• Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here.
• We Waste Our Time And Your Money So You Don’t Have To.
• Start Mowing The Lawn If You Want An Allowance Increase.
• In Stupid Stuff We Don’t Trust.
• Practice Loving, Peaceful And Kind Thoughts.
• I Don’t Have Any Good Ideas.
• Don’t Do Stupid Stuff.
• God Save Us.
• This Is For Your Own Good.
• In God We Trust, The Councilors — Eh — Not So Much.
(By the way, even though several people entered “Don’t Do Stupid Stuff,” I think that’s me. Sorry.)
As we know, County Councilor David Madore keeps claiming he’s all about what the people want. But if that’s true, why didn’t he ask the people? Why did he and his buddy, Councilor Tom Mielke, force people to choose between “In God We Trust” and “In God We trust”?
Just didn’t seem like much of a choice.
A little background
No question, Madore is a strange cat.
One second, he says the vote to put “In God We Trust” on the wall had to be unanimous for him to support it. The next second, he votes for it even though it isn’t unanimous.
What, you don’t believe me? Here’s his quote from the Feb. 10 county council meeting:
“If we could not have received a unanimous vote here, to me that’s not good enough.”
At the Feb. 24 council meeting the vote is 2-1, with Madore voting in favor of it.
No explanation, no reasoning, no nuttin’. What happened to needing unity, councilor? Madore doesn’t talk much to me, so maybe someone else could ask him.
Oh my!
Mielke, of course, is another entire batch of bananas. Whereas (government types love to use “whereas,” don’t they?) Madore is devious in a brilliant sort of way, Mielke is devious in a clueless sort of way.
You’d almost give this clueless cat a little credit if he dreamed up the “In God We Trust” idea. But he didn’t. He was cold-called by some California outfit to do its bidding.
And Mielke doesn’t even see the delicious irony of him complaining that outsiders from Portland were coming over here to join the debate, when there wouldn’t even be a debate if an outsider from California didn’t give him the idea. Truth is, I should give this character some slack. After all he did give us this — the greatest quote of all time! — at the Feb. 3 county council meeting:
“I think my brain went dead about an hour ago.”
You can’t make this stuff up.
Of course, some might argue his brain left the building long before just an hour ago. Not me. Remember, I’m giving him some slack.
But Mielke really does have a comprehension problem. He never was able to figure out this wall slogan issue never was about believing in God. In Mielke’s brain, if you voted for the slogan, you believed in God. If you voted against it, you didn’t believe in God.
That’s why he pulled out his trusty phone at the last meeting to announce that he looked up a Gallup poll that said 92 percent of Americans believe in God.
But the issue never was about believing in God. It was about if “In God We Trust” should be on our governmental walls.
So hold off
The way I see it, the least the councilors could do is hold off a little longer until my contest is complete. These are your people, too, councilors. They should have a voice!
If not, maybe someone could write my winning slogan in chalk on the sidewalk near the council building? But make sure it can be washed up. Nothing should be permanent.
Washed up? Not permanent? That just might apply to the M&M boys as well.
Just sayin’.