A Bit More Digging, A Bit More Bluster, A Glimmer of Hope

I just couldn't help myself. I had to go back in and look at the transcript of Judge Ambrose's decision, which reversed Catherine McNeilly's demotion. I found something that I think is truly fascinating.

If you look around the Burghosphere for a while, and not just on this particular story, you will encounter scathing complaints about the vaunted "confidentiality" that is seemingly inescapable in all "personnel matters" involving public employees. We've seen it in this case, obviously. It's also shown up in fairly small matters (e.g., the alleged pilfering of coins from parking meters by employees of the Pittsburgh Parking Authority), more weighty scandals (e.g., the $213,000 payout to former Pittsburgh Public School official Lynn Spampinato), and even such highly-important decisions as last year's appointment of Dominic Costa as Chief of Police. In fact, in this last case, according the the Post-Gazette story which ran at the time,

Council members expressed less concern with Mr. Costa's 25-year track record with the bureau than with how details from it became public in recent Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. They called for an investigation of who leaked an internal report that criticized Mr. Costa and others for their handling of a Homewood standoff in 2002.

This presumption of confidentiality has enormously strong roots. From the way it gets thrown out there in story after story, you could easily reach the conclusion that public employees are completely protected, as a matter of law, from any public disclosures of their employment history.

This notion has always gotten on my nerves, because these public employees seem more than happy to take the public's money, but aren't willing to accept that the taxpayers are ultimately their boss. So imagine my reaction -- a mixture of shock, elation, and dismay -- when I encountered the following passage in Judge Ambrose's ruling:

The disciplinary action report [which was attached to the e-mail that McNeilly sent to City Council]... contains specific dates of Rende calling off sick and working secondary details before and after the sick leave, the dates and places of his secondary employment and the statistic of his, Rende's, arrests and traffic stops, all of which, according to Donaldson, are not inherently confidential and, according to Plaintiff's expert Rothlein, are public records in other jurisdictions, specifically Florida.

The Defendants [i.e., the City, Mayor Ravenstahl, and Police Chief Nate Harper] have not identified any statutory or constitutional basis for keeping this information confidential, and it appears that it is deemed confidential solely because of the working agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police. This is a contractual agreement which has less significance than if it were grounded in a statute or in the Constitution for weighing purposes.[emphasis added]

So in other words, the Judge seems to be saying that there is absolutely nothing in the city statutes, Pennsylvania law, or the state constitution which establishes any expectation of confidentiality when it comes to the personnel records of public employees. If that's really true, then count me as totally blown away. From the way this old chestnut gets hauled through the coals every time a public employee does something even remotely questionable, you would think that it was bestowed upon them by the Almighty himself. Instead, it's simply part of the near-ubiquitous union contract which seemingly covers every single taxpayer-financed employee in our neck of the woods. Who knew?

To put it another way, city officials -- backed by several generations of union-dominated Democratic party control -- have long since bargained away the right of us taxpayers to examine precisely what we are paying for. Nice. Real nice. I think I may be sick.

Even better, ever since this provision was enshrined in some contract from the now long-forgotten past, it has been recycled over and over and over again in all subsequent contracts. From today's perspective, the right of public employees to be protected from public scrutiny has been around so long that, when combined with the Pittsburgh region's famous parochialism, has simply become a storied and accepted part of the "way we do things around here". What a load of crap.

In other news, Mayor Ravenstahl's reaction to yesterday's decision -- as reported this afternoon on the Post-Gazette's web site -- is a bizarre mixture of blustering stupidity combined with the barest hint of hope that his administration may do the smart thing and settle this lawsuit as soon as possible.

On one hand, the Mayor claims that there was never anything wrong with punishing Catherine McNeilly:

"I stand here proudly [believing] that I acted appropriately," Mr. Ravenstahl said... [H]e believes he acted properly to demote Cmdr. McNeilly for breaking a rule by releasing private personnel records. "The decision [to demote Cmdr. McNeilly] was made because the rules were broken," he said. "I stand behind those rules."

