New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?
Showing posts with label Deaf Gahan (Twitter). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deaf Gahan (Twitter). Show all posts
New Albany's new $15 million city hall, which is taking far longer to complete than expected, is a genuine sign of the end times before we even begin to consider Jeff Gahan's gold-plated fixtures.
One thing's for sure: Deaf might be okay with losing the toilet race to some confusing Asian country of which he's blissfully unaware, BUT THAT HORRID POSEUR MIKE MOORE IS ANOTHER STORY ENTIRELY.
We can only hope the shipment of superior Japanese toilet technology eludes the coronavirus cordon.
I just got back from my first trip to Japan, and I'm now in love with the country. The ramen, yakitori and sushi. The gorgeous volcanoes. The fascinating people and culture. But of all the things I fell in love with, there's one that I can't stop thinking about: the toilets.
Japanese toilets are marvels of technological innovation. They have integrated bidets, which squirt water to clean your private parts. They have dryers and heated seats. They use water efficiently, clean themselves and deodorize the air, so bathrooms actually smell good. They have white noise machines, so you can fill your stall with the sound of rain for relaxation and privacy. Some even have built-in night lights and music players. It's all customizable and controlled by electronic buttons on a panel next to your seat.
JULIA Gillard's constant use of the slogan "moving forward" was treating voters like imbeciles, says a former Labor speechwriter.
Author Don Watson said yesterday he was turned off by the PM's election launch speech on Saturday, in which she used the phrase 24 times.
"It is the cliche of our times. When she started trotting it out I walked away after five minutes. I couldn't stand it any more," he said.
Mr Watson, who has railed against management-speak in books such as Death Sentence, couldn't understand why today's politicians used such language. "I don't know why they think it's a winner. And if it is a winner, then I'm even more dumbstruck. It's hard to imagine what the alternative to 'moving forward' is. I don't know - moving backwards? I suppose that's what she's trying to establish.
"People think the only way you can make a political point or persuade people of an argument is to treat them like imbeciles. It's like training a dog."
Note that imbecilic is an adjective: "Imbecilic (comparative more imbecilic, superlative most imbecilic), like or as an imbecile; so senseless as to be laughable; absurd, foolish, stupid, idiotic."
Moore (R) and Gahan (also an R, but a D for the sake of today's argument) aren't the first two politicians from theoretically opposite parties to share a slogan. This, also from 2010:
Texas Democratic Party: Hey, maybe you can get a cut of Perry's t-shirt sales!
If there's one thing that Democrats and Gov. Rick Perry can agree on it's that Perry's new campaign slogan, Moving Texas Forward, is a great slogan: So great, in fact, that it's been the Texas Democratic Party's slogan for the last four years.
From Both Sides of the Aisle, a Question: Is Ending It With a Period Weird?
The. Obama. Campaign. Slogan. Is. Causing. Grammarians. Whiplash.
"Forward." is the culprit. It was chosen to reflect the direction Mr. Obama promises to take the country if re-elected. It also is designed to implicitly convey the opposite: that likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney would set the nation in reverse.
Simple enough. Except the moment seven characters became eight, things got complicated. Period. Even for some in the president's orbit, the added punctuation slams the brakes on a word supposed to convey momentum.
"It's like 'forward, now stop,' " said Austan Goolsbee, the former chairman of the National Economic Council who still advises the Obama campaign. He added, "It could be worse. It could be 'Forward' comma," which would make it raise the question: "and now what?"
The president signed off on his own slogan, but evidently isn't sold. "Forward! Period. Full stop," he has joked to his campaign staff, according to an Obama adviser.
On that, if on nothing else, Mr. Obama has bipartisan support.
"It's sort of a buzz kill," said Rep. Pete King (R., N.Y.).
The period was a subject of a spirited debate as Mr. Obama's senior advisers and outside consultants spent hours in a conference room at their Chicago campaign headquarters deliberating over the perfect slogan, according to an adviser who was in attendance.
Does a period add emphasis? Yes! Does it undermine the sense of the word? Maybe!
