Independent Lens . CAN MR. SMITH GET TO WASHINGTON ANYMORE? . Jeff Smith | PBS

Must see, free TV for all running mates.

Independent Lens . CAN MR. SMITH GET TO WASHINGTON ANYMORE? . Jeff Smith | PBS After filming ended for CAN MR. SMITH GET TO WASHINGTON ANYMORE?, Smith taught government at Dartmouth College. He returned to St. Louis and decided to run again for Senate, this time for Missouri’s fourth district, which lies in St. Louis City. Smith’s campaign utilized many of the grassroots mobilization tactics he employed during his first run for Senate. In 2006, he won the Senate seat with a sweeping victory, and was inaugurated on January 3, 2007.

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WQED Schedule for the movie:

Independent Lens: Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?
Tuesday, February 27, 10:30 pm

Thursday, March 1, 3:30 am

WQED Link: WQED Pittsburgh: TV Independent Lens

Expert coach, mentor, Joe Bernal, in Boston

Saturday morning, we had the pleasure of getting up at 6 am, while away in Boston, to go to a swim workout hosted by the great New England USA Swim Team, Bernal's Gator Swim Club. Joe Bernal and I are in the photo above.

In 1980, I moved to Boston (then located at Harvard) to be an assistant coach with the team. I pulled out of college to get the experience. That was the year of the 1980 Olympic boycott.

More photos shortly.

Large Post-Gazette Union Approves Deal | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Personal trivia. When the P-G was locked out when the Pgh Press was in melt-down, a few of the staffers got some work with me and my sports editing / publishing efforts.

Large Post-Gazette Union Approves Deal | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's editorial union approved a new contract Thursday, another step in the financially ailing newspaper's bid to finalize a deal with its more than 1,000 employees.

The Post-Gazette reached tentative labor deals with its 927 full-time and 115 part-time employees earlier this month. The 240 editorial workers make up the newspaper's second-largest union.

Good to see some progress in this story. But, because it is a media story -- the media does a bad job at covering it. Weirdness is generally the way the story breaks locally for many compounded reasons. Trying to get one media outlet to cover what another is doing is harder than getting coverage for a Green Party Candidate. Except, of course, from Chris Potter and the City Paper. They report upon the way the wind blows in media circles and companies.

Save the date for friends of the Paddle

Full Schedule for PA Waterway Trips Spend Your Summer Paddling with the PA River Sojourns

* Chartiers Creek Sojourn – June 9 – 10, 2007
* Clarion River Sojourn - June 9 - 10, 2007
* Lake Erie Sojourn - August 16 - 19, 2007
* Ohiopyle Falls Festival - August 25, 2007

Early Returns

Both candidates botched their year end campiagn finance reports. Both should blush. But, it's not a big deal.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Local News - Early Returns: "File Councilman Jeff Koch under 'shouldn't-feel-too-confident.'

He won his seat in a March special election by taking 1,449 votes, or 43 percent of the vote. Finishing second was Bruce Kraus with 1,271 votes, or 38 percent. The third-place finisher in that eight-man race was named Bruce Krane, whose similar name and 216 votes (more than Mr. Koch's margin of victory) led some to believe that he spoiled the race for Mr. Kraus.

So far it looks like Mr. Kraus may face Mr. Koch in a one-on-one this time. Mr. Kraus predicts he'll have less money than the incumbent, but enough to run an effective campaign.

It's as yet unclear where Mr. Koch's money is coming from. His campaign expense report failed to itemize nearly $10,000 worth of campaign contributions he got at a golf outing. We're told an amended report that meets the requirements of state law -- disclosing the names of everyone who contributed more than $50 -- is coming soon."

Meanwhile, the P-G blog has not been updated since Feb 13. Things are buzzing, except on the P-G blog.

