Quick! A disaster happened, and you are in public office. What do you do? Why, you prepare a statement, form a committee, and develop a regimen to make it look you are trying to prevent the same exact thing from happening on your watch. And let’s have none of this, “Be sharp and fend for yourself,” stuff demonstrative of a leaking power sink.
To answer reporters’ searches for a local angle to fill space following the Newtown massacre, Buncombe County Schools formed a committee that recommended courses of action that did not include teaching moral character or self-defense. Buncombe County Commissioner Mike Fryar had splendid insight. Speaking of elementary schools, said he:
What are we doing to our kids? They can’t have fun anymore because there’s too many people there watching. You’ve got people trying to understand whether they’re mentally ill or not. I’m sorry, I can’t go there.
