Drivel? Or relevant information for voters?
Yesterday, on Twitter.com and on Facebook, candidate for Dayton City Commission David Esrati twat, "[Dayton Daily News editorial writer] Martin Gottlieb writes drivel about Gary Leitzell in todays DDN- go comment on his lameness," posting a link to Gottlieb’s 10/21/09 column about Dayton mayoral candidate Gary Leitzell, “Leitzell cites Reagan, Thatcher; what’s it mean”. I don’t get what it is in Gottlieb’s column that Esrati finds to be “drivel.” Is it Gottlieb’s contention that “asking people whom they admire in public office often yields a lot”? No, surely that can’t be it.   Independent icons? Perhaps it’s Gottlieb’s premise, that something about a candidate who “is all about the independent label” and who says “that people shouldn’t read too much into the fact that he has the Republican endorsement” yet “really admire[s]” Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher doesn’t make sense. Taken independently, perhaps Gottlieb is reading too much into whom Leitzell most admires politically, but add in Leitzell’s Republican Party textbook reply to me in December 2008, that “changing the legal definition of a traditional word like marriage […] could lead us on a very dangerous course,” and Leitzell really does sound less independent and more Republican. Now what Esrati finds to be drivel in Gottlieb’s column surely can’t be Gottlieb’s interpretation of Leitzell’s admiration of Reagan and Thatcher, “that he mentioned two people he sees as having come into bad situations and made them better.” Leitzell’s and Esrati’s campaigns are all about Dayton’s current mayor and city commission’s having let Dayton develop a bad (to put it mildly) situation, one that requires new blood in the persons of Leitzell and Esrati to make better. No, instead what Gottlieb said that Esrati might see as drivel is that seasoned politicians wouldn’t be seen “naming two icons of the conservative Republicans when he’s seeking election in an overwhelmingly Democratic city.” Esrati may see that as drivel, but I don’t. No, I think that a novice politician might be excused at the outset of his campaign for making the stupid mistake of raising the issue of equal marriage rights, not a local issue, when asked his position on a city’s non-discrimination ordinance (although, if that novice politician himself does not have a traditional marriage, he might have thought twice before speaking). But almost a year later, a month before the election, is a continued overt association with Republican values and icons the best strategy for an independent to get elected in a heavily Democratic town? I’d say, probably not, and I’d also say it might be fair to assume that a politician who makes such missteps during his campaign could also show similar deficits in judgment in office. One last thing—something I find incredibly ironic is that I hadn’t even been aware of Gottlieb’s article until Esrati pointed it out. Now that he’s done so, all the people who’ve been googling “Gary Leitzell” and ending up on my blog know about the article too. |
Update – September 27, 2009: Due to Commissioner Williams’ clarification of his position on the issue of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, the website I created on September 10th, 2009, is no longer about opposing the re-election of a particular candidate: |
I’m not allowed to call people names on esrati.com, but on my site, I may do as I please, and I just have to say, especially after hearing people agree that the 2nd Amendment means individuals have the right to bear any kind of arms whatsoever, including nuclear ones, is that some people are truly idiots. |
 A bit out of focus but still legible David Esrati is annoyed that Karl Keith gets to plaster his name on all the gas pumps in Montgomery County. Today, while I was pumping gas in Columbus (on my way to Equality Ohio’s annual Lobby Day [yes, David, you can indeed count on me “to make everything about being a gay thing”]), I remembered this and snapped a photo with my cellphone of the sticker on the gas pump here. In Columbus, it’s not the Franklin County Auditor who gets the free publicity but rather Mayor Michael B. Coleman. |
 EasyParkDowntown.org as it looks in Firefox (click to embiggen)  EasyParkDowntown.org as it looks in Internet Explorer (click to embiggen) The Dayton Daily News had an article today about the Downtown Dayton Partnership's fancy new EasyParkDowntown.org website. The article's author, Tim Tresslar, must be a faithful reader of David Esrati's blog because this is not the first time he's written about something that Esrati wrote about first (update: actually Dayton Business Journal wrote about it first). Esrati's blog entry about EasyParkDowntown.org was not favorable. And I have to say I'm not impressed with EasyParkDowntown.org either, but for other reasons, namely web design reasons. The interactive map on the site was created using Adobe Flash, a cumbersome tool for websites (read some of my earlier gripes about Flash on websites), and the coder added some JavaScript to his page to make sure the Flash object is resized to take up the entire size of the browser window. Actually it makes the Flash object larger than the browser window, cutting off text and making it impossible to scroll down to see the rest of the content, especially in Firefox but even in Internet Explorer. Their helpful "Let's get Started" text mentions buttons you can click in order to hide or show layers of information on their map, but you can't see the buttons if your web browser's set to a size their web developer didn't anticipate (for example, maximized Firefox or Internet Explorer windows on my 1920x1200 laptop screen or my 1440x900 external LCD)! Did anyone even look at this application after it was published but before it was announced to the world? From the work I do I know that some organizations are willing to pay big bucks, thousands of dollars, for applications such as this (for example), and they're too ignorant to know better. I gleaned the data from EasyParkDowntown and rolled my own webpage based on Google Maps in a couple hours. Check it out and see if you don't agree that it's friendlier to end users: www.davidlauri.com/easyparking Here's one way in which my version is friendlier — try printing from my version and try printing from EasyParkDowntown.org. Completely ignoring the fact that if you print using your browser's File->Print command on their site you won't get what they intended, even if you do realize that to print you have to click on their print icon (the little pic of the page at the right of the icons below their map), what you get isn't at all useful. Want a list of parking garages to take with you? You're not gonna get it from EasyParkDowntown.org! One last gripe — if you're coming downtown to go to the Oregon District, you won't find any of its parking on EasyParkDowntown.org. Is it because most people don't consider the Oregon District to be part of downtown (or Greater Downtown)? Or is it because the Oregon District Business Association wouldn't participate in the Special Improvement District tax that funds the Downtown Dayton Partnership? |
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