20050427 Exploding Councilmembers Baffle Political Scientists

Exploding Councilmembers Baffle Political Scientists

Annapolis, Maryland, April 27, 2005

Kant Betrue[1], Staff Reporter,

New Bedford Herald - Phoenix Hill Daily Herald Bugle – All The News that is Unfit to Print

Art literature of the absurd

(Rhoiders) More than 100 councilmembers have puffed up and exploded in Maryland in recent weeks, and scientists still have no explanation for what's causing the instantaneous combustion, an official said Wednesday.

Body parts of the councilmembers have been tested, but scientists have been unable to find a bacteria or virus that would cause the councilmembers to swell up and pop, said Becky Caresalot, a spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Nor have they found any brain matter or any sign of higher evolved DNA or intelligent life.

"It's absolutely strange," Caresalot said. "We have a really unique story here in Maryland. This phenomenon really doesn't seem to have appeared anywhere before."

The councilmembers have been blowing up since the beginning of the month, filling up like balloons until their heads suddenly burst.

"It looks like a scene from a Frank Capra science-fiction movie," Wilma Magilicutty, the head of a local political science think tank, told the Phoenix Hill Daily Herald Bugle.

Often the phenomena occurs after the councilmember whines at a council meeting at the level of argument practiced by the average juvenile delinquent stuck at the intellectual level of a 2-year-old in a high chair throwing food.

Then the deadly phenomena strikes and "The swelled head councilmembers do not appear to suffer minutes before they finally explode." It is thought that this may be a result of the fact that most councilmembers do not have any feelings, a sense of remorse or accountability for their behavior.

Political scientists and pathologists have come up with several theories, but Caresalot said that most have been ruled out; with the exception that most councilmembers are really space aliens visiting from another planet and that fresh air, new ideas, sunlight and an enlightened environment is the cause of their demise.

Above and beyond pathological narcissism and delusions of grandeur, the councilmembers did not appear to have a disease, and a laboratory in Maryland has ruled out the possibility that it is a fungus that made its way from Washington, D.C., Caresalot said.

Caresalot said that tests will continue. In the meantime, municipal residents and (especially) municipal employees throughout the state have been warned to stay away from councilmembers.

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Copyright © 2005 New Bedford Herald - Phoenix Hill Daily Herald Bugle All Rights Reserved.

art literature of the absurd
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[1] Kant Betrue, a Carthaginian whose family settled in Westminster after the Third Punic War, has been with the Phoenix Hill Daily Herald Bugle since the 1960s (he can’t remember exactly when in the 1960s…). A Pulitzer Prize winner for journalism, he writes about issues ranging from the international economy to exploding toilets.

20050414 Activists demand dove be set free

Activists demand dove be set free

Breaking News Briefs for April 14, 2005

City reaches agreement in suit brought by activists
“Claude” to be set free

(Literature of the Absurd - Updated from the April 17th, 2003 version)

Kant Betrue,
Staff Reporter,[1]

April 14, 2005

Phoenix Hill Daily Herald Bugle - New Bedford Herald

Westminster (NBH) A group of bird activists, who were forced this morning to disperse during a loud protest at the Westminster Fire Department, accused the city in a federal lawsuit filed today, of violating basic bird rights by keeping an innocent dove in captivity in the Westminster Fire House.

Eight were arrested.

It seems that Wednesday night, during the running of the Westminster Road Runners Club annual “Main Street Mile”, a dove flew through the open doors of the Westminster Fire Department equipment bays and took up residence in the pipes high above the fire equipment.

[…]

Magilicutty, a frequent critic of just about everything that moves, especially if it involves local municipal government, said that this was but another example of the lack of leadership on the part of Westminster Mayor Kevin Dayhoff. “He should have known that the dove was going to fly into the station after the doors were open and that he did nothing to stop it. It’s scandalous to have such a callous and vacuous man holding such a high position in the community.”

