Couple of things
- I wasn't able to attend mayoral debate at Cedar Shoals, so the best I can do is link to the Athens Banner-Herald's story. My quick take is that Heidi Davison is the most rational person involved in these discussions with respect to her answers and explanations, though I'll admit that Heidi sticker on my car makes me a tad biased. My impression of Charlie Maddox continues to remain sour ... in fact, the more I hear of him and see of him, the more I dislike what he wants to do (though, to be quite fair, I agree with Pete in that I'm not really sure what he wants to do ... well, aside from wishing to undo about everything I've supported the past few years) and, most disheartening, the more I fear that he possesses little knowledge on the issues aside from programmed snippets and sound bites fed to him by his staff and consultants.
- Take for instance the taxes question last night, where Maddox said he'd return any surplus to the people, including the most recent one. Davison pointed out there was strong community support for expanding bus service to night to assit those working late shifts with limited transportation means, and that following Maddox's advice, each one in the community would get only $5. Maddox quipped 'well, I'm still waiting on my check' and said the money should go to the community. Two things on this:
- I penned open letter to former Athens-Clarke County Commission candidate Chuck Jones.
- To make amends for not listening to my intern's radio show, I give it a little publicity here.
- This is a nice piece on Rev. Joseph Lowery which is worth the read.
- Jeff Emanuel's column has elicted quite a response ... see here, here and ... oh wait, this is a rebuttal to a different column by Emanuel.
- Gosh A-Rod ... this couldn't happen to a more overpaid, er, nicer fella.
This should be hanging over my fireplace.
- Take for instance the taxes question last night, where Maddox said he'd return any surplus to the people, including the most recent one. Davison pointed out there was strong community support for expanding bus service to night to assit those working late shifts with limited transportation means, and that following Maddox's advice, each one in the community would get only $5. Maddox quipped 'well, I'm still waiting on my check' and said the money should go to the community. Two things on this:
1. The money was spent on the community, based on the perception of the community's wishes, in expanding the bus service;
2. Here's a man who one day after saying he was for those who felt 'left out' such as the poor, feels a better course of public action to assist them is to send them an additional $5 a year versus increasing their transportation options.
- I penned open letter to former Athens-Clarke County Commission candidate Chuck Jones.
- To make amends for not listening to my intern's radio show, I give it a little publicity here.
- This is a nice piece on Rev. Joseph Lowery which is worth the read.
- Jeff Emanuel's column has elicted quite a response ... see here, here and ... oh wait, this is a rebuttal to a different column by Emanuel.
- Gosh A-Rod ... this couldn't happen to a more overpaid, er, nicer fella.
This should be hanging over my fireplace.
posted by Jmac at 7:10 AM
7 Comments:
Have you heard any reason why Andy didn't show last night? If he is at all interested in being taken as a serious candidate, he really needs to be attending these debates.
Have you noticed that there are like 20 of them?
I missed the Andy Rusk fire at the debate last night. It would at least have made it a little more lively. The rundown:
-Tom Chasteen is a likeable fellow, and he is trying to tout his environmental record, but he was either late on board or opposed to many environmental proposals in town.
-Richard Derose says we've been heading for disaster, but he's awfully short on ideas for how to head this off (other than his one-trick pony act about laboratory security)
-Charlie Maddox is a stooge. He doesn't seem to know anything about anything. I think Jeff Snowden (his PR guy) has written everything for him, but Maddox can't keep it straight. His closing comment was like a broken tricycle running in circles. He kept saying something vague about "letting the county manager manage" but that when ordinances don't work, we'll fix them. He also talked about jobs, the best-defined part of his platform. Overall, the biggest waste of money in Athens history for his well-heeled contributors.
-Heidi Davison can be a little curt, but dammit if she doesn't have actual ideas about how to get things done. She obviously has an advantage in this way as incumbent, but if you enter the ring with her, get ready to be knocked over. She talked about transportation in a comprehensive way and about poverty and the environment.
The Banner Herald mentioned this morning that there are some more debates coming. Get out there and see these people speak before election day.
Jmac, you're becoming a Peteocrat (see below).
Progress, progressiveness and Peteocrats.
Pete’s a good old soul. He’s seen a lot and he’s been in a lot of the doings in this town. You can’t accuse him of not loving Athens. But Pete’s wrong about at least a few things.
Pete would have you believe that he has the answers. He has developed a little list for the great master plan that which you either adopt and are a welcome part of humanity, or reject and you are the brood of everything wrong in this society.
Pete is wrong about progressive thought in the very essence that progress is an obvious part of the concept. There are people who want progress towards a better life for everyone and those people are Progressives. There are those people who are for progress for their friends and cronies and at whatever expense to the greater community. Pete would call those people non-progressives, Republicans or suburbanites. But Pete is wrong. These people are Peteocrats.
How to know that you are a Peteocrat
• You acknowledge poverty and find the fundraising parties a great place to talk about concerts from the eighties back when so and so owned the whatever club. But truthfully, you would rather form endless committees and put a few stickers on you car before you would ever venture into an impoverished neighborhood. You wouldn’t be caught dead at the state capitol asking for better pay for public servants or more CDBG money for the homeless shelter. You would never think of getting your own hands dirty in social welfare, but instead form coalitions and causes so that you can talk the problem into resolution or at least until the fad expires. You sweep today’s poverty issues under the rug with the years of unacknowledged hardships that have been a reality for one-third of our residents. That is, of course, unless poverty is fashionable again in which case you put a new sticker on the car and call up your old bandmates for a reunion benefit.
