cynicism. I’m scheduled (imagine pronouncing “scheduled” with a soft “ch”, my inner voice is such a, um, lady of ill-repute to the last thing I read) to see Shrek III tonight. Although almost all of today’s movies end with an implicit end of history type happy ending (the end of Night at the Museum is the implication that forever more all the characters will dance every night away, even the bad guys, for example), its only in today’s cartoons that adults (or their voices) express that that is the way things should be.
Political candidates are, by definition, supposed to be optimistic, and Pat Dowd probably abuses the definition more than most. But so he should, his campaign was staffed by literate, friendly people who were interested in making a positive change. Well, I assume literate, I didn’t talk to too many people (I have curious blocks, I have no trouble blabbing on the internet or rambling in the occasional class I take, talking people’s ears off while doing their taxes, but I will stand alone at parties for hours, not wanting to break into other people’s conversations), but I was introduced to some scary Ellis and (I believe) Central Catholic students. The New York Times had a painful article about how there are really too many accomplished teenagers now, and the competition to get into the best schools has gotten ludicrous, especially considering how un-accomplished we were when we got in (I went to a good, but not great school, FWIW).
But Patrick Dowd’s people were quite nice. I remember (a little hazily) that someone mentioned they had met quite nice Bodack supporters and/or workers too. Judging by the yard signs in Morningside and Stanton Heights, Bodack supporters and Dowd Supporters were neighbors, and they probably coexist quite well through the rest of the year (or three and a half years).Morningside and Stanton Heights were the fifty fifty neighborhoods. Now Pat Dowd gets to try to live up to his people’s expectations. To win the election (barely) he has set the expectations bar kinda high. I know he seems to be a driven personality, and will work hard. But as one other person (who had reason to be also at one remove from the campaign) told me, his last advice to Patrick would be “Be careful what you ask for”. Having had several of those moments myself over time, I can only sympathize.
Did you read this in the Post Gazette (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07136/786263-53.stm)? These contracts need to be talked about in the Burghosphere. Ironically, I can find no fault with the Housing Authority, except that maybe they should have been more clear from the start. I haven’t looked at the Housing Authority website (no research!) and anyway this seems like a done deal. Interesting article, though.
By the way, the only reason I am writing all this stuff is because my site meter has jumped. I will try to be less long winded in the future, if only to get a few of these moments back for my own life (I can’t worry about yours).
Right now, I’m trying futilely to channel Nick Hornby, who has written several good books and whom I can recommend in print or on film (though I haven’t seen either Fever Pitch). I was reading one of his collections of book reviews this morning before I logged on, and true to form I am a pathetic sponge, my inner voice has now taken on a slight English accent. If I had read Robert Parker I would be trying to be self deprecatingly tough and terse (and I am sure the terse part would be a welcome relief).
Well, I went to a Dowd campaign victory celebration last night. I had stayed at one remove from the campaign throughout the campaign, for reasons both real and (in my mind) cowardly. Of course, I should point out “The Candidate” is one of my favorite movies, so I have high standards in my mind for the life of a campaign. But I met several very nice people there and was somewhat flattered, unfortunately, because then you feel tortured later. In the real world, candidates do let you down.
As an aside, Hornby wrote about reading Candide, which I gather, in my illiterate way, is an attack on optimism. I think we get the suppression of overt optimism done sometime around the third grade these days, replacing it with a cheerful if world weary and familiar cynicism. I’m scheduled (imagine pronouncing “scheduled” with a soft “ch”, my inner voice is such a, um, lady of ill-repute to the last thing I read) to see Shrek III tonight. Although almost all of today’s movies end with an implicit end of history type happy ending (the end of Night at the Museum is the implication that forever more all the characters will dance every night away, even the bad guys, for example), its only in today’s cartoons that adults (or their voices) express that that is the way things should be.
Political candidates are, by definition, supposed to be optimistic, and Pat Dowd probably abuses the definition more than most. But so he should, his campaign was staffed by literate, friendly people who were interested in making a positive change. Well, I assume literate, I didn’t talk to too many people (I have curious blocks, I have no trouble blabbing on the internet or rambling in the occasional class I take, talking people’s ears off while doing their taxes, but I will stand alone at parties for hours, not wanting to break into other people’s conversations), but I was introduced to some scary Ellis and (I believe) Central Catholic students. The New York Times had a painful article about how there are really too many accomplished teenagers now, and the competition to get into the best schools has gotten ludicrous, especially considering how un-accomplished we were when we got in (I went to a good, but not great school, FWIW).
But Patrick Dowd’s people were quite nice. I remember (a little hazily) that someone mentioned they had met quite nice Bodack supporters and/or workers too. Judging by the yard signs in Morningside and Stanton Heights, Bodack supporters and Dowd Supporters were neighbors, and they probably coexist quite well through the rest of the year (or three and a half years).Morningside and Stanton Heights were the fifty fifty neighborhoods. Now Pat Dowd gets to try to live up to his people’s expectations. To win the election (barely) he has set the expectations bar kinda high. I know he seems to be a driven personality, and will work hard. But as one other person (who had reason to be also at one remove from the campaign) told me, his last advice to Patrick would be “Be careful what you ask for”. Having had several of those moments myself over time, I can only sympathize.
Did you read this in the Post Gazette (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07136/786263-53.stm)? These contracts need to be talked about in the Burghosphere. Ironically, I can find no fault with the Housing Authority, except that maybe they should have been more clear from the start. I haven’t looked at the Housing Authority website (no research!) and anyway this seems like a done deal. Interesting article, though.
By the way, the only reason I am writing all this stuff is because my site meter has jumped. I will try to be less long winded in the future, if only to get a few of these moments back for my own life (I can’t worry about yours).
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Fallout ...
I have a nervous feeling, waiting for the District 7 race to finalize. I don’t like it hanging like this.
(Update: Oh dear, let me rephrase that: I don't like the results hanging fire like this).
So now I know most of the district names or more exactly their number desiginations. Progressives won in District 3 and (unconfirmed) District 7. I gather Reverend Burgess might be somewhat progressive as well, but I don’t know for sure. How will it be for Dr. Dowd to sit across from Darlene Harris, the woman he unseated from the School Board? Well, he worked with Jean Fink on the School Board, without *reported* violence, and she had reasons not to like him, so he may have some skills in diplomacy.
But there is hardly a progressive majority in Council yet. The reliable numbers seem to be 4 progressives (at best) to five, with Mayor Ravenstahl in the distance with a veto threat. And we have to wait seven months for that situation.
The only good I can see it that it sucked people in, gave them a reason to pay attention to city council.
Stll, for a couple of reasons, I can’t get as worked up as many in the Burghosphere.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Turnout ...
As I await word about whether or when the absentee ballots have been/will be counted, I reflected on the notion of turnout. How big is district 7? You'd think that when districts can contain parts of neighborhood, they ought to be fairly close in size. But looking at the county election website, I noticed that turnout in district 7 was fairly larger than in other districts, including some hot races. District 1: 3764. District 3: 3893 District 5: 4369. District 9: 4813. District 7: 6180.
Maybe district 7 is a whole lot larger than these other four district’s. Maybe council should dispense discretionary money based on the size of the district. And how did Councilman Bodack know there were more absentee ballots than Pat Dowd’s lead over him last night (I don’t know when Mr. Bodack made that statement)?
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