The Mayor also maintained his iron grip on this bullshit-ridden fairy tale that Dennis Regan never did anything even slightly wrong:

As far as Mr. Regan's actions were concerned, the mayor said it would be improper for anyone in the mayor's office to influence police decisions, but he's not convinced Mr. Regan did anything wrong. ... "There was no rule broken, no law broken," he said. "If anything, maybe bad judgment was used." Mr. Ravenstahl wouldn't say whether he would have fired or disciplined Mr. Regan if he hadn't resigned on his own.

The only hopeful thing in this afternoon's news was the last line of the article, where "the mayor said no decision has been made on whether to defend the case at trial or try to reach a settlement."

My advice? Settle it, apologize, and move on. Otherwise, this is all that anybody is going to be talking about until the primary.

Some Analysis of the Court's Decision

Pulling some of my own stuff out of the transcript yesterday's injunction decision by the Honorable Donetta Ambrose, U.S. District Court Chief Judge.

[Catherine McNeilly's] e-mail and the attached disciplinary action report were sent to inform city officials of her belief that the nominee for the position of Public Safety Director had improperly interfered with her attempt to discipline a police officer, who was the brother of the woman with whom Regan lived, and her concerns that Regan because of his improper interference was a poor candidate for the high-ranking position of Public Safety Director, which position would give him supervisory authority to control police officers and the entire Police Department, among other things. This was clearly a matter of public concern.

Of course I must also consider whether Plaintiff did this in good faith. Was her belief a good faith belief? Well, I just want to review what Plaintiff knew that led her to this belief. She knew, for one thing, that Regan had interfered with Commander Brackney's attempt to cite Duke's Tires, and that Regan had told Commander Brackney that Duke's Tires had friends in the Mayor's office, and that Commander Brackney would be walking a beat if she did not cooperate.

She knew that Regan had interfered in the discipline of another police officer who, through the chain of command, received termination that was later overturned.

She knew that Regan had interfered in the Police Department by ordering Chief Costa to promote Rende to detective even when Costa knew Rende did not have a record meriting promotion to detective; specifically, that Rende had an extensive disciplinary history and had, in fact, once been fired and then reinstated.

After examining Rende's file, she knew and found multiple instances where Rende had abused the Police Department's sick leave policy to an extent that far exceeded any other instance she had seen in her opinion.

At this stage, Catherine McNeilly began a series of actions to discipline Rende for his abuse of sick time. The Judge's comments, which detail a timeline of reports, enquiries, e-mails, discussions, and meetings on Ms. McNeilly's part, are already detailed and illuminated quite well over at The Burgh Report. This sequence of events culminated in September, when Ms. McNeilly was told by then-Chief of Police Dom Costa that, "... she just didn't understand everything that was at play. No one told Plaintiff at that time that Regan had nothing to do with Rende's disciplinary action report. Rather, she was told by the Chief that she just didn't understand..."

So in other words, she knew Regan's history. She knew that he had a history of interfering with police matters. Including disciplinary matters. And especially including disciplinary matters concerning Officer Rende. Then, when her disciplinary report about Rende falls into a virtual black hole, she is told that she "... just didn't understand everything that was at play...", by Dom Costa himself. This is the same Dom Costa who testified, under oath, that he was ordered (not requested, or even recommended) to promote Rende to Detective by Mr. Regan.

The judge concludes that Ms. McNeilly had a "... a good faith belief that Regan had improperly interfered in Police Department matters...". I guess judges have to put things in relatively sedate terms. That's why I'm not a judge.

Here's how I would put it. It is a lock-solid certainty, an absolute truth, and a clear and unmistakable fact that Dennis Regan improperly interfered in Police Department matters, and that he did so more or less based only on his own particular whims at any given moment in time. Therefore, he did do things that were wrong, possibly even illegal. Therefore, the Mayor's "investigation" into Mr. Regan's conduct -- if we ever get to see it -- is nothing more than a steaming pile of fetid horseshit.

