Anniversary Reflections and Regression Analysis

Birthdays, anniversaries, and time markers aren't just occasions for days off, mall sales, and fireworks; part of marking the occasion is the opportunity for reflection. Evaluate the last x years, try to compare today's status to what you once thought today's status would be, consider the next y years and try to influence the path through them.

I read this first reference yesterday, which reminded me of the second, and they seemed like suitable comparison points

"It is clear to [citizens today] that the well-being and full security of the state can be achieved only within the larger concept of national interest, which comprehends at the same time the welfare of all of the states and all of the citizens.

"In an interdependent world, the ultimate good of any part can be attained only with full regard to its relationship with the whole."

Republican presidential candidate (Eisenhower) speaking to the people of Mississipi.(Via Charlie Mitchell, Post-Gazette on 4 July 13.)

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

"This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

President Eisenhower, April 16 1953, addressing the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

From this week:

• Standing While Black Two men in Homewood, a teacher and a reporter, attended a meeting to improve community-police relations this week. They came out of the meeting and one man reached into his car to get a business card for the other. A policeman brushed him back with his moving car. When the man objected he was arrested. Memo: I don't think they know what community-police relations means.
• Smoking While Black A police lieutenant reports that he stopped two men to make sure they were old enough to be smoking cigarettes. The officer reports that one of the two brothers clenched his hand when he was detained and questioned for smoking. Tazed-Electrocuted and arrested. There was, of course, no initial offense; they were old enough to have cigarettes, and Thank G^d the War on Underage Smoking justifies Stop-Frisk-Fry. No news here, move along.

I think we have lost ground, and regressed where we should have progressed. No national elected leader discusses "guns vs butter" today. President Eisenhower (our last President who was previously a General) would be thrown out of the Republican party today, and would be unlikely to succeed in an election as a Democrat unless they were from a niche district.

President Johnson's Voting Rights Act has been cancelled by the Supreme Court. My understanding of the decision is that there's no recent evidence cited that the VRA is necessary. Which would be the outcome if, for instance, the VRA is working. This is going to be a tragic and interesting experiment:

• there's an epidemic of bank robberies
• we require effective safeguards at all the banks
• bank robberies rapidly decrease
• for ten years there are no egregious bank robberies
• the number cruncher says Why are we spending money on these alarms and locks?
• the tea party says, Why is government interfering with the banker's business?
• So we remove the safeguards. (set rimshot on delayed action; wait for it.)

Nostalgia for the 1950's and 1960's has been around for a while in those segments of America that were ahead in those times, or among those who weren't there. It's curious to be nostalgic for the leadership and compassion of Ike and LBJ..

(Hat tip to Trish for sparking the post.)

Pittsburgh FOP's Opportunity to Respect Women and Change the Framework

The Pittsburgh FOP has for its membership bright, smart, caring, brave, strong people who care about the City and the People they have chosen to Serve and Protect. They've also got a few, a small minority, members who see their Pittsburgh badge as a ticket to personal power and lucrative outside employment.

This situation is exacerbated by the low wages the city has paid its protectors over the last decades. It's not a simple, single-factor story.

The outcome of these dynamics is that the Pittsburgh Police are being hired as mercenary rent-a-cops by businesses (bars mostly) that want security, and when they rent a Cop they buy the City's stature and standing. The instant the business owner doesn't like something, it just might become a crime in the eyes of the officer the business is paying for; the customer-citizen is screwed and the public is both liable and responsible.

In one of the recent changes at the police department, on March 13 2013, Acting police Chief Regina McDonald prohibited officers from working secondary employment at at least two strip clubs on the grounds that they are "location that may tend to bring the Bureau of Police into disrepute or may reduce the efficiency or usefulness of the officer as a member of the Bureau of Police." In other words, if it reflects poorly on the Police or the City, you shouldn't be doing it while wearing the uniform the city provides.

The FOP was shocked, shocked at this initiative and on the FOP's behalf one of the strip clubs went to court, seeking to force the city to permit police to work at the strip clubs. On June 17th, a federal judge ordered that police may work at the strip clubs while the litigation proceeds.

This is the moment when the FOP should look around, take a few breaths, and decide on their long-term interests. Tomorrow the FOP could send out a press release, something like this:

Times have changed since the first chapter of the FOP was formed in Pittsburgh in 1915. As we approach our 100th Anniversary, we wonder: what would Officers Martin Toole and Aaron Burns, the Pittsburgh officers who founded the national FOP, do today? How do we, in our time, show leadership in providing for both our communities and our members?

The City is changing. Society has changed. The police force has changed for the better. In both society and police work, the role of women and minorities has advanced considerably, and they are an essential part of our membership.

