Extra! Extra! Pittsburgh Old Media Adds Value!

Our compliments to both Mayor Ravenstahl and the Post-Gazette, two names that are not often praised.

Kudos to Mayor Ravenstahl, who did the right thing and attended one of the funerals of the people who drowned in the rain on his street. (snark: Luke sorta likes going to funerals, once he got a new job after going to a funeral.) Props to the Post-Gazette, who performed a public service and contributed to the discussion several times in today's paper.

Brian O'Neill did a marvelous job of adding historical detail and human perspective in his article, The Washington Boulevard disaster: Now we must Act. He provides historical facts not available to new-media Google, shifts into life-and-justice values, and ends with a clear call to action; we see too few Writers these days and we are consistently pleased by Mr. O'Neill's work.

We are enamored of Joe Smydo's article (and headline) Marked absences: Mayor Ravenstahl criticized for missing multiple major events. Mayoral defenders attempt to narrow the argument by saying the mayor's got a cellphone, it's an invasion of His privacy and family life, and it's a security risk if His whereabouts are known. The true point comes more from sampling theory than from knee-jerk parochialism; if somebody in a position of responsibility is frequently out of town and unavailable when random events occur, then they're probably out of town and unavailable more than they should be, if they're going to stay in that position.

Jonathan D. Silver wrote a great article, teased on the front page as "Other cities have flash flood alert systems", and headlined as "Flash flood warnings systems are costly" in the interior. The article approaches the question, "How come people in other North American cities don't drown in the rain?"

Paging Rich Lord, Chris Young, Chris Potter;
Call to Action for Mr. Lord, Mr. Young, Mr. Potter: We particularly appreciate the photo caption in Silver's article, Mud-covered vehicles destroyed in the Washington Boulevard flooding were towed to the Pittsburgh Police Zone 5 Police Station, and we wish that Some Journalist would consider why the Zone 5 parking lots were empty - namely, the report that police dispatchers have been in the habit of warning employees to move their cars when flooding was imminent, ignoring the safety of the people on the streets.

Bravo, Post-Gazette, and chapeau Messrs. O'Neill, Smydo, and Silver.

America's Most Livable City? The only thing guaranteed in Pittsburgh is charges

First, a cognitive palate cleanser of sorts, in the hope of warm-booting the normal filters and opening a port to a new datasource:

We're Number One:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Pittsburgh region has the highest rate of poverty among working-age African-Americans of any of the 40 largest metropolitan regions in the country.

. . . .

Even more shocking is that the Pittsburgh region is No. 1 in the country in the rate of poverty among African-American children under age 5.

(Post-Gazette)

---

Welcome to America's Most Livable City
Please ignore the invisibles with me
See Pittsburgh rebuilt it's economy
But we still lead the Nation in black poverty

Welcome to America's Most Livable City
Just ignore the invisibles with me
And state ya business, cause here the place ya living
depends on ya race and privilege

They call it Clipsburgh Pistolvania
Where block dictators will launch missiles to bang ya
Where hot metal come whistling out the chamber
To maim ya twisting you like wrestlemania
And what's crazier the bishop wont pray for ya
Ya families so poor they can't even afford a crate for ya
And in them skyscrapers Brah they can't wait for us
To move out the hood so they can take it lace it up
Transit cuts a brother can't even take the bus
This is the ugly truth no need to make it up
Then some magazine comes along and places us
As most livable in the USA what?
Say what? Guess they didn't survey us
Cause life is cut shorter than razors where they raise us
Judges are racists and quick to hang us
And police taze us until we never wake up


Welcome to America's Most Livable City
Please ignore the invisibles with me
See Pittsburgh rebuilt it's economy
But we still lead the Nation in black poverty

Welcome to America's Most Livable City
Just ignore the invisibles with me
And state ya business, cause here the place ya living
depends on ya race and privilege

And downtown it's a bunch of new buildings
Glass and steel cathedrals the cost a few million
They make billions to treat a dudes illness
With medicine and pharmaceuticals so who's dealing
But the schools are failing screw children
Just make sure the office has a see through ceiling
Pitt University and CMU killin
classes cost thousands I don't see you fill em
How we gonna get a job in biotechnology
if all we ever learn is survival psychology
and why we so poor if yall revived the economy
but we don't get nothing besides an apology
Tear down the projects and put up a Target
then build new homes so they can stimulate the market
But move us out the neighborhood so we can never harvest
the only thing we guaranteed in Pittsburgh is charges


Welcome to America's Most Livable City
Please ignore the invisibles with me
See Pittsburgh rebuilt it's economy
But we still lead the Nation in black poverty

Welcome to America's Most Livable City
Just ignore the invisibles with me
And state ya business, cause here the place ya living
depends on ya race and privilege

Platitudes and Pandering, Plans and Policy

In recent days we have seen numerous agency heads, public servants, and elected officials respond to the tragic deaths of four people due to drowning in the rain on a city street. In general, their responses have been to deny failure, to obfuscate responsibility, and to feign either complete competency or helplessness.

Notably, Mayor Ravenstahl has made statements that are slightly more responsible than those made by his staff. (We concede the poverty of that metric.)

However, there are no indications that Ravenstahl's words are anything but rhetoric; there is no announcement of a new operational plan, no clearly assigned responsibility and authority, no announced process or specific procedures.

All we have are well-intentioned statements such as, "we'll do whatever it takes", without any indication of who will do what, and who will be responsible. In short, there is no reliable, trustworthy indicator that the next time will be any different. When the public's trust in government to ensure their safety is compromised, transparency and communication are called for.

