Luke Ravenstahl Signature Asset

Interesting article in the Pittsburgh paper today about a new vision statement, actually written by Mayor Luke Ravenstahl Himself.

It must have been written by Luke Ravenstahl, because he actually signed it:

Welcome to the future of Pittsburgh's Allegheny Riverfront! On this website you'll find the vision plan that represents the efforts of hundreds of neighborhood stakeholders working together to create a market-based vision for the future of the Allegheny Riverfront.

Pittsburgh's rivers rank among our greatest assets. The Allegheny Riverfront represents an incredible opportunity for our city to create a green, regenerative riverfront corridor which will serve not only as an asset for existing residents, but as an international model of sustainable riverfront development that will create jobs and further enhance Pittsburgh's reputation as "Most Livable City."

You can analyze text for repeated words to help discern what the writer is interested in. These words are used more than once:

• riverfront (4)
• asset (2)
• future (2)
• vision (2)

So I think Luke's "future vision" is about "riverfront assets", which makes sense now that the parking thing is over.

I know what you're thinking, or at least what you're probably thinking if you're the average Wifi-sniffing knowier-than-thou blog reader type - Hey, Luke Ravenstahl didn't write that! Luke Ravenstahl is the mayor, he's not a writer! To people like you I say, Oh No, Dear Reader - Luke wouldn't affix his good name and signature so prominently on something he didn't play a big part in writing.

If he signed it, he wrote it. That's the way they roll at North Catholic, Mercyhurst College, the University of Pittsburgh, and Washington and Jefferson College. Hardest twelve years of Luke's life.

When I read the document and see that it's a plan to transfer parcels of decroted land to developers and other cool guys who will turn them into regenerative assets and then resell them to other cool market-based guys, I can only say: That's the sort of thing that Our Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is all about. And if it takes tax incentives to induce those guys to take our vacant riverfront assets, then Luke will do what it takes.

I'm only concerned about the risk that Luke Ravenstahl is taking. He's taking one for the team -- by which I mean he's putting his own signature on the web, and in eye-catching full color, no less. It's much nicer than the low-res, black-white thing that's already online. It's like, Luke's Signature 2.0

In the current environment, where nasty subversive anarchists make up scurrilous press releases that look good but have the wrong words on them, it's pretty risky putting an image of your signature on the web. Most people wouldn't do that, or they'd do some technomage CMU-type stuff to protect it.

But not our gutsy Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. He's willing to take risks to make us stronger. That's why I'm sure he wrote this vision statement himself; if his loyal and effective staff was involved, there's no way those professionals would let him put his signature image on teh web.

I really hope that this doesn't come up in the future. I'd hate to see this image abused by a malcontent, or used on another fake press release announcing something silly like justice for Jordan Miles.

I'd especially hate it if people started linking to this URL:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ0ukZEgAgEG7bRvl66am7Yy6BXRMfDHsjnWKT74zpEZk2GEN-qYqPd7Gv_C_dysZlAa7QW6Y9HgI75ZJmNktYB83-gvYreIUMKQEWfmY53P3OkLjDKut-204pFV0QCLMZMD4D/s1600/luke-ravenstahl.jpg
using TITLE or ALT text that says, 'Luke Ravenstahl'.

Because then whenever those anarchists search Google Images for 'Luke Ravenstahl', they'll find his full-color high-res signature -- and that would be a tragedy. Or, as Luke Himself would say, The potential downside of future misuse of this signature asset would be regenerative waterfront.