Look, Ma! No Hands!!

Do you know what the exclamation marks signify?  Self-satisfaction.  Anxiety.  And a realization that you're taking a risk, and if you didn't feel a need to be like the other kids, and unnerve your mother, you probably wouldn't be doing this.  You remember, don't you?  You were taking a chance, riding your two-wheeler with no hands.  Heady.  Dangerous.  And you thought your mother would be impressed.  You knew she'd be scared, though.  Fact of the matter was, you were a bit scared yourself.  But you were six, or seven, or eight.  It's what children did.  Not too bright, really, but one of those rites of foolhardiness.  Did you fall?  No?  Neither did I.  Or if I did, I have conveniently forgotten.  No helmets in those days, either.  Kind of stupid, when you think back on it.  You feel clever if you don't fall.  You'd feel like an idiot if you did.  You'd get hurt, too.  And what would your mother say if you fell?  The funny thing is, when you look back on it, if you won, you didn't really win anything.  If you lost, you lost a lot.

Our Commission has an identifiable and reliable majority.  They don't necessarily think the same, heck, some of them don't think at all, but they vote together on most things.  The crazier the issue, and the more it disturbs the rest of us, the more determined and united they are.  I get it.  I was six or seven or eight once, too.

What you're doing is dangerous.

      So?  No it's not.

You're going to get hurt.  And you'll get us hurt.

      Uh-uhuh.  (You know, that sing-songy way.)

This majority, well, two thirds of it, anyway, has been able to recognize that we are in fiscal and functional trouble.  One of them has been able to see the end of the Village in just 10 years.  We can't live, because we don't have money.  We should get some, we tell them.  Nope, they reply.  But it's easy.  We can raise taxes.  We want to raise our taxes.  Nope.  How about we keep our taxes the same, but we take on another area that pays more taxes per capita than we do?  Nope.  But we're not succeeding; we won't survive!  Yup.  Won't you do something?  Nope.

Look, they tell us, it's your own fault.  You had money, 10 years ago, and you didn't spend it wisely.  So now you're to be punished.  But I had nothing to say about how that money was spent, you plead, and anyway, I'd be much more careful now.  Too bad, they tell us.  You're not getting any more money.  Anyway, December is around the corner.  You better hope Santa Claus brings you money.  But there is no Santa Claus, you urge.  (After all, not everyone in this story is a child.)  Oh, well, they admonish, you just better hope there is.

What's really crazy, crazier than anything else, is that both of these two characters occupy Commission seats that expire in less than two months.  One of them claims he's running again.  Presumably, he sees himself as a success, and he wants another term.  Or he has no insight, which he hasn't, and he's breathtakingly arrogant, which he is, and he can't figure out what's wrong with this picture.  The other one hasn't yet let us know his ambitions for himself and for us.  Of course it won't matter, if we realize that our ambitions for him and us are more determinative than his are.

So when you decided to show yourself off, and demonstrate what a talented daredevil you were, did you ride with no hands on a busy street, with construction and rocks and cracks in the street, traffic coming from every angle, and blind-folded?  No?  You're not that stupid, right?  Well, you're not.  And if you had been, it's more likely you would have been grounded than lauded.  Or you would have gotten badly hurt.  You would have deserved it, too.

Look, Ma.  No hands.