Google Map Kills Four Area Residents

In the spirit of Milan Kundera, this post is dedicated to our memory of Chicago's fictional young Antanas Rudkus, who drowned when he fell off a sidewalk into a deep puddle. That could never happen here, not today. Perhaps there is very little new under the sun.

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Pittsburgh has been at a loss to explain Friday's deaths of four area residents, who drowned in rain while driving on routine city thoroughfares.

A host of city bureaus - Public Safety, Public Works, Emergency Readiness, PWSA, Alcosan - all express their regret at the loss of life and wonder what those people were doing, driving on the streets in the rain. Today's press conference shed light on an unexpected possible cause.

At a hastily called press conference, Mayor Ravenstahl reports that computer printouts found in both victim's vehicles indicate that Google Maps directed them to drive through the flooded route.



Mayor Ravenstahl is calling on Pittsburgh's tech community to assist residents in identifying unsafe Google directions that may put the resident in harm's way, with possibly fatal results. "We shouldn't lose any more people to Google's dangerous directions", he said. "Furthermore, over a year ago we asked Google to bring their big pipes to Pittsburgh, and there's no action yet. I'm not saying that their big pipes would have definitely prevented this tragic flooding; I'm just saying."




Mayoral spokesperson Joanna Doven said her smartphone research at a SouthSide WiFi hotspot shows that Google Maps is also offering directions in close proximity to Tepco's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which became radioactive months ago.

"This may be the tip of the tsunami", said Mayor Ravenstahl. "I think it's important for people to be cautious about where the Google might be taking them, and consider using the tried-and-true Colored Belts - they're for everybody, really - to safely drive around Pittsburgh. My family has used them for years, and nobody's ever drowned in the rain on the Red Belt, I think."

No Google spokesperson was available for comment.

Hard to Believe: Four Funerals

From the Post Gazette:

"It's hard to believe those kind of events can still happen," said Tom Palmosina, co-director of the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority.

How it happened is a difficult question... because a nearly identical flood occurred there just a month ago and the three governments responsible for the infrastructure had already begun talking about how to fix the problem.

... ...

What makes Friday's flood, and a similar one July 18, more troubling is that none of the governments involved -- the PWSA, Alcosan, and PennDOT -- are sure what caused the problem, who is to blame, how to fix it, or if it can be fixed.

Water runs downhill. Highland Park is lower than the surrounding areas. Pavement accelerates water. Capacity costs money. These have all been known for decades.

Here's a thought: when the elected/professional people responsible can't believe it happens, don't know what happened, don't know how to fix it or who should fix it, then we've got (1) the wrong people responsible, (2) a low probability of improvement, and (3) a high likelihood of repetition.

The whole thing is hard to believe, particularly four funerals for people who drowned in the rain on a city street.

Most Livable Asterisk: Pittsburgh and Places Rated

Several media outlets announced Saturday that they are revising their most recent evaluations of Pittsburgh as a "most livable city" after four people drowned in rain while driving on city streets on Friday.

Forbes reporter Francesca Levy, who wrote their 2011 report choosing Pittsburgh as the country's Most Livable City, posted a message on Twitter: "plan on revising Most-Livable report, adding 'deadly rain' as a ninth factor. Who knew?"

David Savageau, who has been compiling the "Places Rated Almanac" since 1981, posted on his blog: "I am flummoxed by the revelation that rainfall can be fatal in Pittsburgh - not on those magnificent three rivers or the fabulous bike trails, but on a paved city street?"

Savageau went on to say, "It can't be the nature of rain - it's been raining in American cities since at least the 1860's. Other cities at the top of the list - Seattle, San Francisco, Portland - these are all cities with frequent rain, a high quality of life, and they seem to be able to avoid rain fatalities. There must be something different in Pittsburgh. Maybe it's acid rain?"


The Economist Intelligence Unit -- which publishes numerous surveys and studies for paying clients -- has ranked Pittsburgh first in U.S. livability ratings since it started measuring them in 2005, said Jon Copestake, editor of the survey. "I daresay we're going to have to make an adjustment in light of the recent disclosure of deadly rainfall in the Pittsburgh metro area. For the time being, we're adding an asterisk to our results."

Key personnel at the Department of Public Works and the Department of Public Safety were not available for comment; they were working weekend overtime on location for "Dark Knight Rising", which is a key distraction from the city's problems strategic initiative of the Ravenstahl administration.

Mayoral spokesperson Joanna Doven commented via text message early Sunday morning: "Mayor attributes problem to Council's budget obsession; Home Rule charter may not assign responsibility for rainfall, action by Legislature may be needed".

Closer to home, AccuWeather reports that Monday, August 29th has a 60% chance of rain and thunderstorms.

Pittsburgh's Office of Emergency Management reports that they intend to get in front of the situation by pre-positioning teams of grief counselors in pontoon boats parked on trailers in the vicinity of Washington Blvd and Allegheny River Blvd.

In order to gain an understanding of what future unfortunate citizens may experience during the rain, Team Ravenstahl is arranging a field trip to Ohiopyle and they will convey their experiences and emotions to the GCT (grief counseling team).

A Seminal Failure of Government: Betting on the Come with Public Safety

Friday August 20, it rained in Pittsburgh and three four people died. (updated) From the Post-Gazette:

A woman and two children were killed and an elderly woman was missing Friday night after a flash flood -- with rushing water 9 feet deep in some places -- swept over Washington Boulevard in Highland Park/Lincoln-Lemington during rush hour.

