Pittsburgh Dish

Callow mayor is experienced doofus

Many of us love the Steelers, chum, but geez, this stunt is simply
silly

Mayor wants to drop 'Ravens' from his name
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
By Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, at least for this week, wants to be known as Luke Steelerstahl.

"On behalf of the Steelers Nation, I've decided to remove the word 'Ravens' from my name just like the Steelers will remove them from the AFC Championship," he said, referring to Sunday's playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens.

The mayor this morning began, but did not complete, a Verified Petition for a Name Change.

Other possible rejected half-way name changes include:

* Luke Detroitlionstahl

* Luke Quiteamazingthatiamtwelveandanestablishedpartoftheoldboys

networkisitnotstahl

* Luke Progrestahl

* Luke Duke

* Luke Steelersfansgetdrunkandpukenstahl

* Leni Riefenstahl

* El Guapo

* Luke Maybeabettermayorthandishthoughtyetwecannotstopmockinghimatall

stahl

Unusual fundraising approach in Connecticut

Potential Obama sign thieves also potential Obama donors

Click image to read

Dish New Haven correspondent Mandy (Happy B-Day!) McGuire-Schwartz snapped this image on her way to vote. On Nov. 1, Mr. Dish came across a group of miscreants attempting to boost Dish HQ’s Obama/Biden sign. He repelled the transgression by drunkenly mumbling, “What the f*** are you doing?”

The Connecticut approach seems both more gentle and more productive.

Lying liar’s vile, racist lies exposed!

Dish (and many, many others, especially those who’ve been hit in the face before and know what a black eye actually looks like) proven quite correct in calling bullshit on college Republican’s bullshit tale about being mugged, assaulted, fondled and carved up by a black Obama supporter while she was using an ATM on Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield

Update by Trib reporter Jill King Greenwood here.

Dig.

Someday, this ATM will become as famous as the Minneapolis airport restroom stall where Larry Craig’s wide stance took place. It shall be remembered as the cash-dispensing device that helped Obama become president.

Caption Contest

Give it your best shot. There are no winners, only mavericks. (Click image for larger view)

Photo by Michael Henninger/Post-Gazette

Dish ain't sayin', it's just sayin'

This young woman's story about being mugged by an Obama supporter in Bloomfield seems a bit suspicious to say the least

OK, a woman from Texas, Ashley Todd, is in town helping the McCain/Palin campaign. She was in Bloomfield around 9 pm Wednesday, withdrawing some cash from an ATM machine. She claims she was mugged, the assailant getting away with $60.

She also claims that the mugger, after seeing the McCain/Palin sticker on her car, carved the letter "B" on her cheek with a 5-inch knife and told her that in doing so, he'd make an Obama supporter out of her.

Here's the complete tale.

The cops seem suspicious of her narrative.

So is Dish. And here's why.

* The "B" is carved backwards, as though it was done in a mirror

* There's no scabbing, and even a dull knife would likely at least scratch the skin

* There's no swelling apparent around the black eye and there are no telltale broken blood vessels reddening the white of her eye

* She didn't seek medical attention for hours, choosing instead to send messages to friends about the alleged incident

* This happened at 9 p.m. On Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield? A woman was pinned down, a man carved a rather perfect "B" backwards on her face, and no one intervened? Foot and automobile traffic is pretty heavy there at 9, even on a weeknight and, as yet, no witness has come forward

On the face of it, Dish is not buying it. If we're wrong, Miss Todd, our apologies. We suspect we're not.

Dingbat delayed

Beaver must wait for Palin

If you happen to be the kind of person who wants to see a person who believes the following speak in Mr. Dish's hometown of Beaver, Pennsylvania, this afternoon you're going to have to cool your jets a bit.

(Evangelical Christian leader James) Dobson asked whether Palin was discouraged by polls showing the GOP ticket behind.

"To me, it motivates us, makes us work that much harder," Palin said. "And it also strengthens my faith, because I'm going to know, at the end of the day, putting this in God's hands, that the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4. So I'm not discouraged at all."

--Source: AP religion writer Eric Gorski

(That's right, this woman believes that if you support the Obama/Biden ticket, you're contradicting god's will. A bit arrogant to assume one know what's on the Big Deity's mind, no? Anyway, Mr. Dish suggests you kill time
by heading to the Back Door Tavern in nearby Fallston, which boasts a thoroughly fantastic beer selection and the best fried fish sandwich in all the land.)