David Axelrod, the president's longtime messaging guru, is a champion of the period. "There's some finality to it," Mr. Axelrod said. For those who think it stops "forward" in its tracks, he has a suggestion: "Tell them just to put two more dots on it, and it'll seem like it keeps on going."
The period debate hasn't been confined to the upper echelons of the Obama campaign. Politicians, grammarians and designers who brand people and products have noticed it, too.
"There's been some speculation that the period really gives the feeling of something ending rather than beginning," said Catherine Pages, an art director in Washington, D.C.
In 1992, George H.W. Bush's line, "Who do you trust?" generated chatter about the use of "who" versus "whom." Dwight Eisenhower's 1952 slogan "I like Ike" is clearly a sentence, but didn't include a period. George W. Bush's "Yes, America Can" slogan included a comma; Mr. Obama's "Yes We Can" chant four years later did not.
Meanwhile, the title of the super PAC supporting Mr. Romney, "Restore Our Future," seems to bend the rules of space and time, if not grammar.
Those who brandish red pens for a living are divided on whether Mr. Obama's campaign slogan passes muster.
"It would be quite a stretch to say it's grammatically correct," said Mignon Fogarty, author of "Grammar Girl's 101 Troublesome Words You'll Master in No Time." "You could say it's short for 'we're moving forward.' But really it's not a sentence."
The only single words that properly end with a period are verbs, Ms. Fogarty added, or interjections such as "wow."
If you are a devotee of the "electric Twitter machine" (credit CP Pierce) and are not following Deaf Gahan, it's time to play catch-up. Hilarity and brutal accuracy all at once? It's lovely, just lovely.
Deaf Gahan has a new nom de plume at Twitter, and it's perfect for a cash-infused, well-oiled, imperial re-election campaign.
Nom de plume: a name that a writer uses instead of his or her real name; pseudonym, pen name.
But who is Sardonicus?
It begins with the adjective sardonic, which means grimly disdainful or cynical, and bitter, scornful derision to the point of malevolence. The word sardonic is derived from Greek.
Sardonic comes from the Greek adjective Sardonios, which actually describes a plant from a place called Sardinia that supposedly made your face contort into a horrible grin ... right before you died from its poison. The Greeks used sardonic for laughter, but we only use it when someone's humor is also mocking or ironic.
This facial contortion worked its way into the medical literature and is now used to describe an actual condition.
Risus sardonicus or rictus grin is a highly characteristic, abnormal, sustained spasm of the facial muscles that appears to produce grinning. Risus sardonicus may be caused by tetanus, strychnine poisoning or Wilson's disease, and has been reported after judicial hanging.
Much later science proved the ancient Greeks were on to something.
In 2009 scientists at the University of Eastern Piedmont in Italy wrote that they had identified hemlock water dropwort (Oenanthe crocata) as the plant historically responsible for producing the sardonic grin. This plant is the most likely candidate for the "sardonic herb", which was a neurotoxic plant used for the ritual killing of elderly people in pre-Roman, Nuragic Sardinia.
"Mr. Sardonicus" became a 1961 Hollywood horror film directed by Wiliam Castle, based on short story by Ray Russell.
But let's not forget the way most music fans of a certain age were introduced to Sardonicus, via the rock group Spirit's 1970 release, The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, which was reviewed in Rolling Stone at the time by none other than the estimable literary figure Nick Tosches. He explains.
Any illusions that might still be clung to along the order of Spirit's being an Epic house organ anthropomorphization-of-eclecticism shuck, complete with baldpated, cerebral - looking leftover from the bongo drums and black beret era, should be flushed down the old metaphysical crapper as quickly as one would dispose of just so much Nathan's ® chicken chow mein sandwich puke, because this here Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus (a hep reference to William Castle's great 1963 horror flick Mr. Sardonicus, which was about this mick who had his face paralyzed by banshees into a super-hideous grin when he crashed his father's casket to get a winning lottery ticket out of the old geezer's jacket pocket and then went around wearing this creepy plastic mask and bringing women down his cellar to ball except you should've seen the shit that went down whenever he would take off the mask) lay languidly upon the very steps to Parnassus.
