Last week the City County Observer discovered and published the fact that the Winnecke Administration held a committee meeting that resulted in a very select group of 10 City of Evansville employees being recommended for salary increases of up to 33%. The select group of ten was heavily weighted by the staff of the Office of Mayor Winnecke. Someone in the CCO knows nearly all of the 10 people singled out for these hefty salary increases and the forthcoming opinion on the process and judgment exhibited in these recommendations in no way reflects our admiration and support for competitive wages being paid to any on these people as individuals.

The salary schedules used by the City of Evansville are deficient, obsolete, and out of date. Exceptions and side deals have to be arranged to attract outside candidates to City positions. An exclamation point was put onto the paltriness of the City of Evansville’s salary offerings when the attraction of Tom Barnett by the Weinzapfel Administration in 2008 required a secret side deal with GAGE of over 50% of Barnett’s base salary to even be competitive with the towns of under 20,000 in locations with a lower cost of living. The salary schedules for Evansville needed to be adjusted upwards by more than 50% then and they still do.

The 10 who were singled out for large salary increases were already on the payroll with only 6 months tenure in their present positions. Attraction of talent was in no way involved in the committee recommendations. These are 10 people who knew what they were going to be paid when they accepted these jobs in January. To single out 10 people who for the most part came into the Winnecke Administration in January for increases while ignoring the skinflint salary schedules imposed on the other 800 or so City employees does not address the root problem and sets the administration up to look like the practice of cronyism is alive and well in Evansville. The City salary schedules were not upgraded by the Weinzapfel Administration and have thus far not been addressed by the Winnecke Administration.

The failure to address the non-competitive salaries offered by the City of Evansville in a transparent manner has been and will continue to be the reason that Evansville can’t even compete with smaller and less well off places like Gary, Indiana for talent. To refuse to deal with this situation is to tie a permanent albatross around the ability of the City of Evansville to compete on the world stage when it comes to attracting and retaining talent.

The United States and especially the rust belt of which Evansville is a part continues to be mired in a recession/depression that has wreaked havoc on municipal budgets across the country. The truth of the matter is that Evansville cannot at this time afford to bring all of the wages for City jobs up to national average standards. Evansville as a city is also faced with well over a billion dollars in required spending on infrastructure improvements like replacing aged water pipes and solving the combined sewer overflow issue. The money to make these improvements will have to come from tax and rate increases.

The Winnecke Administration is establishing a reputation for acting before thinking. First it was making deals with Earthcare Energy before seeking City Council approval and now RaiseGate. Earthcare was not vetted and neither was this. Is it too much to ask of elected officials to think things through before taking even the right actions in the wrong way?

2012 began in Evansville with much hope for new leadership that promised transparency, ambassador level marketing, and financial competence. What we have seen so far is simply more of the same old boy cronyism that Evansville has suffered through for over half a century. There is an old saying about being in the right place at the right time. These increases however merited they may be are done at the wrong time in the wrong way. Evansville with its debt levels at record highs and looming infrastructure costs of well over $1 Billion is surely not the right place.

These increases in the aggregate are small potatoes in view of the overall budget. The balls that we all need to keep an eye on are things like the $80 Million Johnson Controls deal, the $10 Million in new parks, and of course the Billion dollar legacy costs associated with failure to do maintenance. Those are projects where real talent that we can’t seem to find or afford can make a profound positive difference on the future of Evansville.

The most terrifying thing about the future of Evansville is that the elected leadership is not even getting the $50,000 decisions right yet they are in charge of the forthcoming billion dollar decisions.

Evansville’s Grave Injustice

I will never forget the day I visited Oak Hill Cemetery. As I crossed through the famed entrance gates to the facility, I was there for one reason only- to pay tribute to the mayor whose goals, visions, and ideas I seek to replicate with my own career. Before I arrived at Hank’s burial marker, I was already engulfed with feelings of sadness, anger, guilt, devastation, and depression due to the fact that I didn’t have a victory for Roberts Stadium in tow with me to deliver to Mayor Roberts.

No matter what part of Oak Hill Cemetery you visit, you will surely pass through many plots that are reminiscent of ruins from an old civilization. You will see headstones crushed, leaning, tilting, laying upside down, sitting on top of tree branches, and completely out of line from the rows they were originally intended to be in. Even worse is the fact that this isn’t just one, two, or three grave sites that have these problems. Rather, we are talking about many of hundreds grave markers that are in disrepair.

After viewing the dilapidated condition at Oak Hill Cemetery, I then took a trip to Evansville’s other public cemetery- Locust Hill Cemetery. As I expected, Locust Hill was a carbon copy of Oak Hill. Truth be told, the only areas in these cemeteries that are in acceptable condition are the areas being taken care of by our local veterans organizations. The rest of the areas in both of these cemeteries should be acceptable to no one.

As someone who has a great amount of respect for the veterans, the icons, and the residents of Evansville’s great past, I refuse to allow these cemeteries to remain like this, and I would hope the city of Evansville would refuse to allow this condition to get any worse than what it currently is. What kind of message do our cemeteries convey to our guests, visitors, and outsiders about the way Evansville views its deceased?

In order to get these cemeteries turned around, I have made the decision to do everything in my power to get the word out about the condition of our public cemeteries. First of all, I have created the blog- http://agraveinjustice.blogspot.com/ – so that residents can view pictures of what the cemeteries look like as well as receive updates on them 24/7 from the comfort of their own home. Secondly, I will be asking local lawmakers for their support in making sure these problems don’t continue to unattended to. I will be asking local residents to voice their concerns about these two cemeteries. I ask that any and all residents who are embarrassed by these horrendous conditions will write into our local media as well as our local leaders.

Yes, we have a tall task ahead of us in making sure that all of the deceased have a proper headstone surrounded by a lot that is maintained. But we can, and we will, accomplish this goal if our city is willing to take pride in both its past and present cemetery grave sites.

Finally, want to stress that the horrible condition that our two city cemeteries are in was not caused by our new Mayor or his staff but the blame for this problem is on the backs of past elected officials.

EPD Activity Report June 14, 2012

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Some people are too smart for your own good.
Food geneticists, for example. These technicians have the smarts to tinker with the inner workings of Momma Nature’s own good foods — but not the smarts to leave well enough alone.
In fairness, much of their scientific tinkering has been beneficial. But during the past half-century, too much of their work devolved from tinkering into outright tampering with our food. This is mostly the result of money flowing to both private and public research centers from big agribusiness corporations that want nature’s design altered in ways that fatten their bottom lines. Never mind that the alterations created by these smart people are frequently not good for you and me.
Take the tomato, truly a natural wonder. Agribusiness profiteers, however, wanted it to do unnatural things, so — voila! — the genetic tamperers in the 1960s and ’70s dutifully produced the Amazing Industrial Tomato. It’s a techno-marvel made to endure long-distance shipping, be harvested while green and then artificially ripened to appear tomato-y red and last an ungodly amount of time without rotting.
But taste? Forget it. There’s more flavor in the carton. This led to the “Upchuck Rebellion” — a grassroots movement of consumers, small farmers and local food artisans. In the last couple of decades, they’ve spurred phenomenal growth in farmers markets and stores that offer nature’s own locally produced and heirloom varieties untouched by the smart ones.
But, look out, the tomato tamperers are back in the lab! They’ve discovered that a mutated gene they had bred into the corporate tomato switches off other genes that would cause the fruit to develop flavor. The answer, they say, is not less technology, but more. By artificially re-engineering the DNA structure of the plant, they can bypass that naughty mutated gene and switch on some of the flavor genes. But do we really want to eat genetically engineered tomatoes?
Still, you can expect them to push the latest alteration of nature’s marvel. I can just see the agribusiness ad: “Buy our industrial tomatoes — Now genetically flavored!” Better yet, buy the local tomatoes, which don’t need a smart geneticist or an ad to deliver real flavor.
Unfortunately, it’s not just tomatoes they’re tampering with. For instance, if you are parent you may be worried about the plethora of highly questionable bio-engineered organisms that the profiteers have quietly been slipping into everything from snack foods to school lunches.
Well, perhaps your own children can put your mind at ease, for science teachers around the country have been assigning a book called “Look Closer at Biotechnology” to the kiddos in their classes. It’s filled with colorful images, friendly cartoon faces, puzzles and more!
The very first page makes clear that the scientific wonder of genetically engineered foods pose no worries at all. “Hi, kids,” it begins. “This is an activity book for young people like you about … a really neat topic.” Why is it so neat? Because, say the authors, “as you work through the puzzles in this book, you will learn more about biotechnology and all the wonderful ways it can help people live better lives in a healthier world. Have fun!”
Fun? With genetically engineered food? That’s not fun, it’s serious business — and look who’s behind this book of fairy tales: the Council for Biotechnology Information.
Exactly what and who is CBI? It’s a PR and political front for the biotech industry, financed by such multibillion-dollar giants as Monsanto, Bayer, DuPont and Dow. It’s also now funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into the industry’s deceitful political campaign to kill a California “Right to Know” ballot initiative that finally would require food giants to label all products containing genetically engineered organisms.
This raises an obvious question for those of us who prefer food from nature, not from engineering labs: What are we to do about corporate powers that are so avaricious and arrogant that they’re willing to tamper with our food supply, our kids’ minds and our basic consumer rights? Defeat them, that’s what!
Here are three good sources for information and action: JustLabelIt.org, NonGMOShoppingGuide.com and OrganicConsumers.org.
To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

This article, written by nationally syndicated conservative columnist L. Brent Bozell, is sponsored by OXFORD MORTGAGE, EVANSVILLE, IN. SCOTT KLUEH, PRESIDENT. CALL (812) 476-9740.

