Ask Aunt Maria!

While people writing to Ask Aunt Maria! generally don't sign their real names, some -- for whatever reason -- desire an even higher degree of anonymity and don't even want their letters published. Today's column is an all confidential one in light of their wishes, so if you don't see your pen name here, just move along.


Confidential to Puzzled POTUS: You just don't get it. Not only will these people never be your BFF, they aren't even frenemies. Anyone short of Robert Bork himself will be rejected by them as too left wing, so just pick a flaming liberal already.

Confidential to Big Papa: You're another one who just doesn't get it. There is no way to "fix" this. Resign already. Say you want to spend more time with your family have health issues or whatever, but go now. Your letter from 1985 saying how you need to "consider the good of the Universal Church" -- you might as well have been humming "Deutschland, Deutschland Vatican, Vatican über alles" while writing it. For the actual good of the Universal Church, just go.

Confidential to J in McCandless: If you want to know how to get the jury's sympathy, here's a start. Three words: Lose the Bumpit. Also, some of the jurors may be fellow Italians, so you may want to lay off the offensive Mafia references. Just sayin'.

Confidential to Golf Daddy: OK, I may be a little late in answering this one, but assuming you can read this from...somewhere: Yes, your kid is a total douchenozzle. Sorry.

Brit Hume: Tiger Woods needs to convert to Christianity

"The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger turn your faith, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'"

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Delano has the last word on Luke & Tiger & Oakmont

Jon Delano, who stirred up a hornets nest this week by delving deeper into a story originally broke by the Trib last month on Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's crashing of a private AMEX event with Tiger Woods, weighs in with an interesting overview on his Delano's Den blog.

Jon does not back down on his reporting stating that he and Luke "'agree to disagree' on the facts."

Like I said on John McIntire's radio show last week: you piss off the press at your own risk. I'm not saying, mind you, that Delano says that he's pissed. But how silly, as a politician, do you have to be to go from routinely lying to the media (almost expected) to lying about them?

At the very least Ravenstahl's, ahem, "misstatements" about Delano's reporting gave the story "legs." At his blog, Delano tells how it made a one-day story go on for a good week. At most, hopefully, it has finally crushed the overlong honeymoon Luke got from most in the local MSM.

Speaking of honeymoons, has Luke's grip on the average yinzer's heart got just a little slippery?

Whigsboy, who frequent posts comments to this blog, said at this post that the Mayor of Pittsburgh has been voted "JagOff of the Week" at ESPN Radio Pittsburgh 1250. The Junker & Crow show have listeners call in each Wednesday to vote for the biggest jagoff. Whigsboy said that our own Lil Lukey won, but unfortunately we can't confirm that since the last winning jagoff posted on their website is for June 6th.

We certainly hope that Whigsboy heard his radio right because it's a pretty damn funny story if true.

We have issues!

Issues even beyond our Mayor stalking Tiger Woods during work hours. Here are a few:

A Petition on the War On Iraq

The Pittsburgh Vets Tour belives in SUPPORTING OUR TROOPS BY BRING THEM HOME. To that end, they have created a downloadable petition that you can sign and collect signitures from others.

The Pittsburgh Vets Tour is a city-wide speaking tour featurning Iraq Vets and military families. The tour kicked off on Wednesday, May 23rd.

The Tour is also a vehicle to advance the above linked petition to City Council demanding the immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces in Iraq; reparations for the destruction and corporate pillaging of Iraq so that Iraqi people can control their own lives and future; and full benefits, adequate healthcare (including mental health), and other supports for returning servicemen and women.

What does Pittsburgh City Council have to do with the War on Iraq, you may well ask? Proclamations of this kind help to provide courage to the convictions of our representatives in D.C. who can do something about the war.

Other groups such as The Thomas Merton Center and Democracy for Pittsburgh are supporting the petition drive, but EVERYONE can help gather names. Petition signatures will be collected through September. Although the petition is to be presented to the Pittsburgh City Council, the TMC and the P'VT are encouraging all local residents, county as well as city to sign the petitionas this is not the sort of petition that needs to meet an legal requirements (such as if it were to get a referendum or a candidate on the ballot).

Sudan Divestment Authorization Act

Your help is needed to push an important bill that would help end the violence by empowering states to divest their pension funds from companies that help fund the genocide in Darfur.

Unfortunately, this crucial bill has been stuck in the Senate Banking Committee for the last two months.

When lives are being lost, two months is far too long to sit on such an important bill!
Urge Senator Dodd to make sure the crucial Sudan Divestment Authorization Act comes to a vote on the Senate floor without further delays!

You can CLICK HERE to send your letter now.

Give Greener Cars the Green Light

Even though the debate about global warming has moved from "is it happening?" to "how do we slow it down?" -- meaningful action at the federal level could be a ways off.

