Can I take my cat to swim at the Sandcastle wave pool too?

Animal Friends has a last splash of summer. Good place for fodder for cat blog postings.

Cats attend sporting events too! Flashback: Can you tell where this photo of a cat at a sporting event was taken? I also saw a dog or two in the stands as well, but didn't get a good photo of them.

Homework -- not just for Republicans: Young Patriots Essay Contest

Go for it. Don't simply just copy my blog postings. GOPUSA - Young Patriots Essay Contest Young Patriots Essay Contest

PARTY COMMITTEES begin to fracture because of the payraise

There appears to be some backlash aimed at the incumbents - from their own party committees! One county GOP committee has publicly denounced its own incumbents for their payjacking votes. One Democratic county committee is considering adopting a resolution condemning the payjack.

Dems, see the comments for a news story from a fair petition effort at a Dem booth that got hot.

The GOP state committee has a committeeman that is to propose a resolution condemning the payjack at their meeting this weekend.

These developments are particularly important to keep our eyes on as it is these committees that endorse candidates (incumbents) year after year. As such, PACleanSweep holds these committees responsible for their role in tainting the electoral system for all Pennsylvanians.

PA Clean Sweep: PCN call in show at 7 pm on SEPT 7

PACleanSweep founder Russ Diamond is slated to join PCN for a live call-in show about the pay raise issue. Russ will be in-studio for an hour to field calls with host Brian Lockman.

September 7th (tonight!!) at 7:00 p.m.

Call 1-877-726-5001 with comments or questions.

PA House Democratic Whip, Rep. Mike Veon, was also scheduled to appear on the program, but backed out for some strange reason. Rep. Will Gabig, reported sponsor of a bill to repeal the "unvouchered expenses" portion of Act 44 is now slated to appear instead.

See comments for tips on good questions to ask if you call in.

Lieberman quits. Another one bites the dust!

How is the Lieberman bid for a gambling casino going? Didn't he show some interest in obtaining an interest in the lone city-located gambling site to open in the future?

Lieberman quits - PittsburghLIVE.com Speaker of the House Rep. John M. Perzel, R-Philadelphia, will appoint Lieberman's replacement on the board, formally known as the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority.

Plus, I hate it when folks retire to spend more time with the family and the excuse is used as a smoke screen. Spending time with the family is a valid reason to not work. But, it is used by too many as a crutch and cover to save face. I expet we'll see Lieberman on the golf course -- but -- I'm not on the golf course as I'm spending time with my family. Oh well.
Suggestion to Perzel: Appoint Joe Weinroth for the open seat on the ICA. Weinroth is a Republican.
Suggestion to Perzel: Don't appoint someone who was a Democrat and helped with the downfall of the city in the past -- say like an ex-City Councilman or even Mike Diven. Here is another suggestion: Don't put a suburban Republican in the slot either.

Chats: Hurricane Katrina and Schools, 3 pm Sept. 7 and last night with Find People Database

At 3 pm Eastern Time on Wednesday, Sept. 7, a web chat on the effects of Hurricane Katrina on schools and students is slated at http://www.edweek-chat.org/

EDUCATION WEEK Assistant Managing Editor Robert Johnston and a crisis-response expert from the National Association of School Psychologists will take your questions on how schools can help students displaced by the storm, how teachers and other education employees have been affected, and how states and districts in the region are responding to the crisis.

Last night I was part of a group phone call among open-source advocates working hard to build a database to help locate people. This search utility should be going live today. Nearly 100,000 records from many sources were flushed into database containers. The site will spider other data sets. An XML stream and standards have been established. More to come.

NPR : Evacuees Find No Easy Way Locate Family Members

Running Mates and readers everywhere.... this is important. Listen to the news from NPR.

In the past days I've been doing some lifting in these efforts of a People Finder project. The problem is massive and won't go away quickly.

The solution is volunteer techies -- data managers who mold chunks into a searchable format -- and a WIKI with chats and email lists.

NPR : Evacuees Find No Easy Way Locate Family Members Evacuees Find No Easy Way Locate Family Members
by Joseph Shapiro
Morning Edition, September 6, 2005 -- From the airport in New Orleans, tens of thousands of medical patients are airlifted to shelters in hospitals in often distant cities. That effort was coordinated by the U.S. military and government agencies. But there was almost no coordination to keep good lists of who was sent where.