Sunday night date with a blogger

Shadow Lounge this Sunday for a grandiloquent, bombastic panel discussion with the John Fetterman (Mayor of Braddock), Nish Suvarnakar (Pgh League of Young Voters), and Deborah Todd (New Pittsburgh Courier) on the state of Pittsburgh political affairs. Hosted by Bram Reichbaum of the whip-smart "Pittsburgh Comet" blog, DJ'd by hip-hop DJ Carazmatic.

Sunday, Feb 25, 9 pm at The Shadow Lounge, 5972 Baum Blvd - $5 cover.

Announcing My Intentions to Stand for Public Office

New vBlog hosted at YouTube. Reactions welcomed.

Getting to know US Congressman, Ron Paul, candidate for US President

Mr. Paul grew up in Green Tree. He left the area for duty in the service. Now he hails from Houston.

Brighton Heights Welcome Committee is forming

Gathering on Sunday, Feb. 25th, at 7:30-9:30 p.m. See the calendar or the Platform.For-Pgh.org wiki.

Nuts: Collapse blamed on bolt connection. Not dolt connection.

Dolt connections.

Collapse blamed on bolt connection - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

IMHO, we do have too many "authority schmucks" running things around here.

From Convention Ce...

Sadly, outside contractors, independent auditors, nor Gypsy fortune tellers can arrive in this city to provide a map of all the existing dolt connections. We'll have to do that ourselves.

Running Mate on the hearing about a possible PA Constitutional Convention

Fellow Libertarian, David Weiser, reported in an email:

Today I attended a public hearing held by the Senate State Government Committee to hear public opinion about the possibility of convening a new Constitutional Convention to address issues such as legislature pay raises, term limits, general assembly size, voter referendum, and the powers of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Senators in attendance are as follows:

Senator Jeffery Piccola (R) - District 15 - Committee Chair
Senator Mike Folmer (R) - District 48 - Committee Vice Chair
Senator Jake Corman (R) - District 34
Senator Wayne Fontana (D) - District 42
Senator Jim Ferlo (D) - District 38

PCN was in attendance, so keep an eye out for the broadcast. Details of the proceedings were nicely provided in the form of two different proposed acts for convening a Constitutional Convention and the written testimonies of the witnesses (these are identical to the spoken testimonies). I have organized the provided written material into a PDF for anyone who wants to know exactly what was said:

http://www.pitt.edu/~wdw5/Senate_Committee_Hearing_Reguarding_a_Constitutional_Convention.pdf

Some notes that might not be entirely clear from the raw written
material in the PDF:

- It appears that there is universal agreement that should a new CC convene, it should be limited to addressing specific articles of the PA Constitution and by no means should include any of Article I

- It is planned that at least two more similar hearings will be held. I have not heard if there are any details as to the date and location.

- Senator Piccola opposes current legislators being permitted to run for a position as a delegate on the CC. However, he appeared willing to reconsider after hearing from Lisa Krebs from the ACLU.

- Senator Piccola wants to encourage the public to contact him about their own opinions regarding convening a new CC.

In response to the testimony of Dr. Jake Haulk:

- Senators Ferlo and Corman both question the need to address term limits.

- Senator Fontana argues against voter referendum noting that it is almost never used in Allegheny County. It should also be noted that voter referendum in Allegheny County is different than what is being proposed and does not directly put legislation on the ballot.

- Senator Piccola expressed his view that either term limits OR referendums need to exist, but not both at the same time.

- In response to Haulk's closing, Piccola dismissed the notion of not allowing the Supreme Court to have power to over turn amendments made in a CC.

In response to the testimonies of Bruce Ledewitz and Dr. Joel Fishman:

- There appeared to be careful agreement that a very large part of the problem is the over reaching power of the PA Supreme Court resulting from an amendment to Article V that was performed in the 1968 CC. The end result is that the Supreme Court has the final say over the General Assembly.

