Playing the Emotion CARD
The latest on the Arbor Update Broadway Village thread: local developer and big meanie Peter Allen has allegedly made a petition circulator from David Cahill’s group cry.
The latest on the Arbor Update Broadway Village thread: local developer and big meanie Peter Allen has allegedly made a petition circulator from David Cahill’s group cry.
Cloth sandwich board = poncho?
posted by personality on July 4th, 2006 at 7:55 pmI am sure that not only was it cloth, it was made of hemp!
posted by Ann Arbor = Fun on July 4th, 2006 at 9:22 pmFair-trade, organic, artisanal heirloom hemp lovingly hand-stiched by indigenous fairies?
posted by Brandon on July 5th, 2006 at 2:48 pmShe wasn’t just a “petition circulator”, was she. More like Fearful Leader.
posted by Michael McC. on July 5th, 2006 at 3:51 pmThursday
July, 2006
10 a.m.-3 p.m.
posted by Brandon on July 5th, 2006 at 10:08 pmThursday Lunch Bunch: Jewish Community Center.Every Thursday. A weekly program of activities primarily for seniors. The program begins at 10 a.m. with “Fitness Fun,” a 60-minute exercise program led by Maria Farquhar. At 11 a.m. (1 p.m. on July 6, 13, & 20), an educational or cultural presentation. Today: a July 4 Picnic, followed by a performance by the popular Detroit-based Bel Canto Choral Group. At 1 p.m. (11 a.m. on July 6, 13, & 20) a Current Events discussion group and at 2:15 p.m. a meeting of the Senior Literary Group , a book discussion group led by U-M Dearborn English professor emeritus Sidney Warschausky. Also, at noon, a homemade dairy lunch ($3 with reservation, $4 without reservation and for nonseniors). JCC, 2935 Birch Hollow Dr. (off Stone School Rd. south of Packard). Free. 971-0990.
“And at 2:30 we vote to destroy the city.”
My name is Federal Agent Parking Structure Dude!, and today is the longest day of my life.
posted by Parking Structure Dude! on July 5th, 2006 at 10:16 pmNope, not the same Bunch.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on July 5th, 2006 at 10:43 pmFor ‘cloth sandwich board’ I’m thinking along the lines of something like those ’smocks’ that the bench players in the FIFA World Cup soccer matches wear … except a little longer.
What transfixed me about this reported ‘incident’ was the fact that the wording on the sandwich board apparently was redacted on the spot (from ‘gift’ to ‘loan’). What were the mechanics of THAT? Who had a Sharpie or a laundry marker in their pocket at the Farmer’s Market?
posted by HD on July 5th, 2006 at 11:59 pmHoly Fuck.
What I would give to see this scene portrayed in pastels on the cover of the Observer! Do you think Laura Strowe would go with her POV and we’d see Allen, red faced, fists clinched, and spittle flying while in the background Ann Arbor yuppies used their crib lizard laden strollers to plow their way through the market? Or maybe she’d show herself, bleary eyed and mascara running, with marker in trembling hand as she crossed out the word “give”?
Oh and my apologies for a previous post regarding the description of the Lunch Bunch as “ignorant whores.” I simply cannot believe I called a group of grandmas that without also using the phrase “dried up old cunts.” Thank you for your understanding.
posted by KBlow on July 6th, 2006 at 11:57 amA forgivable offense, KBlow. Think nothing of it.
posted by Parking Structure Dude! on July 6th, 2006 at 12:37 pmKBlow, your trollery helps neither you nor the cause of legitimately criticizing David Cahill and CARD. Please keep your dried-up old quips to yourself, regardless of how many brainless cronies encourage you on. Thank you.
posted by David Boyle on July 6th, 2006 at 1:12 pmoh shut up, david. to quote the new yorker that arrived a half hour ago: enjoy, fuckers!
posted by peter honeyman on July 6th, 2006 at 5:12 pmThe New Yorker has degenerated, then. What part of the magazine is that from, anyway.
posted by David Boyle on July 6th, 2006 at 7:46 pmIf you think that AA is bad, well at least you are not in Riverside, CA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside%2C_California
That place is an absolute abomination.