McNeilly v. Pittsburgh Links

Bob Mayo has posted key excepts from yesterday's decision on his blog, The Busman's Holiday. It's an excellent selction of the key passages.

In addition, the ACLU has posted a full transcript of the Judge's injuction decision here, along with a news release (which contains an additional link to Ms. McNeilly's original complaint) here.

You Know, Mr Altmire, You Could Do It for Free -- No Strings Attached -- On Blogger

As I discovered by reading Tunesmith & Anthony this morning, it would appear that the Post-Gazette has generously donated some of its precious bandwidth to brand-new U.S. Representative Jason Altmire's new "First 100 Days" blog. They also gave him his own Post-Gazette e-mail account.

Obviously, as a blogger myself, I like the whole idea of Mr. Altmire keeping one of his own. But surely he could have found a more independent location to host it.

Why didn't Mr. Altmire just go whole-hog and post his blog on other local websites such as the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, bankrupt local company Le Natures, the Thomas Merton Center, the Allegheny Institute, or Pittsburgh nudie bar Club Erotica?

Obviously, the Post-Gazette's site is not in the same league as any of those other institutions. All of them have a clear agenda and almost certainly have interests which could be futhered through some congressional action. It would be inapproriate for our new Congressmember to tie himself so directly to these organizations, because it could lead to questions about his independence. The Post-Gazette, on the other hand, is supposed to be an independent member of the free press.

But when you get right down to it, the Post-Gazette is also a business. It also has an agenda. It also has interests which could be furthered through some congressional action. And more to the point, it is a business that is competing with dozens of other media outlets in this corner of Pennsylvania. It's just a bit unseemly for Mr. Altmire to provide a kind of tacit endorsement of one local business over another. We wouldn't want to see him take the place of Aunt Peggy in the Kenny Ross advertisements, or appearing in advertisements endorsing his second cousin's cosmetic denistry practice. Slapping his blog onto the Post-Gazette's website, while not quite so obvious, is similarly distasteful.

I'm certain that, if our freshman Representative just asked someone, the IT people at the U.S. Capitol would be more than able to hook him up with a few gigs of server space for his blog. That would be a far better place for him to post it.

Just a Quick Reminder

In the wake of the decision by a federal judge to restore Catherine McNeilly to the rank of Commander in the Pittsburgh Police, I thought I would offer a brief reminder of something that I wrote just a few days ago:

Any rational politician could have seen that granting [Ms. McNeilly] whistle-blower status in the wake of Mr. Regan's resignation would have made the story go away, minimized the political damage of the whole situation, and led to best result for everyone concerned.

That whistle-blower designation is probably looking, in retrospect, like a damn fine idea to some on Grant Street this evening. They could have stopped this debacle in its tracks six weeks ago, but instead they are the ones who gave this story it's legs.

Of course, it's probably too late to stop this train wreck now. This morning will almost certainly see the Ravenstahl administration's misguided attempts to come out swinging, and a swarm of vows to fight on. But the smarter thing might just be to let this one go, and do whatever it takes to get Ms. McNeilly to settle this case. If the Mayor and his administration continue to fight, this story will just keep dominating the news all the way from now, through the primary, and into summer.

We'll just have to see if the Ravenstahl folks have learned anything from this fiasco. Sadly, it's not something that I would bet my money on.

I'm Not Bitter... and Neither Are Most of Ravenstahl's Critics

I had waited for so very long. I knew my time was coming, but it seemed like it was always the rest of the Burghosphere which kept getting them. And then, at long last, I finally received my first comment from that famed commenter (anonymous in my case), who said what he (or she) has said in numerous other comments in about eight or nine other blogs. In response to my latest post about Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's use of taxpayer dollars to fund the printing and distribution of his own campaign liteature (Ravenstahl-Pollooza Arrives!), Anonymous wrote the following comment:

Why are you people so bitter? It's unhealthy, really.

