Who Needs Lawyers, Accountants And Experts To Evaluate The Parking Deal? We Have Sophie!

Sophie Masloff (right, in pink) is a nice, well-meaning woman -- the kind who asks the clerks at Kaufmann's where she can find a National Record Mart because she wants to buy some Bruce Bedspring records (45s, not albums, because she's on a budget and, besides, all those songs just make one big racket anyway) for her grandchildren, or maybe tickets to "The How" concert.

Mayor Ravenstahl The mayor's puppeteers trotted her around council chambers today as a celebrity endorser for the Great InsolvenCity Parking Garage Sale. Mrs. Masloff certainly qualifies as a local celebrity. (The photograph indicates, for example, that she is one of the few elements of the natural universe able to relax, at least temporarily, the repellent forces that separate Bill Peduto and Patrick Dowd in all other observable settings. )

But Pittsburgh hasn't had an adequate mayor since . . . well, it suffices for current purposes to note that it was before Sophie Masloff's accidental ascension to mayor -- and her days of competence to opine concerning complex, high-stakes, long-term, politically sensitive financial transactions are behind her never existed.

So why send an incompetent out to shill for the administration? No points deducted for the obvious first thought -- "She's dating someone in the mayor's inner circle?" -- but the better answer is that the List-Makers figure many Pittsburghers are daft enough to be influenced by a Masloff endorsement.

And the List-Makers are likely correct. Most Pittsburghers are excited by the prospective arrival of Google Fiber, if they are aware of it, because they hope it will taste better than Metamucil.

Infinonytune: Bedrock Rap/(Meet The) Flintstones, Bruce Springstone (Live At Bedrock)