10 August 2010

Berta Propagandist

If you want to change your city, what is the best way to go about achieving such change? Say for example, you wanted to improve conditions for the poor and homeless. Seems to me that there are 2 basic approaches, either you can speak about the need for change or you can begin making the change yourself. There is honor in both approaches. Sometimes a non-profit group, say the Drop Inn Center will do both. They will feed and house the homeless, but also be vocal advocates for change. And in different periods in the organization's growth they will do more of one or the other.

But say you stick with the vocal advocate role, and pride yourself on advocacy and protest. What is your strongest weapon? Truth. It is my contention that if you are speaking truth to power, then you better make sure of your facts. In advocacy, if you lack the facts, if you just demonize and repeatedly attack the enemy without facts, then you become just an annoyance, an ineffective propagandist.

And so I come to Berta Lambert:

Here is Berta, holding a sign claiming something for which he has no evidence at all. It is pure propaganda.

On July 19th, the Park Board cut down a dead tree in Washington Park. My wife happened to be walking by and took a picture as they started:
It was an American Elm tree, planted during a memorial service for Buddy Gray in 1996 shortly after he was killed. I never knew that this was a memorial tree, there was no plaque or anything, but my wife concerned about the trees in the park, took a photo.

That morning when they were beginning to remove this tree, Jim Burkhardt a Manager with the Parks Department was there. Jim is an arborist by training and he said he planted the tree in 1996 at the community's request and now he unfortunately had to remove it. I've met Jim several times at different public forums, and he seems to be exactly what you want in a City employee. He loves Cincinnati, and he is completely dedicated to his work in the parks. Oftentimes his job involves removing dead or diseased trees.

The tree It wasn't very big, it was obviously dead, (click on the picture for a bigger view where you can see the leaves are all gone). Did 3CDC have anything to do with this? Highly unlikely. They have stated at numerous public meetings that they will be removing dozens of trees, many of them older and larger than this. They have not started any of the park renovations. They have no reason to kill a single tree out of dozens they plan on removing. The Park Board completely controls the park up to the point sometime in the upcoming months when construction starts.

How many lies can you fit in one simple sign with only 5 words?

So I also noted some of the other signs Berta was displaying:


And this is another annoying sign. Pat Clifford is nothing if not totally dedicated to the Homeless in Cincinnati. Berta is upset that the Drop Inn Center board is supposedly in negotiations with 3CDC and the City about moving the shelter. But there are no details on this. Maybe they will be going to a bigger location. Maybe they will be getting better facilities. Maybe they will stay. I have no idea, and neither does Berta. I trust Pat and the DIC board to do what is best for the residents of the shelter. They always have.

Later Berta put the tree sign down where the tree was cut. Notice the car parked in the grass!!?? Some things never change.

8 comments:

VisuaLingual said...

Thoughtfully written. I've noticed that he sometimes brings a little rig so that he can swap out signs while he's out and about -- I guess that's clever, but it also makes him seem a bit nutty and incredible.

Anonymous said...

I love the sombrero. Makes him all that more nutty

Someone said...

Maybe he is simply mistaken. Have you disabused him of his error, or just posted this?

Anonymous said...

The Dean is the king of propaganda.

CityKin said...

I did not talk with him that day, but why would he just assume such a position?

Radarman said...

It is perfectly possible that the same Trilateral Commission that spawned 3CDC imported Dutch Elm Disease to the U.S. in the 1950s (the Japanese Beetle spreads the blight, wouldn't you know) knowing that it would come in handy for 3CDC when it became necessary to murder the Buddy Memorial Elm.

Dave said...

I endorse Radarman's analysis with two caveats; both Global Warming and the El Nino weather phenomenon contributed to these chain of events.

Anonymous said...

they must have needed it for fire wood.