I've never seen anything like it in all my years of observing the media up close and from afar. Star columnist Erika Smith has transformed herself the past six months into the cheapest media whore the downtown mafia could find to pimp out to the public in its goal of enacting a multi-billion dollar mass transit boondoggle. She's now approaching close to ten columns this year alone pining for IndyConnect's metropolitan mass transit legislative plan. In her latest high school-level reporting, she tells us that the planning for mass transit is going to go on regardless of what happens at the legislature. In other words, the corrupt downtown mafia has issued an edict that it will happen by hook or crook and nobody is going to get in their way.
The lazy journalist tells us the public is gung-ho about the prospects of an expanded bus service based on survey data gathered at taxpayer's expense by CIRTA that will take them to Carmel's Palladium and Arts and Design District, the Fashion Mall, Greenwood Mall and Fountain Square. Hey, if it will save absentee parents from the trouble of having to drop their delinquent kids off to loiter, shoplift and otherwise create mayhem at friendly shopping destinations, why not?
She takes a swipe at Gov. Mike Pence, who has expressed doubts about a metropolitan mass transit authority with taxing power. "There’s Gov. Mike Pence who is on a Captain-Ahab-like mission to get an income tax cut and is wary of any bill that would raise income taxes," she writes. For those of you who've forgotten your literature, Captain Ahab is the the maniacal, villainous ship captain in Melville's Moby Dick who's taken to his death trying to capture and kill a powerful and elusive sperm whale. The Senate Democrats don't escape Smith's wrath either. She accuses them of engaging in "a selfish tit-for-tat battle with Mayor Greg Ballard" for threatening to help derail the mass transit legislation in response to his legislative efforts to eliminate the four at-large city-county council seats currently held by the Democrats and to strip the council of the oversight role it has mayoral appointments, among other things.
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"The lazy journalist tells us the public is 'gung-ho' about the prospects of an expanded bus service based on survey data gathered at taxpayer's expense by CIRTA that will take them to Carmel's Palladium"
-Just wait until the patrons of that mass transit proposal arrive at The Palladium for a Chief Keef concert...
Here are videos of a future patrons showing the public transportation available as well as complete streets to come to The Palladium from The Meadows. Plenty of stops for public transportation pick-up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G32c9yQ_Yhs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCb1_LqPrHg
The new public transporation will present less need for cruising....but, as this video shows, another matter still takes place https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuTb4te9UL8
Careful, Gary. Some idiot state official might call you "uncivil."
Jeff, Lack of civility is when the government charges a person with a crime for exercising their right to vote, free speech or some other fundamental constitutional right. Tyranny is when a person's fear of being prosecuted for executing their fundamental rights prevents him or her from exercising their rights. That's about where we've arrived in this country.
Gary,
Whether or not you agree with mass transit or not, your characterization of Erika Smith is offensive, repugnant, and disgusting.
You should apologize to her, but I know you won't.
Preaching to the choir. I just know the "whore" comparison is going to ruffle feathers, especially feathers of those most inclined to use that term. Free speech for them but not for us, it seems.
I believe the Chicago Sun-Times learned about Erika Smith's propaganda piece and they in turn wrote the balancing story today. In the Sun-Times story today, there is documentation of political corruption and how public transportation is used by violent criminals to facilitate their activity throughout the metropolitan area. I previously posted how it would a appear that a Metropolitan Transit Board of political appointees (loyal to their appointing elected official, not the public) smells of corruption. It gives the elected official the ability to receive special interest contributions from those connected to the Metropolitan Transit Board by contract and still fill out ethics forms that indicate they did not receive contributions from anyone with a contract from their own municipality.
Chicago is the closest city with regional mass transit to us. Today's Sun-Times offers balance to the propaganda of Smith's Gannett piece:
"Metra, the system of 11 rail lines connecting Chicago to six counties and 241 stations in Northeastern Illinois, may not be as safe as you think it is.
“We have been derailed by understaffing, poor equipment and leadership without a mission,” said a Metra police source. 'If you think you are safe on a Metra train, you are not,' he said.