The album contains the song most geezers like me associate with Spirit, as it was an FM radio staple during the 1970s -- and appropriately named considering the subject matter of today's column.
"It's nature's way of telling you something's wrong" strikingly conveys the very idea of a third term for Jeff Gahan. Consequently, the answer lies in Castle's movie.
Castle, with his reputation as the "king of gimmicks" to market his films, built the marketing for the film around the idea of the two possible endings.
Near the end of the film, audiences were given the opportunity to participate in the "Punishment Poll". Each movie patron was given a glow-in-the-dark card featuring a hand with the thumb out. At the appropriate time, they voted by holding up the card with either the thumb up or down as to whether Sardonicus would live or die.
Come November, the verdict on Deaf Gahan Sardonicus is as clear as the malevolent grin on the faces of his special interest donors.
How do self-respecting entertainers talk about sex when the "decency" standards of the day won't allow it?
With creative hilarity, that's how.
I'll look to Butterbeans & Susie any day (and twice on Sunday) in search of proper roll models before once gazing in the direction of New Albany's role-player-in-chief.
It may seem crazy to readers, but I had the double-LP Stars of the Apollo Theatre soon after it came out in 1972, when I was 12. It fairly smokes, eight decades after the songs were recorded.
Compare the good-natured yet edgy humor of Butterbeans & Susie with this tongue-in-cheek (and considerably tamer) version of the song "Strip Polka", by Alvino Rey.
Literally, black and white: "But she stops -- and always just in time." Too bad Dear Leader isn't heeding this sage advice.
By the way, here is Shane's wordy concept of the week.
dou·ble en·ten·dre
/ˌdo͞obl änˈtändrə,ˌdəbl änˈtändrə/ noun
a word or phrase open to two interpretations, one of which is usually risqué or indecent
synonyms: ambiguity, double meaning, innuendo, play on words
"much of the comedy is derived from racy double entendres"
Some residents could move back home Sunday if successful
New Albany Housing Authority interim director David Duggins updated the NAHA board of commissioners on the situation at a special meeting Friday afternoon.
Duggins said a temporary fix was being tested Friday on the first floor and six residential floors. If it holds, some of those residents can begin moving back in by Sunday. Duggins said they will make certain the fix is secure before notifying individuals who may begin moving.
Once that is in place, engineers will begin performing the same fix on the remaining floors and work to move residents back in stages.
"What we will not do is rush our residents back there," Duggins said.
Duggins said he and staff have been visiting the residents each day at hotels and said they are doing well; he thanked them for their patience.
While the rest of us were preoccupied with a luxury city hall, the Floyd County Parks Department was stealing a march on His Deafness's NA City Parks unit.
Ah, but the Deafster was on top of it all along.
"You haven't factored in the Romeo Langford Municipal Complex. First reading coming soon as soon as Barksdale puts us over the bar."
Deep within the bowels of the Down Low Bunker, the mayor even has his own personalized conference room for maximum confidentiality, solitude and clandestineness.
It looks like the first gathering is about to be convened.
It's called SMEG-NA, or Serious Monetization End Game for New Albany.
And don't forget to check your TASERs at the entrance to a very long access corridor.
A. Neither will viewed by taxpayers any time soon.
Just don't mention it to the mayor. Open records make him mean.
We feel for you, CM Blair.
Your council colleague Bob "Plead the Fifth" Caesar pulled the same stunt with the Bicentennial Commission records, and ironically, precisely the same handsomely remunerated municipal mouthpiece kept the books firmly shut.
In other news, the Green Mouse ...
... says he has learned the identity of the genetically engineered (hey, Green isn't?) Deaf Gahan mouse.
This reader comment wins the Internet: Should have prayed for better weather.
The article is credited to "NEWS AND TRIBUNE," suggesting that it has been contributed from an outside source. Shouldn't this be identified clearly as a press release or submission?
