The plot thickens!

PEOPLE ARE WATCHING!?

So yesterday I mosied on over to the stats section of my blog, where I clear the cobwebs and find out just how many folks actually read this thing. To my shock (and slight horror) over a hundred people have read my angry, angry post. My first thought was "of course, the time I hulk out on my keyboard is the time I have an audience"

A friend and fellow blogger had written a small reaction to the city council meeting and included me in it (I wonder if I'm going to open a wormhole posting an article about an article I posted, it's like dividing by 0!). That article got picked up by a local news website in town and was posted onto their facebook page. Most people got the point of my rampage, that the whole thing was poorly handled and people weren't really all that well represented by their officials on a matter they felt strongly about, and instead were subject to extreme asshatery and laziness.

There are some though, who find my use of profanity less effective:

Chuck ****** nice. when you cant convince them to agree with you start dropping f-bombs in your article.thats going to convince them.

I think the boat already sailed on that one Chuckles. 

While we are on the subject of the council meeting, I managed to scrounge up the video! It's about 20 minutes long, but if you skip to the 14 minute mark you can see my beloved Melissa kicking ass. Shy as she is, she went before the council and with much aplomb and more restraint than I could ever hope to muster, laid down some awesome shit. The reaction following is well, revealing:

So on that note I think until the ground opens up and swallows four city officials whole, we're kind of fucked. 

I swear to God this happened

Since I was all riled up from the COW meeting, I decided to go to the annual township meeting and see what was going on. You see, some serious shit has been stirred up over home rule, our library, and something called an "advisory referendum". I know, I didn't know what the hell it was either before I poked around. Essentially it's more or less a question you add to a ballot come election time, and people vote on it. It's non binding, and more or less a way of getting the opinion of the voting population. Last night's township meeting was several votes about whether to have the votes. Does your face hurt yet? Just wait.

Also this

This took about two and a half hours to accomplish. For three votes. And I didn't have a chair. It was interesting to be a part of, but trying to get a vote nailed down is like herding cats. Thankfully the woman running the thing was fair, and was not taking anyone's shit. There were the folks you can tell suck this kind of drama up like strawberry smoothies, and try to get all "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" on the floor, but the one thing that really bothered me was a comment made by a gentleman on the side opposing the advisory referendum (and when I mean opposing side I mean it literally, by a show of vote we stood on opposite ends of the warehouse. Welcome to DeKalb?)


What his argument was is that people are too uneducated to be trusted to vote properly, and these sort of things should be left up to our elected officials.

I had two thoughts on this.

First:

Second:
What is this, Starship Troopers?
(I know, I know, you can only vote if you've served in the military in their story but c'mon, I bet others were thinking the same thing)

But...it has electrolytes..

To me that flies in the face of the entire spirit of our country. Yes, a great deal of us are more or less real life extras in Idiocracy, but seriously man? I was even more amazed to see that after he made his statement and returned to his spot someone came over and shook his hand. Do I always wish mouth breathers got to be included on every vote I feel strongly about? No, but I would never actively vote to keep them from voting.


There was one point that would have changed my own vote had this been a binding referendum, not an advisory one: The township lines. Basically there are some people who can vote on this who wouldn't be effected by the changes, and some who would be effected but won't be able to vote due to said lines. Have you started bleeding out of your ears too? What the fuck? Did they draw these township lines in crayon?

The fact of the matter is I honestly haven't formed an opinion yet on home rule, and whether we should be changing our library format, but since this town is important to me I am going to read as much as I can about these things. Most of the people who turn out to vote in this town don't just close their eyes and wildly scribble on their ballots; they have at least a minimal amount of information about what they're voting for, because why show up if you don't know what the hell is going on? The vote last night was 2-1 not to include the referendums on the ballot in November, which to me was sad. Any time an elected official has a chance to gain insight into how the constituents feel, I think it's something worth doing; even if its a pain in the ass.