Tonight at 9 pm there is a conference call among tech, database and webmaster / advocates.

Should pets be included or not? Yes, if there are those that want to do the work.

Should voter databases be available for extra searching needs? Yes -- if we can get the records and not have the weight bog down the system.

Does the American Red Cross have a survivors database? Yes, sorta. Internation Red Cross has a world-wide database, but it is but a fraction of what's needed. And the Red Cross database has picked up content in the first week from this open-source effort.

Which way is up to you? More give and take with The Trib. And Dave Copeland's perspectives too.

If the shoe fits... Which way is up?

Pittsburgh City Paper - Main Feature ... having two papers is supposed to be a good thing for readers.

Yeah, right.

Dave Copeland was and is a great reporter. I miss his blog. The article speaks to me from a few perspectives.

The real losers are Pittsburgh’s readers, who have not one but two daily newspapers that under-serve them by remaining stuck in the past and out of touch with what’s important to real people.

Furthermore, it also seems odd as hell to me that the Trib spent years working on articles that embarrass the mayor, yet can't even contact his administration's opposition. When I ran for Mayor, in 2001, I didn't get any satisfaction from the Trib. Zippo by design.

If Kwiecinski (Mayor Murphy's spokesperson) knew what we were working on, we were told, he would tip off the Post-Gazette. Of course. The PG has been a great fan of the mayor.

What I left behind was a newspaper culture that rewards ass-kissing by subordinates and maintenance of the status quo. In such a culture, two dailies in one town might be two too many. Bingo! A hope of mine is to create media as getting media coverage that makes sense is not to be counted upon.

Dave finishes the article with a Q: "The question for the Trib is: How long will readers wait?" Well, I think a better question that gets to the roots of the issue is how long can people in Pittsburgh survive? Those that are stuck here are forced into waiting. That wait will be forever. But, people are moving out of town. People might keep the Trib -- and/or the PG -- but might move out of state first.

The voters vote with their feet. Same too with customers. The readers of The Trib might hang on for some time -- but -- because of population decline in the region, the Trib is in decline. Same too for KDKA, etc.

The media and the governmental types are being brutal to Pittsburgh.

Wanted: Some new individuals to join the Elect.Rauterkus.com committee

Labor Day, generally, marks the start of the fall campaign season. Real outreach in my next campaign is ramping up.  

If you'd like to be a part of the political process, locally, we should talk. I'm in an active search for new people on various committees for the future. Email me, Mark@Rauterkus.com, if you are interested or know of someone I should talk with on these matters.

The city council seat (district 3) is expected to open and a special election might happen after the first of the year. This is the time for our efforts to mobalize too.

Gearing Up for 'That Dam Ride' - a two day bike trip with Erik

Bike salesman in Chengdu. 

My son and I are slated to participate in That Dam Ride this weekend. We won't be on a three-wheeled bike like we rode in China. The photo above was taken with the guys who sold and fixed our bike there, this past spring.

The trip is 69 miles on Saturday and 69 again on Sunday. Erik has a big case of "cold feet." But, I'm dragging him anyway. He'd be okay with a back seat bench I bet.

Peduto to introduce fix for housing court

Peduto to introduce fix for housing court 'Right now, the system isn't working,' Peduto said. 'Absentee landlords are able to escape [citations] without any penalty.'

Almost everything is broken. Why did the changes occur in the first place.

Gene R, an expected District Magistrate for the future, and president of council, should have something to say about this topic. And, it should have been aired months ago. What's up with his voice, issues and leadership on this issue?

Campaign season starts. Truth is dead already, again, as expected.

In war, the first casualty is truth. Dave Brown, the Trib reporter, rang the bell loud and clear on that front, again, with this story.

The ballot for the Mayor's race is determined. However, the coverage of all the candidates is absent. Brown missed most of the options in his reporting.

Objectivity matters.

The Socialist didn't get ink -- and the socialist are often right from the ranks of labor. The Green didn't get ink. Nor did the Indie.

The other kisses of death for the Republican -- the 5-1 outnumbering and the seven decade streak also got bigger mentions than both the people involved and the issues. It is nearly impossible to make history when those in the media -- even from conservative papers -- are a slave of history.

Pittsburgh's downward spiral picks up speed with coverage and reporting that include watchdog acts such as this.

