NA Confidential: Twitter

Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts

Friday, July 03, 2020

Shut up and mask up -- but first, this Twitter user documents sweet freedom in a restaurant setting.

@libbyjones715 wrote these words on Twitter.

---

Welcome to the Freedom Cafe! We trust you to make your own choices if you want to wear a face mask. And, in the same spirit of individual liberty, we allow our staff to make their own choices about the safety procedures they prefer to follow as they prepare and serve your food.

We encourage employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom, but understand that some people may be allergic to certain soaps or may simply prefer not to wash their hands. It is not our place to tell them what to do.

We understand that you may be used to chicken that has been cooked to 165 degrees. We do have to respect that some of our cooks may have seen a meme or a YouTube video saying that 100 degrees is sufficient, and we do not want to encroach on their beliefs.

Some of our cooks may prefer to use the same utensils for multiple ingredients, including ingredients some customers are allergic to. That is a cook’s right to do so.

Some servers may wish to touch your food as they serve it. There is no reason that a healthy person with clean hands can’t touch your food. We will take their word for it that they are healthy and clean.

Water temperature and detergent are highly personal choices, and we allow our dishwashing team to decide how they’d prefer to wash the silverware you will put in your mouth.

Some of you may get sick, but almost everyone survives food poisoning. We think you’ll agree that it’s a small price to pay for the sweet freedom of no one ever being told what to do - and especially not for the silly reason of keeping strangers healthy.

Thursday, June 04, 2020

Hilter Skilter, Béarnaise, Gwobbles and the origins of propaganda in American-style capitalism.

Reading this thread at Joe Dunman's Twitter account led me to a feeling of déjà vu.

As it turns out, almost exactly three years ago in this space, I took to the airwaves to correct an error about the career of Joseph Goebbels.

---

That's right; I was wrong. Goebbels got his ideas for propaganda from American advertising, not the other way around.

June 5, 2017

Recently I posted this on social media.

I'm eternally amazed by chain restaurant envy, which always seemed to me an inevitable result of Goebbels-scale national advertising and perception of price point (the latter is skewed, but real enough in many cases). But is it cultural, too? I don't know the answer, but is it a fair question?

Among the responses was this.

Using the Goebbels example is just histrionic.

I replied:

I don't think so. It's the basis of saturation advertising, in the sense of constant repetition. We're exposed to ads every day, hundreds and maybe thousands of times. I believe numerous studies have been devoted to the ongoing subliminal effects even when we think we're tuning it out. Goebbels preached these very qualities in his propaganda dissemination.

In essence, I was arguing that from the techniques of Goebbels, post-war capitalism derived its operational handbook for mass marketing.

I was mistaken.

In fact, Goebbels found inspiration for his propaganda techniques in pre-war capitalism. Big lies and mass-marketing in the service of profit made Goebbels, and not the other way around.

Meet Edward Bernays. You'll want to click through and read the entire essay.

The manipulation of the American mind: Edward Bernays and the birth of public relations, by Richard Gunderman (The Conversation)

“The most interesting man in the world.” “Reach out and touch someone.” “Finger-lickin’ good.” Such advertising slogans have become fixtures of American culture, and each year millions now tune into the Super Bowl as much for the ads as for the football.

While no single person can claim exclusive credit for the ascendancy of advertising in American life, no one deserves credit more than a man most of us have never heard of: Edward Bernays ... often referred to as “the father of public relations,” Bernays in 1928 published his seminal work, Propaganda, in which he argued that public relations is not a gimmick but a necessity:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of ... It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.

It turns out that Bernays had an international readership.

Bernays’ ideas sold a lot more than cigarettes and Dixie cups.

Even though Bernays saw the power of propaganda during war and used it to sell products during peacetime, he couldn’t have imagined that his writings on public relations would become a tool of the Third Reich.

