We stood where Andy Warhol walked

At Tiananmen Square.

In honor of the 2008 spring edition of the Carnegie magazine cover photo of Andy Wharhol.

Cover blurb: Andy loved to travel. So he'd have to love how his art is now circling the globe.

Marty Griffin drools over administration and spits on council

He asks callers to name one thing that city council has done. Matt H called and said that Dan D helped to re-open the Zone 4 police station. That got half a point, as the measure was also championed by the mayor's office.

The phones were not ringing, so I pondered what to say and finally gave Marty a call. But, the time had expired. Marty was whistling the scarecrow song from Wizard of Oz, "If I only had a brain."

What has city council done?

Humm... I have my own theme song. "Think Again." (My wife asks if they 'think at all?')

Accomplishments:

Only one is presently in jail (Twanda C.)

Council invited OVERLORDS into Pittsburgh. We now have two sets of overlords and neither are getting kicked out of town.

There was the "Bubble Bill." (I hated it.) But, the bubble bill did withstand a recent court challenge.

I favor campaign finance reform measures -- but Peduto has kept that on back burner. And his wishes are not exactly what I desire.

Nonetheless, we need a balance of power in gov. So, council does NEED to get on its feet for city to have any hope of a revival.

Earlier in the hour, Jim Motznik was a guest on the program to talk about the billboards. We can't outlaw or put a moratorium on billboards.

City Controller sends warning signals to pals in other city departments

The city controller, Michael Lamb, is setting himself and his department for doing the baseline of what's called for in the job. He will do audits. This is more than what has happened in the past. But, it comes with big warning signals to other deparments. Get your books in order now.

Pittsburgh City Controller to audit City Council, other agencies - Pittsburgh Business Times: Pittsburgh City Controller Michael Lamb said Wednesday he will audit City Council and eight other city departments before the end of the year.

Future audits will cover the Allegheny Regional Asset District Trust Fund, employee worker's compensation procedures, the city housing authority and earned income tax. The city controller's office is currently auditing the city's police property room, Office of Municipal Investigations, Bureau of Building Inspection and emergency medical services.

The city charter requires performance audits of all city agencies, trusts council and units of government at least every four years. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl endorsed the audit schedule, according to a statement.

I'd love to see the controller do 'surprise audits.' Don't give a warning.

And, do some 'spot' audits too. Look for system audits. Turn records over to electronic systems. Have open access for the public on transactions within all the departments of the city and authorities.

There are about a thousand things to do -- and with this news, we find out that the bare basics are expected.

City school career, technical courses to get major changes

City school career, technical courses to get major changes Saying the district's career and technical programs have been poorly operated, Pittsburgh Public Schools officials last night proposed a sweeping overhaul that would organize revitalized programs into eight 'academies of excellence' and provide more central-office oversight.

The poor operation of Pgh's career and technical programs is the blame of the present administration and the board.

The root of the poor operations is the loss of South Vo Tech High School.

When South Vo Tech closed, there was a promise to do something else -- something better.

Well, nearly a generation of students have been lost. The thing to have done was evolve South. To put something else in place before South was closed.

There are so many jobs going out of the region -- and worse -- out of the country. There are some jobs that can't move like others. Plumbers are needed here -- on these pipes in our buildings.

Heating and Air Conditioning workers are needed here. We can't export that like we can 'robotics.'

If cosmetology leads to state certification -- then ask how many have been state certified? Hint: Often the fingers on one hand can reveal the answer.

If the district cared about drop out rates, they would NOT have closed South Vo Tech in such a rapid and unthoughtful way.

Many of the students that were at South were in their second or third high school. South wasn't perfect. But, it was a school that kept kids motivated. It helped get kids to graduation -- and into the workplace.

Everyone isn't cut out for college at age 16 or 17. And, the PPS had a top administrator who forced college on everyone. The trades were discounted. Hence, drop outs became the only option.

