Blog-IT-o ergo sum

	12/4/2004

County Commissioner makes waves in the Moral Sewer

Guess who we are talking about here:

County Commissioner XXX is one of (the) County's most combative and divisive public officials, and he delights in it. If sometimes his comments about his favorite hobgoblins -- homosexuals, liberals, urban blacks and Democrats -- seem arrogant and intentionally insulting, he passes it off with a response reminiscent of Popeye's "I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam."

I had never heard of this commissioner until I was driving through Charlotte yesterday afternoon, but nature has proved it seems that intellectual clones are a natural occurance. I had seen the headline "Moral Sewer" in the Charlotte Observer paperbox while I filled up with gas just across the state line in cheaper South Carolina. Turning on my radio right at the start of the Jason Lewis show I caught his opening barrage of counterpoints to the liberals, Democrats and RINOs who are piling the politically correct outrage on this county commissioner outside the ruling clique in order to deflect attention away from their failures of leadership in the school system specifically and the community in general.

Jason Lewis is not someone to soft pedal things on his show like Mike Fenely, but yesterday he was really on fire calling Charlotte the most politically repressive community he has ever lived in (LA, Denver and Minneapolis being in the mix). He compared the atmosphere of intolerance for anything but approved thought in the controlled major media to that in the Ukraine. He went on and on.

Friday afternoon being a good time usually to drop in on Mark Pellin editor at the Rhino (the H is critical there) Times Charlotte, I swung off I-77 at the Erikson Stadium exit to get the real story from a more dispassionate source.

Well, part of the real story is this. Last week in their weekly Thursday edition the Rhino times scooped the Charlotte Observer on the memo from a state superior court judge blasting mis-management in the Char-Meck School system (CMS). The Charlotte Observer being the chief propaganda arm of the CMS, they were in a hole and the Rhino was anxiously awaiting their editorial response and how they would cover the story on the Judge's memo. From Pellin's perspective the silence was deafening. Then this week Wednesday in an email discussing the blasting of the CMS, faithful firebrand Bill James weighed in on the issue with his comments about the moral sewer in the city's black community. (Roll the Billy Yow tape and you can accurately guess the chain of events that are now in process.)

Mark corroborated the Lewis point that (at least for now and likely longer), the whole issue about what to do about improving public schools in the Char-Meck system has been totally turned into a discussion of racism in the community while those in charge of a failing system get another bye on their poor performance from the powers that be.

From the approved assesment of the situation you can get a feel of how remarkably similar things play out an hour and half south on I-85.

Sidebars:

1) Having won the scoop last week, but then having to watch the Bill James story come out this week after the Rhino went to press, Mark Pellin lamented the drawbacks of being a weekly paper. I suggested the potential of a live on-line edition of his paper being able to fill the gap. From his muted response it didn't sound like that was going to be a high priority for their 5 man office though. Mark needs an editor's blog at least.

2) Got home to a message from commissioner elect Kirk Perkins reminding me that I should be in the audience for the swearing in ceremony for new commissioners at the special meeting this coming monday at 10:00am. I'll be there for the fun and the chance to thank all those who made for an exciting fall tour on the local political scene.

12:23:06 PM

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