Open Thread: Pedestrian Bridge

Here is the catalyst

 

Final Exception

Ironic I guess but I cannot not promote this event even if it means linking to the Recorder. And more ironically I’ll likely not be able to attend the event.

Anyway from the Recorder:

The tour will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, and will also feature the Mycek home in Hagaman, as well as the Constantino home, the Fedullo home, the Fraumeni home, and the Lorman home in Amsterdam. Advance tickets and tour maps are available from St. Mary’s Hospital Gift Shop, Damiano’s Flowers, and June’s Hallmark for $15 per adult and $8 for children. Tickets will also be available the day of the tour at $20 for adults.

Let’s hope enthusiasm for preservation and recognition closely approximates the zeal of demolition.

My last post, no more exceptions

 

 

The Bright Line

Once again I find myself branded a hypocrite by the columnists and editors at the Recorder. In fact, I’m deemed to practice a  “hypocrisy of the worst kind”.

Just so we’re all clear on the charge, this is the definition of ‘hypocrisy’:

1.	a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.

2.	a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude.

3.	an act or instance of hypocrisy.

Their traditional narrative supporting this charge goes something like this: I am an anonymous blogger–> I allow anonymous posters to post to my anonymous blog–> I am a hypocrite and a coward.

The narrative has since been refined recently given my Sunday Muddy Sunday post  to: I am an anonymous blogger–> I allow anonymous posters to post to my anonymous blog–> I allow a poster named ‘Michael Lazorro’ to post on this blog–> I allow Michael Lazorro to parody Recorder columnist Michael Lazarou’s tag line–> I defend myself in response to Michael Lazarou’s recent Recorder column–>Ergo, I am a coward and a hypocrite.

That is their narrative. Let me now offer mine.

First, a few events of note:

1) ‘Michael Lazorro’  first posted on September 19, 2009. Importantly Michael Lazorro’s avatar — his blog image– is that of a female diver seemingly hitting her head into a diving board; the same image used by a previous poster ‘PK Dick’.  Naturally the avatar remains present on all of Michael Lazorro’s posts. As of today, the avatar belongs to ‘Jennifer Eric’ so a reader of the blog is well aware that this is quite likely the same person as ‘Michael Lazorro’ and ‘PK Dick’. And a casual Google search shows PK Dick to be a well known sci-fi author.  The alias looks highly suspect not only in that he never lived here but that the real PK Dick is long dead; 27 years dead.

2) I assert my copyright to this blog in response to the continued violation of my copyright by the Recorder by their reprinting my posts in their entirety in the AmsterdamExpress weekly publication. I make this clear on my posts of July 21, September 16, September 18, October 2. On September 16, I even add a Copyright Notice page and Copyright to the About page of this blog. I make it crystal clear on each post that I do not want any content from my blog published. Period.

3) On October 2, the Recorder prints in its entirety my post and related comments of the post Knock Them Down Economics. The published post printed in the AmsterdamExpress and widely available on your local newsstands contained 4 comments from the poster in question, Michael Lazorro.

4) On November 13, the Recorder once again prints my post in its entirety including anonymous content. In total, the Recorder has published this anonymous blog and its anonymous posts 11 times: March 20, April 24, May 22, June 12, June 19, July 3, July 10, July 17, July 24 (bonus edition whereby editors mock my copyright!), October 3, November 13.

5) On November 15, The Recorder publishes Michael Lazarou’s column. I publish my rebuttal.

So let me recap the events: the Recorder steals my content and publishes it — and more importantly monetizes it — in violation of my copyright. By publishing content from this blog, the Recorder not only violates my copyright but then propagates digital content from an anonymous blog and anonymous posters into print form. Even worse, what had been a digital fingerprint of posters– their avatar– is stripped from their published version of the post. So a reader of the printed version of the  AmsterdamExpress looking at the name Michael Lazorro would not see the image of a female diver used as the avatar nor would they see the connection to PK Dick, the long dead author, nor would they necessarily realize that aliases are prevalent on blogs. In other words, the Recorder creates the very confusion and controversy that they and Mr Lazarou so rail against through their own print media. Think about their argument: as editors and publishers, they publish anonymous comments in print form and then criticize me for doing the very same thing in online media even though the identity of the poster on this blog is more than clear.  And to make it more laughable,  the online version of the AmsterdamExpress contains the very posts from Michael Lazorro ostensibly at the heart of this ‘controversy’.