IB
posted by IB on July 6th, 2006 at 9:17 pmdavid, see “giving away my fortune” on p. 37 of the july 10 & 17, 2006 issue, a piece that might be classified as humor or satire, notions that are apparently unrecognizable to you.
(degenerates?!? you blowhard!)
posted by peter honeyman on July 7th, 2006 at 8:13 amExcuse me? Humor and satire are great. However, sometimes they best proceed without calling some innocent old ladies “dried up old …..”
posted by David Boyle on July 7th, 2006 at 10:59 amOr even guilty old ladies. I’m not crazy about that terminology either, but since my moderation “policy” is pretty much no policy…
posted by ann arbor is overrated on July 7th, 2006 at 11:00 amThat’s because you got all your webmastering policies from Suck.com.
posted by js on July 7th, 2006 at 12:26 pmIs that what they said? I didn’t know they had a posting area.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on July 7th, 2006 at 12:43 pmDavid,
Did you know that recognition of satire and irony is one of the highest forms of intelligence? However, the truly pitiful part of your pontification is that it looks like you are actually more offended with this jackass’s quite funny ravings(IMHO), than the hyperbole, half truths and purposeful lies of Cahill/CARD. Your priorities, kind sir, are fucked.
With all due respect, take your sanctimonious bullshit and shove it back over to Arbor Update where it can mingle with the equally ridiculous stream of feces coming from David Cahill.
PS: I find it insulting that you would imply that Parking Structure Dude and I are cronies. We are in no way peers. I am merely a humble acolyte to the recognized master. My posts are but finger paintings of a chimp to his DSL speed, DVD quality, full-length porn downloads.
PPS: AAIO, In the future I will strive to deal out equal parts misandry and misogyny. However, I feel it’s important to acknowledge that the phrase “dried up old cunts†was, in fact, a reference to their actual aged vaginas and the related post menopausal loss of ability to produce their own lubrication when sexually aroused, making the insertion of a Viagra laden cock and/or 16 inch dildo and/or farmers market organic zucchini quite uncomfortable without use of a product such as KY or Astroglide and NOT in any way a descriptor of said elderly women. I regret my error only in that it gave David another excuse to be condescending.
posted by KBlow on July 7th, 2006 at 1:39 pmUh. Maybe not a major improvement?
posted by ann arbor is overrated on July 7th, 2006 at 3:13 pmIs KBlow Just a Voice? They have the same writing/speaking style - offensive.
posted by Anonymous on July 7th, 2006 at 3:51 pmkblow: ew.
posted by peter honeyman on July 7th, 2006 at 4:47 pmThis thread looks as dead as a doornail, just as dead as the original CARD entry from June 29, and for much the same reason. We can each take our bets as to whose (Viagra-laden?) hand guides the “KBlow” sock puppet, but that’s ultimately a curiosity. The Net Effect of the KBlow posts, however, is significant: they’ve quickly shut down AAIO discussion on CARD.
Unlike the still-going-strong Arbor Update entry on Broadway Village & CARD, and unlike some Blaine-riddled entries also over there, people here don’t seem to find the initial patter compelling enough to step around a smelly mess when it appears and either return to the original topic or enjoy a good tangent (…Is it better to loan or to give? …Will city bond money need to increase if Peter Allen adds fairy doors? …Are cloth sandwich boards dry-clean-only?). As a result, the KBlow-labeled posts are WAY more effective at extinguishing discussion of CARD’s political stunts than anything Dave Cahill has written, or will write. The bottom line is that after KBlow steps in, people vote with their keyboards & mice and decide to move elsewhere. This AAIO entry, as seen above, and the one on June 29 provide some pretty convincing evidence. And besides, if you post about CARD after KBlow, and you’re even kind-of/sort-of on the “same side†of the issue as he/she/it is, are you then smeared as an angry misogynist by association?
