ATTENTION LOSERS: The Romney Campaign Wants Your Vote

As anyone with a television, radio or computer knows by now Mitt Romney is rich, a jerk, and a terribly inartful campaigner. Following on the heels of the opinion he offered recently to George Stephanopoulos that the income of the middle class is around, "$200,000 to $250,000 a year", he places something unsavory in the punchbowl of the presidential campaign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnB0NZzl5HA&feature=player_embedded


My only question is, "why does this surprise anyone ?"

From top to bottom the Republican Party has been delivered to the fringe of the right wing. The Tea Party has become the Republican Party. The Republican Party has become the Tea Party. The glaring irony of this osmotic flow of party identity is that many of the people Romney speaks so dismissively of are caught in the same net the Mittster cast. The roughly half of the nation Romney says he simply writes off as unreachable boobs, beholden to government largess and an easy existence on the dole, make up a fair amount of his Tea Party base. They are retired. They are disabled. They are stuck in low-paying, dead-end jobs and so they don't make enough money to cross the threshold of paying taxes. Perhaps these low-wage dregs owe their station in life to a policy of job-elimination similar to that pursued by Romney's Bain Capital.

And yet, we are told, the presidential race remains tight, maybe even too close to call.

What's the matter with these people? Don't they own a television?

Cleared for Take Off

As the Democratic convention in Charlotte gets ready to take off, one will be amazed at how often the question will be put to Obama surrogates, "are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

The answer is, hell yes.

Four years ago, if the U.S. were an airplane and George Bush the captain...

But,  four years ago the captain of our flight was Barack Obama. Passengers boarded with an  air of optimism, perhaps greater than the occasion called for, but most were so relieved to be deplaning from the ruinous, bizarre flight they had just endured that they felt nothing could be worse, and therefore things would be better immediately upon takeoff. There weren't enough little bottles of booze on the planet, let alone the plane, to make the previous flight tolerable.

Sure, Captain Bush had filed incorrect flight plans, there'd be no time for a maintenance check, a lot of people had died, but everybody in First Class was having a grand time and the people in Coach had plans and needed to get where they were going. So as he was leaving, Captain Bush kind of winked and tossed the new guy the keys and said "she's all yours, fuel gauge is acting up  little, don't worry about it." Then, strangely, he kissed the ground.

As the plane lifted off, some of the passengers looked at snapshots from the earlier leg of the journey. Here's the day the terrorists attacked, and some were glad Captain Bush was at the helm. Just after that one was taken multitudes of IRANIANS flooded the streets of Tehran in a candlelight vigil of support for the U.S. in it's hour of tragedy. Why did the Captain label that very picture "Axis of Evil"?

Here's a few shots of the nineteen hijackers who boarded planes that day to mount the attack. Fifteen were from Saudi Arabia, so we knew then that the super-size can of Industrial-Strength Woop Ass would soon be directed at Saudi Arabia. But here's another photo of George W. kissing a prince from Saudi Arabia, must be like a Godfather kiss, right? Funny story, the whole Woop Ass thing with Saudi Arabia got trumped by an older black and white picture of W's dad getting threatened by Saddam Hussein. Since none of the hijackers came from Iraq you might think they'd be sort of in the clear, but their pictures are also labeled "Axis of Evil".

Here's an old one of Dick Cheney when he named himself vice president, written on the back, "no one else was qualified". Here's another titled "energy task force", but it's just a picture of a closed door, I don't remember what that's about.

Here's one of Jeb Bush when he was governor of Florida on the night of the 2000 election, that one's got "inside job" written on the back, but it's crossed out and instead it looks like it's just got numbers "5-4" written instead.

Somebody from First Class by way of a stewardess, sent a note back to Coach that said, "you all are living in the past, looking at all those old pictures. And besides, Captain W and Dick the co-pilot gave us a great flight."