In the 1920s, Joseph Goebbels became an avid admirer of Bernays and his writings – despite the fact that Bernays was a Jew. When Goebbels became the minister of propaganda for the Third Reich, he sought to exploit Bernays’ ideas to the fullest extent possible. For example, he created a “Fuhrer cult” around Adolph Hitler.

In 2017, we're exposed to advertising (or marketing, or branding) cues thousands of time each day. Whether overt or subliminal, these messages influence actions we blithely regard as "free."

But are they?

Goebbels may have been less concerned with profits, though the result is largely the same.

Its underlying purpose, in large part, is to make money. By convincing people that they want something they do not need, Bernays sought to turn citizens and neighbors into consumers who use their purchasing power to propel themselves down the road to happiness.

Without a moral compass, however, such a transformation promotes a patronizing and ultimately cynical view of human nature and human possibilities, one as likely to destroy lives as to build them up.

Another Bernays citation is here.

He disseminated propaganda for the Government during World War I and tried to brighten Calvin Coolidge's dour image during the 1924 campaign by importing Al Jolson and 40 other Broadway performers to the White House. A master at concealing base drives behind exalted rhetoric, Bernays in 1928 provided this defense of political work: ''Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos.'' As if to mock this rosy view, Joseph Goebbels became an attentive student of Bernays's theories five years later.

And another.

It is known that Goebbels studied the way advertising companies worked in America. A great deal of his written work was made up of short sentences – as the above indicate. Everything was kept simple so that there could be no misunderstanding as to its meaning.

Finally, this.

Goebbels “took his cue from the model of commercial advertising”.

For Goebbels, “commercial advertising was overtly cited as the model to follow. Whether it was a matter of simplification, constant repetition of memorable slogans, or concentration of propaganda material in regular campaigns, the principles of mass advertising could easily be applied to political propaganda.”

Strictly speaking, I was mistaken to assert that mass-market, saturation advertising for McDonald's, Budweiser or Ford derived from Goebbels.

Under the circumstances, I'm perfectly happy to concede my error.

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Kurt Eichenwald explains "Why Americans will cause one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks."

(The woman who retweeted the comment above prefaced it with these words: "They've pivoted from 'it's a hoax' to 'just let them all die' with breakneck speed.")

For those of you not in the habit of patronizing Twitter, which I know can be an acquired taste, writer Kurt Eichenwald unleashed an epic coronavirus rant on Saturday. I've arranged it below.

First, an unrelated fact: Eichenwald, who is 58 years old, was hired by New York Times in 1985 and began his career as a news clerk for Hedrick Smith. In turn Smith, who was the NYT Moscow Bureau Chief from 1971 through 1974, was the author of a seminal book called The Russians. If you took Frank Thackeray's history courses at IU Southeast in the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, this book was required reading.

A very influential volume for me. Now for Eichenwald's tweets.

---

Kurt Eichenwald ... @kurteichenwald

Why Americans will cause one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks.

A. A vast majority are self-centered and ignorant, believing that we know more than experts because of Google University.

B. We are self-indulgent, unwilling to make sacrifices until problems are out of control.

C. We have a nation that is so torn apart that millions were convinced a global health emergency was a lie perpetrated by people with different political beliefs.

D. There is an entire media apparatus (Fox etc) that promoted the lie for ratings and politics advantage.

E. Millions are unable to recognize that we have an incompetent President, whose mismanagement of this is on a historic scale, and who is lying every single day about this in order to feign greatness.

F. Many believe those lies, with result that they think refusing to follow safety advisories is a way to shove it in the face of those with different political opinions.

G. Many - including politicians - don't understand the mechanisms of pandemics. They don't get that the *right now* is irrelevant, unless it is an action of containment. It is like looking at a small flame in a house, saying "no so bad" so doing nothing as it starts to spread. So, rather than put out a small flame, which would be relatively easy, we wait until the house is on fire and expect that the small water bucket we had that could have dealt with the flame will have any impact at all once the house if engulfed in flames.

