January 26, 2008: No Fly Zone (Philly)

[Karenv]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

She's a politician covering her ass and trying not to piss off anyone. Stalling for time to see which way the wind blows, is their trademark.

She is a lowly bureaucrat, not a politician. That means it is her job on the line and the politicians are not shy about scapegoating if they don't like the press response.

Basically she pushed it off pending some future study that probably won't happen. The better thing to do is to get other neighbors with flat roofs to print the same, so the city can't control it.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Technically you're right, she is a bureaucrat, though Township Manager is hardly lowly.
Township Managers serve at the pleasure of the Township Council, and must be a bigger politician than they are... tread on as few toes as possible, practice fence sitting until their butt is numb, and never make a decision before checking with the township solicitor.

[tulzscha]

The most interesting detail to me about the whole hoopla is that no actual obscenity was ever present on the roof. The actual roof reads as it does in the accompanying article -- "F_ck", underscore and all.

See here for an undoctored photo.

So you wind up with news reporters breathlessly flapping about obscenities, uninformed government schmucks making stupid comments, and a whole barrel of monkeys -- all operating under the mistaken premise that there's an actual obscenity present.

Oh, and did you catch the sly dodge in the news article? How the article itself contains the actual text of the sign -- F_ck -- but the picture is doctored to protect our poor little eyes from the blasphemous f-word which doesn't exist? All to make it seem like it's worse than it really is?

News media, grar!

[Griff]

Well said. The implication is that establishment media has protected speech rights that individuals don't.