Introducing a new Tattler feature:
Asshat of the Month:
Laurence "Buzz" Cardoza, Asshat
The Tattler presents the biggest asshat in the city for a given month. It is reserved for people, through their public transgressions and foibles, for whom the epithet putz or schmuck just doesn't quite describe.
Opinion
With a nickname like Buzz, the Tattler could fairly be accused of merely stating the obvious by gracing Mr Cardoza with the envious premier edition of the Asshat of the Month feature, but we couldn't think of a better guy to lead the Tattler's new monthly public service announcement.
Buzz is an appointed Emeryville government official; he sits on the Planning Commission and the Housing Committee, both organizations rich in asshat tradition but even there, Buzz really shines.
As vice chairman of Emeryville's Housing Committee, Buzz recently took control of the reins after the chair called in sick. Buzz wasted no time in showing his colleagues how a real asshat runs an Emeryville city committee; citizens would hereby be verboten from making comments on agenda items under his rule he announced. Buzz even outdid committee colleague and council member Nora Davis with his dictatorial edict; she had to reluctantly tell Buzz that unfortunately the law does allow citizens to comment at public meetings..."But only for two minutes!" she exclaimed in a nod to the audaciously anti-democratic Cardozian bravado.
Later, at a Nora Davis re-election campaign function, a candidate for council whom he supports, Buzz publicly trashed men who might be nurturing fathers, contemptuously calling them "house husbands"; a re-branding of the term, now becoming pejorative in Buzz Cardoza's world.
To any Emeryville fathers out there; make sure you keep the kids in mom's care (slaving barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen one would presume), least you be judged by your government officials as unmanly or worse still, a house husband.
Buzz Cardoza: Emeryville neighbor, manly man, esteemed appointed public servant, and the Tattler's Asshat of the Month.
Hee-haw! Hee-haw!
ReplyDeleteBuzz Cardoza has an angry disposition. He is disrespectful toward citizens who have the temerity to disagree with him. He displays a malicious sense of humor. But he is worth watching and reporting on, because he can't resist exposing some of the callous nastiness that underlies some Emeryville policies.
ReplyDeleteCertainly a trenchant tale of donkey puckey.
ReplyDeleteWho appointed him?
ReplyDeleteYour city council thinks so highly of Mr Cardoza, that the majority there appointed him to these august bodies.
ReplyDeleteA burro kisser?
ReplyDeleteThey are politially appointed hacks who do the bid and calling of the council persons who wrangled them into their appointed position. Our city is not benefiting from their opinions. Just watch any of their design review sessions and you will see how obsurd these cronies of the city council are.
ReplyDeleteI believe I heard Mr. Cardoza say once at a planning comm. meeting (before he was on the commission), "I've never met a development project I didn't like". I believe that he got appointed to the commission and the committee because he showed up at so many (perhaps every one??) of the planning comm. meetings for years. I guess showing up is at least as important as a person's position on matters.
ReplyDeleteMr Cardoza's voting record on the Planning Comission has been consistant all these years...he has done what he indicated he would do and that is to approve development projects. This is why Nora Davis nominated him, and why Nora's friends on the council appointed him.
ReplyDeleteWhile I Generally appreciate Mr. Donahue's efforts. I would like to request that he thinks a little harder about the language he uses when emailing the entire school district. Having an email in everyones mail box with the word 'Asshat' in the title is the type of thing we try to avoid in the school district.
ReplyDeleteJust remember, it is possible that children from K on up could see that on their teachers computer.
Think of the children? Is that what this is? Imagine children learning that public policy is sometimes hijacked by ideologue politicians and their cronies. Imagine children learning that power corrupts and sometimes adults lie. BTW An ass is a (biblical) animal....and an inoffensive body part. -father of a six-year-old
ReplyDeleteWow, this guy Buzz sounds like a real piece of work. A rude old crank who has risen to the highest level of decision-making by licking Nora's boots.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be more appropriate for a news blog of this level of dignity to term it "Sombrero Donkey" of the month and delete the second picture.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately for Emeryville the quality and honesty of news here seems to be inversely related to the degree of dignity of the publishing organization.
I, for one, find the Chamber of Commerce news site very dignified, and this site very undignified.
But this site is both accurate and honest.
As Oakland Mayor Jean Quan says, Democracy is messy.
ReplyDeleteWhat you've got here is one side, the entrenched Power Elite, that conducts 'public' policy shielded by an effectively positioned mob of sycophants and the other side wields a blog that sometimes engages in taking them down a peg or two through humorous asides. I'd say it's at least an attempt to even things up a bit. Still, it's not a fair fight with one side with all the weapons at their disposal and the other with very little really.
Touche. I will accept humor as a weapon of the underdog to pierce the shield of arrogance of the power elite.
ReplyDelete"this site is both accurate and honest."???
ReplyDeleteReally? Wow. Just about every time Mr. Webber pounds on his keyboard, I want to vote for him less. He's running for the Ken Bukowski Award for delusion.
To Mr Anonymous @ 9:43-
ReplyDeleteCriticism of the Tattler here is most welcome and will be posted but please back up your claims of inaccuracy. Any proof of an inaccurate story or even factoid will elicit an apology and a correction.
Regarding the October 25 comment: "Having an email in everyones mail box with the word 'Asshat' in the title is the type of thing we try to avoid in the school district. Just remember, it is possible that children from K on up could see that on their teachers computer."
ReplyDeleteIs it just me or is there something wrong with a school district when students are reading teachers' emails?
@ Anonymous 9:43 - I said accurate and honest. Not free of satire and pungency.
ReplyDeleteI recognize that some readers may think that the Tattler invents, or shamelessly embellishes. On all issues that have come to my attention and which I have fact-checked, the sad truth is that yes, the Tattler has been accurate and honest.
Plus, the Tattler accepts anonymous postings (something I have not done myself, since I am running for office). So Emeryville residents can vent without fear of reprisal, the "deaf ear," or derision.
And the Tattler has been much more active in this election season than The Secret News, its "staid" (or staid-er) alternative.
So all in all I will accept some caustic comments as the price of hearing what is really going on.
Even the name harkens back to British press, which followed the same strategy of mixing acerbic wit with alarmingly truthful reports. Alarming, because the "establishment" of any era seldom wants an informed electorate to question its doings.