Monday: Comin At Ya

It's been a long race, getting past financial problems, trying to change corporate disinterest, rejecting dead ends and moving on toward a finish line, but after a five-year absence, the Pittsburgh Marathon likely will return next year. (P-G, Steve Levin)

Hooray!

Before its demise, the marathon had the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center as its title sponsor. But UPMC's pulling out of that role following the 2003 event brought an end to the race.

We did not know that.

##

Of course, this campaign at its heart was always about discrimination. The dead giveaway was the inclusion of language extending the same-sex ban to "the functional equivalent of marriage," which one doesn't have to be an activist judge to interpret as civil unions. Banning civil unions would have nothing to do with preserving the sanctity of marriage. It would have everything to do with a powerful majority imposing its will on a vulnerable minority. (P-G, Edit Board)

Good point.

##

Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton's adversary and the media's darling, vaulted to the front of the Democratic primary pack by promising to heal our wounds and mend our divisions. But this man who would transcend America's tragic history of racism had as his pastor and "spiritual adviser" a man of the cloth who preaches racial hatred.

Hypocrisy creates the need for irony, but don't point out this disappointing situation to Mr. Obama's college-aged believers, however, or they will call you, weeping at your cynicism. Sigh.

You take a big step from childhood to adulthood when you realize that things are often not at all what they seem. (P-G, Ruth Ann Daily)

Sigh, indeed.

Does it not matter that Barack Obama publicly and vehemently rejected the offending sentiments, expressing to us all the points of his disagreement with extreme specificity? Are all pro-choice politicians who attend the churches of pro-life pastors also base hypocrites? How about the ones who believe in contraception? There are a multitude of reasons to attend church, or to be part of any particular religious community. To ascribe to Barack Obama one particular set of motives and understandings strikes us as a bit ungenerous.

More importantly -- with this ever-present tone of condescending, wholesale dismissal of the great bulk of Obama supporters -- we are beginning to realize that ageism runs both ways, and is outright approved of in one of them.

##

Some political insiders believe the relatively pricey fundraiser will line Ravenstahl's campaign coffers to the point where no one will dare challenge him next year, when he has to run for a full term. (Trib, Whisper People)

Other political insiders believe that even a trillion skillion bo-billion dollars won't keep a whole swarm of sharks away from this juicy morsel.

Madonna and Young conclude that Matthews is likely to run. "And if he runs, he will start the race well known, highly motivated and well financed. He deserves to be taken seriously."

Chris Matthews will never be taken seriously. However, being a Democrat and all, we may well wind up voting for him anyway. We would need someone to make Al Franken appear serious.

##

Applications for more than 250 summer jobs for Pittsburgh residents 14 to 18 are available online at www.pghgov.com and www.thesca.org/pittsburgh, or at the Downtown office of the Student Conservation Association, 239 Fourth Ave., Investment Building, Suite 1007. (P-G, Team Effort)

Councilman Burgess has been outspoken in the media touting this endeavor, along with Mayor Ravenstahl.

##

One last big rally for Schenley High School is being organized to coincide with today's School Board meeting. The cause of Frick Middle School is somehow in the mix as well.

When: Monday, May 12 [today] at 7:00 PM
Where: 341 S. Bellefield Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (Between 5th and Forbes)

Presumably, they are less concerned with the handsome building than with the actual school inhabiting it.