Seems Moose-alini, or, if you will, Caribou Barbie, is unable or unwilling to keep her 4:15 p.m. date with the good folk of Beaver. Sayeth the Post-Gazette:

A campaign rally for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in Beaver County will start later than originally scheduled this evening.

Ms. Palin is now scheduled to appear around 7:15 p.m. at the Beaver Area High School football stadium.

Doors open at 4 p.m., and the "pre-program" begins at 6:15 p.m.

Dish hears that the "pre-program" will include winking and you-betchaing contests, but cannot confirm this information.

Palin stumps Beaver

Prospective veep visits juvenile innuendo capital of Western Pennsylvania

From today's Post-Gazette:

Details have been released for the campaign rally tomorrow (Thursday, Oct. 23) in Beaver for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

She will appear at the Beaver Area High School football stadium. The event starts at 4:15 p.m.

Mr. Dish graduated from Beaver Area High School. As a public service, he offers the following suggestions as text for anti-Palin (or at least pro-Beaver) signs one can proudly wield at the rally:

* Palin Hunts Moose, Loves Beaver
* Dam Palin
* Christ, what an Intellectually Stunted Embarrassment Palin is to Every Sentient Being, Including Beavers (a bit too long for a conventionally-sized sign, but nevertheless accurate)
* Give Palin the Beaver Cleaver
* Sapphists Against Palin Love Beaver
* The Earth is Not 6,000 Years Old, Dolt, but John McCain May Be (without a Beaver reference, lengthy, but, again, vaguely accurate when one takes hyperbole into consideration as regards McCain's advanced age)
* How'd This Douche Get Into Beaver

Friend of Dish color coordinates with VP candidate

Which salmon-clad beauty is which?

The Dishes used to be newspaper reporters in Connecticut. There, Mr. Dish, for a time, covered the machinations of Milford city hall. The li'l town between New Haven and Bridgeport was run by Republicans. One of these GOPers was Jack Fowler, a member of the Milford Board of Aldermen.

Fowler's a mensch.

He's also a high-level functionary in the right-press, carrying the water for the late William F. Buckley's saucy periodical, the National Review. In his duties as publisher, Fowler has helped organize sea cruises featuring such luminaries as Bill Bennett, Fred Thompson, and Mitt Romney. He also assembled some kind of children's book. Dish thinks it was called, "Dick Cheney Wants a Hug: A National Review Bedtime Story."

Mr. Dish recalls that on election day 2000, Fowler nearly wept when early announcements called for Al Gore winning Florida. Mr. Dish will leave it at that.

Regarding the above photo, Fowler writes to Dish:

"It was taken in August 2007 ­ she had a reception at the Governor's Mansion for visiting National Review editors (in Alaska on one of our famous cruises). We have been big Palin fans since meeting her.

"OK, I watch that Project Runway show sometimes with Sharon and my daughter Elizabeth, but that doesn¹t make me a fashion policeman. As you can tell, my style is Sears Schlubb. Still, that thing the Governor was wearing was tres cool. Leather. Intricately cut. As striking as she is, I think, upon first meeting her, the duds were even more striking. That lady can put herself together. You had to be there, and don¹t you wish you were?!

"Can I make that assessment without it being right-wing conspiratorial? Heck, I think Nancy Pelosi is . . . OK, let¹s not get carried away."

Dish suspects that Fowler is simply parroting the company line established by his colleague Rich Lowry, who stated, on the National Review Online:

"A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen. It's one of the keys to the success of, say, a Bill O'Reilly, who comes through the screen and grabs you by the throat. Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it."

Fowler reports that, "No one razzed Rich" about his Palin crush. "There was no inter-office giggling, tom foolery, or jackfoolery. Rich was right re the effect of debate winkery. That didn¹t stop him from taking a lot of crap from the usual suspects."

Dish has to side with "the usual suspects" here, but extends a warm "thank you" to Fowler for sharing and hopes that Fowler's fashion twin is cured of her nictitating spasms sometime soon.

(Mrs. Dish asks: Is peach the new red this November?)