Read the rest:

http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/12173.html
or
http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/11584.html

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art literature of the absurd

[1] Kant Betrue, a Carthaginian whose family settled in Westminster after the Third Punic War in 206 BC, has been with the Phoenix Hill Daily Herald Bugle since the 1960s (he can’t remember exactly when in the 1960s…). A Pulitzer Prize winner for journalism, he writes about issues ranging from the international economy to exploding toilets.

20040813 Rabid Rebeccably Numb

Rabid Rebeccably Numb

- Going Rebecca -

August 13th, 2004

Did you feel for the Westminster Mayor when he was tied down and had the Rabid Rebecca attack dog baying and chewing at him at every Council Meeting and street corner in Westminster?

Did reading the Carroll Sun’s shallow and content-less stories and hearing the rumor mongering make you sick?

Or were you like most folks – engaged by the drama, entertained by the scent of scandal, yet comfortably numb about the whole thing? If you have a version of this story – well, then you are part of this story. What did you care – it wasn’t you that she was going after – it was someone else.

Many have replaced empathy with an “I”-centered sentimentality.

What is in this community for me?

Feeling has been turned on its head: caring is now a means not for taking action, but for feeling better about oneself or getting attention as long as we can explain it away as “politics.”

We ride the emotional dramas in the Carroll Sun tabloid, wear colored ribbons, and express our love for God and country.

May we all now bow our heads and say “the Lord’s Prayer”. Now we can all enjoy the twice monthly soap opera that the meetings of the Westminster Common Council have degenerated into – and perhaps, even keep score. It’s funny – like watching a bus accident.

Meanwhile, we take no action – at least none driven by empathy. Besides – it wasn’t you that she was going after – it was someone else.

Empathy is how we respond to the plight of humanity. It is the bedrock of our moral sensibility that allows us to feel for others, to put ourselves in their place. If you cannot feel, how can you act outside your own wants and desires?

To many today, it seems easier to just deny feelings of empathy, to react to them “rationally” as a weakness in this hard and fast world. Anyway - it wasn’t you that she was going after – it was someone else.

But this has a cost. Losing feeling for others, or never developing the capacity to feel deeply at all, means closing off a fundamental part of being a community.

On a global scale, we feel less not just about the millions of innocent people killed by traffic accidents and drugs and violence in the past decade, or the thousands of deaths portrayed on the television.

We have also become desensitized and numb about our own partners, neighbors, community leaders or parents. We joke about concepts such as “No good deed goes unpunished.”

Hey, whatever, it wasn’t you that she was going after – it was someone else.

What most folks have not understood is that Rabid Rebecca is a virus in our community and like mad cow disease – ‘Going Rebecca’ is a plague upon our community.

Rabid Rebecca Disease is a virus that cares not about its host organism.

When the Westminster Mayor continued to Zen the Rabid Rebecca – he denied her the very food that an hysteric virus feeds upon – reaction and words.

Fed by others who enjoyed her theatrics and enabled her, she then, in the famous words of Abigail Adams, became the famous well fed snake that turned to bite the very folks who had fed her. Tis a pity. Oh well, anyway, let’s hope that is not you that she is going after.

It can now be understood that a major attribute of Rabid Rebecca Disease, otherwise known as Councilmatic Disorder is that the person Going Rebecca sees a vast difference in the reality that is based on what the afflicted sees, hears, and feels - and the conditioned reality of what the afflicted has been socialized to understand – as fed by the snake-feeders.

The virus infected mind is driven towards the delusional based on the afflicted’s perception of reality. The afflicted is driven to shorten the gap between his or her perception of their concept of the delusional truth - and conditioned reality. When the gap becomes too great the afflicted will see the conditioned reality as beyond repair and he or she endeavors to destroy it. But certainly it not you that she is attempting to go after, or is it?

In the process of feeding Rebecca, one becomes less human. The snake feeders explain it away as politics. They care not becomes of the community left moribund as a result of her behavior because they do not care about the community – only about themselves or what benefit they chance to gain as a result of their parasitic behavior towards the community.

