Maybe It's an Occupational Hazard. I Really Don't Want to Have to Change My Mind.

As a frame of reference, I went to college.  And medical school.  And spent six years studying psychiatry.  And have been in practice for about 40 years.  I think of things as being exacting, and taking a long time to learn correctly.  There's a lot of distraction, and chaff you have to learn to separate from the wheat.  You have to know that, and you have to know how to do it.  It's not easy.

Even the innovators, like, in the case of my specialty, Freud, don't just wake up one day with unexpected insights.  Freud was a medical doctor, he specialized in neurology, he learned hypnosis, and his clinical experiences led him to understand things in the way we came to call psychoanalysis.  No one today would say Freud was right, or that they agree with him, about every insight he eventually developed.  But he did the best he could, given a considerable foundation of learning and experience.

It might always have been somewhat true, but it became caricaturish with Donald Trump: all anyone needed was an opinion, and it could, and in Trump's case, generally was, based on nothing.  Well, nothing but self-interest.  And Trump hasn't protected that very well, either.  With the bankruptcies, the failed marriages, the offspring you wouldn't be proud to call your own, and the current legal troubles...  Frankly, it's amazing he gets any reaction at all except people laughing at him.  But this is what can happen when you try to function based on nothing.  And there's an audience, and sycophants, for it.

At the same time, we had a version of the same thing here in BP: people who ran for office, didn't know anything, and didn't want anything, except their own X number of minutes of fame (to paraphrase Andy Warhol).  And their tiny burg version of power.  Then, we were so desperate to escape the destruction that we elected someone we would not normally have elected: Dan Samaria.  Because he wasn't one of "them."  Later than that, we elected someone who should never have run, nor been elected: Ginny O'Halpin.  And later that that, we elected someone we already escaped electing in the past: Judi Hamelburg.  We elected Art Gonzalez, because he's a nice guy, and he talks the right game, even though he never showed us anything, and didn't even campaign.  We were just so relieved to be rid of "them," that we elected anyone at all in their place.  And even if today we tell ourselves that Commissioners like these are better than "they" were, they're still pretty bad.

So we've now lowered our standards, and we've decided to settle for anyone who's not too provocative.  We don't care what they know (if anything), what they've accomplished for the Village (if anything), and we don't even ask them what their vision is.  (The only one whose vision we know is Dan Samaria, whose vision is to cripple the Village more than it already is, by lowering the millage.  Please say we've awakened from the stupor of electing Dan Samaria.)

As I said previously, I watched the Meet the Candidates event (since they've given me no other opportunity to meet them).  Jonathan Groth comes the closest, given our choice, and the others are distant.  Since I think it would be tragic to re-elect the incumbents, and there are four other choices, my task was to find a way to eliminate one.  I can only vote for three of the four, so I had to choose one who was an even worse bet than the other three.  I chose Veronica Olivera, because she's only been here three years, and has not participated in anything.  I have friends, so I don't value her as what she calls a "community friend."

But I've been thinking about it, since I really don't know anything worth knowing about any of the other three.  Mac Kennedy says he prefers Jonathan Groth and "the two Veronicas."  I was out walking with Mac yesterday, and I have to admit there were very few signs (even) for Mario Carozzi.  At least Veronica Olivera is bothering to put out signs advertising her candidacy.

So since I have no reason to vote for any of them, except, by comparison, Jonathan, I was thinking maybe I should change my mind, and take Mac's advice.  It's not because I think Veronica O would make a better Commissioner than would any of the rest.  I have no idea how any of them would function on the Commission.  (From what I saw in the Meet the Candidates event, all of them would talk a lot, and say as little as possible, which has become de rigueur for BP Commissioners, ever since the end of the Commissions of which John Hornbuckle was the mayor.)  It's because I'm starting to think that maybe Veronica O has a better chance to displace the incumbents than does Mario, and displacing them is my primary interest.

Dan Samaria has a lot of signs out, but they tend to be on the property lines, essentially between properties, as if Dan just put them there, and didn't ask anyone.  And Judi has disturbingly more signs than I would have expected, but I'm hoping the people who hosted her signs just didn't want to say no to her, but certainly wouldn't actually vote for her, having seen what their last vote for her wrought.

We shall see.