Rattled by the death of former Metra Chief Phil Pagano, who committed suicide by stepping in front of a train in 2010 after the disclosure he personally misused Metra funds, the transit agency has limped on after spending a ton of cash to track Pagano’s fraud.
Metra crime is up at the Electric District, the train line’s most dangerous route, with at least six robberies in March.
'Metra will assign one solitary police officer with one car to patrol the locations of recent crimes on weekends — but they will bring in special operations and many officers working around the clock should any Metra materials (like copper wire) be stolen,' said a police source.
Metra police officer Thomas Cook was killed while serving in a one-man robbery detail. “We swore it would never happen again, but we are now back to one-man robbery details,” an officer told Sneed. “Overtime has been cut.”
Just recently, two Metra officers were injured while working during the St. Patrick’s celebrations. One was stabbed four times in the leg; another had ribs broken.
'My worst nightmare is walking up alone to seven guys in a Metra station and asking them to leave,' said another Metra cop.
A man reportedly shot at multiple times in an attempted robbery by an offender who appeared to have been wielding a gun, possibly a BB gun, at the Ivanhoe station in Riverdale on a recent Sunday afternoon.
The Metra response: 'Don’t know anything about that,' said Gillis. 'The person who would know about things like that has never heard about it. And they would know.' -But it did happen. (The victim was interviewed.)
OK, let's see what Gannett's Star writer has to say now that the propaganda has been balanced with documented fact.
The people of Central Indiana do not want another layer of government, more TAXes, an exponential increase in corruption and VIOLENT CRIME. We REJECT the Metropolitan Transit Proposal, known as Indiana HB 1011!
What's offensive is that a columnist for a newspaper is allowed to use her column as a lobbyist for special interests. An occasional opinion piece here and there reflecting the columnist's political views on a single issue isn't a problem, but the continual returning to the same issue week after week during the legislative session shows that her purpose is intended to be more than just expressing a viewpoint. It's apparently totally permissible for the columnist to demonize those with whom she politically disagrees, but she's a victim when the tables are turned on her with the use of unflattering analogies. Jon, do you think her comparison of Gov. Pence to Capt. Ahab is apropo? Heavens, he didn't even say he would veto the legislation; he only said he had reservatations about it.
Just what the Greenwood Mall needs is a bunch of teenagers cruising in from the south side of Indy hanging out in their mall.
Back a long time ago, (1961-64) a part of my 8th Grade and 9th Grade curriculum was, we would call it today Critical Thinking.
We had a class room debate on if we should have dropped "the bombs" on Japan.
The expectation was you would consider the different sides of an issue.
The people who run The Star must not have had a Critical Thinking Class. The Star as it has been pointed out numerous times does not present views or opinions that diverge from its chosen opinion. The Star has tried to portray itself as champion of Free Market Capitalism. However, when Free Market Capitalism will not respond to the needs of billionaires who need stadiums built for them or some direct or indirect subsidy for "Downtown" then Crony Capitalism or Corporatism will do just fine. Through some convoluted thinking it is OK to toss the Free Market in the trash when it fails to produce the desired result and impose a subsidy tax on all of us to benefit the Chosen Few.
My only curiosity is do the Star Reporters have any independence in the writing or is all dictated to them from high???
The teen-agers are already hanging out at all these malls. That's one of the reasons you don't see Simon building new enclosed malls; they're going with the outdoor approach at Clay Terrace to cut down on the loitering by teens.
Uncivil might be the distilled advocacy by one who is supposed to be a journalist or present both sides, Flogger's reference to critical thought.
Uncivil might also be ongoing & unsubstantiated claims by the party of "responsible & smaller government." Where does that party exist? It's likely that ~8M registered but nonparticipating voters in the 2012 election are no longer waiting for the answer.
A successful private developer once said, "If you want a monument go to Crown Hill." As Legoland fantasies are fashioned into asset draining era marking monuments, it may occur to people that all subsidies lead to Rome.
CCS: Your opposition to mass transit reeks of thinly-veiled racism, whether you acknowledge it or not. If I think I am demonizing you, you're right.
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