UNCOMMONLY BAD POLICIES

Momentous news--the municipal administration has installed parking metersnext to Rock'n'roll Park. Parking tickets will no doubt be dispensed, as usual, by the surly meter maid who patrols an area that is all of a four block square in an emormous gas guzzling SUV. The mayor is aware that not everyone in the village agrees with this, but since it is not election year, he feels no compulsion to make any PR gesture.

Expect those who cannot afford parking fines to seek political asylum in Czechoslovakia. This would solve the municipality's problem. The poor are not welcome in the village, but the rising cost of sewer and water services and parking permits for residents who do not happen to have a driveway, might not be enough to force all those below the poverty line to seek another place of residence. Forcing the elderly to trot back to parking meters every forty five minute or face ungodly expensive tickets might help rid the municipality of some of the unwanted impoverished section of the population. Mind you, there are some Georgetown tourists who get wicked angry at the cost of the local parking tickets--they claim that Georgetown's are less costly. However, it would seem that disposable income is less of a problem for them than it is for local persons on a bare bones budget. The mayor does not think that the tickets are expensive at all. It is Brigadoon all right, folks. In a pig's eye.

PORK BELLIES

Sus scrofa domesticus, the homely pig, is not on my list of edibles. That makes me a member of a small minority. Pig farmers and pig butchers may disagree, but I doubt that I am missing much. As far as I know, eating pork does not make one particularly clever. In fact, there are a few Nobel Prize winners who have never partaken of pig flesh. That is not to say that there is a correlation between their diet and their intellectual ability. It is simply a matter of choice.

I am well aware that there are consequences for every choice I make. Setting myself apart from pig eaters, I am automatically cutting myself off from the greasy conviviality of bacon and sausage fests. The question is, how would this conviviality enhance my spiritual and intellectual life? Do I lose, socially, by not joining the majority? I am not a politician, I don't have an eye on a certain rung of the social ladder, nor I do have any desire to schmooze with who's who in the pig world.

Being marginalised is good for artists in general and it is excellent for writers. Balzac could never have immortalised French provincial life if he had not been distanced from it. I am no Balzac, but I happen to think that looking at the inner workings of a society requires a certain objectivity, a certain emotional distance. On the surface, this seems like lonely work. It isn't. Being part of a majority does not mean that one is not alone. Sometimes it means that one is too afraid to make the right choice.

Let those who would rather bask in the safety of being part of a crowd pig out. As for me, in swinish matters, I will continue to to abstain.

GROSSLY FAT, SLIMY, DESTRUCTIVE SLUGS

It is not a pretty invertebrate to behold. Hugely fat, it oozes over sidewalks, leaving behind a trail of slime. When it finds something to damage--a fragile plant, for example--it begins to nibble at it with its little denticles. It should have a heck of a of a sex life, being hermaphrodite, but sometimes, it can only detach itself from its partner by chewing its genitalia.

The slugs in moist, damp places. It eats rubbish and carrion,in addition to feeding on green plants. Gardeners troubled by this slimy creature can take comfort in knowing that it has predators and that it cannot resist beer.

It hides from the sun, preferring murky hideaways such as drainpipes. It is usceptible to salt and ashes eventually bring about its demise. Ducks, turtles and birds are effective predators of this repulsive creature. Humans should avoid it at all costs, due to its poisonous nature.The USDA reccomends that "If ingested, one must vomit immediately." That should not be a problem. The very sight of it is enough to induce nausea on the viewer.

BLOGGER ON THE LAM III--TAKE ME TO VACLAV

Dear Vaclav,

My village is going to hell in a hand basket. Consecutive years of bad municipal government have created havoc with laws put in place by people who really cared about democracy, the environment and a historic legacy of which their children could be proud. Granting permission for rock concerts in the last green space in the corporation's historic district is only part of the problem. There rats on High Street and residents of East High cannot sleep due the noise emanating from a honky-tonk whose existence which the municipal government made possible. Rats and noise do not enhance the value of housing and housing usually is the only economic asset the average citizen has. But there will be no Velvet Revolution in Shepherdstown. The very characteristics that make it unique--its fierce pride in individualism, for example--make it impossible for locals who oppose the Council's high handed attitude band to together, form a grassroots movement and restore the laws that were beneficial to the entire village. The bad laws, put in place in the dead of night, will remain in place. Some of the city people who moved here for peace and quiet will say, as a recent arrival,

"Compared to picking up bullets in my backyard, this is great."

