Editor’s Notes: Four shortwinded editorials for the price of one windbag
By Terry Smith
October 9, 2008
Today, Editor’s Notes is back with an economic consolation prize, some commentary on the dumped Stimson Avenue retirement center, the worst campaign mailer ever, and Sarah Palin, the liberal. (I’m also implementing a new format for this column, after some OU student’s blog recently accused me of being longwinded. I’ll place small headers on each item, to emphasize the fact that instead of being one very long column, this is actually a series of small editorials. In effect, I’m being shortwinded four times.)
Consolation prize
DON’T FEEL TOO bad about your whittled-down 401K retirement plan. I’ve been consoling myself by realizing that as much money as I’ve lost in 401-held stocks in the past year, rich people have lost a lot more. When you don’t have much to begin with, you don’t have a lot to lose.
Another thing: Next time you get a credit-card bill, look at its credit limit. If you’re like me, you’ll see that you have many thousands of dollars that you can still borrow. A lot more than that if you have multiple credit cards.
So you should feel lucky that you didn’t charge everything they wanted you to charge.
This does point out the fundamental problem that brought on this economic crisis, however. What on earth possessed these banks to offer four and five times the credit than I could ever hope to pay back?
Retired retirement center
THE STIMSON RETIREMENT CENTER ended its four-year run as one of Athens’ most contested issues Friday when the developer pulled the plug on the controversial project.
Like most hot issues in Athens, this one reflected the growth-no growth debate that’s monopolized the attention of successive generations of Athenians since around 1800. “You’re not building that livery stable there, are you?! There’ll be horsesh** everywhere!”
So why did National Church Residences (NCR), a nonprofit based in Columbus, decide to drop its retirement-center project after investing so much time and money into it? They say it’s mainly because of the credit crunch that’s strangling the world’s economy right now. NCR apparently doubted being able to borrow the money necessary to dig much more than that first shovel of dirt.
But they also couldn’t resist laying a knock on Athens Mayor Paul Wiehl, who opposed the retirement center when he served on City Council and has remained skeptical about it in his first year as mayor.
The publisher of this paper, a strong backer of the project, believes that this is the main reason for NCR’s decision, and that company officials worried that if they made any changes in their plans, they’d have to take the project back through the city’s approval process. With Wiehl as mayor and an ardent foe of the Stimson project chairing the Planning Commission, NCR probably had some valid concerns.
Whatever the case, the project’s death is too bad for the local senior citizens who for years have been working toward the goal of a quality retirement center in Athens, close to uptown and integrated into the life of the close-in neighborhoods and campus. Our area has other retirement options currently being developed, though none will be as close to the action as this one would have been.
It’s also a pity that near-east-side residents who were so rabidly against this project couldn’t set aside the over-used template of the university-connected greedy developer, and replace it with a fairer and more honest model — a project enabling some of our most valuable older citizens to live near and enjoy the life of our beautiful city and campus, rather than being relegated to its outskirts. This, however, isn’t meant to dismiss the concerns of residents who worried about losing green space.
But how the local debate shook out isn’t the most troubling issue here, not by a long shot. While the prospect of further obstruction at the Athens city level might have played a role in NCR’s decision, I tend to believe the developers that the global credit crisis was the main problem. If you see a grizzly bear standing next to a man with a large chunk missing from his leg, it’s a good bet that the bear had something to do with it.
If that’s the case, the global economy’s massive problems already have trickled down to the local level. NCR couldn’t borrow the money to pull off this project, which is something they never contemplated happening until recently. So no construction jobs, no jobs at the senior facility, no tax income to the city.
Multiply this scenario by thousands, and you’ll come to understand why the world’s economic situation is so perilous. If businesses can’t get the money to pull off projects, then we’re looking at crippling contractions in a number of industries, and the impacts could reverberate for years.
Worst political mailer ever
WHENEVER I THINK I’VE seen it all with regard to negative campaign literature, something gets left in my mailbox that out-stinks what’s come before. Something so despicable and sick that the word “evil” isn’t an exaggeration.
The Ohio Republican Party funded the hateful mailer I’m referring to, which attacks Athens City Council member Debbie Phillips. The Democrat is running for the 92nd House District seat against Republican Athens County Auditor Jill Thompson.
The cover of the mailer shows a mugshot of a bearded man, and states, “Frederick Mundt KILLED a little girl… And,” the mailer continues on the inside, “Debbie Phillips is his ally.”
It then states, “Debbie Phillips opposes the death penalty, so murderers like Frederick Mundt aren’t punished.”
The mailer then describes the terrible kidnapping, rape and murder of Mundt’s 7-year-old victim. It concludes by saying, “Debbie Phillips may be a murderer’s ally, but she shouldn’t be our representative.”
Let’s be clear here. Debbie Phillips and Fred Mundt are not connected in any way. They don’t know each other, probably have never heard of each other. The Ohio Republican Party, however, is so desperate to retain this House seat that they will do anything, including trying to deceive people into thinking this basically decent Democrat is allied with the worst of the worst, a child rapist and murderer.
And it’s not just bending the truth. It’s flat-out lying to say that people who oppose the death penalty don’t think murderers should be punished. Inmates serving life terms in America’s prison hellholes would be shocked to hear that they’re not being punished.
A lot of good people oppose the death penalty on moral and ethical grounds. (I oppose it because of the possibility that we will mistakenly condemn and kill someone who’s innocent.) To say this means that death-penalty opponents are “allied” with the murderers is not only idiotic; it’s mean, malicious and sick.
Not to mention, using these tactics betrays how the Ohio Republican Party feels about you, the voters. They think you’re stupid, since anyone with a sixth-grade education can see through the pre-school logic used in the Fred Mundt mailer.
Jill Thompson probably didn’t authorize or endorse this mailer, just as Debbie Phillips didn’t authorize a union-funded mailer that unfairly and dishonestly attacked Thompson based on her use of sick days over the years.
But I do blame the Ohio Republican Party for this immoral garbage. And while I consider myself an independent when it comes to local and regional candidates, this makes it unlikely that I’ll look favorably at any candidate endorsed by the Ohio Republican Party anytime soon, including Thompson.
Sarah Palin the liberal
IN THE VICE-PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden last week, both said their tickets have no problem with legal protections and benefits for gay couples, even if neither goes as far as to support civil marriages for gay people.
Alaska already has such civil rights for unmarried couples, according to an AP story about the debate.
Palin’s position puts the otherwise ardent social conservative a good distance to the left of the great majority of Ohioans who approved state Issue 1 in November 2004. The constitutional amendment banned same-sex marriages, while also prohibiting legal recognition of unmarried couples.
At the time of its passage, critics feared that in addition to banning gay marriage (which Ohio law already prohibited), it would prohibit unmarried (read: gay) couples from enjoying routine civil protections afforded married couples, such things as allowing visitations of partners in the hospital or contractual rights. Casting aside these concerns, Ohioans went ahead and approved Issue 1 by a landslide.
So I’m not sure what to think now that Sarah Palin, nemesis of all that’s liberal and progressive, has staked out a position on this hot-button social issue. Her stance puts her at odds with not only the moral crusaders who passed Issue 1 in 2004, but the millions of Ohioans whom they stampeded into passing this punitive amendment.
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