Floswimmr - Profiles - Garrett McCaffrey Blog

Floswimmr - Profiles - Garrett McCaffrey Blog: "monopolizing USA Swimming coverage is not a productive step towards
building the sport's exposure."

NCAA Grants Division III Waiver

CollegeSwimming.com::NCAA Grants Division III Waiver

Today the NCAA Division III Administrative Review Subcommittee (ARS) granted colleges and universities a blanket waiver to provide Division III swimmers one last opportunity to qualify for the Olympic Trials. The waiver will enable Division III coaches to continue coaching their student-athletes up through a long course meet during the 2007-08 season.

The waiver essentially allows coaches, institutions and athletes to bypass NCAA Division III bylaws covering outside competition, athletically related activities, involvement of coaching staff, maximum dates of competition, and out-of-season athletically related activities through the Summer 2008 term. An incredibly broad waiver, it does not give Division III programs carte blanche to begin training year-round.

A Pittsburgh Education Success Story: Extra Mile Schools / vouchers

Policy Brief
An electronic publication of
The Allegheny Institute for Public Policy

March 11, 2008 Volume 8, Number 18

So much concern is focused on public education in the City with its low test scores and high costs that a local education success story goes largely overlooked. The Extra Mile Education Foundation, with the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese, has quietly been providing a quality education for many of Pittsburgh’s disadvantaged youth at its elementary schools, three in Pittsburgh and one in Wilkinsburg. About 800 students, predominantly African-American and non-Catholic with more than 70 percent economically disadvantaged are being educated in the Extra Mile supported schools. All families pay a nominal tuition. Extra Mile’s support enables the schools to charge tuition that is affordable to urban families.

A study of the schools for the year 2005-2006, prepared by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, reports that Extra Mile schools have had considerable success in educating students. Success is especially pronounced for students who have spent several years in the Extra Mile program. The latest Pitt study found an improving trend in test scores compared to the findings of their 2001-2002 study. Achievement levels had improved in all grades and subject areas between the 2001-2002 school year and the 2005-2006 school year.

Students who enrolled by third grade and continued through to the eighth grade scored at or above national norms for eighth grade. The researchers found that students who enter the schools late—in the fifth or sixth grades — often have below norm scores upon entry but improved their scores substantially by eighth grade, although some might not catch up completely.

Graduating Extra Mile elementary school students have demonstrated they are prepared for success in high school. For example, the most recent eighth grade graduates to complete high school (Extra Mile classes of 2001 and 2002) recorded a 94 percent graduation rate. By comparison, a RAND study showed Pittsburgh Public Schools have a graduation rate of 64 percent—placing Pittsburgh schools in the middle of graduation rates among large urban school districts across the country. It is also noteworthy that, thanks to assistance from the Crossroads Foundation, Extra Mile eighth grade graduates are able to attend a Catholic high school of their choosing if they so desire.

The success of students at the Extra Mile schools and their impressive high school graduation rate demonstrate that kids from any background can do well academically if placed in the appropriate school environment with caring, qualified education professionals. Extra Mile schools are doing a commendable job with kids who are, on average, more disadvantaged than the elementary school population in Pittsburgh as whole. And yet the students are doing quite well.

Tuition charged to parents was $1,580 per child in 2005. Parents are required to pay at least a portion of the nominal tuition fee. More importantly, the $1,580 parental charge represents only 30 percent of the $5,300 average per pupil expense incurred by the extra Mile schools. The difference is made up by Extra Mile through donations from those who are concerned about the quality of education of Pittsburgh’s children, especially the most economically disadvantaged.

The achievements of the Extra Mile schools prove that disadvantaged students can receive a good education and be prepared for success in life. Unfortunately, most of the City’s children are not being afforded this opportunity. While donors to the Extra Mile Foundation are very generous, more money could open up educational opportunities for many more students. UPMC has offered $100 million ($10 million per year if matching funds are forthcoming) to the Pittsburgh Promise scholarship program for Pittsburgh high school graduates. Ten million dollars per year could provide enough to send 2,000 or more students to Extra Mile schools or other non-public schools that are producing good academic results.

