"Driving Miss Wendy;" pitfalls for Bell's return

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There’s a palpable sense of relief in Pittsburgh these days, a feeling an ordeal has reached a turning point, that positive resolutions are in store.

Pens up 1-0 in NHL playoffs?

Nah.

Wendy Bell is back on Facebook!

This is great news for her ardent fans, and they are many.

For them, her absence has been emotionally challenging. Some have felt adrift without her presence, her insights, the reassuring sound of her voice.

I can relate.

I’ve felt that way since 2008 when Myron Cope died.

Bell was a popular Pittsburgh news anchor for 18 years. She was fired after a well-intentioned Facebook post of hers made it seem to some like she was among the victims of a mass murder that claimed the lives of five black men and women and one unborn child.

She concluded by switching to Caucasian benevolence by saying she’d as if by magic been transformed by the sight of a young black man cleaning tables with a “rhythm and step that gushed positivity.”

The youth, later revealed to be Brandon Walker, reported he was thrilled by the attention and Bell’s posted assertion he was “going to Make it.”

Anyone who knows anything about media uproars understands she’d have been better off writing that Sammy Davis Jr. is alive and well and busing tables at the the South Side Cheesecake Factory.

Few unbiased observers think the firing was justified. I wonder if craven bosses thought she was getting too popular or her salary was too high.

Either way, she was canned and many tears were shed.

Given our fixations on news personalities, the reaction was predictable. Many people love Wendy.

Maybe none more than Wendy herself.

This became apparent when upon her return to social media, she began touting her tweets with the PittsburghStrong hashtag, like what happened to her was akin to the Boston Marathon bombing.

A slew of mocking “White Anchor Lives Matter” memes ensued.

That’s why I hope she’s very careful about what she posts because she’s entered a very dangerous realm. Now everything she does and says will be hyper-scrutinized to her detriment.

Because returning to Facebook is one thing.

The real danger will be when she returns to the Cheesecake Factory.

I fear she’s going to turn into Daisy Werthan and hire young Walker to be her Hoke Colburn. 

Yes, it’ll be “Driving Miss Wendy.”

It’s the potential parody of “Driving Miss Daisy,” a 1989 movie starring Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman. It won four Academy Awards and I remain confounded one of them wasn’t Most Boring Picture.

I remember hearing the accolades and thinking, man, this has got to be great and that “Driving Miss Daisy” would be a metaphor for something interesting. I thought at some point one was going to take out a gun and shoot the other or that the quaint Southern town would be scandalized when police found the black driver putting it to the old white babe in the back seat of the 1949 Hudson Commodore.

But none of that happened. It turned out a movie called “Driving Miss Daisy” was simply about a guy who drove around a widow woman named Daisy.

It was appalling.

And it is what I fear will happen when Bell returns to the Cheesecake Factory.

I believe Bell is now suffering from delusions of grandeur. She feels, not without justification, she is a beacon in race relations. Certainly, she feels like she’s in a position where she can make a difference and the obvious recipient of her good will is Walker.

I can see her thinking it would be good PR if she hired him to be either her butler or chauffeur. That way should could tutor him and earn street cred when he “Makes it.”

And if the kid gets a speeding ticket while he’s driving her around she could influence the only “race” issue she’s capable of resolving.

Oh, to live in an America where our only race issues involved reckless drivers!

As it is, it’s enough to drive us all crazy.

Related . . .

Was firing Wendy Bell too PC?

Taiwanese animators coloring local news

Darieth, don’t go! When a local news anchor leaves

Random thoughts on race, Ferguson & Three Dog Night

Reid, race & Nat X

Renaming snow-bound Buffalo (and other cities)

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I think in the interest of accuracy it’s time we rename Buffalo. Let’s call it Uninhabitable, New York.

The last few days prove humans aren’t meant to live in Buffalo.

Heck, buffalo aren’t meant to live in Buffalo.

The only silver lining I can see is that the city need not worry about any more lake effect snow.

I can’t imagine there’s any lake left.

They’ve already exceeded their typical snowfall for the rest of 2014-15 winter, which in Buffalo ends, I think, July 5, or two days before the winter of 2015-16 begins.

