COMMENTA RY
Charity Vogel: Chatter that would rattle Mad Hatter
Honestly now. Was everybody in on the stunt but me? Because, I swear: At times last week I was certain I had stumbled into an alternate universe. One in which people’s mouths moved, but very little of what came out made sense.
Or, as Lewis Carroll wrote of Alice’s befuddlement at the Mad Tea Party: “The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English.”
People in these parts are still speaking English, as far as I can tell. But some of the statements delivered for public consumption lately seem less decipherable than usual.
Pick up your pocket translator and follow along:
1.) “I would never put that out for the entire world to see . . . I thought that these were adults.”
—Robert J. Weller, president of the Lewiston-Porter School Board
What Weller did in forwarding allegedly racist and sexist e-mails is wrong on so many levels that they won’t all fit here. It was shockingly poor judgment and sets the worst sort of example for the students Weller purports to lead and community he was elected to represent.
What bothered me about this comment, made to The News on Tuesday, was that it performed the subtle trick of transferring blame for the resulting public hoopla onto the people who received Weller’s e-mails. Weller implied that instead of being “adults,” they acted in a juvenile manner by making public his eyebrow-raising missives.
That’s 180 degrees wrong. The fault here lies in one place, and it’s not with the people who clicked open their e-mail to find inboxes stuffed with bigotry. Real adults don’t find humor in racism and attacks on women.
Weller later apologized, but it would seem Lew-Port residents have some reflecting to do, about the public face of their community, as embodied in a key leadership role.
2.) “Get that clown away from me.”
—Sen. Pedro Espada, of the Bronx
Sad but true: He wasn’t speaking figuratively. In the middle of last week’s power struggle in Albany, a person wearing a clown suit did indeed roam the hallways of our storied State Capitol. Espada, a Senate Democrat who emerged as a leader after Monday’s coup, was heard giving this order to an aide.
Now, when I was a beat reporter covering the Erie County Legislature in the early years of the Giambra administration, I never bought movie tickets. Why bother, when there was a circus in County Hall nearly every week? That’s how politics can be.
But last week marked a new nadir of embarrassment for government here. When you have clowns—literally—in the statehouse, you know you’re in trouble.
3.) “This building uses a great deal of energy over the summer with the air conditioning.”
—Joan D. Thomas, Orchard Park School Superintendent
No disrespect intended, but really: air conditioning? When officials announced last week that employees in the Orchard Park Central School District will work four days a week instead of five this summer, it would have been the perfect chance to throw out an explanation that everyone would actually believe.
As in: Bennett Beach is really great on Fridays. We like the mall better than our offices. Long weekends at Crystal Beach. Hot dog parties! Anything, really.
But . . . air-conditioning costs? Hmmm. I’m just saying.
Then again, given the Hatter-like talk going around these parts, that sort of statement fits right in. Pass the tea.
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