(extremely) cautious optimism

this one's about pittsburgh. that's going to happen sometimes.

occasionally, when i'm feeling particularly masochistic, i read mayor luke ravenstahl's wikipedia page. it's an incredible collection of summaries of scandals, controversies, and other assorted petty idiocy, all complied into one neat, frequently-edited, long list.

when young master luke stepped in, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (oh yes...) there was hope that, as a 26-year-old, he would help rejuvenate this aging city. he's put more effort into keeping himself young, occasionally at the city's expense.

for the record, when obama visited the city a week before the presidential election and thanked all the various and sundry state/county/city officials, he said ravenstahl's name and the crowd in mellon arena booed. incredibly rude, but then, pittsburghers never claimed to be a polite people.

pittsburgh has elected democrats consistently since 1933, when the republican in office was convicted on 49 counts of corruption and resigned. clearly i wasn't alive at the time, but i'd imagine that was a moment of relief for democrats in town. since then... well, i'm starting to think that if bozo the clown ran for mayor as a democrat in the burgh, he'd breeze right into office without a problem. on one hand, that's not only unhealthy for the city, it's unhealthy for the party. on the other hand, pittsburgh doesn't have much patience for frat boy behavior on the part of their elected officals. it doesn't go unopposed. the opposition just has to come from another democrat.

yesterday, liz emailed me a link to an article about this: councilman [patrick] dowd may run for mayor. a familiar name for people with connections to WT or Ellis around the time i was in high school. add his name to the other two the PG lists: council president doug shields (considering it), and carmen robinson (already campaigning).

i got cynical about politics in 9th grade. one of my most vivid memories from that year is of walking into bruegger's after school, seeing a newspaper in a rack inside the door proclaiming that bush would officially be the 43rd president of the united states, and being overwhelmed by repulsion and sadness. the cynicism was bolstered by his second term, and then by ravenstahl's general nonsense.

maybe i was subconsciously afraid that it's somehow all my fault, since there hadn't been good news since i started voting.

i know all the hype over "hope" has drained the word of its meaning for some people. part of obama's message that got lost during the campaign was that hope is a tangible, practical thing that requires actual effort -- not blind hysteria -- to make it worthwhile. i mention this because while i will always regard authority figures with skepticism, for the first time in a long time i have some hope that maybe, someday soon, every news item i read about each of my elected officials won't be yet another variation on the theme of, "well, he did it again. yes, really." obviously, elected officials screw up. all of them. some more than others. but there's a difference between making unpopular decisions and just being horrible at your job. right?

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update: what's the most important thing YOU'VE done today? ...sigh.