Monday, January 09, 2006

Smoking hot NA blog headlines (and commentary) to start your Monday.

Drama aplenty today at NA Health, the Healthblogger takes off his gloves and lays it on the line in “Lack of integrity with Commissioners”:

The County Commissioners met on Tuesday January 3, 2006 and made reappointments to the Floyd Memorial Hospital Board. They chose to re-appoint Kay Garry and remove Dr. Daniel Eichenberger. They replaced his position with Keith McGraw who is a personal friend of the CEO Bryant Hanson. The vote was 2-1 against Dr. Eichenberger with Steve Bush voting in favor of Dr. Eichenberger and Chuck Freiberger and John Reisert in opposition … two county commissioners placed politics and egos over their duty to the Hospital and the community.

Later, it is revealed that "Healthblogger and Daniel Eichenberger M.D. are one in the same."

New Albany Today’s host blogger, ex-councilman Maury Goldberg, perseveres in a well-intentioned effort to research the case of a former constituent, even as he fends off a politically-motivated kneecapping at the hands of Trog Sham, avatar of local class conflict, in “The Plight of ... Update/future postings.”

Will Maury survive to blog another day?

Meanwhile, it’s time for a brief reconsideration of events in the New Albany blogosphere last week, when Ann at Diggin' in the Dirt broke this story on Thursday: “Updated: Super Duper Diggin in the Dirt World Exclusive: President Bush Coming to New Albany.”

NA Confidential gleefully seized upon it to indulge in a satisfying round of Bush bashing in “Even if the President did still drink, I wouldn't serve him, but I'd consider a cream pie in Dick Cheney's face,” but as it turns out, Ann’s revelation was right on target.

It took until Saturday morning for the laggardly Tribune to confirm that the visit actually had been planned, but was cancelled owing to scheduling conflicts with Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels – a front page story so unimportant to the ‘Bune that it has failed to archive it on-line, and at the same time leaving amplification to the Courier-Journal, which on Friday announced that the chief executive will be in Louisville on Wednesday, January 11, to discuss homeland security.

Judging from Ann’s comments in her Friday follow-up piece, “One Day, It Will All Make Sense,” she caught a great deal of undeserved flak from all sides for nothing more than having the nerve to do the local newspaper’s job, and to provide a report on real news, irrespective of vows of “secrecy” taken by public officials in the run-up to the "visit that wasn't."

Last time I looked, such chutzpah was included in the definition of journalist, but perhaps the rules have changed.

No NA blog tour would be complete without a priceless sample of the crayon-encrusted graffiti scrawled on the weatherbeaten drywall above the urinals at the Luddite Bar & Grill – the Copacabana of the Bud Light set – and today is no exception:

Contrary to the accusations of instigating a 'Class Conflict' war in New Albany, we've been operating from the perspective of "civic networking at the local community level" (D. Schuler, 1996). We like to think we are helping to bridge the information gap between citizens and local government that has been prevalent in this town for far too many years.

You read it here, civility fans. Masked character assassins at the spitwad blogyard actually are participating in “civic networking.”

Joe Goebbels would be very proud of you, Laura.

Have you considered armbands and public rallies?

Stay tuned -- city council meeting tonight.

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