No Noose Is Good Noose

Virtual Noose Found Dangling At Portal To The Community Alliance Blog

Oh, we've been hanging around this place for far too long!

Not for anything, but we think all of this yardarm stuff -- the harkening back to lynchings in the deep south -- is nothing more than mere subterfuge.

For goodness sake. A noose at the Town of Hempstead Highway Department facility? [And now, prayer sessions and "diversity" training.] Are you kidding? Everyone knows there's not a single person in the employ of Hempstead Town who can possibly tie a knot. Even tying their own shoes requires the hiring of outside consultants! ["Pray with me, Dorothy, that one day, you, too, will be White like the rest of us at Town Hall. . .] Imagine that, Kate Murray hand-in-hand with Dorothy Goosby, singing We Shall Overcome. MLK, Jr. must be turning over in his grave!

Let's talk about some real issues. Quality of life issues.

Why, just last week, a resident of Queens (you know -- the place some of us say Nassau is becoming), received a $50 summons from the NYC Department of Sanitation for, of all things, placing his recycling bin at the curb on the wrong day.

Then there was the Brooklyn family, written up for graffiti-writing on the public way, because their daughter had the audacity to create a chalk drawing of a blue flower on the sidewalk. [The City later rescinded the notice -- apparently after being mocked by the media -- declaring that chalk drawings on the sidewalk are NOT graffiti. Childhood is once again safe for our children!]

And then there's the woman in Scranton, Pennsylvania who was cited by the municipality because she cursed, in the privacy of her own home, at her overflowing toilet. Holy s..t! [That could never happen here, where we curse daily at the overflowing sewer that passes for local government. "Cheese it. Its Public Safety!"]

Now these are extremes, of course. Right out of the Benito Mussolini school of making the trains run on time. [Thank God we didn't say, "the Rudy Giuliani school of cleaning the streets by way of suspending personal liberties." And they call us Fascists!]

Still, wouldn't it be nice if instead of the "anything goes," "do whatever the Hell you please" mentality here in the glorious burbs, we had a little regulation by way of code enforcement?

Why not put homeowners on notice -- followed up by an actual summons -- for placing the garbage out on Sunday for collection on Tuesday, in a can without a cover, or in a flimsy kitchen bag readily invaded by marauding sea gulls?

How about tagging some fines on those store owners who allow trash, beer bottles, and their own flyers to pile up on the public thoroughfares, that which literally flies in our faces whenever the wind blows?

Maybe a gentle nudge to homeowners who refuse to move their cars off the streets on the one or two days a month (weather permitting) when we have street cleaning (also known as "the moving of the dirt from one side of the street to the other").

Then there's street sign replacement, pothole repair, and the other sundry niceties that seem to bypass us folks, particularly in the unincorporated hither-regions, notwithstanding the plethora of town employees who, in the safety of their trucks, pass by thrice daily, never taking notice of the missing signs, craterous potholes, or the dead water buffalo carcass with the RE-ELECT KATE MURRAY lawn sign afixed to its buttocks rotting away in the middle of the road.

No, I'm not suggesting that we live in an armed police state, where big brother not only watches everything we do, but also goes through our trash (courtesy of Sanitary District No. 1). Still, this isn't the wilds of Wyoming, where, living in a one-room cabin, our nearest neighbor twenty miles away on horseback, its every man for himself.

There needs to be at least a modicum of regulation, and something akin to enforcement of the rules, in a society where we cherish both individual rights and a "Main Street" that doesn't look like Berlin after the blitz.

Its called, community!