The Observation Deck

Jim O'Bryan wrote:Simply put, if you need to hide behind a faux name there is the Buzz, if you want to talk about ANYTHING in Lakewood and find energized people willing to work together there is the Observer, and you can know who they are. As Ken points out room for both. However I disagree about the value of a board that supports private attacks on public people. But hey that's just me. Ken supports it, I do not but we can discuss that in open like adults.
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I would like to clarify this part of my post. I did not mean Ken supports attacking people. What I meant was that Ken thought there should be a place for the shadowy to post. As he stated earlier.

However I do mean that we are able to carry on a conversation about this. That often advisory board members disagree, and we have no fear of showing it in public or discussing it.

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Jim,

I think the forum that you, Ken, DL, and others have created in the Observer is quite valuable. The fact that you and Mar can have a civil conversation while still disagreeing is impressive. In the same way, I've found that while Observer members often write about issues important in Lakewood (crime, Section 8 housing, development, historic preservation) on which many of us have differing opinions, it is done in a civil and constructive manner that keeps us moving forward and looking for answers. The Observer has helped me to feel more confident about Lakewood's future because I've seen the intelligence and commitment of my neighbors in this forum.

On the other hand, the irresponsible posts and extreme opinions on the other forum in town invariably make me feel like selling my Lakewood house and heading for "the Heights." So, thanks for the service you are providing Lakewood!

Jim:

If you were to read my post carefully, you might come to understand that the “purposeâ€Â￾ served, the “creditâ€Â￾ rendered to the BUZZ, at least in my estimation, is psychological, not ethical.

In my book Open Source means: 1) putting all your kernels – some black, some white, some grey, some fierce, some timid, what have you - on the line with your name in a game that not everybody chooses to play; 2) understanding others All Around the Mulberry Bush will apply a proper critical heat to make them pop.

I offer the nursery rhyme to bring some levity and texture to the livid feeling and disappointment in my take on the boards.

“All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel.
The monkey thought 'twas all in fun.
Pop! goes the weasel.

A penny for a spool of thread,
A penny for a needle.
That's the way the money goes.
Pop! goes the weasel.

Up and down the City Road,
In and out of the Eagle,
That's the way the money goes.
Pop! goes the weasel.

Half a pound of tuppenney rice,
Half a pound of treacle,
Mix it up and make it nice,
Pop! goes the weasel.â€Â￾

Of course, I do realize that after reading my kernels of equivocation and qualification that will follow below, you might well deem me the weasel.

That's OK.

If not, feel free to decree Open Source little more than a den of weasel words. Language games are so played that way.

One finds Words in Sheep's Clothing (New York: Hawthorne, 1969). Thus Mario Pei presents examples of weasel words. "The term can be legitimately extended to cover any word of which the semantics are deliberately changed or obscured to achieve a specific purpose, or which is used in a given context for the sole purpose of impressing and bamboozling the reader or hearer. Weasel words are shifty, tricky, dishonest."

All together now "in and out of the eagle......"

“Pop! goes the weasel.â€Â￾

So let me push questions and answers from the weasel’s den to your Observation Deck in order that you might better gauge the nature of my support for the BUZZ.

Does a shadow operation with faux names allow for civic personalities to do harm to one another? Yes.

Do I condone such harm? No.

Do I post on the BUZZ, with either a real name or a faux name? No.

Do I believe the BUZZ has a right to exist, with its shadow-land of faux names, with the occasion of harm such expression poses to the good name of others? Yes.

Do I like the effects of the BUZZ on the ethical and political climate of the city? No.

Did the BUZZ declare me Lakewood’s Choice for the White House? Yes.

Do I support the right of other civic personalities to enjoy discourse in a shadow-land of faux names, while attempting to influence the opinion climate of the city? Yes.

So that’s where I stand on the BUZZ support and credit matters you raise.

You may try to paint me with a broad BUZZ brush. However, the above is my bill of BUZZ particulars.

In my post, I attempted to credit the BUZZ with offering civic personalities a mechanism to register and engage the shadow side of the city’s political psyche. In doing so civic iterations course "in and out of the eagle" through dark, disordered aspects a person does not want associated with the real name.

It’s ugly. It’s messy. It’s hurtful. It’s part of the miserable human condition.

One can’t steamroll it out of existence.

It may appear on the BUZZ that some civic personalities make an effort to blaze a light of truth with real names into the shadow side.

That’s not my choice. It is, however, a choice people can make in order to serve their personality and need to express an opinion.

I believe that you would have preferred for me to say clearly for the good of the city that such an investment by civic personalities is not worth making.

Instead I tried to bring a psychological perspective on the matter – along the continuum of censorship and self-censorship – raised by Mar’s initial post.

I do appreciate Mark’s pick-up on the shadow theme. Because it is through the mechanism of the shadow, as Mark suggests, that the civic personality may blame the other for that which is unconsciously disliked within himself.

It is a psychological proposition, moreover, that one becomes what one most fiercely opposes. Therefore, I would propose that shadow is to be acknowledged through Open Source engagement in the city that would know itself better than any other city

In this light, I acknowledge the BUZZ.

In my psychological reading of the Boards, much of what the civic egos at Lakewood Observer reject will mass in shadow at the BUZZ.

I do realize that you are likely to dismiss all this as mumbo-jumbo snake oil.

So scorch these “weasel wordsâ€Â￾ if you must.

Kenneth Warren