It's Just OK

It seems like every time you turn around something old is newly re-branded as racist. According to recent reports spewing from the increasingly incompetent mainstream news outlets white supremacists have a way to signal solidarity. To hear them tell it this is now a symbol of racism:

Only one problem with that. It simply is not true. Turns out it is a hoax perpetrated by 4Chan.

Says who? Well none other than the Anti-Defamation League has exposed the hoax. You'd think sharing a leftward tilt with the ADL that mainstream media would be all over pumping up their credibility creds. But ratings mean money and a tantalizing lie is worth more than a boring truth. And that's OK by them. 

Stop It! Please...

Shroomville

Why All The Mushrooms?

We in The Other Dunwoody thought that was obvious but we've been informed that it is very much not obvious. Obviously.

So what of the lowly mushroom? Good place to start. Mushrooms are not mistletoe. 'Shrooms grow on the ground, mistletoe gloriously high in trees. Folks look down on 'shrooms and up to mistletoe. They see a 'shroom and wonder "is that thing even safe?" and with mistletoe they say "give us a kiss."

Mushrooms live on the ground...actually the mycelium lives below the surface. Mushrooms must make do with the rotting detritus of the trees, with their mistletoe, that lord over them. Mushrooms are kept in the dark.

What better symbol of this city than the "Fungus Among Us?" A city working to ensure citizenry is kept in the dark and fed the rotten verbal detritus of our Lords and Ladies with their clingy toadies...a citizenry that somehow manages to thrive despite it all.

That mushrooms grow so well 'round these parts should be a clue.

Let The Backdoor Hit You In The Backside. Please!

Fulton governments...and consequently those politicians...are in a bind regarding property tax bills. Politicians are blaming market forces, almost the same as blaming the taxpayers themselves, and have worked to institute an assessment freeze as some form of "relief." Fulton isn't unique. Other local governments, including Dunwoody, have been reaping the ill-gotten back door tax increases for decades.

Pretty un-American for a bunch of dimwit politicians to hold themselves above an open and free market, but there is more at work here. First is the blame storm and to the extent that politicians control the dialogue it is anything but their fault. Then there is the bald-faced greed that permeates politics of our day. And this is where it really is on the politicians...they own this.

Why?

Because market forces are outside their control. While they hate that, it is a simple, undeniable fact. Market prices are driven by what someone is willing to offer and what someone else is willing to accept. Not what some pol or his bureaucratic henchmen dictate. But pols do have control over something other than their rhetoric. They have direct control over our tax bills. They approve budgets and they set millage rates. They. Own. This.

Respect those who vote--set a revenue neutral millage rate. Respect the market--set a revenue neutral millage rate. And if they don't have the integrity, the character, to set a revenue neutral millage rate they shouldn't let the door hit them in the ass on their way out...of office.

What I Hear You Saying Is...

As pointed out in a recent guest post folks no longer use words based on meaning and consequently are no longer even attempting to communicate meaning. Instead they're communicating feelings...if it sounds good, well then it is good. Right?

Ground zero for this societal semantic epidemic is right here in Dunwoody.

WILL Be? WHEN?

What does this REALLY mean? "Everything will be OK" is a future projection...a prediction. But if that is indeed what the future holds, some unspecified future, then what of today?

One thing is certain: things are definitely NOT OK now.

Just In Time For Election Season

Somethin' Ain't Wright Here

In his first contested race Ken Wright has muffed it. It should have been an easy catch for the home town boy done good but he just muffed it.

What are we to make of this?

Mere ineptitude? Guns, booze and foreign exchange students a hard act to top? Or are the Blue Pant Suits right and this is a red tide washed clean by a blue wave? That would be a larger, almost national, context.

But there is a narrower context. Closer to home. Maybe this is the part of "local control" that Dan and Fran and others did not really expect. Former Mayor Wright was one of the anointed crusaders of the citihood movement. When there was one. Since Dunwoody, the "Hey Alexa-make me a city" movement has petered out with the failure of Cliffside and now the smack-down of Eagles Landing. Maybe folks inside and nearby have been watching Dunwoody and don't like what they see.

Maybe they don't like increased costs and ever rising taxes. Maybe they don't like deterioration of services, particularly police who are increasing obsessed with social media over community service. Maybe they don't like the absence of any consideration of quality of life issues. Maybe they just see another bunch of government pols and bureaucrats who are beholden to rich, powerful outsiders and who see voters as folks to feed convenient lies so they get raises and re-elected.

Maybe in the Smart City we just had a referendum on stupid. If so, we won.

Why Are YOU Here?

Not HERE...reading this blog...that's severe boredom. But why are you here, living in Dunwoody? One opinion, presented in the Blue Bag Rag, suggests that for many it may be the schools:

"We need leaders that will champion our public schools, a central reason why so many of us moved here."

Objective data do not suggest this assertion results from informed or sound reasoning. Not the "need" part of the assertion but the "reason" end of the equation. And yet the author, whose agenda is waving the blue flag in the red zone, is not alone in coming to this educational desert for the academic waters.

Can that many people really be drunk on the Koolaid?

Flourishing In Da Ville