[img]1|left|||no_popup[/img]
At least temporarily, my tongue became paralyzed about 8:30 last night in Council Chambers. It started when Deputy City Clerk Ella Valladares uttered those ditzy words dreaded by most civilized gentlemen and gentle ladies:
“Mr. Mayor,” she said to Scott Malsin, “we have 20 speaker cards.”
When there is a tall stack of speaker cards, 99 percent of the time, 99 percent of the authors share a single viewpoint.
The carnival-style punchline to this scheme still works in a town that is supposed to be sophisticated.
Very often, you see, the number of authors does not equate with the number of cards — an irrelevancy for the miniscule number of Culver City activists who push this silly idea as if their next breath depended on it.
I don’t remember how Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger convinced his City Council colleagues to swallow this carny act. But the nonsensical policy has clutched both of its cold, clammy hands around the throat of each Councilman.
Why Not Set Fire to a Cloud?
Last night, Ms. Valladares undertook the screwball exercise of reading the 20 speaker cards for two reasons. First, it is her job. Mainly, though, because extremists sometimes sneak their hands onto the levers of City Hall policy and manage to get their way.
For sheer worthlessness, the value of 20 speaker cards is exactly equal, in American dollars, to having three dead but still drooling rats lying in your frightened lap.
Reading speaker cards is a spectacular waste of everybody’s time, as reasonable members of the City Council acknowledge.
But, in the same way that standing between Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and a microphone is liable to get you knocked down, even in comfortable, homespun Culver City, some people refuse to resist the temptation t dash before the cable television cameras and cry out, unimaginatively, “Me, too.”
Speaker cards uniformly are boring, usually written in a fit of inarticulate rage, and about 95 percent commonly are crafted by one quite under-employed person. This fine speciman then turns to a nearby telephone directory, which cleverly provides him with a list of Me-Too names that he signs and sends off to City Hall.
Ringling Brothers Ever Hear of You?
This mocking, childlike gesture frequently impresses the gullible live audience in Council Chambers because they share a common, mob-propelled belief.
Last night it reached a rather silly saturation point.
Of the 20 — mostly but not entirely — lame cards, I counted about seven that were written by the same scam artist who bet his drinking pals he could fool City Hall — and he did.
What a knee-slapper he is.
The audience cheered each reading, as if they were hearing the identical words in the identical order for the first time.
Some people betrayed themselves, however. Their lips were moving in sync with Ms. Valladares because they had heard her reading the same cards.
You may remember a similar nightmarish scene several months ago in Council Chambers when the clerk was ordered — under threat of kidnapping, I presume — to read all 95 speaker cards.
The travesty that Mr. Silbiger and cohorts have promulgated resulted in the darnedest coincidence. All 95 cards represented the same darned opinion as the single-minded mob that poured into Chambers.
That is not democracy. It is lunacy.
