Elections for my local government have begun, and for the first time in my life I've actually decided to partake. I am a little surprised by the candidates on offer. You get sent a little booklet in your voting pack which has a little piece on each candidate.
They seem pretty crazy. I mean, some of them are clearly just off-the-planet insane, or just looking to get publicity for whatever agenda they're passionate about, but even the "sensible" ones seem pretty loony to me. In our list of 15 or so mayors there's only two I'd even remotely consider. It's much the same for the various other positions we have to elect people to. One of the candidates to our local Health Board (who are responsible for running our hospitals and advising the council on public health matters) is rabidly anti-fluoridation and wants to introduce homeopathy.
Many of the mayoral candidates appear to have confused this election with a campaign to be elected Prime Minister of the country (a Communist League candidate demands the immediate withdrawal of all military forces from foreign shores) and their policies focus on matters that are well outside the mayor's area of authority.
But my favourite is Jesse Butler, who is either a loose canon, or undertaking a piece of satirical genius. After our previous mayor won the last election on a road map for his first six weeks in office, Mr Butler has decided to do the same. It's such a special roadmap, I want to share it with you. Bear in mind this is what the mayor of a city of 1.4 million plans to achieve in his first six weeks in office (I'll be the first to admit I aren't sure what half of these even mean);
Week 1. Open financial books. Media watching. Money/assets secured. Lower rates. Faster services. Executive transparency. Corruption/corrupted gone. Staff pay-rise. Non-sexist/abusive/racist workplace. Increase staff. Promotions.
[If you think Week 1 is ambitious, check out Week 2!]
Week 2. Visit South Korea. Taiwan. Japan. Talk multi-millions. Civil defence. Build infrastructure. Full employment. Auckland living wage? $22 an hour?
Week 3. Public hui [a Maori term for a gathering or assembly, usually to discuss an important issue]. Veto unitary plan. Your house rules. Priorities. Mokos [a traditional Maori full-face tattoo]. Babies. Children. Mothers. Elderly. Sick. Veterans. Retired. Disabled. New Aucklanders.
...
Okay, I'm exhausted and we're only half-way through, but you get the idea. I guess this thread is two-fold. Firstly, it somehow felt wrong to keep the hilarity of our local body candidates to myself, so I wanted to share some of it with you. Another brilliant campaign quote; "When elected I intend to use every facility of the Mayoral Office to rally all people of goodwill to eliminate legalized aboriton. All my energy will be focused on this single issue." [as far as I am aware local authorities have no power to pass by laws relating to abortion].
Secondly, I dearly hope we're not alone. What are your local authority candidates and personalities like? Are they pretty typical politicians, or is there a higher concentration of bat**** crazy at the local level?
Share your hilarious stories, please.
They seem pretty crazy. I mean, some of them are clearly just off-the-planet insane, or just looking to get publicity for whatever agenda they're passionate about, but even the "sensible" ones seem pretty loony to me. In our list of 15 or so mayors there's only two I'd even remotely consider. It's much the same for the various other positions we have to elect people to. One of the candidates to our local Health Board (who are responsible for running our hospitals and advising the council on public health matters) is rabidly anti-fluoridation and wants to introduce homeopathy.
Many of the mayoral candidates appear to have confused this election with a campaign to be elected Prime Minister of the country (a Communist League candidate demands the immediate withdrawal of all military forces from foreign shores) and their policies focus on matters that are well outside the mayor's area of authority.
But my favourite is Jesse Butler, who is either a loose canon, or undertaking a piece of satirical genius. After our previous mayor won the last election on a road map for his first six weeks in office, Mr Butler has decided to do the same. It's such a special roadmap, I want to share it with you. Bear in mind this is what the mayor of a city of 1.4 million plans to achieve in his first six weeks in office (I'll be the first to admit I aren't sure what half of these even mean);
Week 1. Open financial books. Media watching. Money/assets secured. Lower rates. Faster services. Executive transparency. Corruption/corrupted gone. Staff pay-rise. Non-sexist/abusive/racist workplace. Increase staff. Promotions.
[If you think Week 1 is ambitious, check out Week 2!]
Week 2. Visit South Korea. Taiwan. Japan. Talk multi-millions. Civil defence. Build infrastructure. Full employment. Auckland living wage? $22 an hour?
Week 3. Public hui [a Maori term for a gathering or assembly, usually to discuss an important issue]. Veto unitary plan. Your house rules. Priorities. Mokos [a traditional Maori full-face tattoo]. Babies. Children. Mothers. Elderly. Sick. Veterans. Retired. Disabled. New Aucklanders.
...
Okay, I'm exhausted and we're only half-way through, but you get the idea. I guess this thread is two-fold. Firstly, it somehow felt wrong to keep the hilarity of our local body candidates to myself, so I wanted to share some of it with you. Another brilliant campaign quote; "When elected I intend to use every facility of the Mayoral Office to rally all people of goodwill to eliminate legalized aboriton. All my energy will be focused on this single issue." [as far as I am aware local authorities have no power to pass by laws relating to abortion].
Secondly, I dearly hope we're not alone. What are your local authority candidates and personalities like? Are they pretty typical politicians, or is there a higher concentration of bat**** crazy at the local level?
Share your hilarious stories, please.
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=266255&goto=newpost
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire