Monday 5 November 2007

Hell is paved with good intentions

(http://www.samueljohnson.com/road.html)

The Israeli military slang is very rich and colourful. However, like cockney it is almost impossible to translate to another language. In Hebrew the words for putting in effort translates literally as ‘sinking it in’ thus the word play “He who sinks in, sinks!”. Meaning there is no point in putting in your hart, blood, and sweat as it would not be appreciated or worse it would be used against you. It is not hard to find such situations in military and public life. This saying is obviously not politically correct and is in contrast to the fable of the frog that beats the milk into butter by flapping frantically and aimlessly. It asserts that in most cases the frog will drown before the milk churns and in the few cases that the frog is dedicated enough to see the task through, a solicitor will be waiting for it to climb out just to hit it with a claim for damages. All this came to my mind when I heard that the Chair-person of the Wendover Parish Council has resigned. Today a new chairman was elected but the council seemed to tiptoe around the issue. Looking back at the meeting this evening, an official thank you was missing let alone a resolve to clear the waters and learn form the eperiance.

The sad thing about local government is that people don’t seem to care at best. I wonder how many fellow Wendovrian’s will notice that Dr. Shilla King resigned and how many of them could hazard an educated guess as to her reasons. Here is a person who volunteered to do something for her community, has spent many hours, and did her best to fight for our rights. From my corner in the public gallery she seemed to have done a good job at running the council meetings intelligently, made sure actions were followed though, was a positive driving force, was very liberal in her approach, and generally allowed the public to be heard. Naturally, some toes must be stepped on if you do your public job right. The question is not how to keep everybody happy all the time, but how to handle loaded situations. And here leys the gremlin: I believe that the current state of affairs in the Parish Council is down to fear of the litigation culture and the over reliance on legal advisors. This always leads to government paralysis and stifles any spark of originality. It defiantly results in a bad atmosphere and a general feeling of persecution and injustice – no matter who made the first call to the Dementors (a call that should not have been made).

I am sorry to see Dr. King go and I hope her bad experience will not put others off volunteering to help shape Wendover. It would be to the benefit of Wendover, if one day in the future she will decide to give it another go.

No comments:

Post a Comment