From Crystal Club Soda to Gertrude Hawk Chocolate

Sen. Barack Obama’s half-eaten waffle and sausage link are still sitting in a freezer at John Oakes’ home, but their online image has taken on a life of its own, attracting profiteers and inspiring artists.  Mr. Oakes, a loyal customer of the Glider Diner in Scranton, convinced the diner’s owner, Charles LeStrange, to bequeath to him any leftovers of Mr. Obama’s meal when he passed through Monday morning. The Chinchilla man was expecting to get a good laugh out of putting the leftover waffle and sausage link — along with a plate and silverware Mr. Obama used — up for auction Monday on eBay. What Mr. Oakes and the Glider Diner got were a flood of negative comments on the auction Web site and a high bid of $20,100 for the collector’s item, which led Mr. LeStrange to ask him to take the auction down.  [Times-Tribune]

School administrators who suspended two Scranton High School students who skipped class Monday to meet Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama were acting in accordance with district policy, Assistant Superintendent William King said Tuesday. But 18-year-old Colin Saltry claims an administrator also forced him to resign as senior class president. Mr. Saltry and senior Joey Daniel admitted they skipped their gym class Monday after seeing Mr. Obama’s motorcade heading toward the Glider Diner, where he made an impromptu breakfast stop. Mr. Obama signed excuse slips for them to show their teachers when they returned. Instead, both students were called to the office Monday afternoon and suspended for one day because they left school grounds. Mr. Saltry, meanwhile, said he accepted the suspension as a consequence of breaking the rules, and said it was worth it to meet the presidential candidate. But Mr. Saltry said he wasn’t expecting to be told to “start writing his resignation letter” after school administrators suspended him. [Times-Tribune] Editor’s Note: These students should be praised for their interest in politics. Instead, they are punished. Ridiculous.

Darak Williams, 26, and Kashema Reddish, 25, both of Scranton, are featured on America’s Most Wanted website in connection of the death of Reddish’s 3-year-old daughter, Kavannah Salvador, in February 2008.  [amw]

Sen. Barack Obama’s bus tour will be stopping in Scranton on April Fools’ Day, a city official confirmed.  Tuesday’s visit will come on the fifth day of the Democratic presidential candidate’s six-day tour across the state, which the campaign has dubbed “Road to Change.” He is expected during the tour to discuss the need to create jobs, improve schools and make health care available to every American.  [Times-Tribune]

The following is an excerpt from an interview with Rainn Wilson and Greg Daniels of The Office from monstersandcritics.dom:

Were you able to kind of recapture the energy at all when you guys got back from the convention in Scranton?

Greg Daniels: Sure. The convention was very fun and, it was a wonderful experience to see how many thousands of fans came from all over the world and there were people from Ireland and Oregon.

People came from a really great distance. This was my first time in Scranton although we’ve done so much research on the Internet. And I was really struck by how beautiful Scranton is, which is not what we really have been portraying in here. But we saw some of the sights like Nay Aug Park and the Treehouse, which is this amazing wheelchair accessible treehouse that they’ve built over this gorge.

There’s a lot of weird kind of Scranton-specific things that we saw, that will I’m sure come into different episodes. And the entire writing staff was there and they all had different experiences at driving around and going to Scranton bars, and meeting the policewomen. Stuff like that. So I think it was very good for the creativity of everybody here.

Rainn Wilson: Really it’s a lovely town. Like there are big old buildings, 100 years old, all over the downtown - big brick buildings that have a really cool industrial look, and a lot of iron work. And stuff like that.

And there’s beautiful hills all around Scranton. It’s like down in this little valley and there’s lovely trees and hills all over the place. A very green city…Brought to you by the City of Scranton Tourist Bureau. [M&C]

The Washington Post covers Barack’s speech at the Irish Society of Women dinner.  [Washington Post]

Democratic contenders Sens. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) will participate in MTV’s Choose or Lose campaign via a discussion with young Iraq war veterans on the fifth anniversary of the war.  Clinton and Obama will not appear together. Rather, each candidate will talk to the same eight veterans: Chris Weimer, Ernest Johnson, Ryan Groves, Max Nitze, Wendell Guillermo, Jessica McDermott, Christina Correa and Herold Noel.  Obama’s portion of the event is being taped Monday in Scranton, while Clinton will meet with the veterans Tuesday in Lancaster.  [BroadcastNewsroom]

The Huffington Post has a funny article about the many hometowns of Hillary.  [Huffington Post]