If the Mayor meant for his platitudes to have any effect other than amelioration of public outrage and triangulation against his department heads, he might publish an Order something like the DRAFT below. If this Mayor doesn't do it, perhaps the next Mayor will.

(Certainly, the Mayor has time for releasing Proclamations)

---

DRAFT Mayoral Order:

Responsibility: The director of Public Safety, or their designee if they are unavailable, shall be responsible for ensuring that any streets prone to flooding are closed when conditions are such that public safety cannot be guaranteed.

Primary Authority: The Director of Public Safety will have complete authority to direct action by other City personnel in these matters, and maintain and update an operational contingency plan as appropriate.

Supplemental Authority: Any of the following personnel (or their designees) have the authority to close any streets to ensure public safety: Mayor, Director Dept. of Public Works, Director of Public Safety, Pittsburgh Police Chief.

Resumption of Traffic: Only the Director of Public Safety can reopen streets closed in accordance with this directive, and then only after notifying the Mayor or his/her designee.

Operational Plan: The Directory of Public Safety will publish a detailed operational plan to close streets when necessary, including all coordination and implementation details, no later than Sept. 1st 2011.

/signed/
Hizzoner

The Curious Incident of the Flood Damaged Personal Vehicles

Not to be outdone, several "old school" Pittsburgh institutions have offered their unique contributions to avoid future drown-in-rain deaths on Washington Blvd.


Kennywood Park has offered to contribute some "you must be this tall" signs from their amusement park, which could be adjusted to ensure that only vehicles that are 6 feet tall can enter the area in the rain. The conceptual basis is that the roadway floods to nine feet, so a person standing on top of a six-foot vehicle would probably survive.

The Pittsburgh Parking Authority (which operates the Mon Wharf parking lot) has offered to manage the public's use of the street in potential flood conditions on a cost-plus basis. "We've been running a paved area that periodically floods for years, and we've never had anybody drown yet", said the spokesman. "Once again, the Parking Authority comes to the city's rescue."

---

Finally, a man who was smoking a cigarette in the background stepped up to contribute some anecdotal evidence. The smoking man asked, "Are you all familiar with the story of Silver Blaze, and the implications of the damaged personal vehicles at Zone 5, adjacent to the tragedy?"

While the others stood mutely the smoking man explained: Sherlock Holmes was called in to investigate the disappearance of a valuable horse, Silver Blaze. A Detective was discussing the case with Sherlock Holmes.

Detective: "Is there any other point to which you wish to draw attention?"
Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
Detective: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident."


The Parking Authority rep blurted out, "What does that have to do with this fiasco?"
Smoking man replied, "Consider the damaged personal vehicles of Zone 5's police officers".

"But none of the police officer's personal vehicles were damaged."
The stranger puffed on his cigarette. "And in the July flood?"
"No, no damaged personal vehicles in July, either."
"Curious", said the smoking man, who walked out in a pungent cloud of tobacco-smoke.

Fix 2.0 : Solutions from New Pittsburgh and the Creative Class

Local businesses that can be said to represent "new Pittsburgh", rather than the brick-and-mortar "Olde Pittsburgh", converged for a adhoc meeting at Nadine's on the SouthSide to discuss what they could do to keep the obviously crumbling Pittsburgh infrastructure - as demonstrated by Friday's four deaths due to drowning in rain - from affecting their "Burgh 2.0" operations.

The meeting started with CMU ex-pat Dr. Richard Florida, speaking on an iPad via Skype, who cautioned that "the creative class, Your City 2.0, sits on the foundation of traditional city services and infrastructure. Once you start drowning people in the rain, the creatives will be out of town on the next MegaBus, kiss them and their tweets goodbye". The waiter serving the table interrupted to say, "You know MegaBus has wifi, right?"

Scott Bricker, executive director of Bike Pittsburgh, suggested that the nearby Washington Blvd. Bike Oval could be a resource. "If we stored a dozen of these bike-boat kits at the Oval, in times of emergency riders could use their bicycles to save cagers motorists from killer rainfall."


The Sandcastle spokeperson chimed in, "We have a core competency at distributing flotation devices, like the heavy-duty tubes for the Lazy River. We could open a booth on Washington Blvd, ready to hand out tubes whenever it begins to rain."


Michael Cohen, co-owner of Just Ducky Tours, said "with the right incentives, we could establish a ticket office and boarding facility in Highland Park. During normal conditions, we'd target people who on Zoo trips and proceed down the boulevard to the Allegheny River. During non-standard conditions such as rain, we could keep our fleet in reserve to support rescue operations."


Dawn Keezer, Director of the Pittsburgh Film Office, brought an unexpected nugget: "We've been contacted by a well-known local documentary film-maker who wants to shoot a movie about Pennsylvania floods, both historic - think Johnstown - and in the current time."

She said, "Rick Sebak, who you all know from WQED and "Stuff That's Gone", wants to film a documentary called "Rain and Floods". He's asked that we take no action to disturb the current situation, because he'd like to capture the conditions as they exist, today. He'd like to begin filming whenever it rains."

At this point, Richard Florida (who had been listening) asked, "But when it starts to rain and Sebak and his people start filming... How do you handle the logistics of that?"

"Exactly", said the Film Office honcho, with a knowing smile. "Whenever the rain starts and they begin to film, we'll immediately close the streets - because we can close streets for filming.".

Richard Florida said, "It's the perfect creative class win-win paradox! I think you should go with it". After a consensus recommendation of the Film Office's approach, the meeting convened with a flurry of twitter updates and messenger bags.

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.

---

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

.
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.