Hearings and Soundings

Well, I chatted a couple of days ago to Ethel, my gull half-sister by old Aunt Jane (don't even ask...). She'd swallowed a spider who'd swallowed a fly, who'd been sitting perfectly happily on the wall at New Brighton, all through the Hearings on Plan Change #27. And what a Story that was!

Seems that the Hearing was run by a Commissioner, who had done all this sort of thing before, seen it all, and wasn't about to be swayed by people making wild assertions. Kept asking for Evidence and other Inconvenient Facts. A bit of a Martinet, in fact, although what a small furry rodent was doing heading up a Hearing Commish is beyond me. No, wait, that would be a Pine Marten.

But it gets better. There were the usual suspects there, and a certain, shall we say, asymmetry in the hours allocated to the 'Let the Dozers Loose' mob and the 'Dog in the Manger, it's Our Social Space' space cadets. The mangerists had, oh, days and days to present their case.

Which, unaccountably, they didn't use. Ethel, being ever sharp about Free Food and all, had hung about, hoping to cadge some. Poor dear, she had to console herself with aforesaid Spider-Fly Horse's Doover.

Because, it turned out, the 'Social Space Cadets' just couldn't fill their time. Well, not sensibly, in front of the Stern Commish, anyway. So it all just petered out. Not with a Bang but a Whimper, you might say.

The Spacies, of course have always suffered from a couple or three Issues.

1 - they want desperately to Represent the Whole Suburb, and indeed claim to do so at every opportunity. But, oh dear, how sad, never mind, many good citoyen of New Brighton actually like to think for themselves, and don't take kindly to being Hectored, Smeared, or Have their Thinking outsourced. So the Sorry Space Cadets are routinely shunned, while other more, shall we say, inclusive organisations route right around them.

2 - they thus tend to suffer from Groupthink. Like many another Oppressed Bunch, they unite against a Common Enema. Which, unfortunately for this crew, seems to be ' the rest of the World'. This doesn't do wonders for the Quality of Thought: that which sounds so Cutting and Intelligent in the cloistered confines of your Little Group, often sounds simply Nuttier than Squirrel-Poo in a Public Forum. Which doesn't do much for #1, and so the sorry cycle continues.

3 - they hate Eeeevil Capitalists, Running-Dog Developers, and Business people, who are all out to Pillage and Rape their comfortable little world. Trouble is, these same folk are actually the ones who Sell them Food, Clothes and Bicycles, Build their Houses, and Run their Credit Cards and Bank Accounts. So there is more than a little Cognitive Dissonance in their World-view.

And when they have to stand up and Declaim in Public, the hate and venom which are an inescapeable result of 1-3, seem to Bubble Up despite their best intentions. They appear to be Mad as Pants.

I'm not sure that the Noble Commish actually said that, but I bet he thought it.

And the best bit is last.

One of the last Submitters seems to have run afoul of Godwin's Law.

Now you don't have to be too bright to know that, even on the Anonymous Internet, where no-one knows you're a Dog, invoking a Nazi analogy means that you have automatically lost the argument.

But pulling this stunt in front of a Learned Commissioner....well, words fail me. For once.

So it didn't actually all end with a Whimper. More of a Heil.....