Shovel Ready Xmas/Gifting Our Public Servants (humor)

Skipping back to incoming President Obama, one final gift. A heads-up re use of the phrase “shovel ready”. It can rub people the wrong way. Possibly because it evokes images of grave diggers gone wild or fields full of cow flop.

A few years back in Albany, New York (the seat of state government) Mayor Jerry Jennings and other Capital Region pols were pushing for a large scale development project to be approved in a nearby suburban town. A major company was supposedly avid to move in. Jennings and crew believed the project would benefit their fiefdoms via ripple effect. They declared-- loudly and often-- that land for the project would be delivered “shovel ready”. Voting against it would be selfish. Town residents voted the project down. Not only were they concerned about over development, they resented being pressured by out-of-town pols and detested the phrase “shovel ready”.

So O, drop the shovel. Try a more attractive image when referencing all those billion dollar projects that governors and mayors have in the hopper. Maybe they (the projects not the pols) could be called “barbecue ready”. Most folks really go for a plate of pulled pork.

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Mondo QT

*Playboy Chief Christie Hefner to Step Down Next Month, James Callan, Bloomberg, 12/08/08

Sources include but are not limited to:

Times Co. to borrow against building, Richard Perez-Pena, International Herald Tribune, 12/08/08

Gregory Kaczmarek timeline, Daily Gazette, 12/02/08

Ex-chief expected to plead, Paul Nelson and Brendan Lyons, Albany Times Union, 11/29/08

County Legislator District 2 Al Jurczynski, GuyanaNY.org, 2007

Send comments or confidential tips to:

mailto:editor@mondoqt.com

 1  |  2