A tale of two tubes
When I got home from work this evening, there was an email from “bewarethesilentspin@yahoo.com” in my inbox with a couple of videos linked to it.
The name appears to be a play on “bewarethesilentslate,” a copycat youtube.com site that hosts Don Roberts recent video magazine stories. (He’s got a permanent link to it on his site now, under the banner “Links to Alameda Daily News Videos”). These new videos highlight the nasty, dishonest spin about Alamedans who stand up and put in time for their community on Boards and Commissions (not to mention Council and Hospital Board seats) that is sailing around out there, this time featurting Planning Board Members Anne Cook (misspelled Cooke in the videos) and Marilyn Ashcraft.
Watching the original videos, one is very aware of the creative editing. Sentences are clipped etc. But don’t let me try to convince you–check out this link from BewaretheSilentSpin:
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=EZ9QARHBXSk]
The original video ends with these words: “According to the city’s development plan fo Alameda Point ” Moderate Income for a family of 3 in Alameda is $88,800/year. If you make less than that, Planning Board Member Anne Cooke doesn’t want to build homes for you…”
This is the EXACT opposite of what Anne Cook is saying at this meeting, as you can tell when you watch BewaretheSilentSpin’s version. Some opponents of development in this city are so unscrupulous that they will edit people’s words together and clip their sentences in order to make it sound like they are against housing for middle-income earners.
Planning Board members are Alamedans who spend a lot of time and effort working for what they feel is right in our community. Disagreements will happen, but too often, from one side of the development debate, people get dragged through the mud in this town if they dare offer a peep about development and god-forbid Measure A. I’m not sure what Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft did to deserve the constant drubbing she receives. Was it getting the library bond passed? Was it helping keep the hospital open? (both things that were popular and supported by a supermajority).
Anne Cook has fought hard on the Planning Board to protect Alameda’s waterfront, recent comments on the blogs about how nice the Bridgeside promenade is, show that her work is appreciated. Her crime appears to an interest in building more than high-priced house in Alameda, allowing for a range of people from various socio-economic levels.
Our community should be thankful, if not for the specific deeds (we can disagree), for people who give their time to serve our community to best of their ability. It’s easy to sit back and take shots at this plan or that idea, it’s much more meaningful to take the steps to get involved.
It’s sad that there’s a BewaretheSilentSpin, it’s pathetic that there’s a Bewarethesilentslate and that someone spent time putting this together. That was time that could have been spent with their family, reading, or working on a proposal for the city.
One last word of warning: While I wouldn’t wish it on you, if you do persuse the Bewarethesilentslate site, make sure you have an anti-bacterial soap handy and close by. It doesn’t come much more scummier than this.
laurendo
February 13th, 2007 at 10:30 am
You forgot to mention that MEA’s name is spelled: Marilyn “Ezzy” Ashcraft, as though “Ezzy” was a nickname. That’s the first thing I noticed, but I tend to fixate on odd things.
notadave
February 13th, 2007 at 10:46 am
I feel like I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. David Howard is posting on the Don Roberts website thanking him for posting the “context” videos. Regarding the Collins project, I recall something vaguely that they invoked a state mandate to be able to actually increase the amount of housing above the density limits allowed by Measure A. Does anyone know anything aobut that?
Dave S.
February 13th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
re: notadave:
I wouldn’t say that the rabbit hole is THAT deep. The “thank you” was only one sentence in the post — he still managed to get in his weekly dig to our local politicans despite the “contextual video controversy”.
Now, had he come out commending our representatives for some action WITHOUT his periodic-can-almost-set-your-watch-to-it local government “snap”, THEN I’d be doubting reality as we know it.