Criminal?

Marti Bascaglia says it would be a waste of time to investigate and potentially prosecute Mayor Herb Bergson for releasing an auditor's confidential draft report to her. Herb has apologized and many have suggested that should suffice. The resulting fray, a conclusion of three, count them, three front page, headline reports by the "news" paper headed by Marti Bascaglia. Both heads are in the frying pan and it is just a matter of time before they both sizzle under the heat of a policy of nose thumbing at the rules, laws and mores of our community. The combined arrogance of Herb Bergson and Marti Bascaglia are eclipsed only by those of Kim Jong Il of modern day Korea, Hitler and Mussolini of days past.

Fortunately, unlike their mentors, they hold positions of power and influence in a tiny playground of nitwits. That playground, on the other hand has become that of nitwits at their own hands. Herb Bergson lacks the integrity to command any respect, but among a few, wields just enough power to instill fear into enough people to render a community and it's trusted employees completely impotent.

The unmitigated willingness of Marti Bascaglia to engage in ruthless character assassination has more than a few in her tiny peer group shuddering with fear. The rest of us looking in cannot help but wonder what goes on in the mind of a textbook narcissistic personality. That personality in a position of relative power has an enormous amount of ability to do both good and bad. Unfortunately for Duluth, Marti has not the judgement nor the vision to comprehend the damage done to this small community when she embarks on her crusades leaving all that is decent and good about it, in ruins behind her. The wrath of Marti and her editorial board is a force of terrible consequence in the tiny little haven of Duluth but in real world relativism, she and her board are but a pimple on the ass of society. They are worthy of scorn but certainly not enough energy to get through a trivial gossip session over lunch.

You see, to be relevant, you have to present attitudes, opinions and logic that is considered worthy of ponder by the population at large, not just your peers and local community. Duluth is a tiny microcosm of the United States and as a stand alone community is relatively irrelevant. While we machinate over the hate filled and dislexic boys and girls club of the Tribune, the rest of the world simply goes on. We are not noticed. We have no attention paid to our trivial quibbles and comic eye poking and face slapping. Marti is no more important to the world than she makes herself in her own mind. Unfortunately, she gets validation from her many foes within the community including myself. She believes that by being the topic of conversation in Duluth, she is valid and relevant. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We, as a community have strayed so far from the mainstream as to render our entire existence and presence, irrelevant. What we do here, stays here. Nobody cares outside of this area, with a possible tiny handful of exceptions. People born and raised here but forced to move away to find a relevant life occasionally check in, but to their dismay, and likely disappointment, the only thing that has changed is we have become even less relevant.