Behavior of this type also reflects a game many of us have seen before. Using a thin veneer of humor, someone lashes out with the intention of delivering a personal beating rather than a debate. If no one says anything, then they get away with punching down someone else. Alternately, when others call them out for clubbing on folks for the fun of it, they respond by accusing any & all critics of being hypersensitive and without a sense of humor. They try to have it both ways; satirical techniques get used as a cover while they act out hostility. While this can make for effective trolling, it won’t turn anyone into the new Mark Twain, despite the kudos from KBlow’s handful of appreciative fans.
I wouldn’t ramble so much, except that this thread is dead, dead, dead anyway. Can anyone prove me wrong? If not, then see you here.
posted by hale on July 7th, 2006 at 6:42 pmAnd Hale, you’ve offered up how many substantive thoughts on the topic over at Arbor Update? Maybe under an alias…?
Those of us who’ve been paying attention all along do not at this point grant Cahill, CARD, or any other entity with which he chooses to identify any credibility whatsoever. He even manages, by vociferous association, to make the Democratic party look elitist, petty, greedy, small-minded, smarmy, selfish, reactionary (WTF?), and childish. We would prefer, in a perfect world, to ignore him. We merely persist in satirizing him in the fear that some poor sap may come upon this site (or its more respectable sibling), read some “seemingly reasonable” thing he might say, and stumble off to the farmers’ market to sign some idiotic petition. The Arbor Update people who continue to engage him as though he were a concerned and sincere citizen do so at their own peril. I submit that they are either insane or masochistic. Anyone else would tell him to go stick a toilet brush up his chubby, pink, puckered, dingle berry encrusted asshole. And anyone who cared about him would advise liposuction, a nose job, and a forty-eight hour–no sleeping–beat down from James Kunstler.
It is a minor comfort to me to know that in all future internet searches, until the end of time, the name “David Cahill” in “Ann Arbor” will be linked to the words “petty”, “greedy”, “small-minded”, “smarmy”, “selfish”, “reactionary” and “childish”. I only wish they were linked to the commonly searched for phrase “Bend over, my little undergraduate piece of ass, so that I can insert this rolled up forty-two page proclamation banning porch couches, Wall Street Journals on the lawn, noise above the level at which I play my Billy Joel records, lawn infesting weeds of the following species (three pages–omitted), hair like those guys in The Kinks, any sort of anything that even kind of sortof looks like it might be associated with any kind of “hip-hop” or “rap” music, and especially anything “urban”. Also, all positive references to buildings over two stories are prohibited.â€
And as for Boyle, thumping on that priggish, unctuous, insufferable asshole is just an unwise, but entirely guilty pleasure. Like scratching a bad case of eczema. In the end you wish you had just drunk a liter bottle of Old Granddad and made yourself go to sleep, but at the time it seems wiser to drink half the bottle and use the extra energy to carefully fashion a coat hanger to reach the precise spot where the irritation lies. In the morning you may lament the blood on the sheets, but come tonight you’re just going to do it again.
An finally, how can the thread be dead when fucktards like you and me are still having a circle jerk around the hospital bed? Hale! Hale! the emotion CARD, the champions of the west!
Last word?
posted by Parking Structure Dude! on July 8th, 2006 at 1:31 amYears before I became a veggie, I used to like trolling. My dad or uncle would take me out on the calm lake just after sunrise, where the only ones getting hurt would be a few fish and their bereaved next of kin. Yet something once as simple as that gets more complicated in this here modern age. How I now long for the golden days of dead fish. In reply to P.S. Dude (and, speaking of curiosity, are you also js? — “fucktardsâ€? “James Kunstlerâ€?):
True: I haven’t posted at Arbor about Broadway. The talk runs technical and insider-ish, and I’ve had nothing to contribute on that count, but this also means I can learn a lot by lurking — which has been Arbor Update’s greatest value to me. Some local info that used to be accessible only to those “in the know” now can get posted on the net for all to read. This is in the best spirit of the web, and it deserves a wide lurkership.