You can find similar comments attached to recent posts in The Burgh Report ("give the guy a break...", "I agree. This post is complete rubbish.", "Some of you people have totally lost your minds. You are obsessed with trying to bring down the Ravenstahl administration."), 2PJs ("You people over here are so damn obsessed.", "I can see all of Bill Peduto's lemmings are on here ripping Mayor Luke.", "It's really a non-issue but since this blog is obsessed with Mayor Luke it's an issue here."), along with a number of other Burgh-based blogs.

I am honored to see that I am -- finally -- in such good company. But still, some kind of clarification on my part becomes necessary at this point.

I could, of course, attempt to refute these kinds of comments on their merits. But the thing is that these kinds of comments, as posted both here and elsewhere, seldom make any attempt to argue the merits of the pro-Ravenstahl position. They are rarely more than a sentence or two in length, and usually amount to nothing more substantive than a plea to give the young man a "fair go" (as they would say in Australia).

So the only thing that I can say is that I am not bitter. I don't hate Luke Ravenstahl. I feel that, during the past six months, I gave him far more than a "fair go". From the very moment that former Mayor Bob O'Connor got sick and Master Ravenstahl's elevation to mayor became a real possibility, I was honestly excited by the prospect. I was enormously hopeful that this young mayor could provide the much-needed kick in the pants that could propel our city into at least the 20th century, if not the 21st.

To really understand the story of my feelings about Mayor Ravenstahl, I probably need to take you all the way back to the 2001 mayoral election. I was disgusted with Tom Murphy's tactics in that election, especially his outright bribing of the firefighter's union to win the primary by a whisker. Like hordes of other people, I was not pleased.

But at the same time, I did develop an appreciation for Mayor Murphy -- especially once he decided not to seek another term in office -- because he was clearly separated from the disastrous Democratic party machine that has done so much harm around here. I know that there are many who would argue that he wasn't all that separate from the party machine, and I will agree that he wasn't totally disconnected from it. But at the same time, he allowed himself to say and do things that he believed were in the city's best interests, even if they conflicted with the best interest of the party's political elite.

Despite some degree of grudging admiration for Mayor Murphy, I was happy to see him go. I was happy to see Bob O'Connor take office. I was a tiny bit skeptical, since Mayor O'Connor had been so thoroughly invested in local party politics for so long, but I thought he would bring a breath of fresh air into things.

My happiness did not last long. In fact, the appointment of Dominic Costa as police chief completely erased any goodwill that I had towards the O'Connor administration. After seeing Pittsburgh get largely bypassed by the nationwide reduction in crime which took place in the 1990s, I had truly hoped that we could bring in a chief from elsewhere who would employ some of the tactics that had been so useful in other cities across the nation. By looking no further than Penn Hills, Mayor O'Connor instantly showed that things weren't going to change with him at the helm.

So when Mayor Ravenstahl took the oath of office, I was just so enormously hopeful. Even though his father held a relatively minor public office, I believed that nobody in their mid-20's could be all that invested in local Democratic party machine politics. How many political debts could he have possibly accrued such a short career in office? Perhaps, as a young person like myself, he could see the city's problems in a new light, without continual harping about the way things used to be.

What is truly astonishing is that Mayor Ravenstahl has been able, in just five or six short months, to eat through all of my initial goodwill and turn me into a fierce antagonist. I kept my mind open through the Regan appointment. I began to lose some faith, but was still hopeful when the Mayor's bogus investigation found no wrongdoing on Regan's part. At least Regan was gone from city government, and that was good enough for me.