The Pittsburgh FOP should represent the best of Pittsburgh, and champion the advances that Pittsburgh is making. The recent mayoral primary election is a clear indication that we're not in 1955 Pittsburgh anymore, and that's a good thing.

Although the Federal Court has ruled that our members may work secondary details at strip clubs, we recognize that such assignments diminish Pittsburgh's Finest and disrespect the role of women in society. To have our members working security in strip clubs by night, and enforcing public law and policy in the daylight, is an unacceptable hypocrisy that disrespects our proud history.

While the court has said that we may work secondary details at strip clubs, the FOP has decided to eschew this outside activity. The FOP will not support any police officers working secondary assignments at these businesses.

When I look at our female officers who stand on the thin blue line every day, I can do no less. When I think of our wives and daughters, and the trouble some officers have had in domestic violence cases, we must set a new tone.

At the same time, I call on the incoming Administration to make it a first priority to fix this broken system where a Pittsburgh police officer needs to work secondary details to provide for their family. Nobody became a Pittsburgh police officer so they could be a bouncer in a strip club, but this is how the situation has developed. We hope to see concrete action within the first ninety days of the next administration - at which time we will review our position on this issue.

That might be a really smart thing for them to do.

The NSA Info-Glomm, Land Lines, and Defining Privacy Down

OK, first GMail (which I love). Anybody who's surprised that Google uses the content of your emails to choose which ads to present to you, didn't read the terms of service and doesn't understand how Google works.

OK, Facebook (which I don't love). Anybody who's surprised that Facebook builds a profile of you and your personal network based on information you willingly give them, and then sells that information for a profit didn't read the terms of service and doesn't understand how Facebook works.

OK, Cellphones (which are really personal tracking devices that let you make phone calls). Anybody who doesn't understand that the privacy rules for cellphones are very, very different from the rules for landlines hasn't read the rules and probably isn't entitled to much umbrage over the NSA info-glomm.

I really want to get ride of my landline but the people in my life who let me in every time I come home like having a landline, for a few reasons. Among them:

• during SuperStormSandy™ landlines worked a lot better than cellphones, because the cell tower network was down in a lot of places.
• You can't drop a landline out of your pocket in the parking lot and render it unusable over a long weekend
• Power outage? Landline keeps working.

• Add to the list:The privacy rules for landlines are much more pro-individual than the privacy rules for cellphones.

I don't like the NSA info-grab at all. It's the sort of thing that America wouldn't do, then it was the sort of think America wouldn't do domestically, and now we just do it all the time, SOP. But it's not the NSA's fault - it's your Congressfolks and Senators who wrote these rules and continue to renew them.

Congress built this situation, and you keep sending people to Congress who repeat the same behavior. You agreed to these rules quite happily and rather passively when you went to the Mall and got your 6G shiny object.

If you're shocked, shocked at the current definition of legal, you haven't been paying attention.

Remember when Americans looked at railway checkpoints and roadway document checks and freedom of movement and think, Oh those Iron Curtain countries are so totalitarian?

And by the way, your snail mail via the US Postal Service enjoys a lot of the same privacy protections your landline does. And they're we're slowly shutting down the Post Office in favor of private businesses that don't offer the same rules.

Topless Woman Busted by Campus Cops

Most local colleges, in one way or another, seek to mimic the best practices of Pittsburgh's premier educational institutions.

After CMU Campus Police responded to the local Bishop and charged a 19-year old coed for appearing in public while partially dressed, other college campus police departments have sought opportunities to maintain parity with CMU.

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Pittsburgh police were called to downtown Pittsburgh after a woman was walking around topless.

The woman was wearing only a skirt, and walking along downtown streets and sidewalks.

Several people were seen taking pictures and video of the woman before police arrived.

Pittsburgh police say they assisted Point Park University police with arresting the woman.

We are fortunate that our beleaguered Pittsburgh Police, who have gone to court to ensure their opportunities to work overtime security details at strip clubs, are assisted in their responsibilities by such worthy non-government police forces.

In less important news:

• A man was shot in the hill district.
• A 17-year old Pottsville girl was abducted
• A 16-year old was charged with killing a Rankin teenager
• A Duquesne man was shot and killed in McKeesport
• A man was shot in the head in Greenfield
• A one-year old child was shot and killed at an East End picnic
• The Pirates are winning.

Got to have priorities.

Mon Mullahs in the Crosshairs

I am a struggling sinner who is a practicing Catholic in the Pittsburgh diocese. My children have attended Catholic schools, K-12. Money in the plate every week. I do skip Mass some weeks, but not many.

