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Friday, December 17, 2010
9/11 First Responders
Last week, Republican Senators, who have taken advantage of 9/11 at every possible opportunity over the last nine years, filibustered a bill that would provide health care to those who were first to respond to the 9/11 attacks. John Stewart had four of those first responders on his show yesterday...
Friday, December 10, 2010
Liberals and Conservatives
Apparently liberals and conservatives may be distinguishable right down to biological responses. In a study done by researchers at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, liberals responded frequently to certain "gaze cues" while conservatives were more or less immune to the cues.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Sunday, October 31, 2010
What we know about Deke Copenhaver and Marion Williams
Conventional wisdom in Augusta says that Marion Williams is bad news. There are three standard complaints against him, which I present to you in the form of Facebook comments.
1. "What about when he wanted the taxpayers to build a racetrack and it turned out one of his relatives had bought property right where it was proposed to be built? Why he was never more thoroughly investigated for such blatant criminal behavior, we may never know."
The GBI investigated the private purchase of the half-acre of land across the street from the proposed site and found no criminal wrongdoing. We also know that District Attorney Danny Craig was satisfied with the GBI's investigation. (Did we shelve a good money-maker because of a scandal that was cleared by the GBI and DA, yet go ahead with an expensive TEE center tainted by suspected bribery with evidence and commissioners and an actual arrest that many think will enrich a certain powerful Augustan at great taxpayer expense?)
2. "He was the man of NO. He single handedly held up progress. Many many times, I cant recall the times."
The writer of this complaint has still not been able to think of the times.
3. "IN a nutshell, he is ignorant and has a big mouth- a VERY bad combination!"
Mayor Bob Young, who should have been the hardest hit by this very bad combination, says that Marion Williams is not disagreeable. (And really, what do we care how annoying a commissioner is for the other commissioners and mayor? Don't we want them in there having to really work things out twice a month? Nobody has to stay in there other than the commission and workers. Maybe the local media also gets bored- hey, do they influence public opinion?)
And then we have Deke Copenhaver who is seen as good for Augusta. I think his goodness can also be lumped into three points.
1. He's a breath of fresh air,unity and cooperation.
Is Mayor Copenhaver really so good at getting the commission to cooperate, or does he just pick teams who go along with him? If he's actually good at it, why not throw in some challenges for the young Ironman peacemaker? And do we really want the commission to go along with him on everything (like moving the stadium with taxpayer money)? And as for unity, are race relations better today than when Deke took office? Does the unity talk work? That might depend on what it's meant to do. If it's supposed to help with racial equality, maybe not. If it's a way to stifle discussion by implying that talking about problems is what causes the problems ("Deke Copenhaver is thinking that the best way for Augusta to continue to move forward is for people to stop playing one area of the city off of the other. We're all in this together and when we focus on working together and when we focus on working together as one community, there is no issue that we can't overcome"), then maybe it works.
2. He's good for attracting business to Augusta.
Well, his pet project is to get taxpayers to partially fund a new stadium for a team that already plays here. How much can that really make us, and how much is it going to cost, and who profits? And the deals he has cut aren't that impressive. Let's look at Costco. We're spending one million dollars in the middle of (another) budget crisis to make them an entrance and road. Then we let them have the majority of the tax sales revenues for 23-25 years. If that's a good deal for the city, what's a bad deal look like?
3. He doesn't embarrass us. Hmmm...
1. "What about when he wanted the taxpayers to build a racetrack and it turned out one of his relatives had bought property right where it was proposed to be built? Why he was never more thoroughly investigated for such blatant criminal behavior, we may never know."
The GBI investigated the private purchase of the half-acre of land across the street from the proposed site and found no criminal wrongdoing. We also know that District Attorney Danny Craig was satisfied with the GBI's investigation. (Did we shelve a good money-maker because of a scandal that was cleared by the GBI and DA, yet go ahead with an expensive TEE center tainted by suspected bribery with evidence and commissioners and an actual arrest that many think will enrich a certain powerful Augustan at great taxpayer expense?)
2. "He was the man of NO. He single handedly held up progress. Many many times, I cant recall the times."
The writer of this complaint has still not been able to think of the times.
3. "IN a nutshell, he is ignorant and has a big mouth- a VERY bad combination!"