And unfortunately, the Bush Administration's EPA is blocking California and 11 other states from implementing tailpipe standards to reduce global warming pollution from cars and SUVs. For nearly a year and a half, the EPA has refused to grant a stamp of approval (called a Clean Air Act "waiver"), and air pollution has been higher than it needs to be.

The public comment period ends this Friday June 15th, so take action right away in support of state-level efforts to combat global warming.

You can CLICK HERE to send a letter to the EPA today.

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If you're guessing that I've pretty much just cut-and-pasted this entire post, you're correct, but I'm also doing all the above actions that I'm asking you to do so who has time to rewrite all this shit? ;-)

Freeze-frames from the Tiger/Luke video

Bob Mayo has them over at his The Busman's Holiday blog.

He also has a link to a Post-Gazette online sportschat where Gerry Dulac tries to defend Mayor Luke Ravenstahl claiming that Luke was invited.

Of course Dulac either is forgetting or doesn't know that Luke CRASHED the event before he was "invited" to stay. Luke admitted on Fred Honsberger's radio show yesterday that he had called Oakmont asking for an invitation and they said that they would get back to him. But, Luke didn't wait to see if they would call back and invite him and instead just showed up.

C'mon, people, what were they supposed to do at that point?

Call 911?

Maybe they should have called Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's 311 line for advice. [Hello? 311 Line? Can you please advise me on how to get rid of someone who's crashing an event we're holding. Oh, by the way, the crasher is your boss.]

Lots of other interesting non Luke/Tiger posts at Mayo's blog too!

UPDATE: Mr. Mayo, try freezing 3:32 - 3:33 and 2:02 -2:05 (far right on screen) on YouTube's counter. I believe they show Luke also. Unfortunately when I use the pause function on YouTube, the picture is pretty blurred.

One Political Junkie on the Air Today!

I'll be on 93.7FM The Zone radio today with John McIntire and Gab Bonesso around 1:30 PM discussing -- what else -- Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's man crush and groupie-like behavior regarding Tiger Woods.

Just kidding about the essense of the topic. The real discussion will be Lil Lukey's modus operandi:

Lil Luke does something wrong/stupid. Then he lies about it/tries to cover it up. Then he blames the media, or the blogs or calls it "political" when he's caught.

You can call into the show at 412.333.9370!

AMEX Video of Tiger & Luke up at YouTube!

You can see Luke in it.



Does Luke even own an American Express card?

(h/t to A Bag Full of Health and Politics blogger for posting link in the comments section.

UPDATE: I wondered how long it would take for this to get pulled...

Mayor Luke explains himself and I (try to) explain his explanations

While David may be fine with letting Luke Ravenstahl explain himself, I have a few comments.

LUKE: No, in fact, I called myself and spoke with an individual from Oakmont, from the USGA early that morning and he said he would check into it and get back to me. And I never had the opportunity to speak with him, but we were never told, at all, that we were not welcome on the grounds.

So let me get this straight: the USGA tells Lil Luke that they'll get back to him and then he goes ahead and shows up anyway? He just assumes that they'll say yes? Unless they had screamed "NO, NO, NO" to him, he takes that as a yes?? (Note to self: Remember to personally tell Luke that he's not invited to any party I throw because if I don't, he'll feel perfectly OK with showing up.)

LUKE: And in fact when we got here, I was invited in and sat down, had lunch and was given a shirt was given a badge. And really, you know, welcomed by the people at Oakmont.

Here's a clue: Oakmont did not want to make a scene by throwing your ass out. Generally if someone is rude and pushy enough to crash a party, the host doesn't call the cops if the crasher is reasonably presentable.

LUKE: I was told that Tiger would not sign autographs. And [not to] approach him and I didn't, in fact. I was introduced to him by Mike Tirico who is an ESPN Anchor, who was on the course that day. And he suggested that I meet Tiger. Reluctantly at first, I said I didn't want to cause any trouble because he was golfing. And he insisted that Tiger would be OK with it, so he approached Tiger on my behalf to introduce me.

But you did approach him, Luke. First of all we doubt that you took great measures to explain to Tirico that the USGA/Oakmont had specifically told you not to approach Tiger. By your own admission, you only told Tirico that you didn't want to cause any problems because he was golfing -- not that you were told not to approach Tiger. So you got Tirico to bother Tiger on your behalf and then YOU APPROACHED HIM (Tiger).

FRED: I guess the question is, why didn't you tell this to Jon when Jon asked for a comment?

LUKE: He didn't. In fact he was – I mean to think that this was April 23rd, what's the date today? June 10th, 11th or 12th . I'm losing track of my dates but we're looking at almost two months. And was never asked a question about it, was never approached on it. He called yesterday afternoon. I was unavailable. He didn't-

FRED: We know. We know you were unavailable (ha-ha!).