Maybe it's not good to dwell on the past, but so many of the happy memories of the Bush years continue to influence what we're doing today, and the cost of two wars, one against the wrong enemy, continues to weigh down our economy. The special treatment of the people up in First Class has cut into the amenities of us back here in Coach.  Captain Bush's tax cuts along with the wars, drove us nearly Five Trillion dollars further into debt. Obama's debt has been high too but you don't quibble about the price of water when the house, or plane, is on fire.

Back to the friendly skies for a moment. The reason I think things are better now than four years ago is that the economy, like a plane, was crashing then. It was crashing under the ruinous policies of Bush. While Obama has stabilized it and we've actually seen job growth for over two years. Under Bush jobs were disappearing at the rate of 700,000 per month.

Continuing on the airplane metaphor for just a moment longer, recall the Twilight Zone episode of the wild flight William Shatner had. He looked out the window to see a demon tampering with the engines to make the plane crash. When Obama looks out the airplane window he sees the beady, bespeckled eyes of the senior senator from Kentucky, the odious Mitch McConnell, working feverishly to bring truth to his traitorous pledge to make Obama a one term president.

Yes, it's been a rough flight under Captain Obama. We all wish we had made better progress on the journey. I for one, wish we had picked up single-payer health coverage in the gift shop. But Obama did end the war in Iraq. He did make some progress toward universal health coverage. Against an intransigent Republican party he has tried, but admittedly failed, to return tax policy to the time of budget surpluses. The sacrosanct job-creators, pampered by ten years of favored treatment, have thus far failed to deliver on their eponymous long suit. Instead they wait, we are told, for another plane.

Me? I'll stay on Captain Obama's flight.



  

Ethics Commission

At tomorrow night's City Council meeting the Council will consider Bill Number G-12-07 which proposes an Ethics Commission for the city of New Albany. The ordinance has been lumbering toward tomorrow's vote for several months now. In fact, it was first considered during 2010 but was not brought forward until this year.

The purpose of the proposal is to lay the groundwork for the formation of an ethics commission. It is not to form that commission as a working body. All the Council is voting on now is to enable the body to form; for the appointers to fulfill their task of naming members to the commission. Once appointed, the commission members must get to work in writing the bylaws of the commission. The ordinance allows only three months for this formative task to be completed.

The significance of the distinction of enabling versus crafting is to insulate the commission from the inevitable charges of favoritism, cronyism or any other similar ism one might foresee. I hope the commission will act as a sounding board for citizens' concerns about the interplay of commerce and government within our city. Again, the yet-to-be-formed commission has wide leeway to draw up its mandate and the methodology of pursuing that mandate. Neither the Council nor the Administration will have a direct hand in guiding this commission through the drafting of its constitution. I believe, however, the newly appointed commission members could benefit from  reading material recommended and forwarded to them by the Council and the Administration.

On quite a few occasions Council meetings have featured charges lodged by citizens against City personnel. The Ethics Commission should now become the venue for the voicing of those concerns. That forum should allow for a thorough, dispassionate, and apolitical hearing of those complaints. Sometimes people are too close to the process of government to know if a certain action passes the smell test necessary for good government. Sometimes people are too timid or feel that their voices will not be heard, and so retreat from speaking up when they see something that troubles them about local government. I hope the Commission is so constituted to allay those fears and to invite a wider circle of citizens into the oversight of their government.

In discussing the role the appointers were asked to play in this process, several of them said that to be asked to participate in the governance of their community was an honor. If I were not involved in government and were asked to perform such a task I would likewise consider it an honor, and one I would approach seriously. I believe the Ethics Commission can be a valuable tool for good government in our city. It is by no means a panacea. It is my hope that once this commission is formed and in place for some time that it will prove its worth to the community.

      

Windows? We Don't Need No Stinking Windows

Right out of the gate, let me say that the store pictured above is an improvement over the abandoned filling station which used to occupy this prime spot on New Albany's State Street.