As this happens, the parasitic snake feeders not only stop feeling the pain of others, they become proscriptive and only more capable of inflicting it. This is the darkest side of empathy’s erosion. If feelings underlie an empathic response, numbness makes brutality viable. Thus, as you happily switch off from humanity, you become a threat to it.

We were comfortably numb about the attempted torture of the Westminster Mayor, and so were the Council members and other interested parties that facilitated the behavior and fed this snake-virus in our community. Those who have participated won’t say they are sorry because they don’t feel sorry.

Simple as that. After all, you don’t have any feelings – it’s only politics.

And if we ourselves, can’t feel for the community and others, who will feel for us?

Perhaps this is part of the general worsening of mental well-being. As a recent World Health Organization study shows, there’s a near-perfect correlation between the rise of alienation in the modern world and the decline of people’s mental states, with mental dysfunction growing globally.

As empathy falls, behaviors predicated on its lack have been pathologized, like narcissistic and antisocial personalities. But these are not symptoms of organic disease. Instead, it is the social system that is in need of radical treatment. “It’s only politics and it is not me that she is going after” is a social disease, often the victim does not know that they have it.

Medicating our numbness, by explaining that it is only politics is one thing, with a long and lonely history. But a culture medicating itself into comfortable numbness and explaining away politically motivated apotheosis patheosis is something else. Fortunately there is an anecdote – allow the Rabid Rebecca to feed herself to the point that she explodes.

The only part left to this Kabuki Morals play is to watch the very persons who created this monster now portray themselves a victim of the monster and heroically place themselves in the position of coming to the rescue of the very community that they continue to parasitically victimized.

KED / August 13th, 2004

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20021100 Occupation writer: Will code HTML for food

20021100 Occupation writer: Will code HTML for food.

November 2002



Occupation writer. Ultimately I am a slave to the masters of the page, the soldiers in my life - words.



“Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed… just do it in private and wash your hands afterwards,” attributed to Robert Heinlein.



“When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm writing.” Tennessee Williams



I am a mild mannered vacuous unemployable college drop out - a political novice, hilltop hillbilly farmer artist with no leadership skills and decades of unaccounted for time; fighting off the forces of poverty, the intellectually stunted, and the artistically disinclined.



I will code HTML for food.

20021100 Occupation writer: Will code HTML for food.

http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2002/11/20021100-occupation-writer-will-code.html

20021100 Occupation writer: Will code HTML for food.

http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/60766.html

My Conservative Values Statement

My Conservative Values Statement

Kevin E. Dayhoff 

March 22, 2001 / April 17, 2001 / June 16, 2002

http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/2015/01/my-conservative-values-statement.html

“The difference between Cannibals and Liberals is that Cannibals eat only their enemies.” - attributed to LYNDON B. JOHNSON, in the 1960’s

I recently received a phone message from a good friend and colleague at the leadership table, who shared with me, that at dinner the other night, one of his guests had speculated that there's a chance I'm too liberal.  Yes, you read that correctly.  It's the "L" word - in print, no less.  And yes, there's that immediate question…'too liberal' for what?  Too liberal for Westminster?  And who really cares?

Who in Westminster overwhelmingly cares about political ideology - except for a couple political ideologues, whose constituency lies well beyond the scope of Westminster's world? 

Westminster citizens care about real day-to-day issues.  They care about quality of life, taxes, police and fire protection, trash pick up, schools and local employment opportunities…  George Will, Bill Clinton, Dick Morris, and George W. Bush and their accompanying ideologies, are great dinner conversations - but they really aren't in any real trouble here locally until they don't pick up the trash one morning, fix the street light at the corner or catch the neighborhood kid who likes to drive through the development at twice the posted speed limit.  I have always felt that local government is too important for partisan politics.

I immediately reminisced that (true story, one of my favorites) I once had a constituent, who didn't know me from Adam, but one day accosted me suggesting that I was a liberal because I had holes in my farm work pants. Okay! - let's take a look at this situation.

Last time I checked - holes in my work jeans are not quite the key and critical informational ingredients that are often used for interpretive and truly intellectual analytical assessments.  Everyone involved had a good laugh.

