Thursday, April 12, 2007

My editorials - again

Read editorial here

Looks like this guy is stuck in the 80s. He almost breached my tolerance of the word 'dude', word usage number 11 would have sent me in to fits. I think I might enjoy picking this editorial apart.

OK First off, fine cigars and COGNAC? Is that the best he's got? Sounds like a red hat ladies party to me. I can paint you a better picture than that. How about starting it with "While Hardball Capital owners Light Cubans with hundred dollar bills, spraying Cristal and 'Making it Rain', they detected a trend." It gets the point that they are well off. How do people become well off you ask? By having a successful idea, not loser ideas, but ideas that people enjoy - thus making them (the ideas) successful.

Better yet, he goes on to say, "taxpayers are distracted by other do-gooders saving the city from tobacco. And $1 billion to fix the schools. And city-county consolidation. And the new library. So many Do-Gooders are conducting power grabs and sucking money out of the taxpayer’s pocket, he won’t notice our stadium."

Yep, you're right. They snuck it in there, didn't they? It was so covert, that people have blogs about the stadium, the newspaper and tv news are dominated with the news about the stadium. Even one of our mayor candidates had a mysteriously funded poll over HS. Of course the better plan is to let the schools continue to keep going downhill, keep wasting unneeded expenditures by leaving the city and county separate (its designed to save money), and leave all the libraries in the county the same - then sneak the stadium deal in.

Geez, this is just a bad editorial. I'm struggling for words that would give proper commentary to this mindset. So - I'll paraphrase my thoughts from here on out.

"Use words like ‘picnic.’ ‘Family gatherings.’ Who could be against family gatherings?”" - I've never heard anyone use the words picnic or family gatherings when referring to HS. Yogi bear uses those words.

"To get Taxpayer to joyfully spend millions of his former dollars on something he doesn’t desire, you must sell. And if Taxpayer isn’t buying, recruit more Do-Gooders. Sell harder. “Besides,” Duck astutely points out, “we really don’t need Taxpayer. We only need Council. We must create urgency and mix in large amounts of crisis with promises of life-long recognition. Council will sell.”" - No, actually the supporters finally speaking out, details were release, causing more supporters. Why is guy writing like a Native American in a bad movie or like Tarzan?

Creating urgency, Dude announces, “Consent or I’ll seize my bats and balls and depart. Your city will die a painful death while Duck and Council miss out on their inscriptions being placed upon beautiful commemorative tablets.” - Hardball said they weren't leaving, but seeking other avenues to improve the current stadium. This sarcasm lacks a certain amount of truth, statements are just lies when there isn't any truth involved.

Ok, the editorial is really dragging on at this point. I'm giving up commenting and starting to point things out.

1. Check out the brain drain comments. Do they make sense to anyone? He has definitely missed idea behind brain drain, but a HUGE miss.

2. He mentions picnics again, has anyone mentioned picnics before?

3. Don’t let others like the Dude be the dog that wags the city’s tail. Can’t we be pro-active and wag our own tail? - YES! don't let the outsiders in. Screw them and their money. Lets keep doing what we have been doing.

Call me lazy, but I lost steam while writing this, its just disheartening that people actually feel this way. Feel free to fill in the gaps with witty remarks and loads of tact.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Throughout his editorial, I’m more than a little put out that Mr. Kurtz continues to refer to Hardbal Capital as: The Dude. As far as I know, there is only one, true “Dude“, and that’s The Big Lebowski. Mr. Kurtz shows absolutely no respect for Lebowski by attempting to steal his thunder. Shame on you Mr. Kurtz for disrespecting the essence of “The Dude“. What a cheap way to attract attention to your cause.

Andrew Kaduk said...

At least he could have put Walter and Donny in the story if he wanted so badly to rip off a classic.

Furthermore, I would like to add that at least somebody wants the "tail to wag" in this situation, if I may steal some of the ridiculous metaphor that Kurtz conjured. Fort Wayne has spent many years just letting the dog sleep on the floor with its tail completely flacid.