Say it loud…I’m proud

[edited to add, scroll down]

The first word that popped into my head was: “charmant.”  I’m not quite sure why it did, but there you have a small glance into my world.   For those of you that have not read Alameda Daily News this morning, you are missing out because Don Roberts has done the unthinkable, he actually posted a transcript* of yesterday’s show starring (as always) Pat Bail!  I suppose he figured that calling someone “dweeby” and a “moron” wasn’t going to get overlooked by those blogs that no one reads.

The preemptive strike is a nice touch, I suppose by putting it up, Don R. is basically saying, “Yeah, I called Eve Pearlman ‘dweeby’ but I’m proud of it.”   As well as saying “Yeah, Pat Bail called John Knox White a ‘moron’ but that’s cool too.”    Elevating the public discourse in Alameda since whenever Don R. started publishing ADN.  The irony of all this is that is comes on the heels of a certain someone running around decrying blogs as a place where “cyber bullying” happens.   It’s this sort of strange logic that always has puzzled me, name-calling is almost always acceptable when it’s someone that you philsophically disagree with,  but if it’s someone you like an assessment of their commentary is always decried as a “personal attack.”  But I digress.

So, what was it, you may ask, that elicited this sort of reaction to Eve P. whose column is as benign as puppies and rainbows?   Apparently her last column about kicking her car habit was just too much for Pat n’ Don to bear.

Of course, they are so incensed about Eve P.’s ability and desire to limit her car usage, not that she was making a wholesale suggestion to everyone to do the same, but just that she personally had been making the personal effort to not drive as much.  Anyhow, they are SO incensed they don’t even get the details of her column correct.   Pat B. says:

…She can spend the amount of time it takes to walk six hours round trip to go get a car to go do her errands…

When in actuality what Eve P. wrote was:

…So far one positive is that I have integrated exercise into my day. Last Thursday, I walked to the orthodontist at Towne Centre, and then later I ran back and forth to the Fruitvale BART station, picking up and dropping off a CarShare car. Six miles by foot! Not bad for a day…

Unless Eve P. is walking a mile an hour, she said six miles not six hours, and note it was integrated into an exercise routine as well, so by walking Eve P. no longer needed to make that stop at the gym saving additional time.

[edited to add]

Oops, I forgot in the midst of a family emergency this morning that while Pat B. also contends:

…I have read a couple of his articles [in the Alameda Journal]. . . but it never says he works for a company that has to do with transportation. Isn’t that a little conflict of interest since he is chairman of the Transportation Commission?…

And Don R. piggy backs to say:

…You might say there is a little ethical problem with the Alameda Journal for not letting its readers know what John Knox White’s paid job is…

In fact at the end of every column it says:

John Knox White is chairman of the Alameda Transportation Commission and TravelChoice program director for the Transportation and Land Use Coalition. He blogs regularly atAlamedans.com.

But in the end, I’m not sure how working in the same profession as you volunteer to sit on a commission or board about is a “conflict of interest” if you aren’t diverting plush City contracts or getting some sort of financial benefit for.   The amusing thing is that only a few months ago (maybe longer) Don n’ Pat were livid that John KW wasn’t a “professional” in Transportation/Traffic field like Eugenie Thomson and therefore not qualified to sit on the Transportation Commission.   So which is it, conflict of interest or not qualified.   Can’t be both.

[end edit]

Apparently, Pat B. doesn’t watch City Council meetings either since she asks this question:

They’re planning on building Alameda Landing with a shopping center. How much retail do you think we can support in this town? 

According to staff, Alameda’s retail sales tax leakage is 75%, meaning to 75% of purchases made by Alamedans are done outside of Alameda.  So one could argue that Alameda can support more retail.

Seriously though even with all the righetous indignation, I’m not sure why they are so upset.   Basically what Eve P. is saying is that she has taken one more car off the street so that Pat B. and Don R. when they drive will have less congestion not more.   They should be toasting Eve P. and encouraging her continued behavior so that they will have much less crowded streets on which to drive their own vehicles.

________________________________

* Reprinted as always because ADN doesn’t archive

Don Roberts: What do you think about that column, by that dweeby columnist [Eve Pearlman], that the Alameda Journal had on the front page yesterday morning?

Pat Bail: Well, I was kind of surprised with her attitude, quite frankly. Here’s a person who has the luxury of working from her home. She has a child who goes to school across the street, apparently. She can spend the amount of time it takes to walk six hours round trip to go get a car to go do her errands, with little thought to the fact that . . . first off, we don’t work at home, secondly, many mothers go to work very early in the morning, have to drive to an inconvenient location which doesn’t take a nearby BART or bus or bike or anything else . . . I thought it was an arrogance of that column that was absolutely astounding; the hypocrisy of perpetuating an idea that those who don’t live in the style she thinks is correct are harming this planet. We all don’t live in this bubble of wonderfulness.

Don Roberts: She seems to have the same kind of an outlook that John Knox White has, who formerly lived in New York City … She and her family and John Knox White and his family, if they don’t like it in Alameda and if they want to live in that kind of an environment where you have millions of people crammed into a small space where nobody has to have a car, maybe they should pack up and go back to New York, but, of course, John Knox White, wouldn’t do that because as soon as the 9/11 tragedy happened, he . . . got out of there and as far away from Manhattan as possible, which, unfortunately, was Alameda.

Pat Bail: I have read a couple of his articles [in the Alameda Journal]. . . but it never says he works for a company that has to do with transportation. Isn’t that a little conflict of interest since he is chairman of the Transportation Commission?

Don Roberts: You might say there is a little ethical problem with the Alameda Journal for not letting its readers know what John Knox White’s paid job is.

Pat Bail: They’re planning on building Alameda Landing with a shopping center. How much retail do you think we can support in this town? This is all a developer’s wet dream. . . . You can’t widen streets in Alameda.

Don Roberts: Actually, John Knox White is trying to eliminate lanes. It seems to me that his goal seems to be to have every street n Alameda one lane going in one direction and all of the rest of the space is for bicycles.

Pat Bail: John Knox White is a moron.