She has his POW bracelet

He may not have her vote

Dee Wood tells the Neosho Daily News that she's not sure if she'll vote for McCain, despite having worn his POW-MIA bracelet for years. ...

Story and photo by John Ford

Anderson, Mo. - Forty years ago, high school junior Dee Wood wanted to show her support for the soldiers fighting in Vietnam.

So she and a classmate, along with her mother, traveled from their hometown of Alna, Kan., to nearby Council Grove to buy POW-MIA bracelets bearing the name of a soldier, sailor, marine or airman either captured or missing in action in Southeast Asia.

Little did she know her purchase would become a piece of American history, for her bracelet bore the name of a young man who would eventually become a U.S. senator and a candidate for president: John McCain III.

“My friend and I both went at the same time to buy our bracelets,” she remembered during an interview at the Golden Living Center in Anderson, Mo., where she works as medical records coordinator.

“They had a big box with probably 150 to 200 of bracelets in plastic stuffed in there and rounded over the top. She pulled hers off of the top, but I shuffled way down in the box and this is the one I pulled out.”

The bracelets sold for $1 each, nearly an hour’s wage at the time. Thousands of such bracelets sold across the country.

Her silver-toned bracelet bears the legend “LCDR John McCain III” and the date he became a prisoner of war: Oct. 26, 1967.

“My mom bought it for me,” she said. “She bought one for herself, but I don’t remember whose name was on it, or on my friend’s.”

During the war, newspapers across the country published the names of POWs when they were released, and those missing in action when they were found. For five years, Wood said, she scanned the local newspaper to see if “her” POW had been released. And for five years, she never took off the bracelet, not even to sleep.

“I wore it until I saw in the paper he had been released,” she said. “That was in 1973.”

At that time, she took the bracelet off and put it in a jewelry box. At first, she said, not wearing the bracelet was noticeable, like she was missing a piece of her wardrobe. But over time, she began to think about the bracelet less and less.

“I don’t know why I even held onto it for 40 years,” Wood said. “During different moves and stuff, I thought maybe I would throw it away, but I never did. I don’t know why I didn’t. I just really don’t know, I can’t put my finger on the reason why I held onto it.”

She said over the years, her friend and her mother had thrown their bracelets out after reading that “their” POW had been released.

“Most everyone I knew that had one threw it away after the soldiers came home,” she said.

Wood said she bought the bracelet as a way of showing solidarity to those serving in the military, some of whom were only a few years older than she was at the time. She also remembered a number of her classmates went to Vietnam after graduating high school. While a few did not return home from the war, most did, she recalled.

“I still keep in touch with some of them,” she said. “And they seemed pretty excited when I called them up and told them what I had.”

Also excited were members of the McDonald County Republican Club, who got to see the bracelet for the first time at a recent meeting at the home of Kenny Underwood, McDonald County’s recorder of deeds. Wood attended the meeting at the invitation of state Rep. Kevin Wilson, R-Neosho, who asked her to show the McCain bracelet.

“There were quite a few Vietnam veterans there, who all had little stories they wanted to share with me,” Wood recalled. “It was really nice.”

But because she has his bracelet doesn’t necessarily mean that McCain has Wood’s vote. She’s actually undecided about whom she will vote for in the November general election.

“There are certain things about both candidates I like,” she said. “Whom will I vote for? A lot depends on what happens between now and then.”

Wood doesn’t consider herself to be political and said she even thought about tossing out the bracelet after she discovered McCain was a U.S. senator. However, she held onto it, just the same, although she doesn’t consider it especially unique.

“I’m sure there are more out there than just this one,” she said of the bracelet. “I know I haven’t heard of any more, but I’m sure this isn’t the only one.”

In the future, she said she will keep the bracelet, either handing it down to her son or selling it to a collector.

“If he offers a bazillion bucks, sure!” she said with a laugh.

A Day at the Parade

Labor Day observations

by Michael Vivar

Photos by Jeff Glagowski

As a fervent card-carrying Wobbly, I was eager to cheer on Pittsburgh's Labor Day parade. As an even more fervent Obama supporter, I was absolutely ecstatic about the prospect to cheer on Joe Biden's leading in said parade and, perhaps, revel in his biting commentary about this past Friday's pick of redneck anti-intellectual bint, Sarah Palin, to be John McCain's VP.

