County View

If we could package the decorum displayed at most public meetings such as the biweekly Mobile County Commission soiree and sell it to the streets, we might instill a civility not seen since every American household was “Leave it to Beaver” and drug wars were a little old lady disputing the price of her gastritis pills with the local pharmacist, who is also making her a root beer float probably inflaming the gastritis.

When rival drug dealers meet at an intersection a mediator should immediately be dispatched to the scene and the drug war go something like :

“The pusher from Main Street requests all the time that he may consume to address the pusher from Market Street.”

Mediator: “The pusher from Main Street is granted all the time that he may consume.”

“Pusher man from Market Street, this pusher from Main Street would like to know what a Loratab lackey is doing trying to sling where I’ve already left my scent.”

“Mr. M, the pusher from Market Street request all the time that he may consume to respond to the pusher from Main Street who in this honorable opinion does not have much more time in this world to consume.”

Mediator: “The pusher from Market Street is granted all the time that he may consume.”

“Fellow drug thug from Main Street, I happen to know you bump up your crack with Taffy, but what I want to know is. . “

I’m convinced we can train civil obedience into many public encounters if Congress will pass a law requiring it. Or we could all join the Marines and rename the country The People’s Republic of America with motto The Proud and Not So Loud.

The economy could rejuvenate by hiring curt little mediators and posting them in public locales all over the country. They would immediately spring into service at first sign of a disagreement or altercation.

Like the supermarket when someone breaks line.

Shopper 1: “Mediator, I respectfully request a moment to address a complaint on shopper in front of me.”

Mediator, who had almost dozed off in her chair near the checkout line, jumps into action. “Shopper 1: you may address your concern.”

Shopper 1: “Thank you Miss mediator. The shopper in front of me just broke line.”

Mediator: “Shopper 2, did you in fact just break line?”

Shopper 2: “Sure did. If your No-Doze had kicked in you’d seen it.”

Mediator: “The mediator respectfully request you step out of line and remove your self to the back of the line, and thanks for reminding me to take my – medicine.”

Shopper 2: “Very well. Will there be any thing else?”

Mediator: “Shopper 1?”

Shopper 1: “No, that’s it – well, try not to soak yourself in cheap eau de perfume next time you crawl out of your lair. Some people have allergies – and good taste, you know.”

Mediator: “Shopper 2, please refrain from wearing too much knock-off dollar store perfume on future visits.”

Shopper 2 ( moving to end of line, wiping perfume off her skin) “Very well. Consider it done.”

In traffic jams, mediators would play a crucial role. As a road rage incident unfolds a mediator could pull the two parties out of traffic and into special designated areas where they will be given boxing gloves and can duke it out in an inflatable ring set up instantly for the occasion. Anger management has long begged for judicial intervention and there’s some entertainment value in this scenario for the jammed-up commuter.

Gang wars would best be handled if legislated by the House and Senate and mandated upon local municipalities in a scenario that allows for adequate venting by both parties in the interest of maintaining public safety.

Alongside paintball arcades counties will construct gang war arcades. Since you can’t summon gangsters – a technicality due to finding their home address – police will round up key members and bring them to the gang war arcade. They will be given fake AK-47s, plastic swords and daggers and other war paraphernalia and then let loose on each other until, exhausted from this organized frolic, they fall sweating and panting into one big gangster bear hug and promise a six-month moratorium on drive-by killings and general mutilation.

In effect we shall become a world of “requesting permission to speak, sir” and “Madam mediator, I detect an infraction three ‘o’clock.” Docility shall be instilled upon an increasingly vocal, unbridled youth who threaten the very fabric of society in their projections of “Grand Theft Auto” and “Rock Star” upon a jaded public. We now live in a world where spanking children is considered cruel and unusual punishment or at the very least a call to social services, where people are now selling their lives on eBay to the highest bidder.

Mediator Methodology as a philosophy is really the only hope left for a world spinning dangerously on the edge of its’ overheating axis.

Someone will create the Dept. of Political Mediation, and under this umbrella allow the government to sponsor major, quarterly NeoCon/NeoLib ScreamFests. Free-for-alls where citizens suffering from political narcissism can spill their guts out in big gushers instead of clogging up and ungreening blogs or discussion boards across the Internet with venomous, anonymous rants and flame wars. Screen names such as Dixieboy005711 shall also be banned along with the most ludicrous shield since the first Halloween mask, the avatar.

“Madam Speaker I allow myself as much time as I may consume,” shall become the new political anthem in America and C-Span will be granted additional air space licenses so that every other channel is dedicated to the often graceful oratories of restrained politicians as they argue cases on two different sides of the fence without anyone getting killed or maimed, at least in chambers. British parliament broadcasts however shall be discontinued for their unbridled display of Cockney boos and yeas reminiscent of the “Bleak House” debut on PBS.

The world begs for change, but no one can change it. In the past 10 years so many new psychiatric illnesses have been invented they threaten even secure staples such as bi-polar and the ridiculously inventive and over-used LD. We’re all learning disabled, apparently, or there wouldn’t be a hundred wars going on right now and millions of starving children.

Contact Preston Brady at preston@lagniappemobile.com.

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