Politely Responding To A Few Points

Someone named Anonymous doesn’t like this blog. He says it’s too negative.

Anonymous left a comment at a previous post entitled Downtown Plattsburgh: Yours To Avoid. You can read his reaction in its entirety in the comments section for that post.

There were a number of issues raised by Anonymous. Besides my brief reply in the comments section, this post will address his comments in more detail.


1. I’m “verbally trashing” the place where I live.

No, I’m just trashing the trashers, the ones ruining this town with litter, vandalism, indifference and incompetence. If you read a little closer, you would see that I’m blogging about specific problems and the people responsible for creating or taking care of those problems. And if you read more often, you would see that I do run “positive” items. If my negative-to-positive ratio isn’t to your liking, then tough shit. This is my blog. Start your own if you want to promote Plattsburgh. And if you think Plattsburgh is so great, why are you living in Illinois? Better job opportunities, eh? Unlike this economically depressed area.


2. My blog is a “constant stream of one-sided ranting about municipal shortcomings.”

Constant? Wrong, michigan breath. Review my 150+ posts. Not every one is about Plattsburgh and its problems. In fact, one is entitled Not The Usual, featuring some “positive” people photos. Or what about my post, Children + Chalk = Bright Art, showing some fun images of kids sidewalk art? And if you had more of an open mind, you would appreciate my humor when I’m being so “negative.” (Apparently all you can handle are “Knock-Knock” jokes.)


3. I should be “looking up instead of down.”

Sure, if I want to step in dogshit. I look up, down, and sideways. I don’t overlook, especially when it comes to repeated stupidity.


4. I could lessen my negativity by showing an image of the new office building and parking garage on Durkee Street.

You mean, the parking garage that has replaced unlimited parking spots with two hour parking? Yup, more two hour parking spots are gonna to encourage people to come and hang around downtown. Who doesn’t like relaxing in a quiet café, rapidly gulping down a cup of coffee because they only have five minutes left to run over to the parking garage and move their vehicle before they get a ticket?


5. I’m overreacting to the downtown reconstruction project. Construction cones and traffic disruptions can be found in any American city during the summer.

I can handle responsible disruptions. The downtown Plattsburgh reconstruction is just keeps dragging on. The crews have spent too much time ripping up more spots instead of finishing at least one part of the project. Business owners in a recent newspaper article complained how slow the work was going.

And putting in more fancy stonework means nothing if downtown keeps losing businesses. A major furniture store is closing. What’s going to replace it – another bar? Well, at least the new stonework will give the skateboarders something different to grind on.


Now excuse me, Anonymous. I have to lie down and rest for a while, preparing myself for a flood of positive thoughts…