Democracy Has Prevailed.

January 24, 2008

It depends on what the meaning of room is

The Burgher and Chad have both commented on how self-evidently ridiculous the claim is by Lil Mayor Luke Ravenstahl that his meeting on Tuesday with Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter was the first time that mayors of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia had "even been in the same room" -- especially as the article in the Trib notes that they had previously attended each other's inaugurations.

However, in the comments section, Richmond K. Turner does take pains to point out that Nutter would not yet have been mayor during Ravenstahl's inauguration and also says that he thought that Nutter's inauguration took place outdoors (thus solving the "room" problem).

Of course seeing as how Pittsburgh has had mayors since 1816, and how the cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia actually exist in the same state, one would think that the notion that the cities' respective mayors had not somehow bumped into each other in a room over the course of 192 years would seem to be well-nigh impossible.

But, we refuse to sell our Mayor short by relying on common sense alone.

So we went looking for hard evidence as we did not want to be considered haters by just assuming that Lil Mayor Luke was, once again, talking out of his ass.

Here it is:
You can view the video of Nutter's inauguration here. In his speech, he says the following (2:56 minutes in):
We have some company here with us today. I attended about three weeks ago the installation of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. He returned the favor and came here to Philadelphia. We're creating a new East-West partnership and I want to recognize Mayor Ravenstahl -- the youngest mayor in the country. [At this point, Nutter looks back on the stage and applauds Luke.]
Sure looks like they are in a room to me.

If you're curious, here's Luke's inauguration with then Mayor-Elect Nutter in attendance (in a room):

In the first 60 seconds of the video of Luke's speech, he says the following:
And, of course I also want to thank everybody else on stage from Lanny Frattare, uh, on down. I really appreciate everybody's participation here today it means a great deal, uh, that you're here. I want to, uh, single out Mayor Nutter for making time in his very busy schedule to travel to Pittsburgh from Philadelphia to be here today. I really do appreciate it, Mayor. And, I think collectively we have a lot of work to do in the Comonwealth and with you and I working together we can do some wonderful things.
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8 comments:

Chad said...

Well-nigh impossible indeed!

Nice work, Maria!

Maria said...

Ooops! Meant to change that(or I meant horse sense instead of common sense).

Thanks -- fixed now.

Richmond K. Turner said...

Maybe there was no roof! How can you have a "room" if there's no roof? Or maybe there was a roof, but it was leaking, thus compromising the structural integrity of the building, and rendering it more or less the same as "outside".

I'm telling you, there's gotta be an "out" in here for Lukey. I've just not looked hard enough.

Locusts! Hordes of locust were eating the walls, just off-camera! It didn't count because Lukey was listening to his iPod and playing his Nindento DS during Nutter's speech! Thus while Lukey was *physically* present, his mind was on the Legend of Zelda, and he was therefore out of the room. Or maybe Lukey has several surgically-produced (free from UPMC) body-doubles -- just like Saddam used to have -- to attend these "stupid" functions in his place.

BTW, congrats on doing the hardest yards in Pittsburgh blogging by transcribing something that came out of Lukey's mouth. I used to do that until I wore out the "U" and "H" keys and had to go buy a new keyboard.

Bram Reichbaum said...

Let's not go nuts like this is important. I'm pretty sure when Luke is responding to the media, the thought process goes something like this:

"Hold face steady ... speak in measured tones ... everything's fine, there's no problem ... that is something that we have been looking at and we will continue to look at..."

Bram Reichbaum said...

Oh, and Char at the Pist-Gazette has a GREAT rundown of the contents of Mayor Nutter's speech.
http://pistgazette.blogspot.com/2008/01/couldnt-we-just-trade-places-for-while.html

Anonymous said...

This all depends on what your definition of "in" is.

Anonymous said...

Are we really discussing this?

Wow

Anonymous said...

Matt H: Are we really discussing this?

Matt, how about we discuss what a chronic liar you are.

Hey, that housing authority story was great. Not!