Regarding the half-hour of my life the Courier-Journal wasted...

With a mere six days to go before the New Albany municipal elections, I am just as ready as everyone for it to be over with, win or lose, and especially the way my day started yesterday.

Sitting in the dining room, drinking that morning cup of coffee, when there it is, in black and white: me getting called a loser in the Louisville Courier-Journal. Fantastic. Some things like this could possibly make a guy wake and bake. Harbor no illusion- shit like this made somebody wake and bake the other morning.

To be specific, I was labeled a "three-time loser at the polls," by the Courier-Journal's Harold J. Adams. Okay, I've been a candidate enough times to know to let this slide off my back, but this phrasing, a mere week before the election at publication, does a nice job of editorializing through semantics. I mean, "three-time candidate" would have gotten the point across (or the mere fact the article lists each loss, like you don't trust the readers to be able to count to 0-3). Calling me a loser is fine. Whatever you gotta tell yourself.

I wonder if that distinction would have been made for a Republican or Democrat candidate? Probably not. By managing to slip in a last-minute loser dig at the expense of the Libertarian Party, you do little to advance the idea of three (or more, if you can imagine) parties competing in the political arena by keeping that fresh in their minds as they hit the ballot boxes next Tuesday.

I guess that's why I spent a half-hour on my cell phone with you stuck on the gobsmacked clusterfuck that was Dixie Highway last Friday afternoon. I was gracious and emailed you a picture for the article. To wind up being the endcap to what was basically a Jack Messer piece. And called a loser at the onset, to boot. Not to mention, you referenced the debate, which was a month-and-a-half ago, so you only basically used my three prior races (which you were apparently too lazy to look up, they were on my website...you know, the first damn thing you asked me about?) Wait check that, you only asked me about the domain name, the only thing you apparently even bothered to learn about my website beforehand.

Then again, I am talking about a major metropolitan newspaper (to hear them tell it) reporter doing all his work via cell phone, and asking the candidates to email him pics. Which you could have very easily copied from my website. You know, the one you apparently didn't bother to check out.

Also, while the news coverage of the election has been excellent so far, in my opinion, I loved the fact you simply mentioned me as a veterinary courier, which is fine. That's a good portion of my work, and I like it just fine. Would have been nice, though, if you had mentioned I owned the freaking courier service, which has been responsible for thousands of deliveries in six counties spanning two states, while maintaining an absolute 100% flawless safety record. To catch you up, all four candidates are small business owners. If you didn't feel like mentioning my company's name, you could have used the word eponymous, but then again, I would hated to see what you would have shortened that to.

Then again, I could always look at it this way- if the Courier-Journal has a problem with me, I guess I'm doing something right...

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