Mayor Bob Young, who should have been the hardest hit by this very bad combination, says that Marion Williams is not disagreeable. (And really, what do we care how annoying a commissioner is for the other commissioners and mayor? Don't we want them in there having to really work things out twice a month? Nobody has to stay in there other than the commission and workers. Maybe the local media also gets bored- hey, do they influence public opinion?)
And then we have Deke Copenhaver who is seen as good for Augusta. I think his goodness can also be lumped into three points.
1. He's a breath of fresh air,unity and cooperation.
Is Mayor Copenhaver really so good at getting the commission to cooperate, or does he just pick teams who go along with him? If he's actually good at it, why not throw in some challenges for the young Ironman peacemaker? And do we really want the commission to go along with him on everything (like moving the stadium with taxpayer money)? And as for unity, are race relations better today than when Deke took office? Does the unity talk work? That might depend on what it's meant to do. If it's supposed to help with racial equality, maybe not. If it's a way to stifle discussion by implying that talking about problems is what causes the problems ("Deke Copenhaver is thinking that the best way for Augusta to continue to move forward is for people to stop playing one area of the city off of the other. We're all in this together and when we focus on working together and when we focus on working together as one community, there is no issue that we can't overcome"), then maybe it works.
2. He's good for attracting business to Augusta.
Well, his pet project is to get taxpayers to partially fund a new stadium for a team that already plays here. How much can that really make us, and how much is it going to cost, and who profits? And the deals he has cut aren't that impressive. Let's look at Costco. We're spending one million dollars in the middle of (another) budget crisis to make them an entrance and road. Then we let them have the majority of the tax sales revenues for 23-25 years. If that's a good deal for the city, what's a bad deal look like?
3. He doesn't embarrass us. Hmmm...
Friday, October 29, 2010
Congratulations Riverhawks!
Augusta's new hockey team, the Riverhawks, won their first game tonight in a thrilling, yes, thrilling overtime game! Final score was 4-3. Go out and watch a game or 25. Often times people think there's not much to do around here, and sometimes it feels like they're right, but the Riverhawks could use some support and fights on ice are always fun.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Scott Hudson and Intellectual Dishonesty
I see Scott Hudson is chastising downtown business owners and others
for the "intellectual dishonesty" they show in not supporting the
DDA's Broad Street parking takeover.
Makes me want to publicly ask WGAC and Scott Hudson to correct and
apologize for the "intellectual dishonesty" of Hudson's year-old hit
piece on me that still sits on the WGAC website.
This first part isn't really to do with me, but for those of you
unfamiliar with his, uh, style, here's a classic Hudson opener: "First
let me state for the record up front, I am an 'activist journalist.'
Corruption, greed, dishonesty, blight, and hypocrisy are all things
that I abhor." Doesn't that just send shivers up your leg?
Although I have an urge to make fun of every line, I'll try to just
hit the actual untruths that he refuses to correct. Since he hates
hypocrisy and his whole piece is about how "Ms. Peterson broke with
many ethical standards and left behind a trail of misinformation that
ultimately - I believe - causes harm to everyone who presents news in
the media and the public as well," I can't imagine why, although I've
emailed him corrections twice, he says he won't correct or apologize
and that he stands by what he wrote.
He seems to assert that I was misleading by using straight data from
the Georgia Department of Labor instead of using the formula preferred
by local economics professor and advisor to the mayor, Mark Thompson.
He also parrots Thompson's bizarre accusation that I made up a quote
and attributed it to Mayor Copenhaver when that quote was hypertexted
to the source, The Augusta Chronicle. "Indeed, Thompson took the
unusual step, for a mild mannered business professor, of insinuating
Peterson either misquoted the Mayor or simply made words up for him
and placed them in quotes. Such an accusation would be the kiss of
death for any credible journalist, but not Peterson. Her disdain for
the Mayor went so deep that she may have created a whole new genre of
creative writing: blogastalkarazojournalism." Hold on the that word.
We'll get to the stalker part.
"A recent Peterson piece titled 'Face Book Mayor' sent shock waves
throughout the local world of newsgathering." (I just like that
sentence.)
This part is pretty money, too: "Rule number one in journalism is that
you do not employ an attack strategy with an interview subject unless
you are convinced through documented evidence that the person has
committed a crime. Rule number two is that you never cloak your
identity unless rule number one’s exception is employed. Rule number
three is you do not stalk an interview subject unless rule number
one’s exception is employed. Peterson broke all of those rules and
then made up some new ones." (What is an attack interview, you ask?