What I just described are the actions of the Recorder as publishers and editors, not my actions. I have stated it clearly and in no uncertain terms that I do not want my content published. Period. Yet the Recorder publishes it anyway. But according to the editors above it is I who am the hypocrite and the coward. I think not: they steal the content; they monetize  the content; they publish anonymous blogs and anonymous comments week after week from this blog and others and then the very same editors rail against the anonymity of blogs and bloggers which they publish  in their very own media properties in print and online.

I would be fine countering charges of hypocrisy, cowardice, girly-man,  whatever  in this ongoing saga of anonymity going forward. However I find it wholly unacceptable that my blog posts get copied and published without my permission and against my explicit request for the Recorder to stop publishing. Yet again on November 13 however, the Recorder publishes one of my posts. I simply cannot stomach this going forward. I can no longer be an unwilling business partner to the Recorder for them to monetize my content while simultaneously staking an imagined high ground of integrity and principle against anonymity all the while deriving financial gain from my content. Let me put it this way: someone breaks into your house, steals the clothes out of your closet and then shows up on your doorstep in your suit and tie  irate that the cut and finish of the suit does not suit their taste.   WTF indeed!

I’ll gladly accept that I practice a hypocrisy of the worst kind.  I simply pale in comparison to the very best practitioners of  hypocrisy.

I have invested a lot of time , thought and even emotion into advocating what I felt are the right things for our city– that is what this blog has always been about. I have chosen to remain anonymous largely to make a point on local media , namely, why am I held to a standard to which no other local media entity is held? You have anonymous callers on the radio; anonymous editorials in the newspaper; anonymous posts on other blogs and even anonymous posts in other newspapers– the TU, the Daily Gazette and the Leader Herald. And of course, anonymous posts in the Recorder’s very own media properties. Yet each of these is not held to the standard expected of me. They get a waiver, yet I do not. What I find most ironic is that they claim it is not what is said, it is who says it that matters. So the Recorder can publish an op-ed letter stating that gangs are pulling people out of cars intimating of a possible coverup by the police department  or a column stating that blogs are no longer fashionable — both easily refuted and demonstrably not true– but as they have a name, well it must be so.  Off to the presses! And the same holds true on the radio of course. But my blog, well, now that is a problem.

But the bottom line remains: you do not get to steal my stuff and monetize it. That will simply not do, that is the bright line that I will not allow you to keep crossing. Of my options, the most expedient and economically practical for me is to simply not post. Let me blunt: this is a battle that requires more resources than I can bring to bear. And the more I battle the more it will monetize the Recorder. I find that utterly unpalatable.

A sincere thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

 

Benefit for Frank and Rebecca Persico

Monday November 23, 2009 Parillo’s Armory Grill
Dinner will be served from 4:00pm to 7:00pm
The Alteri Brothers will be playing from 5:00pm to 9:00pm.
Frank & Rebecca recently experienced a fire at their home, which has forced them out until the damages can be fixed. Join us for a benefit to help the Persico’s in this time of need. One of the memories lost in the fire were many Christmas ornaments. While the sentimental value cannot be replaced, we ask that everyone bring one Christmas ornament to help the Persico’s in starting a new Christmas tradition and memories. Tickets are $10 and take out is available. Dinner includes salad, bread, spaghetti, & meatballs.

 

Sunday Muddy Sunday

Plenty to blog about today given a few recent articles and goings-on.

First the fate of the demolition program seems uncertain given the budget gaps at the county level and given pushback from some of the county supervisors. Here is some of the pushback (from recordernews.com) :

Charleston town Supervisor Shayne Walters, meanwhile, has proposed taking the entire $300,000 and putting it back into the Public Works Department budget to make up for cuts he claims take needed services away from the towns and were made largely at the behest of supervisors from the city of Amsterdam, which uses few if any services from the county Public Works Department.

“They took $330,000 from public works, and I want it all back in there,” he said.

And here is what I wrote a few posts back:

I’m not following why we expect the county to pay for infrastructure in the city either from a policy point or from the political point. Why would other towns approve a direct infusion of money to the city other than to raise their own tax rates given the eroding fund balance.  I’m struck how some believe that the towns will blindly go along with directly aiding the city at their expense.