Or better yet, the Pittsburgh School District could follow in the footsteps of Milwaukee, Cleveland, or Washington DC and begin a voucher program to provide the City’s students an option of attending an Extra Mile school or any other school parents might choose. The District could provide $8,000 per year per child currently enrolled in the public schools for all parents who would like a non-public school option. And since the District currently is spending $18,000 per student, the Pittsburgh schools would be able to save taxpayers a lot of money as more and more students took the vouchers.

Extra Mile schools are showing what can be done. Why is Pittsburgh still so unwilling to acknowledge that it could greatly assist its own children by allowing them real education choice through a publicly funded scholarship or voucher program? Why not try being a leader for real improvement for a change?
Frank Gamrat, Ph.D., Sr. Research Assoc. Jake Haulk, Ph.D., President

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College Basketball Tournament Pick'em - Yahoo! Sports

Are you ready for those brackets?

College Basketball Tournament Pick'em - Yahoo! Sports Tournament Coverage

I never bet. But, I know a few who do like to fill out the brackets.

Generally, I pull for the underdogs. So, this year, if Pitt gets in, I might have them in the final four.

Meadville faces tough task in undefeated Pine-Richland

High School at Mellon Arena, tonight!

GoErie.com: Meadville faces tough task in undefeated Pine-Richland Meadville's hockey team travels to Pittsburgh today to face Pine-Richland in the PIHL Penguin Cup semifinals at 5 p.m. at Mellon Arena.

The Mellon Arena should be the venue for high school hockey for the next 20 years. Games could be played there every weekend, if it is NOT destroyed. These high school games do NOT need luxery boxes.

The Bishop Canevin High School Blog: "Hockey: Notes for tomorrow's game at Mellon Arena
*Mellon Arena will be a charging for parking this year. The charge for each car will be $5.00. There will be no charge for buses. This is not a PIHL charge.

*ALL fans MUST enter through gate one and admission is $7.00 for adults, $5.00 for student admission and fans that are age 11 and under are admitted free. Game tickets can be purchased at the Mellon Arena box office at Gate #1."

An Open Source Tax Credit

An Open Source Tax Credit An open source tax credit is proposed which would allow individuals who develop open source software to receive a tax credit worth 20 percent of their out-of-pocket costs. Corporations and self-employed individuals may already take a deduction for their development expenses for both open source and proprietary commercial software. The open source tax credit provides a similar incentive for individuals who currently have no means to deduct these expenses.

Wow!

OUR MEN AND WOMEN ARE DYING IN IRAQ TO CREATE A DEMOCRACY

James Babb rants on another list:

... Obviously you are angry. You should be. Everyone should be. However, the problem is not a lack of D or R candidates. It's much worse.

First of all, nobody is dying in Iraq for democracy. They are dying for the wallets of the rulers and their friends.

As for the lack of opposition candidates, even with candidates from both government approved parties, our democracy is seriously flawed. In fact, it's a total sham that has mutated our "free and equal" system beyond recognition. The only remaining purpose of our electoral system is to give the masses the feeling of participation and perpetuate the illusion of legitimacy for the plunderers.

The courts and legislature successfully collude to block any outsiders from the ballot. They won't even count write-in votes. The only choices they allow are big-nasty-government-A or big-nasty-government-B. That is not a choice. Independents and new parties are forbidden.

The laziness of parties A & B has further removed voters from the process. Take a look at a map of the districts for state reps and US Congress. Each district looks like a rorschach test because the rulers have been carefully gerrymandered them to avoid any real competition. They don't even want to bother competing against each other. The livestock has been divvied up.