• You don’t just live in a neighborhood; you live in “the neigborhoods” which are four or five exclusive little enclaves. You concern yourself, see the world and vote all based on how your little slice of the world can benefit. You really don’t care that people a few miles from you don’t have fire protection or adequate water lines. So long as your blue heaven is mowed and has the trash cans off the curb, the rest of Athens can fend for itself.
You protect your turf like the Gestapo and even though you used to jam in the basement of your old rental house, you happily attempt to cite and evict the musicians, artists, students and those who can’t afford to pay $300,000 for a heap of scrap you call a charming rustic bungalow.
• Water, trees and bicycles have become your holy trinity. The giant void left in your heart because you can’t muster (or stomach, for that matter) the actions needed to truly assist our county’s needy is now filled with a fanaticism you pursue bravely in the face of reason.
You know that the poor would cease to suffer if they only had adequate bicycle lanes to get them to work. In truth, you have your home and job and bike and really don’t need or want much else and therefore don’t think anyone else should have much else either. Businesses should beg for your mercy to build a building. No one should be able to add onto their home within 75 feet of an intermittent ditch unless you say so and if they don’t like it, they can move to Oconee County.
• You have the special ability to discern between a crumbling scrap pile that should be demolished and a crumbling scrap pile that should be lauded and worshiped as some example of architectural brilliance. You would preserve a porta potty if a member of R.E.M. had used it and consider it your right to “protect” the homes of people and organizations by dictating the improvements and maintenance they can perform to their own property.
Additionally, you fail to do much with property you have “saved” such as encouraging tourists and visitors to utilize the property. Instead, you prefer the property to sit idle save for the occasional meeting or wine tasting. And if anyone but you saves a piece of historical architecture, you criticize it referencing some obscure architect you read about.
• You understand that people differ in infinite varieties and all should have the equal opportunity to make themselves members of our community regardless of their religious, sexual, ethnic or political differences unless they are republicans, business people, Christians, from Atlanta, from the suburbs, from Oconee County, drive an SUV, or voted for Bush.
You’d might have a drum circle or sing about respect for political differences yet you’ll attack people merely based on their support of a specific candidate. You might attack a candidate merely for the people who support them regardless of the candidates’ own views. You are enlightened and accepting of all political views so long as they match yours and your agenda.
• You’re sick of sprawl and support efforts to shape our area so that the growth of our city does not obliterate the green space that forms its boundaries in your neighborhood. You then buy and rent poorly maintained houses in other neighborhoods and allow the decimation of large tracts of land in other parts of the county so long as the national brand drug store doesn’t supplant the possibility of having a Whole Foods store or organic herb shop in your neighborhood.
You make sprawl the big scary mask for the truth that you wish it was still 1984 in Athens and you don’t want anyone else to come here even if it means no more jobs for those who need them. Hey, you’ve got yours.
• You believe that we should always be looking for viable alternatives to getting around by automobile, so you propose trails and bike lanes from your house to downtown. You expect everyone else to pay for your transportation alternatives but you have no answers for their transportation save for the possibility that they can have their bus shelter decorated by a local artist.
You don’t and won’t ride public transportation because public transportation is for poor people and poor people remind you what an asshole you are. Plus, it’s not as fun to give those people in SUVs the bird from a bus as it is from a bike.
• You know that our best chance at attracting businesses that will provide good jobs is to enhance the livability of Athens. You are convinced that this city will soon be exclusively populated with people in silver suits who make websites or work in biotech for a “living” wage with partner benefits. You defy the reality that the city spends nearly no money attracting any business be they clean, dirty or otherwise. You support local businesses only when they are part of your crowd and you use ineptitude in economic development in pursuit of a no progress agenda.
• You respect immense value from the University of Georgia and always expect the benefits of the University without any of the ills. You’d rather put up a Cheney poster before you’ll admit that UGA is the most under-utilized resource in the county… after the skate park, of course. You fail to recognize the university’s offer for assistance and instead mount a protest on how they should conduct business. You have profited from the university but now want them to accept the blame for your inability to lead effectively.
• You grasp the importance of good schools to a good community and are committed to making our public schools better and therefore, you wear a button saying as much. The button, however, is the extent of your support. Your children are either long since grown and gone or attend a school that can eschew the “disruptive element”. You say you support local schools because it sounds so nice but truthfully you believe yourself and your children to be so much better than the Clarke County School System that your support is in voice only and even then, very faint.
You will never mentor, talk to school children about your business or commit your money to the education of a child beyond the amount taxes force you to pay.
• You enjoy a few restaurants, bars and clubs that provide entertainment and barely substantive employment to so many and understand what a valuable resource this is to a particular scene in Athens. You believe everywhere else sucks and you poop on anything that doesn’t meet the approval of “the scene”. You would support the lending of government money to support that which fits into the scene schema, but you would tie up another long lasting establishment for two years with land planning issues. Being in the scene has its privileges.
• You believe that democracy functions best when it is open to all progressives as you define “progressive”, and you support efforts to involve your friends in the decisions that affect everyone else’s lives. While you might be tempted to ponder the real needs and wants of the community at large, you smartly correct yourself assured that only you and your peers know the way everyone should live.
• To sum up all of the above, you believe that our community is your ecosystem in which we all should impact each other and that government should be allowed to define the common good through ways that, if perpetrated by republicans, would be called crime, greed or disregard. You also believe that government should enable people to encroach on their freedom and dreams of others in order to make needed choices, as long as those choices fall into the schema of those who wrongly call themselves progressive.
Wow. Just wow.
I agree with Xon.
Particularly considering none of those little descriptions fit me ... but, hey, thanks for playing.
That had to be written by Jeff Snowden. He is the only Republican in town that can write horse puckey that well.
Post a Comment
<< Home