Disappointment is my muse

So, in a thread over at Pundit’s blog, Harvey Garrett took serious umbrage with our satirical video that featured Alan and I as activists.

It was a sophomoric, satirical parody of an issue Alan and I had seriously debated and discussed on both of our blogs and on other local sites of interest.

At the conclusion of five issue specific postings by me, two from Alan, one interview with Brian Higgins, attendance at a Waterfront Coalition press conference, several phone calls with Harvey, and dozens of comments on a site we dare not mention (less the whiners come out)…we were a little tired of the topic. It seemed as if we were screaming common sense into the void and all we heard back was emotional dissonance.

So, we felt we had talked enough. Marc Odien and I went to a press conference on the waterfront held by the Waterfront Coalition that lasted 45 minutes. Seven members of the Coalition spoke, as I recall, as did Mickey “gearing up for my Higgins primary election” Kearns. It was so cold, windy, and miserable out there that the hard drive on our camera froze and our footage was lost. Seriously. Over a couple of slices of crappy pizza at the office, we decided to re-film the press conference in our own way and have some fun.

I knew when we posted it, the comments would range from “Hey, that’s funny” to “Alright, that was lame. Don’t quit your day jobs.”

I didn’t suspect the following comments:

Paul Francis writes:

This forum is Buffalo’s official sounding board for mere commentators whose self-annointed pursuit is bashing the folks who do actually work hard advocating for the city. These commentators - oh wait, pundits - then sheepishly shrug their shoulders when those advocates savor a victory. Hopefully this knock on the Waterfront Coalition is one of those instances.

Hell, some bloggers are actually out fighting for this town. None here!

Our self-anointed pursuit is to comment on things we find interesting and add to the discussion. Which we did on this particular issue ten times and with a podcast. We do not sheepishly shrug our shoulders, we doubt the outcomes and the means with which these Pyrrhic victories were achieved.

Paul is referencing our positions on Bass Pro (Just build it already) and the Outer Harbor (just build it already). Honestly, I have never seen more self congratulatory backpatting as I saw after Higgins and Brown announced that Bass Pro would be leaving the Central Wharf and be moved to the Auditorium site. An “agreement” to which Bass Pro has not publicly nor formally agreed to. The incongruous and illogical mockup of foam that was hastily crafted out of a wet dream does not reflect what could or will be built on the Inner Harbor.

Also, we’re not out fighting for this town? Seriously??? That’s the best you’ve got? When Marc Odien started WNYMedia.net in 2003, it was the only local outlet specifically designed to be the voice of the people. In 2004, Marc started community activism on the network with his event at the Central Terminal called “Rock, Rap, and Register”, which was designed to educate and register voters prior to the 2004 Presidential election. Marc has produced two critically acclaimed documentaries on voting and predatory house flipping and been an arbiter of progress and dissent since blogs were “underground”.

Proactively, members of this network and the company that owns it have managed/marketed/directed/participated in four well attended and well covered regional public forums on county government, regionalism, urban sprawl, and waterfront development.

We’ve served on the boards/served as directors of/or materially supported: the WNY Coalition For Progress, Buffalo Old Home Week, Revitalize Buffalo, Broadway Fillmore Alive, Central Terminal Restoration Corporation, Broadway Market, Housing Court Liaisons, Parkside Community Association, Community Music School, Buffalo ReUse, Buffalo Micro Parks, BANANA Rallies, Free Buffalo, Free New York, Primary Challenge, United Way, American Red Cross, YMCA, and the list goes on and on.

Several of our bloggers have run for public office, we are affiliated with progressive blogging politicians like Mark Poloncarz and Cindy Locklear and we work with the City/County governments and public authorities to increase access to information. We have provided an outlet for discussion of politics and community affairs, created some controversy ourselves, and have been lauded as a leader in citizen journalism.

We are progress and change, bitches. You might not like the kind of progress we represent, but we have tens of thousands of people who read our sites each month that seem to dig it. We’ve earned the right to have a little fun now and again.

I’m disappointed that I have to write this post. I’m disappointed that a simple disagreement on an issue brings out condescension from a self appointed arbiter of what “new media” is and should be.

Harvey Garrett writes:

What happened to you two (and WNYMedia)?

What happened is that Harvey doesn’t like our previously well described positions on the issue at hand, that’s what. A plan has been agreed to, evaluated, and sent our for bid. A group of people collectively decided that they did not like that plan. In this situation, the burden of proof is on the challenger who wishes to disrupt a completed process to justify said disruption with an argument more finely tuned than “Expressways are bad, we don’t like them”.

The waterfront coalition and those who claim to speak for them are engaging in what economists call “uncertain predictions”, those which we can not specify a reliable distribution of probabilities. The sum of the argument against the approved NYSDOT plan is emotion and opinion, not fact.

At it’s very essence, at it’s very core…the WC is a group of people who don’t deem this particular type of progress to be good progress. Really, it’s all quite subjective.

They deem it to be inadequate progress whereas I deem it to be completely satisfactory. Why is that? Because no one can clearly demonstrate how the current DOT plan disincents progress, development, or removal of the skyway with any reasoned logic, facts, or probability. The coalition believes that the current plan is “bad” and they believe it will lead to the extended life of the Skyway. There is no objective reality in that assessment, they just think its bad. Just as Higgins, Pundit, and I think it’s not.

It would be educational to determine what it is they want to accomplish on the waterfront. Access? Pedestrian friendly? Development? What else? Once that is determined, the burden of proof is on the WC to demonstrate what in the current plan or the NYDOT boulevard alternative plan either incents or disincents any of those goals from happening.

If the current plan can be objectively determined to disincent those critical factors from being accomplished, we have a discussion. If not, we have a subjective argument over what you like versus what I like, which is pointless.

Much like the effort I have spent in combating someone’s “disappointment” in my progressive and community driven organization.