Hot Dog: Move carts to Thackeray -- and Oakland's all wet for next two days with swimmers

Talk about a raw deal. The city and Pitt are always pounding and punishing the business folks.

The Pitt News - Mayor's OK can move carts to Thackeray The fate of Pitt's food vendors now lies in the hands of Mayor Tom Murphy.

The history isn't good in terms of giving Pitt the benefit of the doubt. Pitt is a great place, inspite of itself. If Pitt ever got its act together and noise like this didn't occur, Pitt would be in another category of greatness. UPMC too. It's one of the nation's great hospitals -- so act the part, please.
Pitt has been trying to screw with the vendors for ages. The city helps. So too does the Parks weenie group.
The construction around the Cathedral is going to include a MERRY-GO-ROUND. Then the weenies in Oakland can get a ride-all-day pass to prove once and for all that they'll never get ahead if they keep acting as they do.

Trouble is, we're all in this ride together.

Mel, a visitor to the wiki, Platform.For-Pgh.org shared an email with me yesterday. He is from CMU, knows Maglev, and wrote that it was hard to find the pony in the midst of all the horsesh*t. After the Oakland roadway gets the little bend made straight, we'll not need to search far to see the ponies.

In other Oakland news, I dare predict that you won't find too many WPIAL Swimmers and Divers at the vendor's carts today -- as they'll be making waves at Trees Pool. Go fast. The next two days is their "big dance." City swimmers hit Pitt on Saturday. Good luck to all.

I've worried and have spoken about a "chilling effect" in the campaigns.

An article in the TRIB points out that a campaign volunteer was pulled before the grand jury. Murphy aide, arbitrator testify - PittsburghLIVE.com A third witness -- a volunteer in Murphy's campaign whose identity could not be determined -- also appeared before the grand jury for about 15 minutes at the end of the day.

This is another another example of how to not treat people. Drag Tom Cox, Deptuty Mayor, from here to the moon. A citizen, a voter, -- humm -- what's up with that?
The campaign finance reform measures that are still on our agenda as part of the task force efforts raise worries about chilling citizen engagement. Alarms go off in my head when I read that the city's solicitor can sue anyone in these matters. Things are still in discussion mode. To the victors go the spoils. But I don't want to see the victors getting the rights and duties to punish those who didn't win.
The best way to not be corrupted once one is in office is to not be corrupt in the way one wins the seats and runs the election.

Being free can't occur when one is beholden to big donors.