From VM Sun Sep 3 16:45:49 2006 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2740" "Sunday" "3" "September" "2006" "16:45:40" "-0400" "Janyce M. Wiebe" "wiebe@cs.pitt.edu" nil "61" "Hi" "^From:" nil nil "9" nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Return-Path: Received: from maggie.cs.pitt.edu (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by maggie.cs.pitt.edu (8.13.3/8.13.3) with ESMTP id k83Kjjbc010635 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Sun, 3 Sep 2006 16:45:45 -0400 (envelope-from wiebe@cs.pitt.edu) Received: (from defang@localhost) by maggie.cs.pitt.edu (8.13.3/8.13.3/Submit) id k83KjjFS010629 for ; Sun, 3 Sep 2006 16:45:45 -0400 X-Authentication-Warning: maggie.cs.pitt.edu: defang set sender to using -f Received: from las-cruces.cs.pitt.edu (las-cruces.cs.pitt.edu [130.49.222.90]) by maggie.cs.pitt.edu (envelope-sender ) (MIMEDefang) with ESMTP id k83KjeST010615; Sun, 03 Sep 2006 16:45:45 -0400 (EDT) Received: from las-cruces.cs.pitt.edu (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by las-cruces.cs.pitt.edu (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id k83Kje8R003752; Sun, 3 Sep 2006 16:45:40 -0400 Received: (from wiebe@localhost) by las-cruces.cs.pitt.edu (8.12.8/8.12.8/Submit) id k83Kjeud003748; Sun, 3 Sep 2006 16:45:40 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <17659.16116.451300.989068@las-cruces.cs.pitt.edu> X-Mailer: VM 7.07 under Emacs 21.2.1 X-Spam-Score: -101.665/5 BAYES_00,USER_IN_WHITELIST SA-version=3.000002 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.51 on 130.49.220.148 From: "Janyce M. Wiebe" To: peters@buffalo.edu Cc: wiebe@cs.pitt.edu Subject: Hi Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2006 16:45:40 -0400 Hi, Sandy. Hope you are having a nice weekend. We are, but Dad does need to have the mass removed from his lung and it still might be cancer. He is going to the UArizona medical center in Tucson, which is good, because Aunt Robin lives near there. We'll wait and see. Mom and Dad are doing fine. I'm still very sad at the loss of our mayor. I have to admit, I didn't vote for him in the last two elections (he lost the 2001 election by only 699 votes, so I had more influence than one usually does.) He just seemed too nice! But he actually was the perfect person at the perfect time to be mayor of Pittsburgh. If you go to google news and enter OConnor Pittsburgh, you can read about him. He was so optimistic and genuine and loved Pittsburgh and its people -- in the few short months he was in office, many good things were off the ground. Turns out he knew everyone, but not through webs of corruption. People were willing to work with him. He was sworn in January 2006, his third time running for mayor. He was diagnosed with this freaky stupid rare form of brain cancer two months ago, and passed away Thursday evening at 61. I became a supporter the day after the election. During rush hour, Mayor OConnor was out on the side of the road smiling away with a big sign that said 'Thankyou Pittsburgh'. Who does that? That's the main image I'll remember him by. I was wondering why I was so upset about his passing away. Then wondering why Pittsburgh (and Buffalo too) are so important to me -- almost like they are people I know. I realized (doh!) that the cities are parallel with my students (and some colleagues who are not at top universities). They have true positive qualities, but also shallow negative features that enable others to dismiss them out of hand. I don't know about Buffalo, but the people of Pittsburgh lack confidence and are pessimistic. Like Buffalo, we had the huge losses suffered when the steel industry collapsed. Mayor OConnor was born and raised here, and worked himself up from a steelworker background. His main message was for people to be optimistic. Now we have some 26-year-old mayor (he was president of city council - he was voted president as a compromise between two competing factions) of a family with lots of political ties. His personality is reserved. Court fights will ensue, since our city charter has ambiguous language about whether he should hold the office through the current term or whether a new election should be held next year. *sigh* On a positive note, I'm sure I'm not the only one who reflected about such things upon his death -- the question, why did I care so much about Mayor OConnor? helps you realize what matters to you. Jan