Protesters Finally Put The "UP" In UPMC

Citizens protesting UPMC's heartless (but profitable and competitively ingenious) decision to destroy Braddock close Braddock hospital began to attempt to put the "UP" in "UPMC" today by visiting Pitt's campus and delivering a letter to the University-owned home of Pitt's chancellor, Mark Nordenberg.

A UPMC spokesman The Post-Gazette stated that "UPMC and the university are legally separate entities" but otherwise ignored (as has become local newspapers' custom) the long-puzzling issue of Pitt's relationship with UPMC.

UPMC gets commercially invaluable prestige, and a thin but effective ethical cloak for its rapacious, obscenely profitable business operations, from the use of the university's name. What is Pitt's end of the bargain? The short end, if UPMC's relationship with the entire region is a useful barometer, but Braddock and the region deserve an answer to the question.

Roughly 50 protesters assembled near the chancellor's house, watched by University police officers. Those officers confirmed that neither Luke Ravenstahl nor Dan Onorato was involved in the situation by refraining from using tear gas launchers, rubber bullets, military-grade acoustic cannons and other weapons against the peaceful protesters, by declining to arrest and smack around peaceably assembled citizens, and by not declaring Devonshire Street a martial law zone (final selection on Infinonyvision, center column).