LUKE: Yea, exactly right and I apologize for that. But he didn't identify – apparently he was going to do a story on the billboards and how we're promoting the city etc for the US Open and never - until almost four-thirty yesterday called and asked my spokesperson about the Tiger Woods day. And obviously you know an hour and a half before the story aired.

So you now admit that Jon Delano did contact your office on this story. So why did you claim that he didn't this morning on WDVE? Do you not communicate with your communications people or did you, as is your pattern, lie?

FRED: I mean the interesting thing was your office issued a statement yesterday saying, look it's always been your life long dream, you being the Mayor, to meet Tiger Woods and people ought to be satisfied that you had the persistence to do it.

LUKE: Well again, I think my staff was just responding to the question that was asked and quite honestly they were caught off guard by the question.

Might they have been caught of guard because you fired your top communications/PR guy without having someone ready to take his place? Ya think that might have been part of the problem?

LUKE: And you know Fred, I think you know me pretty well. I'm not a pushy guy.

Oh, right. God knows that you don't have any history of crashing private parties.

LUKE: I mean I was certainly told that it was an American Express party and it was for their patrons and not to approach Tiger and not to ask him for an autograph and not to impose myself on the party and I didn't do that. So that was all. That was all that was suggested.

Yes, Luke. You knew it was a private party and you were told at the very least to wait until they called you back, but you didn't and went anyway and you DID approach Tiger. You didn't tell Tirico "No" because you didn't want to admit that you were specifically ordered not to "approach" Tiger. Here's the dictionary definition of "approach" since you seem not to understand the word:

To come near or nearer, as in space or time: Spring approaches.
Sports.
To make an approach, as in golf.v.tr.
To come or go near or nearer to: approached the tunnel.
To come close to, as in appearance, quality, or condition; approximate: The performance approaches perfection.
To make a proposal or overtures to with a specific end in view.

By your own admission, you first "approached" Tirico and then you "approached" Tiger after Tirico offered to introduce you to him.

LUKE: That's how it all transpired and you know again I wish I had the opportunity to tell the story before Jon told his version of it.

Oh for f*ck's sake, Luke. Again, by your own admission (finally) Delano contacted your office prior to airing the report. This is the exact same excuse you used with the NYC incident. It wasn't your fault that the reporters didn't ask you the right questions -- you said then what a shame it was that they didn't give you the opportunity to explain yourself.

It's the same damn pattern every time:

Lil Luke does something wrong/stupid. Then he lies about it/tries to cover it up. Then he blames the media, or the blogs or calls it "political."

LUKE: But hey, that's the nature of what we do in politics and [unintelligible]

If you ask me, the entire damn interview was unintelligible.

NOTE: I started this post hours ago and AOL freezed up on me and I lost it. In the meantime, I see that The Burgher has had some of the same thoughts here as well as links to non Pittsburgh blogs who have picked up the story on our Frat Boy of a Mayor.

Even If Luke's Right, He's Not Out Of The Woods

Let's assume for the sake of argument that Jon Delano is wrong and Luke is correct - and that that everything was completely cool when Luke showed up for the Tiger Woods party at Oakmont on April, 23.

If he's right, he might be in trouble, too. Because did you know that the 82 guests of the party paid $900 for to be there?

Take a look:

They were American Express card members who paid $900 for an event called "2007 U.S. Open Preview Day," not realizing that it would include more than a round of golf and free lunch until Woods entered the room from a back door to stunned silence, followed by high-fives and then a standing ovation.

So by his own admission, Luke Ravenstahl just shows up at the Oakmont Country Club and is given something what 82 other people paid nearly a thousand dollars for.

Isn't that some sort of ethics violation?

Peduto Breaks News: There may be video of Mayor Lukey stalking Tiger Woods

Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto was a guest on 93.7 The Zone radio today with John McIntire and Gab Bonesso. He was there to speak about his sparring with POG (P-G article, Sue's take, Skip's take) and he continued to press that his accusation that the Pittsburgh Organizing Group (POG) was responsible for the vandalism of Shadyside stores was based on past actions by some POG members, that the acts of vandalism always occurred after POG demonstrations and that eye witness accounts of the vandals matched descriptions of POG protesters (black hoodies). Peduto made clear that he thought that POG had done some good things and that it was only some members or "affiliates" who may be responsible for the vandalism. He said that any vandalism -- especially of such places as The Quiet Storm and the East End Co-op -- only served to hurt their cause. He also said that there will be a Pittsburgh City Paper article on the subject in tomorrow's edition.

In the course of interviewing Peduto, McIntire brought up the subject of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's creepy and childish Tiger Woods obsession. Peduto let out a rumor that there exists video of Luke stalking Tiger. Apparently American Express has a hospitality tent at Oakmont where they are giving out CD's (DVDs?) of the event and they captured footage of Lil Lukey chasing Tiger from hole to hole in the background of some scenes.

