Fraters Libertas

It’s Rude, Egregious, Contagious, Outrageous!

According to my observations over these many years, in order to be recognized by the media as a “community leader” in the Twin Cities you need to possess the following qualifications:

1) no evidence that the community needs or desires your leadership
2) woefully misguided priorities
3) no record of constructively accomplishing anything
4) the use of exclusively irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric at press conferences
5) the use of absurd visual aids
6) be physically repulsive or wear a funny hat

To their credit, the Star Tribune-sanctioned community leaders who gathered yesterday to protect the lives of murdering convicted repeat sex offenders did qualify under all of these criteria. (No Internet picture available, but they’re displayed in today’s print edition, and soon to be laminated and framed and available in the Fraters Holiday Gift Boutique).

But there’s one more pre-requisite that trumps all of the others. Which is:

7) the goofy slogans you create to support your misguided priorities must be catchy.

If you don’t get this one right, you have no credibility as a community leader and you should have your green fez and bullhorn revoked immediately. And it’s my sad duty to recommend just this action for one of the community leaders protesting Governor Pawlenty’s call for a discussion on reinstituting the death penalty in Minnesota. The evidence, as reported in the Star Tribune:

One black minister, the Rev. Oliver White, chairman of the public policy committee of the St. Paul Area Council of Churches, held up a hangman's noose and said: "Minnesota Nice should not translate into Minnesota Chokes."

Somewhere Jesse Jackson and Johnny Cochrane just flinched. (And this time it wasn’t from their haunted consciences.)

My goodness. The good Rev. White spends weeks creating an exact replica of a hangman’s noose at a 32:1 scale so he could swing it around in front of the TV cameras, and then he spends 30 seconds coming up with a slogan that doesn’t even rhyme? It doesn’t have any meter to it either. During the inevitable rallies to be organized in the coming weeks, how does he expect the dozen or so protestors (all coincidently, also community leaders) to be able to chant this?

I don’t claim to be a community leader (in fact my good looks and the recent sale of my leopard skin turban with the purple feather effectively eliminate me from consideration). But I think even I can come up with a better slogan than that. How about:

Minnesota Nice ain’t no projection
So make no room for lethal injection

See, that rhymes and it’s based in reality (I don’t think anybody gets hanged anymore). The use of a double negative gives it street credibility. And the line syllable count is spot on, for mass chanting purposes. Although I fear its positive message, challenging us to live up to our highest ideals, does violate rule 4 listed above.

How about this one, based on another community leader's words ("It's contradictory to the culture and history of our state," said Caroline Palmer, spokeswoman for Minnesotans Against the Death Penalty.)

The culture of Minnesota is about fishin’ for bass
Not putting our criminals in a chamber of gas

I acknowledge, that’s a tortured one. But did you know there’s not a word in the English language that rhymes with “chamber”? (At least according to the distinguished language experts at rhymezone.com). But again, it’s not nearly irresponsible or inflammatory enough. I guess that’s just the kind of guy I am, way too constructive and cheery. (A result, no doubt, of reading blogs.)

Looks like I may need some help with this one. So any sour bastards out there with a talent for strict poetic construction, please come up with a anti-death penalty slogan that’s sure to alienate the opposition and inflame a controversy that ensures no possibility of positive resolution. The winner gets accredited into the Society of Community Leaders and a special gift from the Fraters Holiday Gift Boutique that will make you the envy of your peers at your next press conference.