Face it Vaclav, America has grown complacent, Obama's election notwithstanding. Shepherdstown is a little mirror of a great country in economic thrall to the Chinese and to oil prioducing countires. If you think I exaggerate, look at the national debt, for goodness sakes. We Americans have forgotten how to plan for the future. We settle for instant gratifacation, for whatever takes the lest effort to accomplish. My village is no different. We settle for what takes the least effort. We are selfish and greedy and we care nothing for that which does not affect us directly. We talk about healing the world but when it comes to the crunch we do precious little. We care about money, our cars and how much crab grass we can eliminate from our yards. So, what do you say will come to Shepherdstown and show Town Council what really matters in the long run? I am calling from Warsaw, another place where people know how to get things done. Will you tell the local Planning Commission that there is a way to effect change for the better? You can do it. You have charisma and you have clout and Shepherdstown loves ceelbrities. Velvet revolutionalize this place, guy. Pretty please, with sugar? VACLAV? Are you there?

PLEASE TO TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER

BLOGGER ON THE LAM--II

Sentences useful for to when apply in Polish Embassy to asylum.

Dobry wieczor! Gdzie jestesmy?

Czy moze mi pan?

Czy moge skorzystac z telefonu?W porzadku. Spiesze sie. Do zobaczenia.

m

CARING FOR A VILLAGE'S GREEN SPACE--POST ONE

NOTE This is a previous post and part of my failed effort to speak truth to power.

The concept of land stewardship is one elected officials in my village have yet to embrace. Take, for example, the little park in our historic district. It is small--something like an acre and half, at the most. It is the only remain green space within the village proper. As such, it is a haven for wildlife rarely sen in urban settings. Zebra swallowtail butterflies, Baltimore orioles, Carolina wrens, bluebirds, woodthrushes, blue herons, barred owls, pileated, redbellied, flicker and downy woodpeckers, ruby throated hummingbirds, nuthatches, chickadees, snapping and eastern turtles, the occasional black bear, all depend on its fragile ecology.

Through the years, there have been plans to disrupt the ecology of the park. The most pernicious was the proposal to pave over a large section of the park in order to attract skateboarders from Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. That the person who put forth this plan was a local merchant who made it clear that he intended to profit from an influx of skateboarders raised no eyebrows. Perhaps the fact that the member of the Park and Recreation Board--aka Park and Wreck--who put forth the official proposal was married to merchant should have. It did not and it was only the high cost of liability insurance that kept Town Hall from implementing the proposal.

The latest threat to the ecology of the park is a series of rock concerts meant to attract large crowds. Town Council approved the concert promoters' request without consideration for the adverse impact high intensity use of the park might have on the local fauna and flora. Park and Wreck appears to have made no effort to set limits to use of the park. Actually, its role seems to be limited to finding new ways to spend the tax revenues accrued by hotels and casinos in the county. At no time have these revenues been used to maintain or improve park ecology. The thrust of Park and Wreck's efforts is to attract greater numbers of visitors to the park. More visitors require structures such as Port-a-john, which require space previously available to wildlife. Recently. town workers have destroyed a stand of blood root, one of the species of wildflowers that had survived previous depredations. It is not only wildflowers that suffer whenever Town Hall dispatches its minions to the park. This year, lilacs that were planted to honor local soldiers who died during WW II narrowly escape the fatal attention of municipal workers.

This is what I have done to try to shift the local authorities' attention from depredation to preservation,

• I have sent the mayor, town council, The Wildlife Federation and all local newspapers an e-mail about the possible consequences of rock concerts and all high impact activities for the park's fauna and flora.
• I sent the mayor an e-mail suggesting that Town Hall and the local university join with Cornell University to make the park a safe area for urban birds and to focus on educational activities that would not endanger the park's ecology.
• I e-mailed Cornell University for suggestions. Cornell's Urban Bird Project is prepared to contribute educational material to be used in local schools which might result in higher awareness of the park's unique role in local ecology.
• At the suggestion of the Urban Bird project I will be keeping a cyberjournal of events connected with the park's ecology.
• I plan to design a website dedicated to this issue. In that website I will publish my correspondence with Town Hall and I will add a map to the park, photos and information on fauna and flora.