If/when I do post, it will be something along the lines that while CARD acts destructively, the project itself stinks in a lot of ways. JulieW concisely pointed out some reasons, and I would add that the plan to build condos for the well-off rather than affordable housing guarantees that the place, if built, will have way too much yuppie garbage in it. JulieW’s question, which I support, is, “How can we make it better now without killing the entire project?†There’s certainly a bit of fixing to do. CARD, however, has no positive answer to offer; if they fully succeed, then in the end the Big U may well scarf up the large Broadway property, leaving no new housing or tax base, nor stores, laundromats, restaurants, nightclubs or fairy dog parks. It’s too bad this Arbor Update thread happens now instead of about four years ago, before things got this far, when lower Broadway planning could still be proactive instead of reactive.
Your point about Arbor writers taking Cahill as being straightforward is somewhat well taken. Todd over there speaks to this at one point along the way. By now, though, folks spend time cutting through the contrived CARD “arguments†and prod & corner Cahill into spelling out motives more honestly. By appearances, it looks as if Cahill uses this thread to gauge how his opposition thinks. I find it hard to believe he still thinks he can really change anyone’s mind over there, and maybe he enjoys a little trolling himself at the expense of the more excitable Arbor Update posters.
With your demonstrated enthusiasm for the dingle-berry school of metaphor, PSD, I would propose to Strowe and Cahill that they use you a poster child on their CARD referendum materials. If this is what an opponent of CARD sounds like, then the washed masses of Ann Arbor will run fleeing in considerable numbers into their welcoming arms. They won’t need to make up stuff about the potential city bond money.
posted by hale on July 8th, 2006 at 12:41 pmSomebody repeatedly misspelled “hale” as “Hale”. So much for credibility.
posted by David Boyle on July 8th, 2006 at 12:56 pmI would not call the Arbor Update thread that friendly or fair to Cahill at all.
By the way, as I may post elsewhere, the Ann Arbor Democrats meeting for local candidates this morning had a remarkably large number of people favoring a popular vote on the $40 milion bond, as CARD wants.
I think hale’s idea of CARD using Parking Structure! Dud as a poster troll might work in CARD’s favor quite well; then again, a picture of PS! Dud, complete with blood and eczema, could just disgust all decent people so much they never show up to the ballot box again.
“Kunstler” is in fact a proper name, not an expletive.
posted by Jeff Dean on July 8th, 2006 at 4:40 pmThis thread not dead. Ergo, fault on Hale. Point: KBlow, PSD (doubles?).
I was off looking for that TEH INTERNETS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS picture with the two dudes punching the girl, for David, since he seems to believe that TEH INTERNETS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS!
posted by js on July 8th, 2006 at 5:00 pmHale,
I’m sorry for the long delay in answering you. You spent more time and thought on your response to me than I deserved. I appreciate your recent, substantive and well thought-out, postings on Arbor Update. Shortly after I posted my most recent screed my nurse injected me with something that has left me mostly incoherent until today.
And no, I’m not JS, although I did steal fucktard from him. I’m not proud, but it was really pretty and he wasn’t using it and I wanted it. Sorry, Josh.
You’re correct that the project does merit close scrutiny, but this has been going on for YEARS. And if Todd is to be believed, every delay adds dollars to the cost of development, which either raises the cost or drives out the developer. The site then awaits someone with deeper pockets and a more profitable project. The upshot could be a really, really sweet one-story celebrity spa that caters to Cahill and Paris Hilton, or it could mean a ten-story building. And every subsequent delay means the ten-story building either has to beg for eleven or they install cheaper windows.