Luke Ravenstahl could have kept me in his corner, at least for a little while longer, if he had just granted whistle-blower status to Catherine McNeilly. As soon as Ms. McNeilly was punished, however, I was done. Regardless of her family's ties to Tom Murphy, and regardless of her own political motivations for attacking the Ravenstahl administration, the simply reality is that she had (and still has) the facts on her side. She herself seems to be willing admit that she broke some internal regulations in sending some of these facts to City Council. But these facts needed to get out, and not a single one of these facts seem to be in dispute by anyone at all.

Dennis Regan never had any business whatsoever being involved in City government. Bob O'Connor made an enormous mistake by employing him in that manner. Luke Ravenstahl made it worse by latching onto Mr. Regan and attempting to increase Mr. Regan's power even further. But in the end, Catherine McNeilly showed everyone -- apparently including Mr. Ravenstahl -- that Mr. Regan was an inappropriate choice to work in city hall. Any rational politician could have seen that granting her whistle-blower status in the wake of Mr. Regan's resignation would have made the story go away, minimized the political damage of the whole situation, and led to best result for everyone concerned.

Why Mr. Ravenstahl jumped the wrong way on this one is beyond me. He clearly used very bad judgement. Either he honestly believes the preposterous notion that Ms. McNeilly's actions are somehow worse than those of Dennis Regan, or he has erred in listening to other people who have their own reasons for seeing Ms. McNeilly and her family punished. Either way, it's bad judgement.

I'm not the only one to sour on Mr. Ravenstahl in the last month or so. While one could easily anticipate attacks on his adminstration from the Tribune-Review, we are also beginning to see some signs of concern being expressed by the Post-Gazette, which had been doing little more than reprinting Mr. Ravenstahl's press releases while throwing in a bit of supportive fluff to buttress him even further.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If Luke Ravenstahl wants to win me -- and other voters like me -- back into his fold, then he needs to be his own man. He needs to shed his office of all of the hangers-on from the O'Connor administration. He needs to come up with his own plans and original ideas, instead of just rehashing things that the previous adminstration had already accomplished.

It would be nice to be able to examine Mr. Ravenstahl's ideas and policies. It would be nice to be able to decide whether I agree with his vision on the future of our city. But at the moment, neither I nor anybody else seems to have any idea of what this vision really entails. Like those who leave comments in support of his administration, he seems to be saying nothing more than, "support me just 'cause...". Most of us need a better reason than that, especially after seeing such an amazing sequence of bad decisions in the past few months.

Special Thank You

I will have to step away from blogging for a few days due to a medical emergency involving one of my two children. He should be fine, eventually, but sharing a 12-hour port-and-starboard watch rotation with my wife at his hospital bedside is taking a toll on everything, and blogging takes a big-time back seat to my children.

I'm not posting this, however, to draw a bunch of sympathy for myself or my son. Instead, I wanted to publicly thank the Pittsburgh Penguins for spending the afternoon with all of the kids at Children's Hospital today. My son is too young to appreciate this gesture, and he will never remember it (or anything about this extremely painful hospital stay, which is a real blessing). But I appreciated it. Even though I am not in any way a hockey fan. It warmed my heart.

When the Penguins move -- which I strongly suspect will happen at the end of this year -- this is just one more intangible thing that our region will lose. You'll never see it mentioned anywhere, but the loss of these kinds of non-financial contributions will hurt us all in thousands of ways that we never really think about.

Thanks, Penguins! You made some sick kids happy today.

By the way, the picture shown above is not of my child; I just pulled it off of the Penguin's website. But I did get to sit in the room with the entire team and watch them interact with dozens of patients and parents, including my son and myself. The smile that you can see on the child's face in the picture is just one of hundreds that the Penguins produced today.