It is the addition a of general retail store closest to New Albany's downtown in a long time. Unfortunately, the orientation of the store seems to suggest it wants nothing to do with downtown. It seems to be marooned on an island, adrift from the big box stores farther out the road, and longing to join its larger brothers. It shows its hind quarters to downtown. To pedestrians it offers a not-so-friendly view of sheet metal which says, "this is a transactional place only, not part of a larger community revival. It doesn't want to be. Now get your cheap stuff and go." Come to think of it, it's really still a filling station.

New Albany's planners were most likely handed cookie-cutter plans  for this store which meet all the minimum requirements for the siting of a retail establishment. Many other communities have opened their doors to this retailer. In fact, New Albany has another location of the same store on Vincennes Street, where the old Daisy Line Car Barn stood abandoned for years. From an economic development perspective, some points are now on the scoreboard with this new store. And, with its proximity to Riverview Towers, public housing on Bono Road, and other less affluent neighborhoods, the store does serve a purpose.

It is better than an abandoned filling station. And yet, New Albany has missed an opportunity to raise the bar just a bit. We have missed the chance to broaden the footprint of downtown New Albany. We have quite visibly underscored the notion that when you want something in this town you get in your car to get it.

The corner of Oak and State Streets, charitably speaking, could use some work. While it is just a short walk from the heart of downtown, a downtown whose progress toward vitality most recognize, it is miles away in terms of being included in that revival. It is part of the frayed edge of downtown leading to blocks of a street that is not prosperous and seems to not to have prospects of reaching that distant objective. (this, notwithstanding claims by several who have claimed State Street is the most valuable land inch for inch within the Metro area--Really?) The corner is largely disheveled and houses businesses which magnify the sense of vacancy seen, in fact, on one corner.

That corner, with its proximity to the city center, should be held to a higher standard and it should be developed with an eye toward integrating into a  downtown with a larger footprint. It should serve as a bookend to the downtown (I started to use the more common term in mall building of an "anchor", as in anchor store, but in this case the literal meaning of anchor seems closer to the mark). And when development infills the space between the city center and the corner of Oak and State, a new bookend could be placed farther out the street.

But now the new store presents a bit of a wrinkle in that plan. Assuming something is finally resolved with the owner of the heavy equipment/truck business in the old Lang garage, and the corner is developed integrally with downtown, the renewed block would have a void. But unfortunately, the void will not be able to be developed because it's already filled with tangible nothingness.

New Albany sits at a crossroads, thanks to the opportunities presented by a revivified downtown and  a building trend of support for local businesses, in both goods and services. We have a chance to get this right. We must revisit building standards and undertake the difficult work of making those standards fit the needs of what is possible in New Albany today. We can ask for better than what has appeared on State Street. We can do better.

 

If Only

I can't or won't explain how I ran across this photo. The official caption is "The Unveiling of the Official Portrait of the 43rd President."

If only...

This Side of the Line

In recognition of Memorial Day I'm in search of one of the greatest war movies I've ever seen, Terrence Malick's, "The Thin Red Line". While I haven't seen the movie in at least ten years, I recall it offering an ambivalent exploration of heroism and the horror of war.

As the young son of a World War II veteran, I recall a tinge of disappointment in my father as he related that his five years in the Army Air Corps, and a year or more in the South Pacific, had not yielded any dead Japs. Many years later, I now think of how truly fortunate he was to have been spared that terrible duty.

Beware the Modern Scrivener's Tools

Following is an excerpt from the minutes of the April 19, 2012 City Council meeting. It is a direct copy of the official minutes. While my words will not be chiseled aside those of Lincoln, Roosevelt or Churchill, the excerpt may stand as a cautionary note on the danger of relying on spell-check as the only editing tool.

Mr. Gonder stated that the ordinance is a compilation of ordinances that were being enforced around the state and some of the other examples were president of the Chambers of Commerce and the largest employer of the city, and the fact of the matter is that he specifically included the Post Master which is certainly not a high-flatulent position but one that deals with a wide variety of individuals from all walks of life. He stated that he is offended that anyone would even suggest that anything he is supporting is racially biased because that is not who he is.

italics added