On July 9, Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi composed a puff piece to honor Stephen Colbert, “fake news” commentator and satirical fake conservative. It turns out Colbert is becoming an “obsession in academia,” with a new collegiate submersion in “Truthinessology.”
Let us agree that he can be very funny. Let’s also agree that his satire being taken seriously by academia says something about the state of academia.
It also says something about those in the press who agree. Farhi winked in his story that this obsession is a problem, but then unfurled a long list of academic tributes. Parents are now paying tens of thousands of dollars each year for their children to skateboard around boring old Aristotle and Locke and instead immerse themselves in the study of smirking liberal TV wise-crackers.
Colbert, we are told, is a television icon already, like CBS legend Edward R. Murrow. This would be more upsetting if Murrow weren’t in reality one partisan hack in a long line of truth-mangling CBS News partisan hacks.
Professor Geoffrey Baym proclaimed, “I’m sure there are still a lot more books out there on CBS News and Edward R. Murrow, but you could argue that the emergence of satire news at this level is an important phenomenon that I don’t think we still completely understand.” Baym wrote a book titled “From Cronkite to Colbert: The Evolution of Broadcast News.”
Maybe we don’t understand because it’s nonsensical. I get it that liberals believe in evolution, but do they really think journalism is growing more profound by transforming from long-form documentaries on migrant workers to Colbert’s self-promotional, punchline-packed congressional testimony on migrant workers?
Apparently, they do.
This is Baym’s dustcover Colbert-smooching: “‘From Cronkite to Colbert’ makes the case that rather than fake news, those shows should be understood as a new kind of journalism, one that has the potential to save the news and reinvigorate the conversation of democracy in today’s society.”
Translation: We had to destroy the news in order to save it.
Baym noted that there are “still a lot more books” on Murrow and CBS, but Amazon will quickly assemble for its consumers a wagonload of fake-news flattery oozing out of supposedly sober academe:
— “The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News” (with Jon Stewart and Colbert on the cover);
— “And Nothing but the Truthiness: The Rise (and Further Rise) of Stephen Colbert” (Colbert on the cover);
— “The Daily Show and Rhetoric: Arguments, Issues, and Strategies” (Stewart on the cover)
— “Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era” (Colbert on the cover);
— “Entertaining Politics: Satiric Television and Political Engagement” (Stewart and Barack Obama on the cover).
This is a partial list (one mostly different from a Post list of treatises). Farhi reported, “The college crowd says Colbert is worthy of study because his single-character political satire is unique in the annals of television. His character, an egomaniacal right-wing gasbag, connects him to a long Western satirical tradition going all the way back to the Roman poet Horace and the ancient Greek playwright Sophocles.”
Obviously, these educators wouldn’t insult the ancient Romans and Greeks to make comparisons to a conservative topical comedian like Dennis Miller. Professor Don Waisanen analyzed Miller after his turn to the right and lamented that he was “disoriented” and his humor was destined to “neuter socio-political action.”
Professors, being professorial, add gravitas to the unbearable lightness of their comedic heroes by applying jargon, explaining that Colbert and Stewart ably employ “parodic polyglossia,” “satirical specificity” and “contextual clash” to evoke both laughter and social change.
Farhi even found one super-fan: Penn State Professor Sophia McClennen. McClennen compares Colbert to Ben Franklin and Mark Twain as one of the greatest satirists in our nation’s entire 236-year history and argues that “our democracy is in a tough spot now, when corporations are exercising increasing power over government, and that Colbert captures this moment as they did.”
I bet even Colbert laughed at that.
As much as liberals claim to treasure irony, McClennen didn’t grasp that Colbert is “exercising increasing power over government” through a large media corporation called Viacom. This corporation’s greedy devotion to the bottom line led them to spit on those obsessed academics who watch Colbert and Stewart via satellite on DirecTV. Viacom not only cut off 20 million subscribers to DirecTV after a failed attempt to wring an estimated $1 billion in additional carriage fees, but they removed online streaming of full episodes on the Comedy Central website.
After all, applying “parodic polyglossia” to promote progressive politics is only worthwhile if a corporation is maximizing their profits. That is certainly a “contextual clash” the academics were not expecting.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.