Smoke Eater Harris

An anonymous comment, posted just last week to a post that I made way back in November, alerted me to a story I had missed during my recent trip away from the Burgh. As the commenter remarked:

... when the media asked [Pittsburgh City Councilmember] Darlene Harris why she included in her budget a "smoke Eater" for her office which is a non-smoking building, she stated that "when she is working in her office at 10:30 at night she wants to be able to smoke. Am I getting this right? We the taxpayers are paying for her to have a smoke eater in her office in a building which is smoke free? She is breaking the city "rules" and we are to pay for it? Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?"

It didn't take much digging to find the Post-Gazette story that the commenter is referring to:

Smoking has been banned in the City-County Building since 1989 by legislation that called for a $50 fine to be imposed for the first offense.

That hasn't stopped City Council members from lighting up.

Last week, the city received delivery of a Trion Eliminator Series SE 800E, an air conditioner-sized, ceiling-mounted device informally known as a smoke eater. It went to new Councilwoman Darlene Harris' office.

Does she smoke in the office? "If I'm here until 10:30 at night, yeah, I'll have one," she said.

So, to answer my anonymous commenter's question, yeah, it certainly does seem to be the case that the city taxpayers just shelled out nearly $1,300 so that Darlene Harris can break both city and county law and smoke in a building that the taxpayers have, for nearly 20 years now, demanded to be kept smoke-free.

Just to be clear, the unit that we purchased for Ms. Harris is not merely a simple air-conditioning unit. It is purposely designed to eliminate the odor of tobacco smoke. This means that Ms. Harris's rather weak excuse that, "... the device is primarily intended to address the chronic stuffiness in her office..." is nothing but pure bullshit. A regular air conditioning unit could have done that at far less expense.

An even better solution would have been to simply let Ms. Harris smoke and collect the established $50 fine from her each time she did so. Then we could have actually made some money from her disgusting habit. Instead, it's costing us some pretty serious bucks to facilitate her criminal behavior. She, of course, sees no problem at all with this expense:

Ms. Harris said her order for a smoke eater didn't put the lie to the famed frugality she practiced as a city school board member for eight years, when she regularly took the figurative kitchen knife to budgets. She hasn't ordered any new furniture, she noted, and gestured to a shelf of cleaning supplies "that I paid for with my own money ... I think we're a cost-efficient office here."

Oh, so we should be happy because we are saving a bundle on cleaning supplies, should we? I'm not so sure that any trip to Sam's Club to purchase Windex is going to compensate for the costs of Ms. Harris's habit. The hotel where my family stayed on our trip to and from Florida last week is 100% non-smoking. If you smoke in one of their rooms, they will charge you $250 to get rid of the smell and make things right for the next guest. If it costs $250 to clear a single hotel room of the stench from just one smoker's stay, imagine how much it will cost to rid her office suite of the stench of Ms. Harris (not to mention her cigarettes) after her term in office comes to a close.

Buying Ms. Harris a device which allows her to smoke in a smoke-free building, in violation of city, county and (hopefully soon) state law makes about as much sense as buying her an extra-strong bull bar bumper for her car, so that she can swat those pesky pedestrians out of the way as she drives back and forth to work each day. What she is doing is against the law. It's illegal. I can't even begin to understand why the city taxpayers should be expected fund any effort to help a councilmember commit a crime.

If Ms. Harris wants this device so damned bad, let he pay for it out of her own personal (and very generous) cleaning supply fund.

Ravenstahl-Polloza Arrives!

I've returned from my epic minivan trip with my wife and two small children. I'm delighted to be home. I was less than delighted, however, to see what had arrived in the mail during my absence.

In last month's post about Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's taxpayer-financed campaign literature masquerading as a garbage collection notice, I made the following prediction:

Anyone want to bet that [the City's collection schedule] caledars, when they finally arrive, also feature the Ravenstahl "REDD UP" graphic, so that his image will be magnetically affixed to every refrigerator in the city for the entire year? That would be, of course, the entire election year.

The actual calendar, which I was delivered while I was on the road, is even worse than I could have ever imagined.