This perfectly illustrates a fatal flaw with shared services: the towns may not want to share and they may have no political or financial incentive to do so. So then what? Less than 2 weeks after an election with ’shared services’ as the theme and already the concept is falling apart with one of the city’s key initiatives and priorities at risk. Not to say ‘I told you so’ but ‘told you so’.

Second, the Recorder covers the East End (here ) and (here) and (here). I’d be curious to see the voter turnout for the East End district as it may highlight how engaged or how relevant voters feel in the East End in the political process. Also it’s good to see a discussion of the low crime rate when in fact the local folklore  suggests that the East End is anything but safe. Sadly the East End has a long way to go as it’s typically viewed as just a few blocks to travel on your way somewhere else. But hey that is true for the entire downtown as that was how it was purposely designed. Until we think of our neighborhoods as destinations for living or commerce versus gateways or thoroughfares, it will only get worse.

For those who view demolition as the answer I’d encourage reading the articles above several times.

Third, Michael Lazarou rails against this blog and a poster, Michael Lazorro  (here). I’ve addressed anonymity of this blog and posters several times in prior posts so I’m not going to rehash old arguments. I’m surprised that parody and satire are not understood by a practitioner of the very same. Most importantly I never viewed the surname as the point of the parody; that clearly would have crossed the line.

I think Mr. Lazarou overstates the use of his tag line: “Until next time — hold that thought”. Of 45 posts by ‘Michael Lazorro’, the tag line was used once and even then it was after many posts by Michael Lazorro with no tag line whatsoever.

Also, Mr. Lazarou’s statement of: Actually blog sites are not as fashionable these days. Now we have other forms of Internet communication such as “Facebook” and “Twitter.” is not true on multiple levels. While Mr. Lazarou may view this blog like I view my cats’ litter box, blogs continue to thrive and flourish as much as he would like to see it otherwise.

I would accept Mr. Lazarou’s criticism of anonymity as sincere if he would similarly rail against anonymous radio callers, anonymous posters on other blogs and publishers who publish anonymous blogs with anonymous posts.

Several days ago I asked the poster Michael Lazorro to move on so I would like to move on as well.

I see my cat nearby so it reminds me that I have some unpleasant business to attend to.

Cheers

 

Election Analysis by Ward (Revised)

Here is a breakdown by Ward of the % of the total vote by party. Again 2nd Ward uses 2001 figures

Ward By Party	2005	2009	% Change
1st
D	48.5%	34.0%	-29.9%
R	51.5%	66.0%	28.1%
2nd
D	63.9%	24.0%	-62.4%
I	0.0%	28.7%	NA
R	36.1%	47.3%	31.0%
3rd
D	47.4%	34.6%	-27.0%
I	0.0%	21.2%	NA
R	52.6%	44.2%	-16.0%
4th
D	61.4%	58.3%	-5.0%
R	38.6%	41.7%	8.0%
5th
D	24.2%	0.0%	NA
I	0.0%	16.2%	NA
R	75.8%	83.8%	10.6%

Quick observations:
- First Ward sees huge gains to Republican
- Second Ward three way race costs Democrat the most
- Third Ward : independent candidate hurts Democrat somewhat more but significant impact on both candidates
- Fourth Ward: slight gain by Republican , slight loss by Democrat
- Fifth Ward: Gain by Republican

Again turnout was quite low but interesting nonetheless.

 

Referendums and Rubbish

If you accept what you read and hear through the local punditry, you would most certainly be convinced that this election is a referendum on Mayor Thane and by proxy Chalmers.That is after all the common wisdom and how dare you question the wisdom of the punditry.

I would expect that if the public truly wanted to send a message or truly felt such outrage at the current state of affairs that voters would turn out in droves to send forth such a message. In other words, you would expect that voter turnout would be higher under such a scenario.

Unfortunately the numbers show quite the opposite for the current election compared to the 2005 election. I chose the 2005 election as it is not a mayoral election similar to the most recent election as you would expect a mayoral election to have an even higher turnout. Also note that as the 2nd ward did not have a contested race in 2005, I went back to 2001.

Here are the numbers:

Ward	2005	2009	Change	%Change
1st	1043	717	-326	-31.3%
2nd*** (figures 2001)	881	499	-382	-43.4%
3rd	692	561	-131	-18.9%
4th	575	403	-172	-29.9%
5th	959	402	-557	-58.1%
Total Turnout	4150	2582	-1568	-37.8%

 

The drop in turnout for the recent election is simply stunning. I do not have a theory as to why but I can tell you that to view this election as a referendum with a plummet in turnout strikes me as fanciful narrative. What is also quite striking is the low turn out in the 5th ward where if we again accept the conventional wisdom that Chalmers formed the basis of the referendum, you would expect strong turnout. However, you see quite the opposite and in fact, the 5th ward shows the largest drop in turnout of any ward.