For national offices, Pennsylvanians have even less say. How many republicans know that their vote for President means zilch? Delegates choose the nominee, not voters. The delegates themselves are mostly hand-picked by party leadership. Besides, the candidates are coroneted, long before our primary.

The only wasted vote is one you cast!

Go figure where Tom Murphy has been spending time -- N.O., Louisiana

Worst to First in Louisiana
At least one other state is determined to compete for the title of "best in America" in public integrity. Louisiana, long the state that defenders of corruption have pointed to as even worse than PA, has a new governor who has declared the goal of giving Louisiana the "most ethical" government in America.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, a conservative Republican son of immigrants from India, last week pushed a series of reforms through a legislature that didn't like it a bit. But because of public pressure and gubernatorial leadership, they began to pull LA out of the corruption swamp.

According to a New York Times story, a new law on financial disclosure for lawmakers rivals the previous best-in-America law in Washington State, which also has the best-in-America lobbying control law, according to the Better Government Association. CLICK HERE for the full story, which tells why Jindal thinks integrity is so important to Louisiana's economy.

This blog post and the one that follows is from the great email newsletter of Democracy Rising! Keep up the great work!

This is yet another a "no-no" Mr. (or Ms.) Bozo Representative

Taxes Fund Incumbent Campaigns, again!

For more than a year, Attorney General Tom Corbett has been investigating allegations that millions of tax dollars were used illegally in 2006 to subsidize the campaigns of incumbent lawmakers and reward staffers who worked on the campaigns. So you might expect a more ethical approach to this year's campaigns. But many lawmakers didn't get the message.

Preparing to mail a questionnaire to candidates for the legislature, DR got a copy of the candidate database from the state's Bureau of Commissions, Elections & Legislation (BCEL). We then called all 460 candidates to get email addresses. In the process, we found that 21 lawmakers listed tax-paid office phone or fax numbers on the candidate affidavits that were filed with their nominating petitions. These are the numbers they want the BCEL and others to use if there are questions about the lawmakers' campaigns.

It may be a small thing. Or it may not. Here are the incumbents who are leaning on the taxpayers for their campaigns with their years of service in parentheses.

Representatives:
Thomas Blackwell, D-Philadelphia (4)
Frank Dermody, D- Allegheny (18)
Robert Donatucci, D-Philadelphia (28)
Rick Geist, R-Blair (30)
Robert Godshall, R-Montgomery (26)
Neal Goodman, D-Schuylkill (6)
Babette Josephs, D-Philadelphia (24)
Nick Kotik, D-Allegheny (4)
David Levdansky, D-Allegheny (24)
Jennifer Mann, D-Lehigh (10)
Phyllis Mundy, D-Luzerne (18)
Michael O'Brien, D-Philadelphia (2)
Joe Petrarca, D-Westmoreland (24)
Todd Rock, R-Franklin (2)
Chris Ross, R-Chester (12)
Stan Saylor, R-York (26)
John Siptroth, D-Monroe (4)
James Wansacz, D-Lackawanna (8)

Senators:
Michael O'Pake, D-Berks (40)
President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, R-Jefferson (8)

Also, the Chair of the House Ethics Committee, Rep. Ron Buxton, D-Dauphin (16), listed his tax-paid fax number. And Rep. Garth Everett, R-Lycoming (2), told DR to send the questionnaire to his official email.

Questions:

* Why are these incumbents telling BCEL or anyone else to call them about their campaigns on a tax-paid phone answered by a tax-paid staffer in a tax-paid office? For how many elections have they been doing this? What will the House and Senate Ethics Committees do about it?

* What does this mean to their challengers' ability to compete fairly?

* Is this evidence of a deeper problem that the attorney general should investigate?

* What numbers do reporters use to call incumbents about their election campaigns? Are other numbers available?

A local PA Senator, Wayne Fontana, D, 42nd (Allegheny County) has been known to use the taxpayer funded fax number / machine in his PA Senate state office for paperwork with attorneys to harass opponents with bogus ballot challenges.