As for the current plan, I don’t have much hope that it’s going to include any local businesses or anything funky or cool. As has been pointed out here, new developments are rarely cheap enough for that sort of tenant. What it can do, though, is give some of the shitty chain bastards someplace to plop their refuse. This doesn’t sound great, but the demand is there. See the Smoothy King Enema Machine store and the Gelato Barf franchises in Kerrytown if you have any doubt. This sickens me. Allowing them some room in a new development may let the older, local, tenants hold on in the older buildings. Broadway, don’t misread me, is going to be full of this type of shit. It’s inevitable in any new, high-rent, building. What it offers, in the long run, is very good urban design and use of space. I’ve studied the plans and I believe it’s an excellent design, something that will be workable and useable for another hundred years–like Kerrytown. We can quibble about the architectural details, and we should, but in terms of spacing and massing, it’s actually, awesome. It’s damn near perfect for the location.
And I can’t give a fuck about what goes in there because I know ahead of time it’s going to be shit. The fact that tenants are being required to sign on now, while it’s still a sputtering dream, practically requires that said tenants be deep-pocketed chain establishments. By making the developers jump through SO many hoops, we’ve pretty much required this outcome. Could, for instance, the Busy Hands yarn store sign a lease now, for a building that may get built in two years, if ever? Fuck no. But Applebee’s could.
So look at the plans. Imagine yourself walking around in it surrounded by businesses you like. That’s what we’re getting fifty years from now. Not perfect, but what are the alternatives? It’s going to be Chain-Store something. But would you rather wander, in 2056, the parking lot of a defunct Walgreen’s, or the streets of a reusable, reinventable, little village area like Kerrytown?
Focus on the site plan and make sure they build well, and with quality materials. That’s all we can ask for.
As for trolling, I believe, unless I misunderstand the term, that this particular site was built by and for trolls. It’s our homeland, the place we can always return to in times of trouble.
And regarding my potentially invigorating the CARD initiative. I apologize if that happens. I worry about it, but I hope that my satire is so over the top as to be taken as such. Anyone who accepts my rants as the legitimate, reasonable, position of the “pro-development cabal” that I apparently belong to is also, I hope, so stupid that they signed the card petition on the first day. No saving those fucktards, eh?
And as for you, Boyle, you’re a real delight. Responding to my accusation of priggishness with “Somebody repeatedly misspelled ‘hale’ as ‘’Hale’” would be an ironic comedy tour-de-force from somebody with a sense of humor. From you I suspect it’s just a sad example of what happens when someone doesn’t own a dictionary.
An yeah, this thread is probably dead now.
posted by Parking Structure Dude! on July 12th, 2006 at 10:18 pm1. “Gelato Barf”?
2. “As for trolling, I believe, unless I misunderstand the term, that this particular site was built by and for trolls. It’s our homeland, the place we can always return to in times of trouble.”
You cleared this with aaio? and are calling aaio a troll? Mmf.
3. “An yeah, this thread is probably dead now.”
(a) “And”, not “An”; do you own a dictionary?
(b) “probably dead”…you sure bout dat?
posted by David Boyle on July 12th, 2006 at 11:14 pmExcuse me for a moment as I hook up the IV to this thread…….. There.
PSD: I appreciate your point about looking down the road to consider how Broadway Village may evolve decades from now. Yes, buildings and locations can and do recreate themselves over time — and it never occurred to me to think about that. A few small-scale examples near downtown include the old gas station by Huron & First that was a flower shop for a while and is now an ‘office’ for massage therapists. A place on E. Washington built for selling autos(?) eventually became Kolossos Printing and will soon house the Neutral Zone. Another old gas station on Huron has at different times been home for a lawyer, the Vault of Midnight, a couple small galleries, and Rosey’s Barber Shop.
I agree. If Applebee’s and its chain kindred do move in to lower Broadway, it’s unlikely we’ll still have them to kick around over there in 30-40 years. They’ll be long gone, no one will miss them, and something with a more appropriate weirdness quotient will have a chance to move in. If the overall BV design proves itself over time to be well-though, that will help keep the place a destination spot as it changes. Even less-than-memorable achievements, such as the big Biz School building that recently vanished, can hang around for half a century.
