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Political bumper stickers, Cape After Dark, county transit opennessThursday, October 16, 2008
Joke of the day
Here are some Democrat and Republican bumper stickers I found at http://politicalhumor.about.com/. For Democrats Send me your jokes to bmiller@semissourian.com. By the way, what did you think of the debate last night?
On the Horizon PURCELL/FINCH: Local political junkies will be interested in tonight's forum between District 2 county commission candidates Jay Purcell and Rock Finch. This will be one of the more interesting political races we've seen in some time. I have no idea how the race will turn out. We'll have a story and video from the forum later at semissourian.com.
CAPE AFTER DARK: We're also working on a story for next week on Cape After Dark. We want to profile our city when the lights come on. Who is working the graveyard shifts and why? What's the nightlife like here? What crazy stuff does law enforcement have to deal with? From the ER, to the bartenders to those who keep our city running, we want to hear your stories. If you have anything to share (good or bad) about working or partying by moonlight, let us know. E-mail us at news@semissourian.com and put "Cape After Dark" in the subject line.
In the rearview
TRANSIT AUTHORITY: I'm sure you all saw Peg McNichol's story about the Cape Girardeau County Transit Authority. Those who have been following this blog probably know by now this is the public entity I was referring to in the past week or so. I believe board chairman Doug Richards is now trying to do the right thing and says he will be pushing the board and the executive director to be more accountable and transparent with the workings of the authority. Director Tom Mogelnicki says he doesn't want to make certain information public, arguing two points: 1. That the more information is released the more people will be confusted; and 2. that a competitor could come in and undercut him by a dollar on service agreements. With the amount of public funding the transit authority receives, private enterprise should not be able to compete, anyway. We're finding that the budgets provided by the CTA, particularly the part about the CTA's coupon reimbursements, are indeed a bit confusing, and we're seeking more specific documents to make sense of it. It should also be noted that the CTA's budget is not nearly as thorough as other transit authorities. Check out the PDF links with Peg's story and you'll see the difference. We're also told that some agreements that are reflected in the budget are informal with no paperwork. We'll be following this more closely and bring you the information when we can.
LAYOFFS: A reader asked the other day about recent layoffs at P&G. A spokesman said it's company policy not to reveal personnel information, but he did say there have been no layoffs resulting from investigations relating to the racism charges a few months ago.
Out and about I haven't been out of the house much in the last couple of days, but have noticed some beautiful sunrises on my way to work. The full moon the other night was huge and bright behind the clouds. I wish I had my camera with me. I'll be out watching my son at football practice tonight and at his game Saturday morning. For those parents who take photos of the games, take just a few minutes to post some of your best shots on our Your photos section on our front page of semissourian.com. Thanks to all those who have been submitting photos. I enjoy seeing our community through our readers' eyes.
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Weather then and now ... stories of the year (December 15, 2008) Deer hunting and Hanover Street (not related) (November 17, 2008) advertisement
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NoDisclosure,
Who is "they"?
I don't know what your beef is with P&G, but I think you had better check your "facts" before you post them. P&G provideds me with my livelihood, and I will defend my employer against unsubstantiated rumors.
If you are privy to some information that may help P&G with their investigation, you have a legal and moral obligation to do so. Otherwise, STFU!
They made a big deal out at P&G about finding nooses all over the plant and blam it was 1960 racism all over again. The locker with the noose that was shown all over the news was a locker of a white worker, funny how that never made it on the news. Another thing is if you drive down kingshighway you will find these so called racist nooses all over the place. Look at the utility lines when you are driving down kingshighway.
The workers were let go because an email was sent around that had work related instructions written in ebonics. They then scanned everyone's computer Ludwig style and found more reasons to let them go. That is what I heard at least.
Running a "profits-based business" is soooooo 20th century.
Business owners these days should be focused more on how much tax revenue they can generate for government programs and the State. And a more socially-aware business owner should pay a little bit more attention to spreading his enormous wealth around a bit more.
Yep ... a "wealth fairness-based business" is the way to go these days. Well, actually those will be mandatory on/about January 20, 2009 (Presidential Inauguration Day), but it pays to get a head start on the fairness.
"Vote Early, Vote Often, Vote Everywhere" -- ACORN National Motto, 2008
Bob,
The only motive for buisness is profit. Obviously, public transportation in our area is unprofitable or else a private buisnessman would've started this service.
Unfortunately, the age of the "titan of industry" is long gone. I can think of several buisness' off the top of my head that are receiving help from the government; be it in form of subsidies, artificial interest rates, or special tax breaks. The recent economic meltdown is a direct result of too much government intervention in the free market.
A bad buisness must be allowed to fail!
I often wonder if, in the late 19th century when electric lights were first installed in Amercian buisness' and households, that government (19th century) would not have allowed the candle makers to fail and provided a safety net like is expected now. Would we up to our ears in unused candles, or would the light bulb never have taken the candle's place?
Regarding Budman and NoDisclosure's P&G fetish: out of respect for the privacy of the former employees, and in accordance with current labor laws, no specific details about their terminations was, or will be, released.
Lumpy,
We agree on your comments about the perceived stupidity of the public.
What brought some of this on in the first place is that we couldn't get a decent explanation and we published information earlier this morning that was provided by a board member. That board member, after talking to Mogelnicki, wouldn't give us the financial sheet in question so we went with what he said on the phone. Mogelnicki said we had bad information, but couldn't satisfactorily explain the budget to us. And so we started asking question and kept getting stopped in our quest to look at more detailed information. Mogelnicki said he got a huge number of phone calls when we ran the story, customers scared the operation would fail.
We may disagree on your comment about competition. I agree that all being equal, private will be public every time. But this isn't equal. No private business would be boosted by hundreds of thousands of tax dollars on top of fares provided by customers. It's my belief that if a private business came in and outperformed the public entity, it would demonstrate a huge failure of the governmental organization. If other privatet businesses were able to thrive on government grants of their own it would still demonstrate duplication of tax dollars which were supposed to be eliminated with the advent of the CTA.
Best,
Bob
Budman,
We'll follow up, but it's very doubtful they'll release any of that. If we find out anything, we'll let you know.
-- Bob
I heard the same thing that NoDisclosure heard. Perhaps Bob could follow up with P&G with that information...It would be interesting to know what the joke was and how many people were let go.
I'm not surprised that the mastadon party's slogans for their VP nomination are so crude. I'd be curious to read their slogans if McCain would've picked Alan Keyes or JC Watts as his running mate. Or, if Clinton would've won the jacka$$ party's nomination.
I fed Tom Mogelnicki's comments through my overworked B.S. filter and here are the results.
1. That the more information is released the more people will be confused
Translation: The public is too stupid to handle the truth.
2. that a competitor could come in and undercut him by a dollar on service agreements.
Translation: The private sector always provides higher quality goods and services at a better price than the government.
There have been no layoffs at P&G, but there have been job terminations that pertained to a fallout over a email joke that stereotyped a certain culture.
The unfortunate thing is all those "Republican" stickers have nothing really bad to say about Obama...they are talking about how "hot" Palin is? Don'tcha know folks...she's hideous, so is her voice!