Campaign season starts - PittsburghLIVE.com: "Although the Pittsburgh mayor's race has been settled in the Democratic primary for seven decades, as registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 5-1 ratio in the city, Republican nominee Joe Weinroth vows to run 'an aggressive campaign' against Democrat nominee Bob O'Connor. O'Connor, a former City Council member from Squirrel Hill, handily defeated six opponents in the May primary. Weinroth, a Squirrel Hill attorney, was unopposed for the GOP nomination.
'If Pittsburgh voters listen to my plan -- and vote without regard to party affiliation -- I can win hands down,' Weinroth said. 'It's going to be a positive campaign about the issues that are important to the people of Pittsburgh.'
O'Connor spokesman Dick Skrinjar said the Democrat is taking nothing for granted, although political odds-makers give Weinroth scant hope of pulling off an upset.
'We've spent all summer refining our agenda,' Skrinjar said. 'Now we want to reinforce and re-emphasize the message. The campaign is still based on Bob O'Connor's ability and experience to lead Pittsburgh.'
David M. Brown can be reached at dbrown@tribweb.com or (412) 380-5614.
The opposition leaders can't bring balance to the landscape and lead the city forward when the 4th estate is most concerned with looking into the rear view mirror with a telescope.

Pity Party at Labor Day parade -- historic pimple

Historic? Hardly.

Historic like the last pimple on the rear end of a donkey (i.e. party mascot). But who is looking yet alone counting other than Jean Milko? I'm not.

Katrina disaster on minds at Labor Day parade "Do you realize this is a historic day?" asked Jean Milko, the Allegheny County jury commissioner whose office was slated for elimination in a countywide referendum. "This is the last year jury commissioner signs will be carried in the Labor Day parade."

Photo in Trib of American Flag is WRONG -- Photo editor must be on vacation! Fire the intern then.

The Trib's photo placement of an upside down American Flag is offensive.

URL: http://pittsburghlive.com/photos/2005-09-05/0906flag-g.jpg

If I published that paper -- I'd fire the person responsible.

The photographer is not to blame for taking the photo. Shoot the photo, fine. Generally the photographer is not responsible for the placement of his/her images within the page of the final paper. But, then again, I don't know the workings of the Trib.

I would imagine that yesterday was a vacation day for the regulars, being Labor Day. Hence, some inexperienced editor or intern had a job to do.

If that image is the only one that had to run in the paper -- it could have been displayed with a 90-degree turn showing the flag in a march upward, to the top of the page.

Old true story: When I was in a photo editing class at a top journalism school (hint: Pitt plays football there this Friday night) each student needed to subscribe to different daily, big-city newspaper. However, the professor insisted that none of the students subscribe to either of the Pittsburgh newspapers.

There, now I've slammed both the Trib and PG in one blog posting -- and there isn't even a joke involved.

I predict that page B8 of the Trib from Sept. 6, 2005 , will be used as a classic, textbook example of how NOT to publish photos of the American flag.

Join the Katrina PeopleFinder Project

Netizens with the ability to copy data into a form are needed.
Join link.

Separated and without a clear way to find each other, hundreds of web sites are gathering thousands of entries concerning missing people. Many want to let others know they're okay.

The problem is the data. Various sites face data in no particular form or structure. It's almost impossible for people to search or match things up.

The Katrina PeopleFinder Project NEEDS YOUR HELP to enter data about missing and found people from various online sources. We're requesting as little as an hour of your time. All you need to do is help read unstructured posts about missing or found persons, and then add the relevant data to a database through a simple online form.

Get started


Questions? Email katrina-people (at) activist-tech.org

Because there's not yet a search interface for the database, it doesn't make much sense to publicize the database to the general public, yet. Hence, this is outreach publicity to potential volunteers. After the search interface is working, then we'll publicize the database to the general public.

Sources: Rebecca MacKinnon, Research Fellow, Berkman Ctr. for Internet & Society
www.GlobalVoicesOnline.org -- "The world is talking. Are you listening?"

Weblog: www.RConversation.com
North Korea zone: www.NKzone.org
email: rmackinnon@cyber.law.harvard.edu

via the DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list, http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide

Hard to reach - even for email

Pay grab judge is hard to reach - PittsburghLIVE.com Cappy 'has an e-mail address, but it's not for the public,' she said.

If the email isn't available, and the property ownership database of the county is not available -- then the knock of being "out of touch" comes true within a blink.

