busker

Tawdry Spectacle

Fiery missives from the Nordic Peddy Jeeves, James Ølsen, (Islander Letters, Jan 7, *and* a virtual facsimile in the next week's edition), this time homing in on the delicate topic of records disclosure and the public's right to know.

In fact, it reads more convincingly as a salute to the editorial blue pen and our equal right not to be so thoroughly bored that we turn to newsprint elsewhere.

This Sancho Panza to William K's lugubrious Don Quixote wants us to know that, throughout last year's lively mayoral primary,

"Sun and Bainbridge Islander reporters received complete copies of 22 police theft reports detailing 279 political sign thefts of [Peddy's] legally posted signs.

"The Sun interestingly refused to either cover the story or to editorialize about why candidates' rights to free speech must be protected."

Well, I can clear that one up without further ado: the Sun's refusal was from editorial know-how and plain ol' business acumen of not wanting to see its readers desert in droves.

Alors - all 22 reports detailing no less than 279 thefts.

Can you imagine  the sheer loneliness and lacklustre absence of a life it takes to bring a man down to that degree of obsession with that level of trivia?

The Sirens of Kitsap: Not that the starchy Sun scribblers care: they're too busy clucking and preening over the honey-tongued Ølsen's dubbing them "editorial sirens."

No such bouquets for Madame Mayor or our police chief or  the county prosecutor: all dismissed as having "stood wooden and paralyzed" during what Ølsen describes as a "tawdry political spectacle."

Tawdry: A word to the wise: as long as Sancho is on the truth serum and keeping the shame alive with reminders of his rottweiler role as Peddy's 'former campaign manager', I suggest he steers clear of certain weasel words in any public utterances, 'tawdry' being very much one of them.

Public records disclosure: yes, indeed, and the perfect cue to ponder on the tantalizing Paperwork of Peril we're led to believe lurks in the Peddy file.

Climax: I didn't for a moment believe that any such documents exist of such fire-power that might prompt the Don into a midnight gallop out of Dodge in fear of his tawdry life.

Now I'm not so sure: Sancho et co have made such a big deal out of these memos that when they *are* made public (and they will be), they'd better not prove of such crippling banality that we *all* saddle up and join the Buzz posse chasing P and Ø down in a rage of anticlimactic disappointment.

Windbag versus Windmills: Meanwhile, what with the Peddy camp 'resting' between resumé refurbishments, now is the time for some astute repertory company to revive Cervantes and woo our own Man of La Mancha and his sidekick as the perfect duo for the central rôles.