Toni Buckley-Dockter – Founder; Publisher; Editor-in-Chief; Distribution Manager; Intrepid Reporter; IT Guy; Coffee Girl
email: fwepub@aol.com
MOTTO: When telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
All editorial All social commentary All for the common good
Issue Number 33 – July 2020
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For those non-feeble-minded peeps living in Ashland, Oregon it is never surprising to say on a regular business when experiencing the bumbling bureaucracy at City Hall, “What fresh hell is this?!”
More hell is brewing as we speak. But first, a history lesson:
In 1912 American psychologist Edmund Burke Huey–in a scientific article titled Backward and Feeble Minded Children–devised a cognitive classification system as follows:
Moron: Mental development does not exceed that of a normal twelve-year-old child.
Imbecile: Mental development does not exceed that of a normal seven-year-old child.
Idiot: Defective mental development never exceeds that of a two-year-old toddler.
Obviously Dr. Huey never met Ashland, Oregon’s City Hall. Had his research continued, he would have encountered another level further down on the intelligence scale. He may have coined the term: BuBu–as in Bumbling Bureaucrat–to describe full-grown adults with the mental capacity of a celery stalk.
A perfect example of a BuBu brew currently stewing in Ashland is the desire of the City Council to offer a lucrative and powerful City Manager position to the wrong person for the wrong reasons.
How bad is this?
Bad enough that a world-wide organization–Incumbent Idiots International–which assesses stupid and shady deeds done deliberately by political administrations–awarded Ashland’s City Hall 2nd place in its annual competition. In a close call Ashland lost out to President Pinesol and his corrupt cabal of cronies.
What put them over the top?
- Children kidnapped from parents and put into cages.
- Citizens encouraged to drink disinfectant to ward off a virus.
- Destruction of democracy by playing footsie with a foreign power; hampering with voting rights; sowing seeds of divisiveness and inhumanity toward fellow citizens.
Incumbent Idiots International’s recognition of Ashland was based on the latest fresh hell transpiring in the City: The Adam Hanks Contract.
Here are the Top Ten reasons III found the City’s actions so idiotic:
1. All that money and he’s not even related to Tom Hanks.
2. The other person he is related to at City Hall could generate a problematic nest of nepotism.
3. Possibly mentored by Fred Trump.
4. Verification as a professional and not a pawn should have been made –including the ability to think independently, not politically expediently.
5. Must not bestow the highest City Hall position as a consolation prize for other positions applied for but didn’t receive.
6. Does not honor the overwhelming voters’ preference for Bond 15-189.
7. Does not implement a badly needed change from past civic performances: to do what’s right for Ashland instead of what’s best for the BuBu’s.
8. Does not do away with the use of BuBu’s ‘retaliatory clinging to power at all costs regardless of the will of the people in a desperate attempt to pump up fragile egos’ bag-o-tricks.
9. Does not prevent another apology letter (legally mandated but undoubtedly insincere in its ‘I did nothing wrong’ sentiment) that this hiring FUBAR could easily create.
10. The fiscally-irresponsible contract for three years with a two-year severance payment should the employment not work out.
Here’s what this scenario sets up:
During the pandemic Ashland employees work from home. A person could pretend to work at home but in reality be knocking back Miller Lite’s at The Red Zone. Working from home–where there is no supervision; no accountability; no transparency–could be months on end before someone finally notices, “Hey, I don’t think this guy is doing anything!” Subsequently it could be months more for the low-level of intelligensia at City Hall to actually do something about it–if anything.
Bottom line: the new-hire guy could actually do NO work whatsoever and still earn three years worth of pay–with said paycheck being on par with Vice-President Pence’s salary.
Any employment contract where an employee is paid handsomely to fail is a really stoopid contract.
How long will this hellish situation continue? How long will Ashlanders be force-fed a stinky stew of BuBu bouillabaisse?
As long as voters allow it. Or until BuBu’s are diminished to a puff of dust and the fresh winds of incorruptibility blow them out of City Hall.
What do you call Ashland’s City Hall without Stromberg, Rosenthal, Lohman, Graham, and Jensen?
A good start.
The entitre BuBu culture must be cancelled–so Ashland may prosper and Ashlanders may thrive. (Many issues of the Outlandia Gazette have been dedicated to this topic. And include the names of those we think need a one-way ticket to Dante’s Inferno. So they can get up in the morning and ask, “What fresh hell is this?!”)
Perhaps it would be wise for Ashland’s BuBu’s to consider their legacy in this town. Will they be remembered as a straight arrow? Or a crooked dagger?
If wisdom is needed to make this decision, see the title of this article above to predict their choice.
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