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Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006'Jelly bellies' memo costs police chief his job
'Jelly bellies' memo costs police chief his job http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/01/jelly.belly.ap/index.html Just a bit more evidence that the PC language police are alive and well in the USA and still costing the jobs of people who violate their idea of what's "sensitive" and appropriate. The police chief in this article is no John Kerry, who, despite his education, can't seem to get his words straight, and no George Bush, who, because of his lack of education, can't seem to get his words straight.  SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan. Unmunged email: /at/easypeasy.com "Impatience is the mother of misery." > 'Jelly bellies' memo costs police chief his job > http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/01/jelly.belly.ap/index.html [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > to get his words straight, and no George Bush, who, because of his > lack of education, can't seem to get his words straight. I'd hardly consider a Harvard MBA a lack of education. This item is from Coop's neck of the woods, has he got any comment? --Jeff SignatureOften war is waged only in order to show valor; thus an inner dignity is ascribed to war itself, and even some philosophers have praised it as an ennoblement of humanity, forgetting the pronouncement of the Greek who said, "War is an evil in as much as it produces more wicked men than it takes away." --Immanuel Kant > dontbother wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > I'd hardly consider a Harvard MBA a lack of education. I'm afraid we don't agree on what constitutes an education. MBAs fall into the same round file as EDDs, afaic. > This item is from Coop's neck of the woods, has he got any > comment? SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan. Unmunged email: /at/easypeasy.com "Impatience is the mother of misery." > I'm afraid we don't agree on what constitutes an education. MBAs fall > into the same round file as EDDs, afaic. Uh-oh. Now you've gone and wook up Coop. I thought of getting an MBA for a few days, but all the slick brochures of students doing "tug-of-war" made me feel kind of sick. SignatureBuckwheat Soba > dontbother wrote: >> I'm afraid we don't agree on what constitutes an education. >> MBAs fall into the same round file as EDDs, afaic. > > Uh-oh. Now you've gone and wook up Coop. 'Sokay. I'm not going to argue the point. > I thought of getting an MBA for a few days, but all the slick > brochures of students doing "tug-of-war" made me feel kind of > sick. Is that what they call it in MBA school? I thought that was called "Increasing Your Market Share" and was based on the older petroleum industry game of "Price War". SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan. Unmunged email: /at/easypeasy.com "Impatience is the mother of misery." >> 'Jelly bellies' memo costs police chief his job >> http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/01/jelly.belly.ap/index.html [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > >This item is from Coop's neck of the woods, has he got any comment? Yeah. I've been more exposed to the story than just this article. Chief Goward has been a controversial figure for quite some time. He's been frequently criticized for being too authoritarian and tough to work for. He fires slackers and chews out incompetents. Franke is right - somewhat - about the PC angle because that particular memo's use of "Jelly Belly" received some publicity, but the inference that Goward was fired because of the memo is false. It was just a "straw" thing used by people who had been gunning for him for quite some time. I suspect Goward would have been ousted even if he had not used that term in the memo, but his ouster would not have received any media coverage. This story is evidence, all right, but evidence that a city doesn't have to advertise an opening for Police Chief if the last one was fired concurrently with a nationally picked-up story. SignatureTony Cooper Orlando, FL > Jeffrey Turner <jturner@localnet.com> wrote: >> [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > last one was fired concurrently with a nationally picked-up > story. Just a bit more evidence that one can never believe what one reads in the media. I suspected that there was much more to the story than the biased media reported. I'm sure, though, that federal and state laws will still require the city to advertise the opening. SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan. Unmunged email: /at/easypeasy.com "Impatience is the mother of misery." > > Jeffrey Turner <jturner@localnet.com> wrote: > >> [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] > in the media. I suspected that there was much more to the story > than the biased media reported. I think you're being slightly unfair, at least as far as the CNN report you linked to is concerned. It does make it reasonably clear that the sacking wasn't just based on this one incident. Two things worry me about this case. One is that the powers that be took so much notice of anonymous complaints; the other is that a police chief should be sacked for being "authoritarian and tough to work for". Jeez. Adrian >Two things worry me about this case. One is that the powers that be took so >much notice of anonymous complaints; the other is that a police chief should >be sacked for being "authoritarian and tough to work for". Jeez. Lakeland is one of those somewhat-large towns (population about 90,000) with a small-town profile. The good old boys tend to run things, certain families have had power and influence in town for generations, and you can't throw a rock in any city department without hitting a cousin of someone else in another department. So, if the Police Chief chews out an employee, he's very likely to be chewing out the cousin of the mayor, a city councilman, a newspaper editor, or someone else with influence. If a policeman worries about losing his job because his belly's hanging out, he's discussing it at a cook-out with his relatives. When the Police Chief is an outsider, and the force is made up of insiders, those backyard discussions carry some weight. All of this is pretty typical for small-town politics. Lakeland is concerned about image. _Money Magazine_ rated it as one of the best towns in America to live in. Publix Supermarket's home office is in Lakeland (think: Tesco of Florida) and the town is very dependent on the employment that Publix provides. Lakeland is also the Spring Training home of the Detroit Tigers, so even Maria may know about Lakeland. I don't know if any of the above makes sense to you, but any American who has lived in a similar small-town atmosphere would understand. SignatureTony Cooper Orlando, FL >>Two things worry me about this case. One is that the powers that be took so >>much notice of anonymous complaints; the other is that a police chief should [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >generations, and you can't throw a rock in any city department without >hitting a cousin of someone else in another department. [ Snip description of official corruption (= AmE: "small-town politics")] >I don't know if any of the above makes sense to you, but any American >who has lived in a similar small-town atmosphere would understand. If I understand matters correctly, the Powers That Be in Lakeland are perfectly happy that their police are fat and inefficient, and that they crave the worldwide exposure that sacking the chap who (= TCE: "that") was trying to correct the situation has brought about. Were I a criminal I'd be heading for Lakeland right now. SignatureGraeme Thomas >>>Two things worry me about this case. One is that the powers that be took so >>>much notice of anonymous complaints; the other is that a police chief should [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >was trying to correct the situation has brought about. Were I a >criminal I'd be heading for Lakeland right now. Or heading away from Lakeland because there will be a new Chief. If you look at the crime statistics in Lakeland, the old regime wasn't all that efficient: http://lakeland.areaconnect.com/crime1.htm You've jumped to the conclusion that a Chief that (sic, to meet your preconception) is authoritarian, abrasive, and desirous of lean-and -mean looking officers is doing a good job. Perhaps the next Chief will find other ways to motivate the force in ways that will actually reduce crime. SignatureTony Cooper Orlando, FL >>If I understand matters correctly, the Powers That Be in Lakeland are >>perfectly happy that their police are fat and inefficient, and that they [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > >http://lakeland.areaconnect.com/crime1.htm According to the various reports, the Police Chief had been in office two and a half years, and the latest crime data is from 2004. So Goward had around half a year to do something about the crime figures. My brief look at the above site didn't give me much insight into the rate at which the police solved the Lakeland crimes. (Various reports, from all around the world, seem to suggest that solving crimes is no longer part of the police role, but I prefer to be old-fashioned in this regard.) That, surely, is the criterion by which a police chief should be measured. The crime rates indicate, if anything, the liking of criminals for the area. Lakeland seems pretty much average for the US, with a smaller chance of being murdered balanced by a greater chance of being raped. >You've jumped to the conclusion that a Chief that (sic, to meet your >preconception) is authoritarian, abrasive, and desirous of lean-and >-mean looking officers is doing a good job. I have jumped to no such thing! It's far too much like exercise. Gowerd was quoted as saying that his officers were about as fit as the members of other forces he'd been on. I believe it, as few of the American police officers who I've seen were "lean-and-mean looking". (My sample size isn't particularly high, though.) >Perhaps the next Chief will find other ways to motivate the force in >ways that will actually reduce crime. Perhaps he'll encourage them to eat more doughnuts. SignatureGraeme Thomas >>>If I understand matters correctly, the Powers That Be in Lakeland are >>>perfectly happy that their police are fat and inefficient, and that they >>>crave the worldwide exposure that sacking the chap who (= TCE: "that") >>>was trying to correct the situation has brought about. Where did you get this idea, BTW? It's my impression that the media picked up the story, but not that Lakeland fed the story to the media to get attention. I didn't get the impression that Lakeland's City Fathers particularly craved the attention. SignatureTony Cooper Orlando, FL >>>>If I understand matters correctly, the Powers That Be in Lakeland are >>>>perfectly happy that their police are fat and inefficient, and that they [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >to get attention. I didn't get the impression that Lakeland's City >Fathers particularly craved the attention. I admit "craved" was slight hyperbole. Sacking someone for (what can be presented as) PC reasons is likely to get picked up by the media, and the Powers That Be in Lakeland would have to be unwise not to realize that. For a slightly silly analogy, were I to take my gun and shoot someone, a defence of "I only pulled the trigger; I didn't realize that anything would happen" is unlikely to get very far. I take a similar view of a putative defence by the PTBiL that they didn't know what would happen. It is likely that, were you to ask one of the PTBiL "are you perfectly happy that your police are fat and inefficient", you'd get an answer "no, of course not." But publically sacking a chap for trying to make them less fat and inefficient doesn't give quite the same effect. SignatureGraeme Thomas >>>>>If I understand matters correctly, the Powers That Be in Lakeland are >>>>>perfectly happy that their police are fat and inefficient, and that they [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >the Powers That Be in Lakeland would have to be unwise not to realize >that. I'm sure that the Brits think things out before acting, but we - here - are not known for doing so. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if a former Presidential candidate would pop off a comment that would be picked up by the media. Small-town PiP don't think that anyone pays attention to what they do. Normally, they could adopt an African baby and no one would write a line about them. But fire just one Police Chief.... SignatureTony Cooper Orlando, FL >>I admit "craved" was slight hyperbole. Sacking someone for (what can be >>presented as) PC reasons is likely to get picked up by the media, and >>the Powers That Be in Lakeland would have to be unwise not to realize >>that. > >I'm sure that the Brits think things out before acting, Quite. >but we - here >- are not known for doing so. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if a [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >and no one would write a line about them. But fire just one Police >Chief.... As I said above, the probable reason for the publicity was not the sacking of the Police Chief itself, but that fact that it was done (or appeared to be done) for PC reasons. "Political Correctness Gone Mad" will always get good coverage. SignatureGraeme Thomas > If > you look at the crime statistics in Lakeland, the old regime wasn't > all that efficient: No surprise, the jelly bellies aren't too swift. Now, killing the messanger may improve the situation. > ... Lakeland is also > the Spring Training home of the Detroit Tigers, so even Maria may know > about Lakeland. She does. And a bit about Joker Marchant, too. > I don't know if any of the above makes sense to you, but any American > who has lived in a similar small-town atmosphere would understand. Even some who haven't probably do. SignatureMaria |
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