Now for the slightly more pressing issue at hand. It is not at all certain yet as to whether the State Government Committee will even go forward with trying to convene a constitutional convention. However, given that both proposed pieces of legislation have very tight time requirements for petition signatures to get on the ballot to be a CC delegate, we should be prepared to mobilize. One does not discriminate by party lines and simply requires 500 signatures from the Senatorial district in which you are running. The other allows each political party to nominate two candidates per Senatorial district and allows for political bodies to nominate by requiring 500 petition signatures in similar fashion to the other proposed bill. There is no differing between minor and major political parties in either bill, but I would guess that this fact will be ignored or changed and Political Party will be taken to mean Major Political Party. So either way, we will probably need to be prepared to collect at least 500 valid signatures in each Senatorial district in a time span of about three weeks.

Bloggers in Pittsburgh, and getting history correctly recorded

Coverage from City Paper, https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/local-politics-goes-to-the-blogs/Content?oid=1334837

New Video Blog Content -- released for tonight's Blogfest

See my other site, Elect.Rauterkus.com.

Trite but true: What do you expect when you don't give kids goals to shoot at and to shoot for?

From Polo

Once upon a time, I was the swim coach at Plum High School. I made a request for the water polo goals to be pulled from storage and made available for our team's use and to be set upon on the pool deck.

The goals were not easy to get to. They were behind years of clutter, such as school desks, chairs and plenty of other assorted equipment. The goals were in dirt floor space built under the swim pool bleachers. Reaching the goals would take the work of a couple of guys some hours.

The team and I waited a number of months and made repeated requests before those goals saw the light of day. It was like pulling teeth to get that group of adults to do something for the benefits of the program and kids.

From Polo

Here is the rub: By and large, adults are lazy when contrasted with the youth. Meanwhile, kids are not happy when idle.

At the same time I was requesting access to the water polo goals at the swim pool in Plum, PA State Police were in an all-out manhunt for weeks looking for kids who had been tossing rocks and snowballs onto the PA Turnpike that passes through the same vicinity.

A similar story is breaking now. Objects are being thrown on the Parkway West.

kdka.com - More Objects Thrown At Cars On Parkway West

We need safe highways. Dealing with mindless rocks bashing into speeding traffic is scary. There is no justification for this. Lessons have to be taught.

In another neighborhood, news comes as a teen is shot. The Mt. Oliver drive-by shooting hit a 15 year-old, Carrick High School 10th grader. She was headed to an evening class at Schenley and got hit by two bullets.

kdka.com - Teen Shot In Apparent Mt. Oliver Drive-By Shooting Teen Shot In Apparent Mt. Oliver Drive-By Shooting -- Police: was caught in the cross-fire.

We can't ignore the kids. When the kids don't have anything to shoot at -- and shoot for -- then they'll shoot at each other.

Gangs are a way of life. Gangs are here to stay. Gangs are important to kids because peer pressure becomes one of life's top motivations in their world at certain ages. One doesn't battle the gang mentality by ignoring kids. Rather, I think it is important to get kids in gangs that are positive experiences -- like an orchestra and /or a swim team -- or even a water polo team.

From Frick-swim

From violin-gang

Convention Center: They pulled in "independent consultants" -- I'd push for indie ownership

The notion of a review from indiependent consultants, guys who didn't build the building is a few bricks shy of a full load.

Don't be so keen to bring in 'indie reviewers.'

Let's push for Independent Ownership.

Sell the Convention Center. Privitize it. Unload it from public ownership. Government should not be in the position of ownership, management, finance nor oversight for a commercial building.

Don't fire the executive director of the SEA. Fire her and the entire SEA Board. Liquidate everything.

If Governor Rendell feels that he can sell the PA Turnpike, I bet it will be 100-times easier to sell the Convention Center.

A few years ago I pushed for the new slots parlor to be bid so it would move in and take over the Convention Center. That didn't happen. It should have come to pass.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - High School Sports

Nobody wins in a game like this.