First of all, it's not just the usual 8.5-by-inch cardstock calendar that we have received in previous years. The calendar itself makes up just one-third of the entire document, and is perforated so that it can be easily removed from the rest of mailing. As I had expected, Master Ravenstahl did indeed take the opportunity to affix his "Redd Up" banner, complete with his smiling, take-charge, "I stick my hands in my pants" image, on the front side of the calendar. So his face will indeed be "magnetically affixed" to my refrigerator (as well as nearly every other city resident's refrigerator) for the entirety of 2007. At least on my refrigerator, however, his picture will be sporting a Snidely Whiplash mustache, an Evil Spock goatee, and a set of devil horns. I figure that, since I paid for it, I should at least be allowed to have some fun with it.

As much as the calendar itself bothers me, I never expected what appears in the rest of this mailing. The top one-third of the first page is a simply enormous version of the now-nauseatingly-familiar Redd Up graphic. Master Raventahl's full-color picture, just in this one graphic alone, is a staggering 3.25 inches in height.

The bottom half of the last page, meanwhile, is simply a reprint of the infamous 311 Response Line card that was sent to all city residents in early December. We already got this mailing once. Why did we need to receive it yet again, with Master Raventstahl's big 4.25-inch-high picture glaring out at us for a second time? Not to mention the enormous proclamation that this is not simply a new phone number, but is really "MAYOR LUKE RAVENSTAHL'S RESPONSE LINE".

These two enormous graphics would be more than enough to make this mailing an obvious piece of campaign literature. But, if anything, the smaller print is even worse.

For one thing, we are informed that this mailing is not simply this year's garbage-collection schedule. Instead, it is a "bi-annual newsletter" that is being funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Since this is now a "bi-annual newsletter", that means that we will be receiving another one later in the year. Why do I strongly suspect that the next installment of this newsletter will arrive sometime in early May, immediately before the Democratic primary?

Then there are the articles in this newsletter. The lead front page article is headlined "Mayor Encourages Residents to Get Involved", and is basically an open letter from Master Ravenstahl himself to all city residents. It comes (of course) complete with a picture of our Mayor, standing with a group orange-vested citizens who are obviously involved in picking up litter in their neighborhood. While the citizens are working, Mayor Ravenstahl -- who is not dressed in an orange vest -- apparently is not.

He makes up for this oversight on the third page of the newsletter, where he appears in all of his receding hairline glory, complete with orange vest and pristine white gloves, apparently lending a hand and doing the hard work at one of these community cleanups. Strangely enough, there doesn't seem to be any particular reason for this picture to appear here. None of the articles which surround the photograph deal with these kinds of volunteer cleanup events. Instead they focus on recycling drop-off locations and the kinds of materials that will and will not be accepted for recycling. So basically, this picture's only purpose is to provide yet another image of Mayor Ravenstahl in action, this time with two enormously cute African-American children.

The second page is similarly filled with Master Ravenstah's name and likeness. In one article, the name "Mayor Ravenstahl" is sprawled across the headline. In another, the very first words of the article are "Mayor Ravenstahl". And of course, there is the mandatory picture of our Mayor at work, looking somewhat constipated as he prepares to toss a bag of Wilkinsburg trash into the back of a city garbage truck.

The Wilkinsburg connection is also interesting here. Earllier this year, the City's Public Works department was awarded the contract to collect garbage within the Borough of Wilkinsburg. So this mailing was also presumably sent to all Wilkinsburg residents as well, since they will also need a calendar to keep all of the collection dates straight. The fact that the newsletter is being sent to non-city residents no doubt provides some political cover for Master Ravenstahl and his apoligists to use in claiming that this mailing is not merely campaign literature. But, then, where are all of the pictures of Wilkinsburg officials? Why aren't their names and images plastered over every last page of the mailing? Can Wilikinsburg residents even use the 311 response line to report problems with their garbage pickup? If not, why do they need to receive an announcement about it?