I boarded my chariot of the 500 from Highland Park around 9:30. It's normally a straight forward trip into Downtown's heart of darkness, but with parade routes closing off various streets, I was let off somewhere behind Mellon Arena. It was unexpected, but taken into stride as I always enjoy adventure and had never walked the path between “Uptown” and “Downtown.”

I first ran into the Mellon Arena parking lot which was flood ed with union workers divided into quadrants (octorants?) by their color coordinated shirts that identified them as teamsters, steamfitters, etc. The utter quantity of the throng was unbelievable. They were all preparing to take to the streets.

As it was now 10:15, I walked quite quickly toward downtown to see if I'd missed Biden. I must say, this was possibly the most circuitous route I'd ever seen a parade take. It also was one of the weirdest couple of miles I'd walked. I started out surrounded by some dilapidated houses that seemed to complement the once-grand Mellon arena. I then walked by a bunch of vintage Corvettes and Cadillaces on Mario Lemieux Way. For a few meters after that, there were weedy-looking pro-life demonstrators with big banners of aborted fetuses (feti?) being harangued by beefy looking men with “SEIU members for Obama” t-shirts.

Biden-bound, I wound my way toward the Boulevard of the Allies, ignoring the weirdness roiling about me. Every so often, something would pierce my veil. A man selling POW flags yelling, “GEORGE BUSH! GEORGE BUSH!” A woman screeching, “Sarah Palin was on the PTA and in a union... JUST LIKE MEEEE!!!” 10:20 in the morning. Much too early on a holiday to be bothered by such madness.

Legs tired, I finally caught up to the front of the parade near the Boulevard of the Allies and PPG Plaza to actually take in the the pomp and circumstance. I encountered a bagpipe troupe playing “God Bless America” leading the way. This sounded like a Scottish person, in only a loincloth, running down the street screaming, “AMERICA IS AWESOME!!!” This is exactly where I expected Joe Biden to be. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

The bagpipers were followed by the dance and drum corps of Carrick High School and local luminaries such as Jason Altmire and Tom Corbett. The cognitive dissonance almost made me black out. I was saved by the constant intrusions by Democratic campaigners who wanted to make sure I was registered to vote. My stock answer became, “No, I can't vote because of all those years I spent in prison. Apparently the government looks down upon people raising dogs for human consumption.”

Following the cacophony came the Amalgamated Transit Union. Their force was formidable. It made me wonder, with these numbers, why do we have such a shameful public transportation system in Pittsburgh?

I must say here that, during the whole parade, everyone, to the man, had either Obama stickers on their shirts or exclusively made “'such and such' union for Obama,” which puts to rest, at least in western Pennsylvania, the meme that Obama can't carry White working class voters.

So the Streamfitters Union and the Perry High School Drum and Dance Troupe (they've got two white kids?!) went by at a glacial pace and I finally found out that Biden wasn't going to be there.

Tired by sun exposure and disappointed by the lack of Biden kick-assery, I can't be certain that I did the following things. I might or might not have yelled at the Teamsters, “Nice union you've got there! It would be a shame if anything happened to it!” I might or might not have run away without fearfully waiting for a reaction. I might or might not have walked all around Downtown trying to find my exhausted ass some lunch. Of which I can be certain, though, is that I ended up having a fantastic crab cake ($11) at “The Bridges Bar” in the Rennaisance Hotel after finding everything else being closed for the holiday. It was flaky and sweetly fresh with just a hint of the tamale flavor in the middle. This was served by a very personable waitress, Mimi, who will regale you with stories of her time in Las Vegas.

After an hour, I wandered back to the parade and the “Dignitaries Shelter” near the Marriott. The parade was still going strong with Franco Harris holding court like an elder statesman and Dan Onorato with his best date-rape face on. I asked around and found out that Biden had canceled his appearance due to the impending landfall of Hurricane Gustave. “Good on him,” I thought. I also thought, “Thanks, unions. Thanks for seeing that my minority ass wasn't put to work in a mine or a sweatshop when my parents first came to this country. Thanks for protecting my father as he was a New York City cab driver trying to work his way up the ladder. Thanks for your work that makes people take it for granted that jobs should come with health insurance. Thanks, also, for your work that tries to keep it that way. Thanks, unions. Happy Labor Day.”