H. Because of that lack of understanding, people don't realize that, if someone in LA gets infected, the virus from that guy can infect someone in Kansas. He touches something, someone touches it and is infected, to the next, to the next, to the next, to the guy in Kansas.

I. People think their BS "philosophies" are more important than stopping disease. So you have people whining about restaurant closings because "tyranny" and in response, other idiots up their use of them to prove everyone is stupid, when they are the stupid ones.

J. You have a level of sociopathy that is astounding. Too many young people say "I'll be fine" when 1. They can die. 2. Kill other people 3. If they get infected, can infect someone who infects etc., fuel the spread and kill their own grandparents on other side of USA.

I could keep going & going. We as a nation are unrealistic, uninformed, arrogant, ignorant & selfish. The Greatest Generation sacrificed and stopped Hitler. We sacrifice next to nothing, so are fueling mass infection.

We're not the Greatest Generation. We're the Worst.

fin

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Bernie Sanders is "the only authentic voice for change."

The morning's Economist Espresso e-mail provides this update of yesterday's New Hampshire primary on the Periodically Democratic side.

Democrats voting in New Hampshire’s presidential primary picked Bernie Sanders as their favourite candidate, giving him more than a quarter of their ballots. Pete Buttigieg, who pipped him in Iowa’s caucuses last week, took nearly as many and Amy Klobuchar finished a respectable third. Joe Biden trailed badly, again. Andrew Yang and Michael Bennet dropped out of the race.

Time, then, to dispense with the Twitter-driven "BernieBro" myth and focus instead on reality?

Why does the “BernieBro” myth persist? Because pundits don't understand how the internet works, by Keith A. Spencer (Salon)

A misunderstanding of social media is driving media elites to keep pushing an easily disprovable stereotype

... Why do some myths persist, or remain uncorrected by the media, while others dissipate? The short answer seems to be that when they serve a media narrative, or play on existing stereotypes, they grow to possess a power that goes beyond fact or truth. To this list of indefatigable myths, one might add the pernicious "BernieBro" — so ubiquitous a concept that it has its own Wikipedia article. The self-explanatory neologism was coined by Robinson Meyer in an Atlantic article in 2015 before being distorted by the Twittersphere and the punditry — something that Meyer later came to regret, as he felt the term he reified suffered from "semantic drift."

But that was five years ago, before we had as much data on Sanders' support base — which, as it turns out, should be sufficient to debunk the stereotype that Sanders' support base consists entirely of a mythic tribe of entitled, pushy young millennial men. To wit: young women make up more of Sanders' base than men. He polls especially high with Hispanic voters, far more so than with white voters; Hispanic voters also donated more money to him than any other Democratic candidate. Polls consistently show that nonwhite voters prefer him over the other candidates. Notably, the demographic group that likes Sanders the least is white men.

Moreover, of all the candidates, Sanders has taken in the most money from women. Many of Sanders' female supporters bemoan how they are ignored by the mainstream press. "The 'Bernie Bro' narrative is endlessly galling because it erases the women who make up his base," writer Caitlin PenzeyMoog opined on Twitter. "To paint this picture of sexism is to paint over the millions of women who support Sanders. Do you see how f**ked up that is?"

Of the three, only Sanders follows the money to show how the Money defeats ordinary Americans every single day. Time yet to stand for something, DemoDisneyDixiecrats?

Three Old White Guys: Bernie, Biden and Bloomberg, by John Davis (CounterPunch)

... The DNC itself has inaugurated a kind of junior league plutocracy whereby its presidential hopefuls must be validated by their supporters sending them cold hard cash. Money as a proxy for voting is the oligarch’s foundational gambit and the anti-democratic forces of the DNC have now substantiated it in their farcical presidential primary process.

