For the most part, I like Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.
Sure he’s something of a geek, but he seems like an honest public servant doing a nearly impossible job. Maybe that’s why I admire him. I guess I can empathize.
But he does one thing that absolutely drives me up the wall.
Hizzoner has a penchant for speaking anything but honorably. He was at it again yesterday.
Staring into a bank of live microphones, the mayor vented after the announcement that three city police officers had been arrested for being involved in a drug conspiracy.
The mayor was upset. I don’t blame him. I do fault him for the language he used. Once again he felt the need to describe his demeanor with a particularly salty word. It starts with a p and rhymes with hissed. It is not the first time he’s dropped such off-color language into a public appearance.
You get my drift. No, I am not naieve. I can swear with the best of them. But I try to confine my outbursts to private settings, or at least my office. OK, so an occasion rant is overheard emanating from these walls.
But I don’t broadcast those outbursts. And I wish the mayor would not, either.
One of my great fears is that as a society, we seem to get just a little coarser every day. A big part of that is the language – once considered not fit for public usage – that is slowly creeping into our everyday vernacular. The next thing you’ll be telling is that the F-bomb is suddenly OK. We all know that it is not. I wish we treated other crude expressions with the same disdain.
We should be better than that. I know the mayor is. I just wish he would speak that way.
Or maybe more to the point, not speak that way.
Sure he’s something of a geek, but he seems like an honest public servant doing a nearly impossible job. Maybe that’s why I admire him. I guess I can empathize.
But he does one thing that absolutely drives me up the wall.
Hizzoner has a penchant for speaking anything but honorably. He was at it again yesterday.
Staring into a bank of live microphones, the mayor vented after the announcement that three city police officers had been arrested for being involved in a drug conspiracy.
The mayor was upset. I don’t blame him. I do fault him for the language he used. Once again he felt the need to describe his demeanor with a particularly salty word. It starts with a p and rhymes with hissed. It is not the first time he’s dropped such off-color language into a public appearance.
You get my drift. No, I am not naieve. I can swear with the best of them. But I try to confine my outbursts to private settings, or at least my office. OK, so an occasion rant is overheard emanating from these walls.
But I don’t broadcast those outbursts. And I wish the mayor would not, either.
One of my great fears is that as a society, we seem to get just a little coarser every day. A big part of that is the language – once considered not fit for public usage – that is slowly creeping into our everyday vernacular. The next thing you’ll be telling is that the F-bomb is suddenly OK. We all know that it is not. I wish we treated other crude expressions with the same disdain.
We should be better than that. I know the mayor is. I just wish he would speak that way.
Or maybe more to the point, not speak that way.
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