I’m horrified by what I see from western New York. It, to me, looks like hell.

By now, other cities would be making snowmen

In Buffalo, they’ll be making snowGodzillas.

Even the almighty NFL is canceling the Sunday Bills game.

This is the organization that 51 years ago this week played ALL its games in the wake of a presidential assassination that left many fearful the Soviets were preparing a full scale nuclear attack.

So you have the threat of mutually assured mass nuclear destruction being less threatening to human life than snow in Buffalo.

If I lived in Buffalo I’d right now be considering moving somewhere more moderate.

Like Cleveland!

I understand a sentimental attachment to the land on which you were born, but not when that land is buried under 7 feet of snow. 

That’s why, truth in advertising, Buffalo should be required to change its name to Uninhabitable.

It would let people know not to move near there unless you’re skilled in igloo construction.

Of course, Buffalo’s not the only city that ought to be renamed.

For years, I’ve been arguing New York should change its name to New And Improved York. I love spending time in New York and remember what it used to be like back in the bad old days when making a “good impression” meant leaving a really deep dent in the skull.

I’ve never felt Los Angeles was a good name for a city where so few angels dwell, but the truthful alternatives — Los GangBangers, Los LousySequelProducers — are clunky.

But the city is home to more angelic looking men and women than any place on the planet. That these people are uniformly duplicitous and conniving gender-neutral whores factors, too.

That’s why Los Angeles should be Loose Angeles.

I understand Boise, Idaho, is a beautiful town. One story says Boise comes from an exclamation a French-speaking guide had when he spied the verdant valley over the rugged mountains.

He said, “Les bois! Les bois!” In English, “The trees! The trees!”

I read that and thought of the late actor Herve Villechaize. I intend to do some research and see if a similar anecdote exists about the guide who named Ze Plains.

But Boise’s always struck me as sexist, and changing the name to Girlse wouldn’t help.

Let’s call it Folksy!

Latrobe is named after Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the architect who in 1812 rebuilt the U.S. Capital after the dastardly Brits burnt it down.

I’m fine with Latrobe, but in a town that already has the Arnold Palmer Airport, Arnold Palmer Drive, Arnold Palmer Cadillac, the Arnold Palmer hotel, and Arnold Palmer himself, I think we can come up with something more appropriate.

Welcome to Happyville!

That brings us to Pittsburgh.

If ever a town’s been in need of a new name, it’s the city closest to my heart.

Nothing described with the word “pit” is desirable.

No one’s ever said, “Hey, I found a really great pit! Bring a bottle of wine, some sandwiches and we’ll have a pitnic! Er, I mean picnic!”

Mob informants are buried in shallow pits. Most things described with pit — arm pits and pit stops — stink.

Let’s face it, most pits are the pits and that, to me, includes actors named Brad.

Pittsburgh was in 1758 named by Gen. John Forbes in honor of his friend William Pitt, who decreed that it shall be called “Pittsburgh for ever.”

Or was it Pittsburg? Our “h” comes and goes throughout history. Some years we’re Pittsburgh. Some we’re Pittsburg.

I think just to mess with people Mayor Bill Peduto should decree that henceforth Pittsburgh will be spelled Pittsburghh and that we’ll will be adding an additional “h” every 10 years until the year 2054 when we’ll forever be Pittsburghhhhh.

I have an even better idea.

Let’s put Pitt in the pit and bestow the city with a transcendent name that perfectly depicts how we’ve dealt with ups and downs and the jokes of lazy poets who realize that Pittsburgh rhymes with a scatological pejorative.

It’s a name beloved by all of us.

Yes, it’s time Pittsburgh changed its name to Copesburgh!

This would be the perfect way to honor screechy sports announcer and the inventor of the Terrible Towel, Myron Cope.

In Pittsburgh, we not only do cope, we love Cope. Our love for him will never be surpassed. He was warm, hilarious and philanthropic (and he was one hell of a writer, too, a fact that’s often overlooked).

So join me in declaring that Pittsburgh is from now on Copesburgh!

Anyone?

Oh, who am I kidding.

The idea doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Uninhabitable.

Hmmm . . .

I guess when it’s put that way, it just might work after all.

Related . . .