None of the journalists I asked knew that one. Maybe Hudson went to a
special school of journalism. Did he go to school for journalism at
all?) My interview with the mayor was a scheduled sit-down interview
with prepared questions about mayoral things. I did not cloak my
identity other than making up a fake facebook character holding a big
fish to get back on Deke's facebook friends list and didn't use the
identity to communicate at all, as far as I remember. So if one more
random follower on Deke's fb page somehow cloaked my identity, huh.
And number three is pretty bad. Here Hudson pretty much accuses me of
a crime. I guess he's taking the journalist privilege of being
convinced I'm guilty. Let me be clear, all communications I had with
the mayor were at public meetings or scheduled with him through his
office or were through his office phone and email (and of course there
were those first communications, all polite and proper, through
facebook about hotel taxes and baseball stadiums before being
defriended).
There are a couple other little mistakes for those of you interested
in Scott Hudson's level of professionalism and fact-checking.
I didn't file a "patently silly Freedom of Information Request" for
the mayor's calendar. I asked Deke for it on the phone as I wrote in
the story. (Never mind the idea that it's well within the citizens'
interest to look at what the mayor does while we're paying him.)
"Our budding investigative reporter then followed the Mayor and
Commissioners to their annual retreat in Athens. The meeting had a
quorum of elected officials, so there was nothing inappropriate with
her being there, except Peterson was not there to cover the event and
did not seem to be interested in what the officials were discussing
there." Actually, I wrote about the retreat for the Spirit and it's
available online and was presented to Hudson in my request for
corrections as well.
I guess I'm done. Is this where I do an ad in my film noir
detective/journalist voice? No, I won't do that. I know! I'll list
sources.
Scott Hudson writes about me and the problem of untrustworthy
fake uneducated biased fibbing journalists at WGAC.
I write about the mayor and what he does for a living at Metro Spirit.
I write about dazzling stats at The Augusta Citizen-Investigator.
I write about the Commissioners' retreat at Metro Spirit.
for the "intellectual dishonesty" they show in not supporting the
DDA's Broad Street parking takeover.
Makes me want to publicly ask WGAC and Scott Hudson to correct and
apologize for the "intellectual dishonesty" of Hudson's year-old hit
piece on me that still sits on the WGAC website.
This first part isn't really to do with me, but for those of you
unfamiliar with his, uh, style, here's a classic Hudson opener: "First
let me state for the record up front, I am an 'activist journalist.'
Corruption, greed, dishonesty, blight, and hypocrisy are all things
that I abhor." Doesn't that just send shivers up your leg?
Although I have an urge to make fun of every line, I'll try to just
hit the actual untruths that he refuses to correct. Since he hates
hypocrisy and his whole piece is about how "Ms. Peterson broke with
many ethical standards and left behind a trail of misinformation that
ultimately - I believe - causes harm to everyone who presents news in
the media and the public as well," I can't imagine why, although I've
emailed him corrections twice, he says he won't correct or apologize
and that he stands by what he wrote.
He seems to assert that I was misleading by using straight data from
the Georgia Department of Labor instead of using the formula preferred
by local economics professor and advisor to the mayor, Mark Thompson.
He also parrots Thompson's bizarre accusation that I made up a quote
and attributed it to Mayor Copenhaver when that quote was hypertexted
to the source, The Augusta Chronicle. "Indeed, Thompson took the
unusual step, for a mild mannered business professor, of insinuating
Peterson either misquoted the Mayor or simply made words up for him
and placed them in quotes. Such an accusation would be the kiss of
death for any credible journalist, but not Peterson. Her disdain for
the Mayor went so deep that she may have created a whole new genre of
creative writing: blogastalkarazojournalism." Hold on the that word.
We'll get to the stalker part.
"A recent Peterson piece titled 'Face Book Mayor' sent shock waves
throughout the local world of newsgathering." (I just like that
sentence.)
This part is pretty money, too: "Rule number one in journalism is that
you do not employ an attack strategy with an interview subject unless
you are convinced through documented evidence that the person has
committed a crime. Rule number two is that you never cloak your
identity unless rule number one’s exception is employed. Rule number
three is you do not stalk an interview subject unless rule number
one’s exception is employed. Peterson broke all of those rules and
then made up some new ones." (What is an attack interview, you ask?