Most importantly, the Freedom from Religion Foundation explains how evangelical Christians hijacked the constitution.
... The Senate report over the National Day of Prayer reveals that the National Day of Prayer law is based on bad history: The revisionist myth that the founders of our secular Constitution prayed during the Constitutional Convention. Prayer was indeed suggested, but the proposal, floated by Benjamin Franklin, was not adopted. Instead, the convention adjourned for the day. Our founders went on to adopt a godless and entirely secular Constitution, whose only references to religion in government are exclusionary.
Next, the alternative. Perhaps next year I'll think to submit a press release to the newspaper.
---
National Day of Reason - May 4, 2017 A consortium of leaders from within the community of reason endorsed the idea of a National Day of Reason. This observance is held in parallel with the National Day of Prayer, on the first Thursday in May each year. The goal of this effort is to celebrate reason—a concept all Americans can support—and to raise public awareness about the persistent threat to religious liberty posed by government intrusion into the private sphere of worship. The National Day of Reason website is co-sponsored by the American Humanist Association and the Washington Area Secular Humanists. The Day of Reason also exists to inspire the secular community to be visible and active on this day to set the right example for how to effect positive change. Local organizations might use “Day of Reason” to label their events, or they might choose labels such as Day of Action, Day of Service, or Rational Day of Care. The important message is to provide a positive, useful, constitutional alternative to the exclusionary National Day of Prayer. To facilitate the commemoration of the National Day of Reason by individuals and organizations throughout the U.S., the American Humanist Association and the Washington Area Secular Humanists joined together in 2003 to launch this National Day of Reason web site. This web site is designed to serve as the focal point for an effort to recognize the National Day of Reason, and as a platform to offer a criticism of the federally-sponsored National Day of Prayer. We hope that it will be a resource to the community of reason, the press, and the general public. Why Do We Oppose the National Day of Prayer?
The National Day of Prayer violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution because it asks federal and local government entities to set aside tax dollar supported time and space to engage in religious ceremonies. This results in unconstitutional governmental support of religion over no religion.
Lead by fundamentalist Christian Shirley Dobson, the National Day of Prayer Task Force promoted thousands of events specifically in accordance with its Judeo-Christian beliefs and focused on a small segment of the Protestant Christianity. Since they hold their events on the government sponsored National Day of Prayer, government officials of all levels participate in these events as if they were government endorsed.
The Supreme Court has made it clear (and most Americans agree) that state sponsored prayer in school is inappropriately exclusionary. Why is a nationally sponsored day of prayer any more inclusive? This national effort geared toward a small slice of the religious spectrum is clearly outside the boundaries of proper governmental reach.
The National Day of Prayer makes those who don’t pray feel like second-class citizens. Why set aside a national day that needlessly excludes?
Religious Americans who wish to pray don’t need to be reminded by government to do so, so there’s no reason to limit prayer to a single day for those who chose to practice their chosen faith in that way. Government has no business saying when or what Americans should do when and if they engage in religious practice.
Government also violates the First Amendment with the National Day of Prayer by acting to promote a certain manifestation of religion. It emphasizes only one form of religious practice, and therefore discriminates against the many others, including alms giving, social justice, fasting, peace activism and meditation.
Many traditional religious groups encourage adherents not to make their prayer public, so this state sponsored public display of prayer is a direct affront to such teachings and disrespects countless religious Americans. Many Americans faithfully follow the words from the Sermon on the Mount, “When you pray don’t do it loudly in the synagogue or on street corners so that everyone can see you and think you are really good and holy.”
Whenever government involves itself in religious practice as is done with the National Day of Prayer it taints that religious practice by reducing the co-opted religion’s effectiveness to protest government action, and also (in an infeasible effort to broaden the practice’s appeal) government inappropriately dilutes the messages of faithful adherents.
Freedom of expression and worship, including the opportunity to pray or not pray as we wish, are already present without government endorsement. There is no need to set-aside a public day for prayer.
1. characterized by or showing servile complaisance or deference; fawning: an obsequious bow.
