Monday, March 27, 2006

The Faceless Take it on the Chin

The Blogging Clique made the Gazette again.

Nice job Richard, Grumps, and Mason for keeping the local spotlights going in a positive and productive manner!

Does anyone else find Ms Decker's remarks in the article a bit humorous and naïve? I won't go so far as to say arrogant since the printed word can make one sound different than reality, but she is not winning any votes - literally.

Her campaign is based on "personal communication" meaning what? How does one personally communicate if she chooses not to show up? I guess I should feel better that if elected, she might occasionally read a blog.

"My whole campaign is about that (sic) the mayor is going to be at city hall," she said. "I want you to come in and talk to me and let's work on (it)." So the burden of communication is now on the citizen to come to the Mayor?

But then we are apparently the "younger and newer citizens who are saying they are disinfranchised." That line made me chuckle - I don't think I have been accused of being younger in at least 10 years! Nice to be stereotyped, even if she is dead wrong. For the record, I am 41, have lived in Evansville for 16 years, have served as an elected and appointed official for seven of those years. I don't feel disinfranchised at all; on the contrary, being able to blog about Ms. Decker's comments makes me feel very very plugged in.

This isn't about respect for blogs though. This is about recognizing that in the 21st century there are more ways to communicate than telling citizens to hoof it down to City Hall if they have an issue. Someone might want to mention to Ms. Decker that one of the fastest segments of the internet community are elderly/disabled who are discovering a method of communication that helps to overcome their physical difficulties with travelling to places like, oh say, City Hall.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

And I thought this sort of thing only happened in Madison:

Gaylord Syndrome spreads to Minnesota

Trying to remember all those biblical references to the Easter Bunny...

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Faceless Endorsement

Here I was worrying about who to vote for in the Mayoral election - now it seems a faceless no-brainer! I'm not sure what Ms. Decker's true motivation is for avoiding on-line discussion, but I have a few guesses.

If it is truly for the reasons that she states - that she does not feel it necessary to respond to questions from faceless individuals, then she is truly clueless and will not have a forward vision for the good of Evansville.

If it is, as I suspect, because she feels anything as open as a virutal discussion can only harm her campaign (which based on the primary should guarantee an election), than I would argue she is clearly more concerned about the appearance of a support rather than truly testing the waters of reaching out to constituents.

Either way, consider my official faceless endorsement to go to Karen Aikman.

Does that mean I get to join the clique?

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Since we have the most Bloggers per capita (or so it seems), I thought it prudent to spread the word on WisPolitic's Blogging Summit.

All the big names from left and right in Wisconsin blogging are supposed to be there. Not sure if I will make it, but hopefully one of us in Evansville, Blogville, Ringhand's Bedville, whatever can attend!