I'd LOVE for someone -- anonymous or not -- to provide this blog with a copy of that CD/DVD!

Very scary!

Note: Bram has an interesting interview with Bill Peduto here.

UPDATE! I also meant to mention that Jon Delano was also on McIntire this afternoon and repeated that he had indeed contacted the Mayor's Office repeatedly trying to get a comment on his Tiger Woods story which was eventually broadcast on KDKA. Lukey claimed on WDVE this morning that Delano had not tried to contact him. John McIntire called this for the LIE it is on Opie's part.
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Photo of Mayor Luke with Tiger Woods!

With our apologies to Mr. Tiger Woods who would have preferred not to have his picture with Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl made public, we at 2pj deem the publication of this picture to be of vital news interest. And, so we present it exclusively to you our readers:


On a more serious note, does it occur to anyone that while Luke repeatedly ignored warnings by security guards, club officials and event planners and used his position as Mayor to get his picture taken with Tiger, we are supposed to believe that when he was handcuffed and taken aside by police for getting rowdy at a Steelers game that he didn't use his position as a City Councilman to avoid being arrested? That's what he claimed, but Lord knows it doesn't pass the smell test on its own let alone in light of his recent antics.

What a maroon!

UPDATE!
Local blogs on The Mayor and the Tiger:

The Burgh Report: http://burghreport.blogspot.com/2007/06/classless-and-proud-of-it.html
The Ideas Bucket: http://agentska.blogspot.com/2007/06/we-3-you-jon.html
MacYapper: http://macyapper.blogspot.com/2007/06/opie-out-of-control-edition.html
Progress Pittsburgh: http://progresspittsburgh.net/?p=221
and 2 Political Junkies: http://2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com/2007/06/luke-ravenstahl-pittsburghs.html

Luke Ravenstahl - Pittsburgh's Embarrassment

I'm sorry mama Ravenstahl, but your boy's a jerk.

I initially saw this story over at the Burgh Report (they call Mayor Luke "classless", "boorish", and an "embarrassment to the city") and the link is to this report from Jon ("don't call him 'John'") Delano.

You have to read it to believe it.

Mayor Luke's got something of a man-crush on Tiger Woods and so last April (or so the story goes) he made a complete ass out of himself a number of times at the Oakmont Country Club.

Time one:

Sources tell KDKA’s Jon Delano that when the mayor learned that Tiger Woods was out at Oakmont practicing, he had his office call the club to secure an invitation. The club told him politely, but firmly, that this was a private affair, and he was not invited. Nonetheless, the mayor got in his car, drove out, and tried to crash the club.

Actually, you can make the case that that's TWO times - the first by using the office of the Mayor to "secure" an invitation ANYWHERE and then second to head on out there after being told it's a "private affair." But let's cut Mayor Luke some slack - he's just a kid, right?

Time two:

Sources say Ravenstahl was stopped by Oakmont’s security guards who told him the golf outing was a private event for American Express and its customers. But he talked his way into the club. Once inside, Ravenstahl was recognized and invited to dine with members of the club’s board of directors where, once again, he was told the event with Tiger Woods was private and not open to him.

Are you keeping count? He's been told THREE TIMES that the party is "private" and he's yet to meet Tiger Woods.

Time three:

But after lunch, sources say Ravenstahl got his hands on an American Express golf shirt, slipped the shirt on like he was part of the Am-Ex event and strolled onto the golf course looking for Woods.

Where did he get the shirt? How did he get the shirt? Isn't there a law or a statute against impersonating an American Express official? Delano doesn't say. But look at the lengths Mayor Luke is going to meet Tiger Woods. Even after being told three times that the event is private, he does what needs to be done to get in anyway. He's got the temerity of a Led Zepplin groupie circa 1972. Have no fear, Mayor Luke's boorishness gets much much worse.

Time four:

Once again, security recognized him but did not kick him off the course telling him, however, not to approach the golf star or take any pictures with him. Angering club officials, Ravenstahl did so anyways and walked away with his coveted picture.

What a complete ass.

But wait - you gotta see how his office defended the mayor's impolite uncouth ban manners:

As for the Mayor, his office says it was his life-long dream to meet Tiger Woods and he did and he should be credited for that. And his spokeswoman insists the club was not upset by the Mayor’s conduct. Officially, Oakmont Country Club will not comment on this one way or the other.

Gee, that makes it all better.

A source told me that Tiger Woods' people were livid. Tiger doesn't get involved in politics and they were concerned that the picture would be used for some political purposes. They tried to get our Mayor to promise not to use the picture. My source told me, as well, that the Oakmont folks were irate. The Mayor's office, of course, says they're cool with it.

Complete. Embarrassment.