I’ll post more detailed numbers tomorrow hopefully.

 

Woe is Me

I’m finally feeling a bit better after a bout of the flu likely H1N1.  I’m behind on many fronts so I’m limited for time but let me highlight a few things of note given the flurry of posts from last week:

1) I deleted an exchange from a post by BrazenLiberal to loyalsouthsider on second and perhaps more lucid read. A first and final warning to Brazen

2) I’m not following why we expect the county to pay for infrastructure in the city either from a policy point or from the political point. Why would other towns approve a direct infusion of money to the city other than to raise their own tax rates given the eroding fund balance.  I’m struck how some believe that the towns will blindly go along with directly aiding the city at their expense.

3) By any measure, the infrastructure issues are longstanding and profound. I posted while back on how the poor state of our infrastructure raises the pitchforks but when push comes to shove on how to pay for it without increasing taxes, the pitchforks disappear and what had been urgent and essential gets quickly pushed aside. Of course the hope is that we will receive a grant or other funding which is speculative at best and delusional at worst. Ironically the most vocal critics of state and federal spending programs then eagerly seek funding from the very programs they so rail against. Let’s be blunt: if voters want to truly fix infrastructure, create a bond issue and put it for referendum. If it passes, then voters will walk the walk, if not, then it’s just talk with no practical basis for reality.

4) I’d be in favor of adaptive reuse of the former museum as a B&B and even some other uses. What I had in mind as ‘commercial’ looked like a huge parking lot with huge halogen parking lights such as a medical office complex. I painted with too broad a brush so I’m not automatically opposed to reuse,  just certain types of reuse that would take a heavy toll on home values in the surrounding neighborhood. And yes, I’d be happy to see it on the tax rolls but again that is not a certainty either.

5) I’ll revisit the numbers from the election but that will have to wait

6) I’ll revisit the narratives surrounding the election as well so that should also prove entertaining.

 

 

 

 

Final Election Results

h/t to Diane Hatzenbuhler, the link to county results (here)

Barbara Johnson does indeed win the 2nd Ward Supervisor race.

 

 

LIVE: Election 2009:An Experiment in Live Blogging (Updated)

10:55 Calling it a night, thanks for stopping by. Cheers

10:50 Again Johnson shows as winning versus Stark, so I’m not going to call it

10:47 I’ll be wrapping up soon so as of now, it does look like Wills has won and Wheeler as well.

10:28  I now show two sources with Stark leading as I posted previously

10:12 COnflicting number here that Stark lost by 35 so Ward 2 unknown now

10:09 I’m calling it for Leggiero and Baia; not all numbers in but big leads

10:07 Unofficial with no numbers but Wills won; Dybas lost or Barbara Wheeler wins

10:00 Stark 261 to Johnson 180 with all districts

9:59 Gina DeRossi wins 248, Martin 194, Wierzbicki  119 all districts reporting

9:57 Julie Pierce winner with 4 out of 4 reporting. Pierce 306, Phelps 143, Raciborski 120.

9:55 473 Isabel to 244 Ahr with all districts reporting

9:53 Leggiero 298-59 with 2 of 4 districts

9:51 1 of 4 dstricts in ward 4 shows Diane H leading Wills 25-21

9:47Julie Price sizable lead with 1 out of 4 districts in 2nd ward

9:32 Gina DeRossi likely winner in 3rd Ward

9:25 Joe Isabel appears to have a sizable lead in 1st ward

9:10 By ‘epic fail’ I mean this live blogging experiment,

9:05 Just remembered that in the 3rd ward at least the machines were old school not the computerized stations. Apparently no training occurred for the poll operators so it just sat there unused as a prop.

9:00 Not off to an auspicious start just learning that I won’t get updates locally as quickly as expected. Hopefully this is not an epic fail. Republicans win VA races just announced.

I’ll be live blogging after 9 as I get election results and minding the console if anyone wants to post.

I see some searches looking for the candidates in Amsterdam. Please refer to the Recorder’s list of Montgomery County Races if you want to know who is running.