WANK-FEST

Every time I try to write about something else, they pull me back in.

On the off chance that McIntire was on air last night, I turned on KDKA and instead heard an enormous wank-fest hosted by some guy named Rob (didn't catch the last name, but in terms of lobbing softballs, he makes Larry King look like Bill O'Reilly after he's cut his guest's mic off).

Rob's guests at 9:30 PM were Dennis Regan and Dick Skrinjar. The subject was more or less Mayor O'Connor and the state of Pittsburgh. You'll all be pleased to know:

1. The folks in charge love this city
2. No one is talking negatively about the city or the county anymore
3. Everyone on the show were "good Catholics."

The program hit it's crescendo when the host declared, "It's guys that care about each other."

Personally at that point, I was hoping that Sue from Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents hadn't also tuned in as I feared if she had, they would have been carting her off in a straightjacket right about then. Sue's been writing about diversity as it pertains to our fair city's government, especially as it pertains to the Thursday Morning Massacre and Yarone Zober. And, she isn't the only one. The New Pittsburgh Courier noted that, "O’Connor didn’t have to fire any Blacks, because he didn’t hire any in the first place." (Actually, as the same Courier article stated, "Of 17 city managers and directors, only one is Black...")

Now to say that Yarone Zober being named Deputy Mayor came as a surprise to anyone is like saying that the outcome of an election on DIEBOLD machines would be a surprise to anyone (well, maybe the voters).

That is of course anyone except Dick Skrinjar (or as PittGirl calls him "Mayor O’Connor’s Chief of Making Shit Up") who claimed in print when asked whether Mr. Zober is under consideration to serve as deputy mayor should Mr. O'Connor need a break, said that he's "not aware of that."

This of course means that Skrinjar:

1. As Director of Communications, was doing just what Director of Communications are paid to do, OR
2. Wasn't told anything to provide him with plausible deniability, OR
3. Was living up to the title with which PittGirl has dubbed him.

But back to the discussion of "white male privilege." Sue acknowledges that:

There's a necessary distinction between the individual acts of any one person and the larger issues of sexism, racism, heteronormative preference, etc. There are many great guys among the mighty whites who are good on these issues including yourself. Yarone could be one of those guys (he sounds kind of like that in today's PG).

Yarone Zober may indeed be a great guy. Every white guy in the O'Connor Administration may, individually, be a great guy. But as someone who will never be a "great guy" or even one of the "guys that care about each other," it gets more than a little tiresome to look at most governing bodies and see how much the women, Blacks, etc., stand out because there are so few of them in charge. (Hell, it's 2006, but when you look at how the few red dresses pop out in the sea of dark suits in Congress, you've got to wonder if there are really that many "great guys" vs. "great women.")

Right now in the city of Pittsburgh, we have someone in charge who no one voted for and who has relatively little experience in city government and, should he need to be replaced, we'll have someone else with relatively little experience who the public did not vote to put in that position.

The Deputy Mayor cannot hire or fire anyone so the security guards at the City-County Building won't need to add anymore xeroxed pictures of Enemies of the State City to their clipboards anytime soon and the police can spend their time with things other than escorting folks from the premises (so there's a plus).

Top that with oversight boards who, again, the people did not vote in but who have enourmous impact on the lives of Pittsburghers.

Add to that the fact that Pittsburgh's two top dailies present conflicting accounts of the mayor's condition (the P-G called it "stable condition yesterday after an unscheduled operation" and the Trib says "serious condition Sunday night in a neuro-intensive care unit at UPMC Shadyside following emergency surgery"); and that no one but a small handful of people have actually seen the mayor; and that those folks announcements on his condition have been overly sunny at best.

Layer over this a Senate race in this state where anyone looking for an alternative candidate has discovered that the Green Party candidate has been bought and paid for by the Republicans.

On the national level, we have a president who got into office with a one vote majority by the Supreme Court and who's level of competence regarding a world on fire seems to be to actively work against a ceasefire and making genius pronouncements like:

"You know, I hear people say, Well, civil war this, civil war that. "

while his supporters seemingly root for Armageddon and one could be forgiven for maybe feeling like the kids aren't all right and there are negative things to say about the city, the county, the state, the nation, the world...

There's nothing unnatural in the public -- which is already turned off to elections in general and feeling in a "throw the bums out" mood -- wanting to delve a little into how folks got where they are and to try to figure out what waning influence they actually have on policy in the age of massive lobbyist corruption scandals.

Yarone Zober may very well be all that and a bag of chips (and no one is really reporting otherwise), but it doesn't help an electorate who has a growing unease about how much control they actually have in the process of choosing their leaders to hear it reported that Mr. Zober hosted a fund-raiser for Mr. O'Connor and donated $1,500 to his campaign; that he has "an uncanny ability to sense shifts in the winds of power;" and who "knew Mr. Regan from the mayor's campaigns, and gravitated to him." Hearing stuff like that just ups the whole icky factor and just makes the public feel like they have even less control.

It's understandable how some might feel they have no say in things, unless maybe you're one of the "guys that care about each other" -- especially if you look around and see that you'll never be one of the guys.