Government absurdity

I’m the person in James City to whom this woman was talking, and I say let’s face it. We live in an absurd world populated by absurd people doing absurd things.

Why in heaven’s name would the Commonwealth of Virginia waste taxpayer dollars to conduct a survey to find out how many Virginians don’t fish? Next thing you know, they’ll be polling people in an effort to discover how many Virginians don’t swim or don’t own outboard motor boats. Or don’t eat watermelon. Or don’t drink bourbon. Who cares?

Even nuttier is a story floated last week by the Knight-Ridder newspapers. It seems that, as a result of our demented discussion about intelligent design, some Christians are conflicted because they don’t know where Jesus got his DNA or his Y (male) chromosome. One creepy theologian who I assume has been snorting something stronger than Communion grape juice actually came out with the premise that it was not from God’s sperm. Rather, said Rev. Ronald Cole-Turner, “God created something like sperm and caused it to fertilize Mary’s egg.” Bingo! Divine DNA.

From the New York Times we learn that another theological whiz-kid further promoted the cause of intelligent design when he informed the world that he had had a divine vision. According to Oregon State student Bobby Henderson, “An intelligent being that looked like a Flying Spaghetti Monster with meatball eyes revealed himself to me in a dream.” Henderson has been praying to it ever since.

And Kafka thought his world was loopy.

On the other hand, if you thought that absurdity was the philosophy du jour everywhere but here in James City County, think again.

As reported in last Saturday’s Gazette, former county supervisor Jim Kennedy pulled off a cunning coup when he extracted from administrative clutches via the Freedom of Information route 700 pages of files from supervisors and members of the planning staff.

Quite apart from the appearance of racism, collusion with developers and unacceptable arrogance that emerged from these documents is the utter sophomoric stupidity of the people who saved them. Have they never heard of Richard Nixon and Rosemary Woods? Is the key labeled “Delete” inoperable on their computers?

One wonders about the mental state of a county official who would save an e-mail in which he refers to supervisor chairman Michael Brown as a “lame duck” and concludes his remarks with “fiddlededee.” I don’t mean to be picky, but when was the last time you saw fiddlededee in an e-mail? Or, if you had used fiddlededee in an e-mail, would you be so proud of it that you saved it for posterity? I have to tell you that people are very wary of someone whose scatological vocabulary is of such a paucity that he has to resort to some puffy artsy archaism like fiddlededee.

Equally silly is the e-mail in which supervisor Andy Bradshaw wonders if he has “messed up bad.” The fact is that he probably did mess up bad when he bypassed Linda Rice for a committee appointment. But could we please have a little respect for the English language when we muse about committing a gargantuan goof? Better yet, could we just delete questions about personal judgment? We out here in Stonehouse really don’t care to know that our well-respected supervisor messed up bad.

But perhaps the most absurd notion to come out of all these files has to do with the idea that supervisors and planning staff members feel they have to jerry-rig or script answers they give to the press about county policies. Why do they have to know what my “angle” is before they answer questions I might pose? The immediate impression left by such finagling is that there is something to hide, that something underhanded is transpiring or that only one point of view should be aired.

Yet, bamboozling the public seems to be an accepted modus operandi for those on the planning staff. Just recently, an ad appeared in the Gazette publicizing two meetings to be run by planning staff members concerning “Toano’s character.” One of the questions to be dealt with is, “How can new development enhance Toano’s sense of community?” In other words, the people of Toano are subtly being brainwashed by county planners into accepting the fact that more development is inevitable and that it’s just the panacea we need to frame our character and our community. Well, fiddlededee to all that!

We in Toano are well aware of our community and its character. So kindly butt out.

What’s troubling about the world of the absurd is that its agenda is set by people whose power has somehow become so infectious that it breeds moronic ideas that are then foisted on a public in a state of diminished awareness. It’s as though the Flying Spaghetti Monster has taken over and that the most important questions we face now are where divine sperm comes from and why we all don’t fish.

THE

VIRGINIA GAZETTE

Government absurdity

November 12, 2005