But back to the phone message - I was calm. 'Gee - Thank you very much for your tape message.  Your message made Caroline and I smile. It is very rare that our conservative and faith values are ever questioned, but hey - stuff happens. I'm good for it. I'm up for the challenge.'

Caroline and I are often the target of criticism for our conservative approach to Community Leadership. But all that aside - neither one of us really cares about labels. We are first and foremost - soldiers of God.  We care about faith based and values-oriented efficacy.  We are constantly pre-occupied with issues of leadership and effective government. 

There really is no overwhelmingly conservative or left-wing way to collect the garbage, keep the street lights on or provide basic health, safety and welfare services for a small municipality.  One either provides leadership that facilitates a quality of life or one doesn't.  That being said - I firmly believe in better government not bigger government.

I mean - It's not rocket science ~ it’s Community Leadership that is the real discussion. I believe that leadership is all about Families and that Quality of Life is our Currency.  It's Service. It's: Water and Sewer Service, Trash Collection, Police and Fire Protection, Roads and Snow Removal, Education, Recreation, Cost Effective Taxes, - - and, as an elected official- it all begins with me!

I often find these conversations unrewarding. (Wow, you should have read the first draft of this essay - my word choice was different.) For example - towards the end of the Ellen Sauerbrey (R) Campaign for Maryland Governor in 1994 - the hard right wing of the Republican Party decided that Ellen Sauerbrey was moderating on some core conservative values.

That series of events was quite an awakening for me.  No one will ever know for sure - but I have determined that it was the hard, uncompromising and inflexible elements of the right wing of the Republican Party that elected Governor Glendening (D) for the last eight years. Whether you are a republican or a democrat - you have to admit that this is quite a paradox.

That experience provided me with some discerning - applied political science - insights about this issue.  It taught me some lessons about maintaining uncompromising, inflexible and absolute approaches to leadership.  Lessons which I will maintain for the rest of my leadership life.  As community leaders, I feel that we must always maintain an open mind and facilitate a dialogue - especially with those, with whom we may disagree - or the foot we shoot, may very well be our own. I fully understand that we need to stand for something and therefore not fall for anything.  But we must always be fair and remember that ultimately we are elected to serve the best interests of all of our constituency - not to promulgate an uncompromising dogmatic political ideology. There is quite a difference between a political leader and a community leader.

I again remind one of David Horowitz's latest books, "The Art of Political War and other Radical Pursuits."   It is a wonderful read.  I wholeheartedly recommend it.  It begins by saying: "Politics is war, but in America the left is doing all the shooting.  Shell-shocked conservatives blame their failures on the media or unscrupulous opponents, but they refuse to name the real culprit – themselves.  In a book that will shatter the complacency of establishment conservatives, David Horowitz shows how Bill Clinton's generation, having mastered the art of political war, has spent the last ten years clobbering conservatives in and out of government."

I also studied very carefully the last campaign of George W. Bush and wholeheartedly endorse his big tent (inclusive and unity oriented) concept of conservative politics.  Indeed, there is always room at my leadership table for a well intended leader to disagree with me.

I take enormous pride in being accessible and available for dissent, criticism, discussion and dialogue.  Should there be any specific issue that is on the horizon which speaks directly to my vision for local leadership - I look forward to addressing that concern.

Meanwhile - Always take care to not wear work pants in public that have holes in them. They may be a dead giveaway that you actually work for a living. And we can all draw conclusions about that sort of work ethic values, now can't we?