Just as the elite in Britain use the emotional ballast of royal regalia to deter rebellion, the wealthy ruling class in the U.S. call upon the trappings of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the flag – all conflated in the notion of American democracy – to quash radical action that might challenge them. Even as its universality has been squeezed hard, the sop of voting – the lure of having one’s voice counted – has been remarkably effective in guaranteeing the quiescence of the people.

The bastion of capital, which affords a dictatorship of the rich and the immiseration of its subject population, is supported by the twin pillars of neo-liberalism, the Republican and Democratic parties. Its walls are battle-hardened against rogue outliers such as Bernie, while the likes of Biden have spent their careers augmenting its fortifications. But there have been moments in that dictatorship, when chinks of humanitarian light have shone through its fortress walls. Its hostility to the wellbeing of its subjects is not necessarily guaranteed. Enter our third old white guy, Mike Bloomberg, flying the standard of the Democratic Party, but refusing to play by the DNC’s rules.

At least since Jackson, America has been built on just enough democracy to ensure that the masses retain their Horatio Alger dreams – believing the myth of equal opportunity and the chance to strike it rich – but never enough to challenge the power of the wealthy. Hard work has been replaced by education as the base material of these dreams, but the latter obscures the debt peonage its achievement often requires and the low-level work it typically enables. Trader Joe’s, the supermarket chain, requires all of its staff to have a college degree. Hard work counts for little in an age when the buying power of minimum wage has atrophied into insignificance. Voting, despite the purging of the rolls and other impediments to its practice, remains for many a feel-good way to connect to the grand mythos of America, inflating the self-worth of those who are otherwise victims of its deceits.

Material wealth, first as stolen land, then as industrial capital, and now as control of information (which today drives the forces of production through algorithms fed by real-time consumer desires, or clicks) is at the heart of the American pathology of exploitation, extraction, subjugation, oppression and the devastation of the natural world. Our putative democracy has been entirely enfolded into this ongoing historical project. It is an enabler of these crimes against humanity. It is an ideological co-conspirator.
His is the only authentic voice for change.

Saturday, December 28, 2019

Follow the Auschwitz Memorial page at Twitter and root yourself in reality.

A disturbing number of my fellow Amerikaners have decided the Holocaust didn't occur. Stupidity or ignorance? Either way, dipshittedness of this magnitude is just about as unimaginable as the fact of the atrocity itself.

A few weeks back I saw that the Auschwitz Memorial page at Twitter is seeking to add followers in the run-up to the 75th anniversary of the death camp's liberation in January.

The material posted by Auschwitz Memorial on a daily basis at Twitter isn't easy or pleasant reading. It's just essential to being a responsible and responsive human being.

If you are of the tweeting persuasion, go there and give them a follow. There is a Facebook page as well. The web site is here.

Should you be one of the deniers, you're advised to examine your own life with care and precision; if we happen to be acquainted, then get the hell out of my life until yours is placed in the context of reality.

Thank you.

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Let's go Twittering and observe how Jeff Gahan and Mike Moore differ in their seasonal greeting approaches.

Festivus is ongoing.

It's widely understood that the cities of New Albany and Jeffersonville outsource their social media feeds to an autonomous contractor, ProMedia.

The exact amounts of their expenditure remains hidden, but wouldn't you like to know how much daily propaganda actually costs these days?

This said, observe the appearance on Twitter of holiday glad-handing by the two cities. The posts appeared one minute apart. In New Albany, Jeff Gahan can't say "happy holidays" often enough.

Happy TIF Zones!

Meanwhile in Jeffersonville, Mike Moore apparently has zero diversity enhancement f*cks to give, and instead grows straight for the Christian jugular.

I thought it might be instructive to take a look at Charlestown's feed at Twitter.

That's right. The most recent post was October 18. Did Bob Hall take the password with him as he was clearing out his desk?

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Over at Twitter, Deaf Gahan Sardonicus is ON FIRE -- but after all, that's why he's here.

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.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Deaf Gahan has become Sardonicus, but what is to be our verdict?