Public officials and judges that own property should be listed within the data in the Allegheny County website. And, the government email address should be posted on other web pages.

Pittsburgh wooing New Orleans conventions

The folks who are responsible for the utilization of the NEW Pittsburgh Convention Center should NOT be digging for new business by flogging events slated for New Orleans. Rather, Convention Center organizers should be drafting plans to jetison the debt and on-going burdens of upkeep of the white elephant.

Many gambling casinos got wiped out with the storm. Go to those workers and ask them to come to Pittsburgh to transition the convention center into a new casino. We should be striving to set up the new casino slated for Pittsburgh to be within the convention center.

Pittsburgh wooing New Orleans conventions Pittsburgh wooing New Orleans conventions

If Pittsburgh's officials took a proactive approach, this casino in Pittsburgh could open the day after the Major League Baseball hosts the All-Star Game in Pittsburgh in July 2006.

Psych Up for Back to School

Back to school. Let's start to count the months, weeks and days -- and make the most out of each moment. The photo shows Grant and Erik outside a school in China. We had purchased a smaller version to bring to Cameron, a cousin. Sadly, the gift broke in transit.

Cameron is starting his Junior year at Middleburry College. He'll go back to school this week too.

The family Labor Day picnic brings us time to play with other cousins who live in the North Allegheny school district. They all start to school tomorrow.

Grant already gave notice that second grade won't include as much fooling around as first grade.

This year (academic 05-06) is our last "gravy year" for our family. Both of our children attend the same school. Next year Erik is slated to attend FRICK Middle School for sixth grade.

Erik is in a reading club and is diving into the book, Library Card. And he has begun to tackled the first draft of his first essay. That's what I need -- more drafts of my comments before they are "finished." However, he can NOT write on the computer. He needs to be doing it on paper so that the edits can be clearly seen.

One day we'll look back at paper based homework and giggle -- how old fashioned. Old fashioned, like what is shown in the photo above.

Labor, Legacy and Lucky HEX

In these parts, we have a serious relationship with "labor." It stretches far past a giant parade and has much to say about politics and how we govern ourselves.

I've run for public office twice. Both times I was a serious underdog. Neither time did I get a penny as a donation from any "labor group." I'm not sure if that is a complaint or a brag. Perhaps it is a bit of both.

My wish is for open-mindedness. But, those in control have a good way of controlling information. When information is controlled, other system-wide controls are easy to maintain.

Labor gives its money and its endorsements to candidates. Those candidates are generally the candidates that are going to win. When the established candidates win -- and win with such frequency and domination -- then the citizens generally loose. Our downward spiral continues.

We need labor to help snap the cycle that has caused such a downfall to our greater, public landscape.

The labor endorsement should NOT be given with a wink, a handshake and a three or four figure check. And, there are those who know what really occurs -- so there is a major turn-off in many ways. Candidates who would be great public officials for the rank-and-file are rejected without hesitation.

The oak hex, illustrated above, stands for "courage" and "strength." I long for the time when labor's political quarterbacks leverage additional "courage" and "strength" with serious research into all possible options entering the public realm.

Too many ballot box decisions are made far in advance of election day. Labor has had a huge role in causing the cancer of our body politic to persist.

From what I've seen -- many union memebers have been working to change the status quo. Those efforts need to turn a corner and become more than a 'steamfitters' pipe-dream.'

Today's offers:

I'd be glad to meet with any union leadership team or union members so as to talk about my campaign. That's a no-brianer.

Furthermore, I'd be happy and eager to talk about how improves to our political landscape can occur when considering serious, system-wide adjustements to to political outreach among unions.

Union members: Be strong. Be with courage. To many candidates, a good way to act with courage and strength is to generate endorsements and donations to all candidates in the race, even Indies. And, another avenue of strength is going to build as labor takes the effort to look harder and longer at those who are NOT already in the office presently.

Happy Labor Day!

The weather could not be better.

Next weekend, Erik (my oldest boy), 10, and I are going to to make a bike trip. That Dam Ride goes 69 miles on Saturday and a return trip on Sunday with tent camping and group meals.

Next Friday night brings a trip for many Pittsburghers to Athens, Ohio as Pitt takes on the Bobcats.

I hope the weather smiles upon us next weekend too.

Now, we're headed to the parade.