The Pgh Public School District needs to pull the plug on its own section of the PIAA and join / merge with the WPIAL. The sooner the better. I'd even be happy with a staged merger, by school by sport.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - High School Sports: "Westinghouse 65, Oliver 6: The Bulldogs (22-3) reached the semifinals for the 20th consecutive year. Oliver (1-22) scored two points in the second half. This is the fifth time the Bears have finished a game in single digits.

I was thinking, it has to be tough to only score six points in a game and, moreover, to score in single digits five times in the same season. That said -- and I honestly mean this -- should Oliver get rid of its girls' basketball program?

By going 1-22 this season, the Oliver Bears have just finished a three-year span in which they went 4-63.

Yes, I am not kidding, 4-63."

Peduto: "I'd feel more comfortable if the FEDS were involved." (concerning the Convention Center problems)

On the Honz show, KDKA-Radio, Bill Peduto said, "I'd feel more comfortable if the Feds were involved."

So, you like the Feds, asked Honz Man.

It is not that I like the Feds, but I like the oversight.

This is a small town. But, even our biggest problems within our small town need to be resolved by the big players within our town.

I don't want to wish for the Feds to come in and fix our oversight. I want locals in position that have the foresight and integrity to guarantee localized oversight.

Honz Man is bucking that Mary C, the executive director of the Sports & Exhibition Authority, should be fired. She kept the news hidden from both the mayor and the county executive.

Honz Man, a big-government Republican, said that Peduto's idea isn't bad.

One year ago there was another beam separation. Beams should have been inspected then. Duhh.

Back then, Luke Ravenstahl may or may not have been on the Stadium and Exhibition Authority Board. Did that board have any hand in the cover up?

Main Page - Debatepedia

Adam R, fellow Libertarian in Pittsburgh, a prime helper in the establishment of the Platform.For-Pgh.org wiki, had a vision of doing this type of site (debates on a wiki) a few years ago. Now, the concept has come into being. It is worth the visit.

Main Page - Debatepedia Debatepedia is the new free wiki encyclopedia of arguments and debates. As a 'wiki', it enables anyone (you included) to easily present and organize the unique arguments made by third-party sources (ie. by scholars, experts, leaders,...) on both sides of a debate. By providing an innovative 'logic tree' debate methodology, it enables you to organize debates in the most understandable way. Debatepedia is quickly becoming an indispensable resource for uncovering all the unique arguments in important public debates and for developing a complete and rational position.

The organizational framework deployed is interesting. The categories of debate documents occurs, in part, by quality.

1. "new debate skeletons"


2. "progressing debate resources"


3. "very good debate documents"


4. "definitive debate documents".

Pop City - The Underground Music Scene

In an article about 'underground music' the URA sponsored newsletter gives pointers to the Three Rivers Arts Festival and Hartwood Acres.

Pop City - The Underground Music Scene Sometimes, your cost is completely zilch at outdoor shows at the Three Rivers Arts Festival (in Point State Park, Downtown) or at Hartwood Acres county park, ...

Cutting edge.

By the way, the millions of dollars that are being spent at Point State Park for a few ditches and more electrical juice to the deep-friers are costly, -- not FREE.

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Blast from the past of a clip from the radio about socially conscious music.

Picasa Web Albums - Mark Rauterkus - Amy Carol Webb - MOV08677.MPG: "Socially conscious music - ACW, Mark R, - caller @ touch-screen ballots & technology"

This month's Allegheny County Libertarian Meeting - tonight

Hope to see you, if interested, around 7 pm on Wednesday, February 21, 2007 at Ritter's Diner on Baum Blvd. in Pittsburgh. The Allegheny County Libertarian chapter meets every 3rd Wednesday of the month at 7:00 P.M. All are welcome to attend. For more information, see the site, http://www.LPPGH.org.

On the other hand, the Dems in the area had a candidates meeting tonight (Tuesday) at the Serb Hall. However, their meeting was closed-door. It only welcomed those of the Dem committee in certain wards.

I feel that closed door meetings leading to a closed primary is fitting for a city that is bankrupt and moving to empty in terms of its people.