The news from Lake Montclairva
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Michael J. Novak
Published: October 2, 2008
It’s been a quiet month in Lake Montclairva.
We quietly prepared for Oktoberfest — the annual celebration of German heritage, culture, and beer. Father Emil and Pastor Inqvist performed a nondenominational blessing of the bratwurst and prayed for
the peaceful repose of all birds that perished during the year. The Sons of Knute served goose blood sausages and the Altar Society of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility had addled egg salad
sandwiches.
Our Beloved Leader has been quiet for a while. Nobody has criticized him or disagreed with him (no letters to the editor, no “Save the Geese” flyers), so neither he nor any of his cronies has pitched a
major hissy fit lately.
Of course, the former habitat of our local gaggle of Canada geese has been quiet — very, very quiet. Some of the faces in the poultry bin at Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery looked familiar.
The surprise was Our Beloved Leader’s monthly aphorism on the front page of The Herald Star: “When part of a crowd you can easily shout a demand to address a wrong. Character raises the call when
everyone else is silent.” It appears he’s encouraging the narrow-minded, irrational, extremist, juvenile, abusive, uncivil members of the lunatic-fringe minority to exercise their First Amendment rights. I
must be reading it wrong.
Yes, it’s been pretty quiet … except on the south side, with 18-wheelers, sirens, and boom-boxes-on-wheels cruising the outer beltway (VA-234), and the whine of the elementary school’s air conditioning
plant blaring away. Some of the folks down there had a few at Wally and Evelyn’s Sidetrack Tap and decided to have themselves a block party. Rumor has it the natives were restless, and some
uncomplimentary comments about Our Beloved Leader were overheard. Our champion ushering team, The Herdsmen, had to be called in for traffic control and crowd dispersal.
And that’s the news from Lake Montclairva … where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the board presidents are below average.
MICHAEL J. NOVAK
Dumfries
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Posted by ( PWCCitizen ) on October 03, 2008 at 12:01 am
# Please avoid offensive, vulgar, or hateful language.
# Respect others.
# Use the “Report Inappropriate Comment” link when necessary.
Does this apply to the vitrolic and hyperbolic letters to the editor?
This kind of letter was very low rent and beneath all of us.
What is the saying? “If the facts aren’t on your side, argue principle. If principle isn’t on your side, attack the person.“
This is why debate rules declare that ad-hominem attacks are a de facto admission that your argument is without merit.
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