Page 4 — THE PORTLAND DAILY SUN, Tuesday, September 13, 2011
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Seeing stars I don’t want to be party pooper, but is it possible that all the 9/11 remembrance hoopla was a kind of weekend refuge from reality for this psychologically spavined nation? Memorializing is easy; acting resolutely in the here-and-now is another matter. To me, the various 9/11 doings that radiated out over the media gave off an indecent odor of triumphalism — a correspondent of mine referred to it as “self-important histrionics.” We seem to put on these shows because we don’t know what else to do, and because the only truly effective homegrown industry left in the USA is public relations, the business of making your own reality. The trouble is that reality accepts no substitutes (as the old ad jingle goes). It does its thing regardless of whether you acknowledge it or not. I was in Mexico City mid-week and sojourned behind the Zocolo at the ruins of the Templo Mayor, headquarters of the ––––– New World’s champion peopleGuest eater, Huitzilopochtli, a bad-ass Columnist mutha of a god if ever there was one. The Aztecs had everything going for them except their reality, at the center of which was this bloodthirsty hallucinated monster demanding fresh beating hearts by the hundredweight. And so, consumed by this insane myth, a half a million of them allowed themselves to be destroyed by three hundred adventurers from Spain. Strange to relate, the environs of the ruined pyramid was the most tranquil spot in the entire supergigantic permanent catastrophe of Mexico City. Old Huitzee would like these times, I thought: a bad moon rising and plenty of fresh meat everywhere. The way the stars were lining up, a pitiless deity could really get his mojo on. It made my skin crawl, I hardly know where to start this week. I’ll yield to the obvious, then, and turn to President Obama’s jobs speech. I don’t believe for a minute that it added up to much beyond more political game-playing — although there is more than one game being played judging by the knuckleballs and downfield juke-moves displayed by Mr. O. You can throw in some rope-a-dope, too, since the main objective was to make a virtue out of weakness. So, the Republican-dominated Congress will pass a few fragments of the proposals (probably some tax cuts
James Howard Kunstler
see KUNSTLER page 5
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Some points that were missed Before anyone gets any strange ideas, let me state again for the record. I’m not in the mayoral race. Over the past couple of weekends, I’ve taken some time off from my weekend gig as Captain Oblivious (He who is able to drink large quantities of beer in a short time) and backslid a bit back into the old “Captain Obvious” persona. It’s good to go back a bit and see some of the big details that were missed, and then bring them forward, so everyone involved can do the face-palm. Three of the candidates for the position of mayor of this fine city are already on the council. Normally, that is the usual thing, but the shuffling of seats to create the job led to the “shuffling of feets” of At-Large council member Dory Richards Waxman. Her seat on the council has been eliminated. But let’s step back and throw a bit of illumination on this thing. Two of the folks running (Council Members Jill Duson and Current Mayor Nick Mavodones) are at-large seats. If either one of them wins the whole onion, we’ll be looking at a city-wide special election to fill their slot. If Council member David Marshall wins, would he have to be replaced? The mayor is suppos-
Bob Higgins ––––– Daily Sun Columnist edly the mayor for the whole city, so wouldn’t that leave the fine folks he represents in district 2 out hanging in the breeze? If none of them win, Marshal and Mavodones could just go back to ther old seats for a year. Duson could go back to hers for two. At some point, should we have had the discussion about “giving up your seat” if you are going to run? Seems like this fine little detail got missed, or at least has the potential for creating havoc with the charter stuff. Let’s all go out on that treacherous limb a bit further. Say one of the candidates who could be politely described as “bat-snotcrazy” (me, for example, were I still in the race) wins the whole onion through the ranked choice process. Are we really stuck with them for four years? According to Ballotpedia, a wiki for all things elections, Maine’s original laws in 1979 as
updated by the Maine Municipal Association read thus. “In some communities, voters can remove an elected official from office before his or her term expires. Such recall provisions, if included in a town or city charter or local ordinance, allow the citizens, after presenting a valid petition, to vote on whether or not they want to allow an official to continue serving in an office to which he or she was elected.” It’s been tried a few times, but only succeeded once, with the removal of Anthony Cogliandro, an Acton selectman in 2010. If a mayoral candidate was like myself, voted in High School most likely to be indicted for civil, criminal or other forms of malfeasance, and was accidentally elected through ranked choice voting due to a late hour at the bar, you COULD find a way to get rid of them, but it’s a long process. What if a mayor died? Does the council find someone to finish his/ her term, or does the decision go back to the voters? Such questions fall under a kind of “25th Amendment Free For All Fun Zone” where politics comes down to the art of a lot of folks standing around with their hands in see HIGGINS page 5