Editor's Note

We're Jammin'

Funny, just as the world we held in our appreciative hands a short time ago began to crumble around us, it became shout-out time on the McCain-Palin Straight Talk Express.

The Straight Talk brain trust must have huddled and decided to lighten the mood. With so much suffocating economic anxiety floating about, could it be they figured it was finally time to make us smile?

What else could account for what happened next?

Suddenly, out of the blue, there was a new fun game. It was genius in its simplicity: Whenever McCain or Palin would mention Barack Obama, one or more of their passionate supporters would shout out from deep in the shadows whatever thought hit them first.

“Terrorist!”

“Traitor!”

“Kill him!”

Every night on the news you could see McCain and Palin firing up the new game.

You had to wonder why the Obama campaign didn’t join the fun and drum up the same kind of conviviality. Lord knows we could use the diversion.

But not once all week did Obama supporters take the cue from the gamers across the field and play shout out when their guy would say his opponent’s name.

So many lost opportunities.

Imagine it.

Obama, speaking at a rally: “My opponent, John McCain … ”

From far back in the crowd:

“Troglodyte!”

“Moronicon!”

“Swamp donkey!”

On a related note, maybe you saw it reported that Sen. McCain took time out from the campaign trail to buy a new hearing aid.

No one would’ve known about it if he hadn’t been caught discussing it on an open TV microphone.

“It cost me $4,000,” McCain could be heard confiding to an advisor. “It’s state-of-the-art. It’s perfect.”

“Really?” answered the campaign aide. “What kind is it?”

“Twelve-thirty,” said McCain.

Got you there.

Old-guy jokes.

Hilarious, right?

Granted, they don’t have the same bite as a good terrorist or Arab shout-out from the shadows, but funny is funny.

A laugh is a laugh.

Right?

Mean-spirited is in.

No harm, no foul.

Right?

No?

What do you mean no?

Speaking of twisted hijinks, have you been enjoying the media merriment surrounding the case of Latrice Bryant, the aide to City Councilman Wilson Goode Jr. who’s been all over the news the last several weeks?

Bryant, according to a Fox 29 investigation, worked many fewer hours in her job then she wrote down.

Totally uncool.

Caught in the TV headlights, her response was to hold up a hastily scrawled sign in City Council that read “KKK”—proving, once again, why this city is consistently world champ in all things surreal.

The implication of her sign, if one dares attribute one, may have been that Fox 29 was a front for the KKK. Or maybe it was that the Fox 29 reporter on the story was a grand wizard. Or maybe her triple K sign was secret code to her boss that she sure could use a big slice of shoofly pie after the meeting.

The Bryant/Goode investigation had everything a water-cooler story needs, mon—including the piece de resistance, a cache of photos of the don’t-worry-be-happy City Councilman alongside his Margaritaville aide in beautiful lush Jamaica.

But alas, in the grand Philadelphia tradition of whupping a story senseless, it was inevitable that the tale of Wilson Goode Jr. and his Foxy Brown look-alike would soon turn tedious.

Which it did, last week, thanks to the Daily News, who just couldn’t see it in their hearts to let a story rife with online traffic potential and dumbed down reader comments die the quiet undignified death it deserved.

The saga hit bottom when Daily News columnist Ronnie Polaneczky climbed atop a soapbox and claimed that hate speech had been sanctioned by the city.

Her reasoning—since Mayor Nutter, City Council and the Human Relations Committee didn’t dignify the Goode/Bryant debacle with a public reprimand, all future hate speech would be dismissed in the same casual fashion.

Through gritted editorial teeth, Polaneczky told how aggrieved white man Stu Bykofsky, her Daily News colleague, had even filed a Human Relations complaint over Bryant’s behavior on behalf of himself.

Of course the Commission decided to dismiss Bykofsky’s claim since he wasn’t the target and hadn’t been at the City Council meeting when the sign was hoisted.

But still.

In her summation to DN readers, Polaneczky made reference to the “Please speak English” sign at Geno’s, which—oh no! stop! mercy!—only underscored why dim-wattage stories like this one need to be put out of their misery as quickly as possible: for the sake of our mental health and what’s left of the journalistic profession.

Yes, the whole grubby matter was shameful. Yes, a price should be paid. Yes, the voters should do their part to punish the guilty. Yes, we all want good government.

But Bryant’s holding up of a KKK sign in City Council in reaction to Fox 29’s reporting simply scores too high on the lame-brain–o-meter to be taken seriously.

Her wackadoo behavior was less ethnically intimidating than, say, almost any random Christine Flowers column that appears in the Daily News.

Bottom line—rest easy, Philadelphia.

Other than a few damaged brain cells, no further damage will result from this slice of Philadelphia business as unusual.