God Bless, Kevin

03/22/2001 - R2 04/15/2001 - 04/17/2001 – 06/16/2002

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” FRIEDRICH WILHELM NIETZSCHE 1844-1900

Kevin Dayhoff, a slave to the masters of the page - the little soldiers in my life - words

+++++++++++++++

Kevin Dayhoff is an artist - and a columnist for:

Patuxent Publishing Co., The Carroll Eagle: www.explorecarroll.com: http://www.explorecarroll.com/search/?s=Dayhoff&action=GO
The Tentacle: www.thetentacle.com http://www.thetentacle.com/author.cfm?MyAuthor=41

Westminster Patch: http://westminster.patch.com/search?keywords=Dayhoff

Soundtrack: http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/ = http://www.kevindayhoff.net/
Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/ or http://kevindayhoffart.com/ = http://www.kevindayhoff.com/
Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/ or http://www.westgov.net/ = www.kevindayhoff.org

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoffTwitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff
Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net

Tumblr: Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems www.kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/
Smurfs: http://babylonfluckjudd.blogspot.com/
Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/

E-mail: kevindayhoff(at)gmail.com
My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/
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20011217 The Artist and the Frog

The Artist and the Frog

Kant Betrue, Staff Reporter,
December 17, 2001
New Bedford Herald

Westminster — A man was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, if you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week." The man took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.

The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want." Again the man took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.

Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"

The man said, Look, I'm an artist. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog is cool."

________________________________________
Back to News Index
________________________________________
Copyright © 2001 New Bedford Herald

20001120 Lillian and Nathaniel

Lillian and Nathaniel

November 20^th, 2000

Excerpted from: "Happiness Is A Warm Gun", which I wrote on November 5^th, 2000.

Kevin Dayhoff

This essay goes with any meal. On the essay evolutionary scale, this essay is a monkey on roller skates. The monkey may or may not be wearing a pink tutu - this is for you to decide.

I

n today's democratic, free-market society one frequent predominant paradigm of happiness is a two-car garage, a dog and a comfortable life in the suburbs.

Take Lillian and Nathaniel, they have a nice home. He's a locally successful captain of industry and enterprise. She has devoted her life selflessly to her professional endeavors and they have both enjoyed the fruits of their labor. Their friends, neighbors and community consider them happy and successful.

But deep-down inside, they've never found meaning and happiness in their relentless pursuit of materialism. Nathaniel never loved Lillian; he simply enjoyed her as a comfortable piece of meat. Lillian never loved Nathaniel, she always saw him as a Faustian bargain to get beyond her rampant insecurities. Nathaniel cheated on her every chance he got.

One day, out in the back yard, raking the leaves, Nathaniel collapsed in the beginning stages of a heart attack. Lillian had just returned home from grocery shopping. She rushed by his side.

The cruelest hoax in life is to hope for safely and happiness. Nathaniel was comforted as he saw Lillian approaching. Lillian smiled as she knelt down beside him and whispered in his ear, "I always hated you, you bastard," as she gently placed the plastic grocery bag over his head.

In a life-long pursuit of happiness, Lillian is finally happy.

Update: Linkin Park - Numb

19990320 My Locational Whereabouts

My Locational Whereabouts

Kevin E. Dayhoff

Westminster, MD 21158

______________________

Saturday, March 20, 1999

Commander Kay Church, Receptionist

225 North Center Street

Westminster, MD 21157-5194

410.386.2102

Dear Commander Kay,

Oh!, Ah, ummmm, Kay - It seems that I’m lost. Recently, I seem to have been dropped off the office building radar screen - on my head. I’ve gone off to find me. If you should happen to find me, could you please tell me where it is that I am. Right now, I may be losing, but I’m making record time.

Meanwhile, please hold all my calls, should I ever again be found on the County Staff reorganized organizational chart, other than under a rock, face down in Longwell Run desperately hugging a bunny with a clump of unopened resignation letters waded up in my mouth. If Hillary Clinton calls, take a message.

If you should find me aimlessly wondering about the halls of the office building, with a shell shock look about my unshaven face, staggering, stuttering, slobbering and muttering to myself, please direct me to safety; - preferably someplace where chocolate covered doughnuts can be found.

Should you, ever hear a voice similar to mine, disseminating from the close proximity of a pounding sound on the inside a trash truck, would you please consider stopping the truck and saving me from the landfill?

In case I am ultimately ground up into veggie burger and fed to the bog turtles, allow me to share with you what a pleasure it has been to serve under you. Thanks !

Sincerely yours,

Uncle Kevin

Remember Kay, always keep your salad shooter at the ready!!