Monday, July 15, 2019

Jeff Speck: "NA hired a local engineer who un-protected our bike lanes."

Jeff Speck gave us hope, but Jeff Gahan gave us the same old boilerplate.

Recently when Speck returned to New Albany to give Gahan credit for what the latter failed to achieve with the two-way street reversion, do you think at any point Speck looked around at the actual paving project with bicycling infrastructure castration and said to himself, wow -- that clueless yokel left 75% of it on the cutting room floor.

It's actually political patronage politics which must be destroyed, not Carthage, but how would Gahan function in the the world without the money of special interests like HWC Engineering, which publicly laughed at Speck?

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Deaf Gahan has become Sardonicus, but what is to be our verdict?

Friday, April 12, 2019

Got wood? A Twitter firestorm about Goodwood, Bevin -- and nothing at all.

Read carefully before jumping to a conclusion. We'll never make progress with sticky wickets if we don't examine them, because if the pitch isn't wet, the wicket isn't sticky.

The scene shown above (Gahan for Mayor signage in shop windows on Market Street) preceded by at least three weeks last evening's Twitter slug-fest over Goodwood Brewing's fundraiser for Matt Bevin, Kentucky's governor.

The question: Do independent business operators, whether Goodwood's Ted Mitzlaff, or New Albany's Terry Middleton and Jimmy Gaetano, have the right to support, endorse and display the signage of a particular political candidate?

Of course they do.

Will doing so offend customers?

Maybe. It might also attract customers, the point being that such a calculation is the independent business owner's (or ownership's) decision to make. I understand there might be numerous, more extreme counter examples -- for instance, what if Nazis are the fundraisers in question?

But in these two instances, the examples are not extreme. Both Bevin and Gahan are members of legally chartered political entities, and both came to power by means of (generally) fair elections. Nazis, Communists, personality cults and gay wedding cake refusenik bakeries are other cases for other, more in-depth and wider ranging discussions.

I've met Mitzlaff only once. He's far more of a capitalist than me, and quite capable of running the numbers. Consequently, there's nothing to see here.

Everyone pays lip service to capitalism, but I'm not sure how many Americans have a clear understanding of street corner capitalism at its most basic, as when they insist there somehow exists a "right" to better service at a chain restaurant drive-through, or demand that local government gift them with a Trader Joe's.

Do grassroots independent business owners/entrepreneurs have a right to attract or repel customers as they please, by taking "sides" politically when those sides are regarded as legitimate by most of us even if we disagree with specific tenets?

I think so.

If there's a backlash, it's also their right to handle it in their own way, at their own speed. As Dan Canon pointed out, Goodwood's response to Twitter criticism was to copy and paste, again and again.

Goodwood does not discriminate on any grounds including, but not limited to, race, religion, sexual orientation, political beliefs. We are open to all regardless of political affiliation. We foster an atmosphere where ideas may be expressed, whether we are in agreement or not.

Yes, Goodwood loses style points for being robotic and avoiding individual replies, but my internal calculation revolves around this: Does the non-discrimination disclaimer ring true?

In my past dealings with Goodwood, irrespective of my feelings about the company's beer (generally favorable), has the brewery ever done anything to contradict the non-discrimination disclaimer, as copied and pasted?

Not to my knowledge, at least insofar as I've been aware -- and note that owner Mitzlaff's right-of-center political orientation is not exactly a secret.

Does holding a fundraiser for a sitting elected governor contradict Goodwood's non-discrimination disclaimer?

Is it a good idea for a business owner like Terry Middleton in downtown New Albany to take sides in the mayor's race?

Well, that's their calculation to make, and it's up to their customers to decide. Some of their customers have decided, to judge by Tweets directed against Goodwood.

It's as simple as that, and so this is one bandwagon I'm not hopping aboard, primarily because there are far more important issues.