I have no affiliation with (or any affection for) the students who chose to appear partially undressed at the CMU Downhill Derby. There doesn't seem to be anything profound or novel in their act, there may or may not be any signal in their noise, and overall my response is: meh, kids.

The Bishop reacted publicly to the young woman partially undressed as the Pope and called on CMU to take action. The university has its own police force, and in deference to the Bishop the college cops have charged two students with criminal misdemeanors.

In drawing attention to the affair and initiating a protracted legal scenario, the Bishop invoked the Streisand effect and brought this tempest in a teapot more focus than it ever would have received if simply left alone. (LA Times: Catholic Sharia In Pittsburgh?)

I am disappointed in the Bishop's actions. I wondered, what is the biblical guidance on dealing with these situations?, and I found two references:

• John 7:53 to 8:11, tells the story of a woman charged with sin by a group of men eager to punish her; Jesus challenges the crowd, the crowd dissipates, and then Jesus (1) declines to condemn her and (2) privately urges her to go and sin no more.
• Mark 15:1 tells about a high priest and church leaders turning Somebody over to the civil authorities for prosecution; the parallel does not reflect well on the Diocese.

Absent violence to persons (and possibly property) what business does the Diocese have turning people over to prosecutors? Especially for ridiculing the church? Is that a new 11th Commandment? Is this a new ministry?

• Where are the crusading priests fighting for social justice, peace not war, tending the poor, worker's rights, economic justice, the unemployed, racial justice, the rights of the marginalized? Are they now monitoring campus dress codes? What has happened to the diocese of Father James Renshaw Cox and Father Charles Owen Rice, may they rest in well-deserved peace?
• In a city so corrupt that the Police are suing the city so they can work overtime in strip clubs, is the CMU Art Department the issue the Diocese picked for advocacy? Where was the Church for Jordan Miles?
• Who are these fools with such nice Irish names from "the Catholic League"? They don't represent me or anybody I know, I've never voted for them, and I don't know who's funding them.
• There are other places in the world where you get in trouble for making fun of the local clerics. Generally, they're Muslim countries, it's not a misdemeanor, and you don't want to live there — but misdemeanor or felony, this bishop-police business is both un-American and un-Christian.

We have freedom of speech in America. That includes freedom to ridicule religions, churches, and bishops, presidential candidates that wear magic undies, snake handling West Virginians, and people who let their children die rather than use doctors and hospitals. We can also ridicule Pat Robertson, Tom Cruise and the Scientologists, Earnest Angley, Jimmy Swaggert, and yes even a senior official of the catholic church. Good people fought and died so I could have freedom of speech.

The church (my Church!) is open to ridicule only because of the chronic institutional failure of many bishops to prevent child abuse by the clergy, by the hide-and-shuffle response of many bishops, and by the treatment of heinous crime as an internal administrative manner by many bishops. The notion that finally a bishop has figured out how to notify the authorities of a crime, and he's called them over a pantless art student at a CMU party is just too absurd.

Last, that a bishop would attempt to establish his moral authority and position by putting a woman back in her proper place just puts the Church further back on the wrong side of so many truths.

The priests and the bishops - our men of the cloth - have completely screwed this thing up. They don't get it, and they're not getting any better. I never thought I would say this, because I'm an old-school guy, but: The only people that haven't gotten this Church all wrong are the nuns.

The Catholic Church will only begin to move back to her path when we transition the priesthood out of the testosterone zone and ask women to please move into full leadership positions in the priesthood.

Joe Magarac and the Fountain at Point State Park

Riding my bike, enjoying a magnificent morning, very pleasantly surprised to see the fountain in "Pittsburgh's front yard" on a test run. As seen from the Carnegie Science Center, And as seen from near Station Square, They've done a wonderful job restoring the fountain, and a park ranger explained there's some technology for multicolor effects at night. Also cool that there's restrooms at the Point that will be open from 0700 to 2300, will which be much appreciated by the bicyclists coming in from DC.

But it didn't have to be this way. It might have been quite different.

Later in the day, I found myself at the Rivers of Steel museum at the Bost Building in Homestead, looking at a design proposal for the fountain at the Point developed by Frank Vittor for the 1951 design competition that would produce the fountain we know today.

The placard read,

As a part of Pittsburgh's Renaissance I urban renewal project, artists were asked to submit designs for a new fountain at Point State Park.

Noted sculptor Frank Vittor created this model for a proposed 100-foot tall stainless steel statue of local folk hero Joe Magarac pouring steel from two ladles into an ingot - a symbol for the joining of the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers to form the Ohio River.

Vittor made at least two plaster models; the other known piece is in the collections of the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. The winning fountain design, which did not open at the Point until 1974, is notably subdued compared with Vittor's elaborate vision.

That would have been very different indeed.