2. servilely compliant or deferential:obsequious servants.
3. obedient; dutiful.
Origin of obsequious
1375-1425; late Middle English < Latin obsequiōsus, equivalent to obsequi(um) compliance ( obsequ(ī) to comply with ( ob- ob- + sequī to follow) + -ium -ium ) + -ōsus -ous
As long as ProMedia continues to funnel ad money from Team Gahan to the News and Tribune, we can expect the newspaper to continue treating our mayor with obsequious deference.
You'd think Deaf would know this one. After all, it's in his mission statement as mayor.
1. lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous; insincere: Her excuse was rather disingenuous.
Origin of disingenuous
First recorded in 1645-55; dis- + ingenuous
It's odd how seldom we use the word ingenuous, which means candid and sincere. Most commonly, we don't see "ingenuous" without dis- ... a Latin prefix meaning “apart,” “asunder,” “away,” “utterly,” or having a privative, negative, or reversing force.
Our sample sentence:
For Gahan to thank the Horseshoe Foundation for its QRS parks tithe without acknowledging that the sewer utility, of which Gahan pays himself to be chairman, already had purchased the property was plainly disingenuous.
And it was disingenuous, even if the obsequious newspaper failed to connect these dots.
Meanwhile, we learn from Dat Jeffersonville Newspaper that when it comes to vehicular traffic, though for very little else, Deaf Gahan wants you to be informed.
"Our plan is to keep the public informed with details as we move through the construction period."
Well, there's a first time for everything -- and they do tend to coddle drivers, don't they? As for me, I'll believe it when I see it. For the official statement from downtown curmudgeons, go here:
Bizarrely, the forever conniving Coffey only recently garnered the full support of Phipps, Mayor Jeff Gahan, his Boy Adam Wonder and other paragons of Democratic Party hypocrisy in deposing city council attorney Matt Lorch, this being the price Coffey demanded to support the last Democrats left cowering.
Will the serial bigot Coffey support a resolution in support of human rights? Contractually, he'll have to vote yes if Gahan demands it. But does the mayor even care? Will Scott Blair abstain, citing his oft-stated principle of eschewing non-binding resolutions?
The resolution suits me, and my guess is it will pass; like most other examples of Phipps' council specialty (gesture politics), the result will be a big, fat, empty zero.
To be sure, Mike Moore's "state of the city" address was little more than the usual yawner platitudes punctuated with auto-erotic back-patting, but at least he stood up in front of actual humans and spoke.
"It's going to be another exciting spring and summer in downtown Jeffersonville," he said. "Hundreds of thousands of people have already walked across the Big Four Bridge and have been pleasantly surprised by what's waiting on this side. But there's so much more to come."
Evidently Moore isn't finished, either. I always enjoyed finishing, but to each his or her own.
Of course, even if New Albany's mayor could muster a solitary yearly speech in the relative security of the third floor conference room (a hurdle he's yet to clear), it wouldn't change the sad diagnosis of agoraphobia.
Agoraphobia (ag-uh-ruh-FOE-be-uh) is a type of anxiety disorder in which you fear and often avoid places or situations that might cause you to panic and make you feel trapped, helpless or embarrassed ... people with agoraphobia often have a hard time feeling safe in any public place, especially where crowds gather. You may feel that you need a companion, such as a relative or friend, to go with you to public places. The fears can be so overwhelming that you may feel unable to leave your home.
It's simply impossible to imagine Gahan making like a British Prime Minister by subjecting himself to questions from elected officials, much less catering to ordinary citizens. Floyd County Democrats currently are gleefully (and rightly) lambasting Trey Hollingsworth for refusing to hold public meetings, but when has their shining mayoral light ever done so?
That's hypocritical, isn't it, Adam?
While I'm thinking about it, there's a brilliant new parody at Twitter. It's called @DeafGahan, and yes, the author isn't known. That's because Twitter allows anonymous parodists, including Rogar Bayler.
I wish it were otherwise, but no one has asked for my opinion.
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