For seven years I sat on the board of the Brewers of Indiana Guild, and -- surprise! -- my fellow board members represented a broad range of standpoints. Not all of them had tattoos and beards (in fact there were too few women and minorities, but I believe this imbalance has started shifting since I departed).

Some were right, some left. There were Clinton voters and Trump voters, hippies and button-downs. My takeaway is that for those of us preaching diversity, we must be prepared to live diversity in the real world -- or else, we're hypocrites.

---

As a postscript, regular readers already will have located the main point as it pertains locally, this being to Terry and Jimmy posting partisan political signage downtown. I just wish they understood that they're privileged in being able to do so, because other downtown business owners like them, who might like to post White, Seabrook or Coffey signs, won't do so because they know from experience that Gahan's allegiance-obsessed City Hall would harass them.

Such harassment plainly occurred in 2015, and yet these two indies remain blissfully unaware. I acknowledge their "right" to be oblivious, but find it annoying all the same.

---

Democratic mayoral candidate David White understands that change begins with a whole lotta scrubbing, and NA Confidential advocates just such a deep civic cleansing.

After eight years on the job, Mayor Jeff Gahan's list of stunning "achievements" is long, indeed: tax increases, budgetary hide 'n' seek, self-deification, daily hypocrisy, public housing takeover, non-transparency, pay-to-play for no-bid contracts, bullying city residents and bullying city employees. Eight years is enough. It's time to drain Gahan's swamp, flush his ruling clique and take this city back from Gahan's Indy-based special interest donors.

NA Confidential supports David White for Mayor in the Democratic Party primary, with voting now through May 7.

Friday, May 25, 2018

Read the Tweetscript of yesterday's city council committee meeting about Deaf's luxury city hall project.

The Bookseller attended yesterday's city council committee meeting.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: The $8.5 million city hall fix is still in, unless David Barksdale is kidnapped by his own presumed political party.

Here's the Tweetscript from Randy Smith @NewAlbanist, from beginning to end, with each sentence a separate tweet.

---

City Council thread for committee meeting re: new city hall

Timeline discussion. 25 questions submitted so far, but numerous testimonies lined up for 1 hour public comment

CM Blair speaks of financial responsibility, good value. Too big, too expensive for city hall. 23,000 s.f. and $8.35 million.

Blair says we can build new with twice space we have for $3 million

Using EDIT robs from necessities

Blair still: objects to no-bid lack of competition

Blair supports rehab of Reisz. Just not this way.

"Keep bldg on tax rolls."

Now Steve Burks, GOP politician. Says prop is unwise, non-transparent, no-bid, uncertainty on costs, unaffordable strain on resources/taxes.

Laments lack of options

Salvage facade?

Now Mrs. Kraft, local business. Says city numbers are bogus. Fishy." "Something stinks." People deserve honesty.

CM Dan Coffey now. Why TIF to fund? This started as "rent won't change." But expenses destined to grow.

Cost overruns already. Property too valuable in private market. NAPD will have to remain in place.

EDIT too valuable to lock in for this use for 15 years. Coffey again, process has been flawed, local proven developers bypassed.

Coffey ... Removing bldg from tax rolls bad.

Never seen a project proposed with so little information.

Now G Sekula, Landmarks. Endorses delay, praises Barksdale for holding up on 3rd reading. Supports rehab, unconditionally.

More ... Other options have been considered for city hall over years.

More ... Other cities have much more square footage than NA. MUCH MORE

Sekula endorses a stand-alone city edifice. For intangible city presence

Praises creativity of Gahan

Bldg is not being destroyed if not city hall, is it?

C Kubley, business next to Reisz. Objects to closed bid, but not surprised at lack of transparency. Wants CURRENT maintenance. Bldg falling down/unstable.

Andy Carter, developer. Love to see neighboring development. What is plan B?

Done

Monday, July 25, 2016

Another tale of two perspectives -- The school board, Bruce Hibbard and Twitter.