Planning for evolution of use, combined with good design in this instance, would make it easier to swallow the retail/yuppie swill we’ll get if/when BV opens. I’m more or less aware that project scrutiny has been going on for some time, though I wasn’t following it a few years back. Yes, sending major components “back to the drawing board” could easily backfire, killing BV and hurtling us toward a future ribbon-cutting ceremony for a UM Broadway Tower that “goes to eleven” in the tradition of updated 60s Soviet architecture, while offering a first floor Walgreen’s for token neighborhood spirit. Or else we get the alternate Greenway NE future you brought up at AU. Still, I have an amateur’s curiousity about the question of whether tweaks in the BV plan can be brought about without destabilizing it or further ratcheting up the costs.
As for trolling: We’re all here for different sets of reasons. I show up for amusement, local satire, and to learn stuff. For Arbor Update, reverse that order (over there, self-appointed Palestinian fundamentalists help satire maintain 2nd place). Under some circumstances, trolling provides moments of mirthful reading. At other times I may (wittingly or not) write a comment that will qualify under someone’s definition of trolling. However, the general rule I waveringly try to follow is to not write anything about someone that I wouldn’t say directly to their face. This is one working standard for respectfulness in anything that’s written or spoken. Again, “waveringly” is how it works in everyday practice.
Since I rarely trash people one-on-one — including “playing rough” for mutual amusement — that makes me a wimpy recruit for an aaio troll army (Private Gomer?). The Cahill-related satire thrashings in these CARD threads, along with the back-and-forth you and a few others have had with David Boyle, aren’t my style. Back when CARD-specific discussion faded right after a thrashing, I was disappointed and wrote about that. But nonetheless I would never suggest altering aaio’s stated policy of non-policy.
Alright… so this thread’s still not dead. At this precise moment it has more life than its AU counterpart, which, as I click “submit,” appears to be on pause for now. Thanks for your comments about my recent posts over there. What I’ve tried to do, with intermittent moments of success, is to steer the AU discussion away from a Cahill/CARD agenda and over to other, hopefully more constructive BV questions.
posted by hale on July 15th, 2006 at 9:48 pmAnd a fine job you are doing! Thank you for your hale and hearty contributions to discussion about Ann Arbor…..
posted by David Boyle on July 15th, 2006 at 11:23 pmThanks, Hale. I’ll second you regarding trashing people on-line whom you wouldn’t trash one-on-one. I once caught myself saying something really mean to a fellow anonymous poster, whom, a moment after I’d belittled her, I deduced that I knew in person. I felt really bad, apologized, and since then have, believe it or not, been more restrained. I feel reasonably confident that the people I do fuck with on-line I would also fuck with in person, in the event that, like here, I was stuck in a room embroiled in debate—and I had the balls.
I am confident that my responses to Cahill, Boyle, and Blaine are _exactly_ the way I would hope I had the courage to respond in real life. Ironically, it’s possible to find your best self on-line, even if at times being your best self requires the fortitude to be a colossal asshole.
posted by Parking Structure Dude! on July 18th, 2006 at 9:09 pmOr I might say, in anticipation of Boyle’s priggishness, “trashing on-line peole whom I wouldn’t….”
So fuck you, Boyle. I saw you outside the Union the other day. You looked stoned. You also looked like you had no friends. Must have been a trick of the light.
posted by Parking Structure Dude! on July 18th, 2006 at 9:14 pmSome dud! has so much “”courage”" that he posts anonymously, which I don’t do. People know my name.
Re “trashing on-line peole whom I wouldn’t… .â€, it’s “people”, not “peole”. I wonder who’s stoned now and, understandably, may have no friends, nor much spelling or other human articulative ability. I’ll pray for your soul, and your spelling, and that you get some friends and lay off that glass pipe, too. Sad to be stoned, alone, and an anonymous Poor Sedated Dud!
posted by David Boyle on July 18th, 2006 at 9:22 pmPrig.
posted by Parking Structure Dude! on July 18th, 2006 at 9:44 pm