This newsletter is a political mailing, plain and simple. And it goes far beyond leveraging the power of incumbency to the Mayor's advantage. It's just plain disgusting.

Merry Christmas to All

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

On Deployment...

The People's Republic of Pittsburgh regrets to announce that the Admiral has deployed, along with the rest of his battle group, to an undisclosed location. He may be checking in from time to time through satellite uplink, and may even post a few comments if the mood strikes him. But he makes no promises.

The Admiral anticipates his return to homeport on or about the first of January. Until then, he extends his fondest wishes for a Merry Christmas to you all.

I Just Don't Get the U.S. Senate

From today's New York Times comes yet another article about the recurringly bizarre spectacle that we use to obtain the Senate's "advice and consent" in the appointment of Federal judges. This time, the storm is swirling around Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), who is also (why does this not surprise me) considering a run for the presidency in 2008. According to today's article, Sen. Brownback has been single-handedly blocking the nomination of Janet Neff, a 61-year-old state judge from Michigan who has been put forward for a spot on Federal District Court.

What did Ms. Neff do to incur the wrath of Sen. Brownback? She attended a wedding. More specifically, she attended the wedding of a young lady who had grown up as Ms. Neff's next door neighbor and who was a long-time friend of Ms. Neff's own children. Well, actually it wasn't really a wedding. Not legally, at least. It was really more like a commitment ceremony, since the event involved not just one but two brides. And even though it was held in Massachusetts, the ceremony took place before same-sex marriage was available there.

Now think about this situation for a second. Let's say you got an invitation to the wedding (commitment ceremony, civil union, whatever) of your neighbor's daughter. You had known the family for 26 years. You had watched this young woman grow up from the time she was a little girl, and had become "... so close that the woman was, in effect, a part of [your] family and was like a big sister to [your] own daughters." Even if you detested the idea of same-sex marriage, just what kind of heartless bastard would you have to be to refuse this invitation on that basis alone?

And yet, if you harbor any ambitions for a high-level federal post of any kind, I guess you would have act like a complete asshole and turn your back on this woman and her family. Because, until recently, Sen. Brownback had successfully managed to block this nomination due simply to Ms. Neff's presence at this ceremony. He said that he felt that her mere attendance at a gay "wedding" made her unfit to rule on similar cases, since it "... raised serious questions about her impartiality..." on this issue.

One wonders about what this logic implies about all of the other judges out there who have only ever attended heterosexual weddings. Can they really be impartial? What about those who have attended Jewish weddings? Shouldn't they recuse themselves from any of those knotty cases about whether a menorah must be shown alongside of a nativity scene?

I have to confess that I've never really understood the U.S. Senate. I've read the Constitution, and it seems to describe the Senate in terms that I can easily understand. But it's the things that aren't in the Constitution -- things that really carry no real weight of law at all -- that seem to make the Senate what it is. All of those arcane rules and traditions that just don't seem to make a great deal of sense for a democratic body.

In this case, I just don't get how a single senator can block a "... nomination [that] was included in a package of more than a dozen nominees whose confirmation had been agreed upon by both Democrats and Republicans". But Mr. Brownback didn't like this one nominee, and his objections alone were enough to hold up the entire roster of nominees. Part of the answer, I suppose, is that Sen. Brownback holds a seat on the Judiciary Committee, and thus is in a prime position to pull this kind of stunt. But still, I've served on various committees in my lifetime, and none of those ground to a standstill simply because a single member wanted to vote "no". We moved forward, took our votes, recorded the objections, and that was the end of things.

In the end, Sen. Brownback gave in and allowed all of these nominations to proceed. He did try, at the last minute, to make Ms. Neff promise to recuse herself from any gay marriage cases. But even that effort failed when various experts pointed out that the Senate has never put that kind of a restriction on any other judicial nominee in its history. I suppose that democracy kind of won out in the end, but it still seems like the Senate rules made that victory far more difficult than it should have been.