I was struck by the difference in emphasis between the Courier-Journal's and the News and Tribune's coverage of last week's school board meeting. The reporter Clapp strikes a very neutral tone.

New Albany-Floyd schools votes on expulsion policy; Board will no longer hear appeals, by Jerod Clapp (River Ridge Revue)

(Lee Ann) Wiseheart and Superintendent Bruce Hibbard argued over the district’s posting of a vice principal position at New Albany High School and whether it gave enough opportunity for minority candidates to apply ...

... Hibbard said the issue of getting more minority employees in education is a nationwide issue, not one that’s isolated to New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated Schools. Wiseheart said she understood, but hopes the district can be a part of changing that trend.

Meanwhile, the C-J's Clark goes straight for the jugular.

Board member questions NAFC diversity efforts, by Kirsten Clark (C-J)

New Albany-Floyd County Schools Superintendent Bruce Hibbard came under scrutiny during a discussion Thursday night about a lack of diversity among principals, assistant principals and central office leadership in the district – which employs only one minority administrator ...

... In addition to initiating discussions in meetings, Wiseheart has taken to Twitter to express disappointment in the schools district’s minority recruiting efforts.

... At the end of the 15-minute conversation, an exchange between Hibbard and Board President Becky Gardenour became particularly heated after Gardenour called out the superintendent after she felt he had criticized another board member for missing a school event.

“I really would appreciate it if there’s not a dig if a board member doesn’t attend something, I really would appreciate (that) that would be kept out of our discussions,” she said.

“And I would also appreciate if our board doesn’t make tweets about the disappointment of the board and the superintendent,” Hibbard said. “I think that’s inappropriate. It's unethical. If you read Indiana School Boards Association ethics ... (we vote) and we move on from there. We don’t hold grudges. And yet, that’s kind of what the last year and a half has been.”

“No, that’s what it’s been for six years,” Gardenour quipped. “Alright, anything else? Alright. Meeting adjourned.”

Turns out that Hibbard's as thin-skinned as Jeff Gahan. No wonder they occupy the same bed.

Monday, June 13, 2016

This Jeff Speck tweet, the one that neither Bob Caesar nor Irv Stumler will bother reading.

Jeff Speck's first tweet provides the link to Saturday's piece in the paper, which can be read here. I'll admit to a degree of weariness in being compelled yet again to rebut local paragons of wisdom who refuse to read data-driven analyses such as Speck's Downtown Street Network Proposal, preferring instead to trot out their opinionated prejudices and be validated by Papa Morris. But eventually I will rebut them, because it's my Sisyphean lot in life, isn't it?

Thursday, July 02, 2015

"The vultures are circling, but Tsipras and Varoufakis tweet on."

This might be my favorite story of the week.

How Tsipras and Varoufakis turned Greek tragedy into Twitter triumph, by Hannah Jane Parkinson (The Guardian)

Politicians aren’t particularly renowned for a strong game on social media. Whether it’s falling for parody accounts, tweeting their own names, or, er, offering free owls for all, it’s not often they get it right.

Enter the Greeks. Never before has a government embroiled in one of the biggest global economic crises been so good at tweeting. We hear President Coolidge, for instance, was always screwing up his mentions.

Not so with Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras and his finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.

Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Floyd County Democrats said to be itching for another bout ...

... just as soon as they awaken from the last one.

By the way, in case you didn't know, I recently stepped up one rung on the benighted level of local social media achievement by way of being awarded with my first parody Twitter account. Judging from the following tweets last night, my anonymous parodist (wait, could it be? Naw, probably not HER) has yet to learn that without parody, there is no parody.

Hell, I could have written THAT ... and probably did.

Friday, April 25, 2014

There may be a mole in the Louisville Bats twitter agency.

I'm not sure what to make of the Louisville Bats favoriting my tweet as to the team's better beer failures, but the propaganda value is priceless.

It gets even worse for better beer at Louisville Slugger Field.