Of mallbergs, fenderdung & made-up winter words

Indians, Custer, downed trees & me

When I’m mayor of Pittsburgh

Trade Ben to Oakland

In a week when American Idol is planning to murder the Rolling Stones, Ben Roethlisberger is killing the Pittsburgh Steelers. It’s a bad week for my icons.

The Stones, now 50 years without a rape charge, will endure. They survived Vanilla Ice singing “Satisfaction,” they’ll survive this.

But the Steelers need to trade Roethlisberger to the Oakland Raiders while we can still get a good draft pick. That’s where he belongs.

I’m historically more comfortable in the role of defendant than judge. But I’m so disgusted by Roethlisberger that I want him gone. He’s making Tiger Woods look like a gentleman.

My rush to judgement is contrary to what I’ve heard from many fair-minded Steeler fans I’ve seen interviewed on TV. They say, hey, he’s innocent until proven guilty. Let justice take its course. Jurisprudence, blah, blah, blah.

Many of these were the same people who about 10 years ago were saying, “Kill Kordell Stewart. He’s gay! Schenly Park! It’s true! My brother heard it from a friend whose cousin’s a cop . . .”

It was the sort of rumor genealogy that would have caused “Roots” author Alex Haley to pull his hair out by the, well, fistfuls.

Kordell, by the way, is now a married father of a 5 year old boy. Maybe he’s on some sort of gay sabbatical.

Ben, on the other hand, is a disgrace. He’s suspected of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old college student in a night club bathroom. Lawyers are still sorting out another sexual assault charge stemming from an unseemly 2008 hotel suite encounter with a Lake Tahoe casino employee.

The Tahoe one sounds contrived. The claimant waited a year to seek monetary damages and told conflicting stories to friends.

So far, there’s nothing dubious about the current allegation. The woman didn’t call a lawyer or hold a press conference. She went to the emergency room and called the police.

Those aren’t the actions of a money grubber. They are the actions of a victim.

And the release of the police report is when things are going to really get ugly. The only possible chivalrous revelation to emerge will be maybe that Big Ben, who was wearing a Satanic t-shirt, held the bathroom door for her.

This is all happening as a bill from the Pittsburgh Steelers for $3,244 sits in my desk drawer. It’s for four season tickets that have been in my name for 15 years and in my father’s before me for 30 before that.

It’s crazy, I know, but Steeler fans like me like to think we’re better or certainly luckier than people who root for cheaters like Bill Belichik or pompous blowhards like Jerry Jones and Daniel Snyder.

When team founder Art Rooney died in 1988, he was hailed as one of the most beloved characters in sports. No one expected his son Dan would ever measure up to the old man. Instead, he’s surpassed him. He is the unrivaled conscience of a league whose “Rooney Rule” was instigated to promote minority hiring. In one of his first acts in office, President Obama appointed Rooney -- Happy St. Patrick’s Day! -- ambassador to Ireland.

Our teams have always been dominated by high-profile good guys -- Hall of Famers like Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Chuck Noll, Mel Blount and Rod Woodson.

They’ve been teams I’d be proud to root for if they played like hapless Cleveland Browns.

But they do not. They’ve won more Super Bowls than any other team and are one of the most envied franchises in all sports.

I’m hoping team president Art Rooney II, who continues to a family tradition of class and grace, will hold a press conference and say, “We’ve begun talks to trade Ben to the Oakland Raiders for draft picks we will use to compensate for the loss of one best quarterbacks in the game, someone we’d counted on to help make us winners for the next 10 years.

“We’re doing so because we’d rather lose with quality men than win with jerks. His consistent off-field recklessness convinces us this is a pattern of misbehavior a 28-year-old multimillionaire will not outgrow.

“Because there’s so much more to Steeler tradition than winning. I only wish Myron Cope were here to explain it to him in a voice so screechy that the only thing Ben will there after be able to hear will be the thunderous boos of stadiums packed with decent Steeler fans around league.

“And if talks with the Raiders fall apart, we’ll pursue a trade with the New Jersey Devils.

“Yes, I know they play hockey, not football, but as pictures posted on TMZ.com attest, Ben’s already got the uniform. And this much is becoming clear: He knows the Devil’s playbook.”