"I argue that Fischer’s vision for Louisville is lackluster at best and lacks the compassion he claims we have."

After Fischer met Bob Marley.

"We can’t eat bourbon, Sir" is about as scathing as it gets. It remains fascinating to observe big brother Fischer and little brother Jeff Gahan, with the latter gazing at his idol with goo goo eyes. It's revealing and revolting in equal measure.

The basic problem, as identified so presciently by Gertrude Stein a whole century ago, is when it comes to either of them, there's no there there.

GUEST COMMENTARY: Can Greg Fischer Really Deliver For Louisville As ‘America’s Mayor’? by Cassia Herron (LEO Weekly)

 ... In his interview with The Courier Journal’s Darcy Costello, Fischer painted a picture of a dreamy 2020, which centers on him being “America’s mayor” as the chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

This role will allow him, he says, to lobby on behalf of the country’s cities, attract more attention to Louisville (which equals more investment) and receive support from his peers — like that which helped him with the national search to hire police Chief Steve Conrad. Fischer said he’d encourage his fellow mayors to be more vision-oriented as they continue providing basic services and managing normal operations of the city.

Sounds good, but can Fischer really deliver?

I argue that Fischer’s vision for Louisville is lackluster at best and lacks the compassion he claims we have. We can’t eat bourbon, Sir, and for those homeowners and residents in the California neighborhood with black residue on their homes from the production of our sacred drink, bourbonism hasn’t been so good to them.

Truth is stranger than fact as Mayor Gahan presents souvenir anchor seal bag to "tree" subsequently arrested for blocking traffic in Portland.

I doctored the photo. Sorry about that.

If it's really the case, and "one man's bit of performance art is everybody else's misdemeanor," then which one's the transgressor -- fake tree or faux progressive?

And when it comes to "natural choreography," it simply doesn't get much better than the gift of an anchor bag.

'Tree' arrested for blocking traffic in Portland, by Doug Criss (CNN)

Police arrested a tree Monday in Portland, Maine, for blocking traffic.

Ok, it wasn't really a tree, CNN affiliate WGME reported. It was a man dressed as a tree.

The tree, or um, man who was arrested said he stood in the middle of a downtown intersection as a kind of performance art. Asher Woodworth wanted to see how he could impact "people's natural choreography."
If by that he meant to get a lot of people to take pictures and videos of him, he succeeded.

Easter reading 1: Charles Keating returns to room temperature.

From just this one obituary, a space alien might grasp American culture at its root.

Charles Keating: Crusader and fraud

Charles Keating, moral crusader and financial snake-oil salesman, died on March 31st, aged 90

... Mr Keating was so doughty in this holy war that Richard Nixon appointed him in 1969 to the national commission on obscenity. When the commission produced a feeble report, Mr Keating dissented. He wrote that “Never in Rome, Greece or the most debauched nation in history has such utter filth been projected to all parts of a nation.” At meetings of his 300-chapter organisation, Citizens for Decency through Law, he would stride round with a big red Bible in his hand. Sundays saw him devoutly at Mass, with thousands of dollars given to Catholic causes. Such was his local influence that when the Supreme Court ruled that obscenity should be judged by “community standards”, every adult theatre in Cincinnati closed down.

Strange, then, that this knight on a white charger—as he saw himself—was also the man who bilked 23,000 investors out of their savings. The total loss was $250m-288m, and the cost to the taxpayer $3.4 billion ...

Friedman's Iran: "No illusions about the bullets and barrels they are up against."

Tom Friedman gets it right in today's New York Times. Just demographics, baby ... but there's more chance of it turning out like Tiananmen than the Velvet Revolution. Like Friedman, I'm pulling for the Iranian kids. They'll have to show the world yet again the courage it takes to achieve basic human freedom from religion.

Bullets and Barrels, by Thomas L. Friedman (New York Times).

... But now, having voted with their ballots, Iranians who want a change will have to vote again with their bodies. A regime like Iran’s can only be brought down or changed if enough Iranians vote as they did in 1979 — in the street. That is what the regime fears most, because then it either has to shoot its own people or cede power. That is why it was no accident that the “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Khamenei, warned protestors in his Friday speech that “street challenge is not acceptable.” That’s a man who knows how he got his job.

Prof. Erika plays to her base ... she slides headfirst ... it's a two-bagger, folks.

Look Gladys, it's a sign. What does it say -- looks like "we buy houses?" Nah, it's not orange.

No, silly -- Freedom to Screech is running for city council, and she's bagless! Eeeck!

Oh, I get it. It's a sign, all right -- of the apocalypse.

Photo credits: "V"