None of the journalists I asked knew that one. Maybe Hudson went to a
special school of journalism. Did he go to school for journalism at
all?) My interview with the mayor was a scheduled sit-down interview
with prepared questions about mayoral things. I did not cloak my
identity other than making up a fake facebook character holding a big
fish to get back on Deke's facebook friends list and didn't use the
identity to communicate at all, as far as I remember. So if one more
random follower on Deke's fb page somehow cloaked my identity, huh.
And number three is pretty bad. Here Hudson pretty much accuses me of
a crime. I guess he's taking the journalist privilege of being
convinced I'm guilty. Let me be clear, all communications I had with
the mayor were at public meetings or scheduled with him through his
office or were through his office phone and email (and of course there
were those first communications, all polite and proper, through
facebook about hotel taxes and baseball stadiums before being
defriended).
There are a couple other little mistakes for those of you interested
in Scott Hudson's level of professionalism and fact-checking.
I didn't file a "patently silly Freedom of Information Request" for
the mayor's calendar. I asked Deke for it on the phone as I wrote in
the story. (Never mind the idea that it's well within the citizens'
interest to look at what the mayor does while we're paying him.)
"Our budding investigative reporter then followed the Mayor and
Commissioners to their annual retreat in Athens. The meeting had a
quorum of elected officials, so there was nothing inappropriate with
her being there, except Peterson was not there to cover the event and
did not seem to be interested in what the officials were discussing
there." Actually, I wrote about the retreat for the Spirit and it's
available online and was presented to Hudson in my request for
corrections as well.
I guess I'm done. Is this where I do an ad in my film noir
detective/journalist voice? No, I won't do that. I know! I'll list
sources.
Scott Hudson writes about me and the problem of untrustworthy
fake uneducated biased fibbing journalists at WGAC.
I write about the mayor and what he does for a living at Metro Spirit.
I write about dazzling stats at The Augusta Citizen-Investigator.
I write about the Commissioners' retreat at Metro Spirit.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
A Government of the People, by the People, and for the People
South Carolina's highest law enforcement agency said yesterday that it wasn't going to investigate Alvin Greene. That's the big news according to all the major news networks, well CNN at least. In case you hadn't heard, Greene, who has never been involved in politics, won the democratic Senate nomination in South Carolina, with almost no money to his name. He couldn't afford a lawyer to defend him on some criminal charges last year, and people in South Carolina got all uppity trying to figure out how he came up with the $10,440 to get on the ballot. Law enforcement said there was no evidence of wrongdoing.
Thank you CNN for the coverage of this, but am I the only person in the world that thinks everyone is missing the point here??? $10,440 just to get your name on the ballot!? I mean, what percentage of the South Carolina population has ten grand just laying around that they can throw away just to get their name on the ballot? We're not even talking other campaign costs here! Sure doesn't seem like a very democratic process that the South Carolina Democratic Party is running over there.....
Thank you CNN for the coverage of this, but am I the only person in the world that thinks everyone is missing the point here??? $10,440 just to get your name on the ballot!? I mean, what percentage of the South Carolina population has ten grand just laying around that they can throw away just to get their name on the ballot? We're not even talking other campaign costs here! Sure doesn't seem like a very democratic process that the South Carolina Democratic Party is running over there.....
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Health Care Reform
Some say it doesn't go far enough. Some say it goes too far. Regardless of your opinion on the matter, meh, who am I kidding? This is a step in the right direction. "Do unto others as you would have done unto you." Jesus said that, right? So why's everyone afraid to help others? It's okay to spend billions on wars and aid to foreign countries, but it is an atrocity to give back within our own borders? It's okay to spend millions on fancy sound equipment for a church, but not to fix little Timmy's broken arm? Give me a break.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Abortion and Murder
Scott Roeder is on trial for murdering George Tiller, a Kansas-based doctor who performed abortions. Yes, after plotting for weeks, he murdered someone to "save the lives of the unborn." The irony is pretty hard to miss, but if you did miss it, all you need to do is take a look at his testimony from the trial. Roeder believes abortion is wrong because "it isn't our duty to take life, it's our heavenly father's." Said the man who took another's life in cold blood.
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