Burgh Diaspora: Knowledge Economy Geography for New Pittsburgh

What is this world coming to?

Burgh Diaspora: Knowledge Economy Geography for New Pittsburgh: "On Top of the Political World: Polish Hill

LIFEGUARDING

Youth Works of Pittsburgh is offering a free lifeguard, CPR and First aid course. Upon completion of the course you will have the opportunity to take the city parks lifeguard test, and be employed as a city lifeguard. Those interested call (412) 281-6629 x 207.

Jon R's newsletter

See the comments.

Strings, QED and tonight's TV show: Bowfire

Our kids play violin at CAPA on Saturday mornings with Steven Vance. He sent this message.

Tonight at 6:30 pm, Sunday March 9, 2008, on PBS Station WQED-TV (Channel 13) airs the exciting new "Bowfire" special. This amazing 10 violin band does an incredible range of music from "Zigeunerweisen," Jazz, fiddle, Chinese erhu, and Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir". All with full lights, staging, backup band, choreography, electronic instruments, and clogging. This group is one of the prototypes for our program.

It's a pledge special so members of the Extreme Strings Orchestra family will be there to answer phones, I'll have the chance to talk about our program a little bit, and we may even get a chance to play a tune or two.

While you are watching make sure you pledge to support the station and make us look good. Of course, you can watch even if you can't make a pledge tonight. The show is great all by itself.

You can see and hear more about our Extreme Strings program on our web site http://www.extremestrings.com/Site/Home.html

Bowfire will appear live in concert at Heinz Hall on Monday April 28. Tickets are still available. We are hoping to have a table and do a little playing in the lobby before and after the show. Look for us. See you there.

Lost or stolen gun? Doug Shields has something to say

Google Documents of the 'will of council' statement that is due for press on Monday at 1 pm.

Onorato wants moratorium on cabin work in county parks - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

The places are falling down. There has been 30 years of neglect in our parks.

Onorato wants moratorium on cabin work in county parks - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato today called for a moratorium on moving or tearing down any building in county parks after residents objected to the move of Settler's Cabin and the razing of a nearby historic house in Settler's Cabin Park.

These buildings are still standing, but are on their last legs. But the things that have fallen, long ago, are the programs.

There was a historical association that wanted to rehab the building and KEEP its staff there to do historical tours. However, the county would only give them a year-to-year lease. They would have put in $60,000. But, that doesn't happen with short-term thinking. So, in the long term, we (Allegheny County) get zippo.

Most of the meeting and Onorato's remarks are on video. My video.

I went to the other most recent town hall meeting in White Oak too. There, I asked a question. I wanted to know who Onorato has hand-picked to be on the nonprofit parks board group that is just starting. He said that the names would be on the internet by the end of the week.

Well, after searching the Allegheny County Parks site again this morning, before going to the meeting today, I still could NOT find the name.

Before the meeting we talked. When asked if I was going to go to all the meetings, I said I was only going to attend until I had the answer to my question(s). I asked last week and still don't have a reply.

So, in the first part of today's presentation, the names of the board members were read to the public.

I also said that it would just make better sense to appoint me to the new nonprofit parks board and then I'd be sure to make the dealings of that organization open and transparent.

Onorato was not so keen to that suggestion. But, he suggested I get onto a "Friends" body with one of the parks -- as a way to 'start.' Well, I'm already on one of those and have been for years. But, that park group does NOT meet.

Some of the friends groups operate and some do not. I got appointed to the Friends of Deer Lake Park.

Stay tuned. There is much more to come on parks from me in the weeks to come.

Ravenstahl Writes Check For Use Of Homeland Security Vehicle - News Story - WPXI Pittsburgh

Ravenstahl Writes Check For Use Of Homeland Security Vehicle - News Story - WPXI Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl wrote a check Friday for $145.50 to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) for his 2007 use of a Homeland Security vehicle.