This sort of thing isn't supposed to happen here - sure, folks in Mumbai die when it rains, but not here in the Good Old Homeland. It's just an Act Of God, force majuere, nothing to see here, move on, our sympathy to the families, update your Facebook, Here we go Steelers, here we go.




Is it really an Act of God? The same thing happened at the same location in July.



This is not three four people who got killed while boating (a risky activity subject to the forces of nature). This is not three four people who got killed while hiking through the wilderness. This is three four people, citizens, taxpayers, who drowned in rain on a main public street during Friday rush hour.

There's a Department of Public Works that is supposed to design, build, and fix drainage systems. There's a Department of Public Safety that is supposed to protect the populace. There's annual Office of Emergency Management; they are supposed to ensure readiness for infrequent events. There are elected officials (Mayor Luke Ravenstahl) who are accountable to the voters for the performance of the city departments (DPW, Safety) under their authority.

If all those agencies and officials were focused on guaranteeing citizen's lives - if they were ensuring that the public would be safe even in 100-year events - instead of simply betting on the come and being comfortable that we're probably going to be okay most of the time, then they'd close those few streets when it was raining, until such time as the drainage was improved. Simple solution.

It can't be too difficult to close a street. They seem to be able to do it whenever a VIP or a corporation wants it closed, regardless of the impact. Ensuring public safety by closing the street when it rains would call attention to their shortcomings and priorities, so instead they leave the people to take their chances. It's a reverse lottery, run by the government. Turns out you can gamble on both sides of the river. Oops, you won - sucks to be you.

The city knows that flooding is likely at that location in heavy rain, the decision makers haven't taken any action to improve the situation, and so the constraints of budgets and political desire abandon people in favor of higher priorities.

Let's just acknowledge that the City's priority has been filming a movie and not ensuring the safety of citizens. By the way, who investigates the liability for these deaths? Couldn't be somebody who also works for the Mayor, could it? And where was Luke at 5pm on Friday?

Shifting into meta, let's also anticipate that the upcoming national austerity, reduced oversight and de-regulation, and dogmatic beast-starving are going to produce a lot more of these unnecessary tragedies.

Evil Empire Attacks GMail Man

The Evil Empire (Microsoft) is introducing their new Office365 product, which is essentially cloud-based Office-Pro. If you're competing with Google and GoogleDocs, how do you differentiate? Perhaps by calling attention to Google's terms of service and casting aspersions and FUD.



This is good, it attempts to join the tradition of "I'm a Mac", and it's possibly the best attempt at humor we've seen from Microsoft (at least, since that paperclip parody that so many people took seriously).

What's really kind of funny is that Microsoft is approaching irrelevancy for individual users. It's not Apple vs. Microsoft anymore, it's Apple vs. Android/Google, and all the things you once used Microsoft for (word processing, email, etc) now happen in your browser window. And friends don't let friends use Internet Explorer.

It may be illustrative to check this page of Google's GMail privacy policy. This link provides a button to opt-out of Google's interest-based advertising.

PATCO and the 40th President: Happy Anniversary

Presience: August 11, 1981 (The Bulletin): “In short, the ruling class considers the destruction of PATCO as inseparable from its overall capitalist policy of defending the profit system with a program of unrestrained militarism internationally and savage austerity for the working class within the United States.”




Amidst today's clamor for an economic policy that further diminishes the American middle class, Milan Kundera suggests that we reflect, remember, and reckon:

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

'

At one time there was a vibrant American economy, a wealthy middle class, and a standard of living where one wage earner could support a nuclear family.

What was the tipping point? When did we shift from abundance to scarcity and from growth to atrophy? When did Labor stop wrestling Capital for their fare share, and start fighting each other to work for ever-lower wages?

Many think the tipping point was the PATCO strike on August 3, 1981. Our 40th President broke the strike, decertified the young union (1968 to 1981), replaced the strikers, and set a new normal for Industry-Labor relations.

Reflecting on this presidency, Alan Greenspan said: '

Perhaps the most important, and then highly controversial, domestic initiative was the firing of the air traffic controllers in August 1981. The President invoked the law that striking government employees forfeit their jobs, an action that unsettled those who cynically believed no President would ever uphold that law. [The 40th] President ----- prevailed, as you know, but far more importantly his action gave weight to the legal right of private employers, previously not fully exercised, to use their own discretion to both hire and discharge workers.

Tallying the Damage of the 40th Presidency

• union busting and disruption of the labor-management balance
• organization and arming of the Mujahideen
• ending the Cold War by spending both sides into ruinous bankruptcy

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In a truly just culture, the name of the 40th President would be subject to damnatio memoriae, and yet his devotees named an aircraft carrier and an airport after him, ensuring that his memory his name will persist.

Curiously, our current crop of political leaders compete to be recognized as Reagan's reincarnation, invoking his hagiography for their own reasons and advancing his misbegotten philosophy ever further.

Karma: A Bastard Turns 30

Thirty years later, the system that decertified PATCO is now itself illegitimate; unauthorized, unable to pay employees or bills, impotent to collect revenues, on a path toward privatization.


Happy Anniversary.

Don't forget.