Funny Coincidence

And, as we all know, there really are no coincidences.  Last Saturday, I was looking for inspiration for a new topic for posting here.  Those of you on Facebook know that I post "status" reports on a regular basis and one of them was a request for blog ideas. I received a lot of good suggestions and will work them in as time passes.  So far, the post on communication or the lack thereof, sprung from the responses.

One of them came from a neighbor.  He suggested that I read Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn.  This synopsis comes from Wikipedia:

Ella Minnow Pea is set on the fictitious island of Nollop, an isle off the coast of South Carolina, and home to Nevin Nollop, the supposed creator of the well-known pangram "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." This sentence is preserved on a memorial to its creator on the island, and is taken very seriously by the government of the island. Throughout the book, tiles containing the letters fall from the inscription beneath the statue, and as each one does, the island's government bans the contained letter's use from written or spoken communication. A penalty system is enforced for using the forbidden characters, with public censure for a first offense, lashing or stocks (violator's choice) upon a second offense and banishment from the island nation upon the third. By the end of the novel, most of the island's inhabitants have either been banished, or have left of their own accord.

The plot is conveyed through mail or notes sent between various characters, though with the banned letters missing, creating passages that become more and more phonetically or creatively spelled, and requiring more effort of the reader to interpret.

The island's high council becomes more and more nonsensical as time progresses and the alphabet diminishes, promoting Nollop to divine status. Uncompromising in their enforcement of Nollop's 'divine will' they offer only one hope to the frustrated islanders: to disprove Nollop's omniscience by finding a pangram of 32 letters (in contrast to Nollop's 35). With this goal in mind "Enterprise 32" is started, a project involving many of the novel's main characters. With but five characters left (LMNOP) the elusive phrase is eventually discovered by Ella in one of her father's earlier letters: "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs." The council accepts this and restores the right to all 26 letters to the populace.

 I am really getting into it now and find it a fun, fictional account how certain "orthodoxies" can take over a community and become as accepted as an Emperor without clothes.  It also deals with the dangers of totalitarian government control through the restriction of communication and language.

What is the coincidence?  Well, it just so happens that one of the more ponderous items on tonight's City Commission agenda is the 2010 Goals and Objectives of the City Commission.  The bulk of the document was prepared by Connie Hoffman, the management consultant and recruiter during the last city manager search.  If you look through the document, a consistent pattern emerges where many of the document's "y's" and "x's" are missing - usually no space left blank, just missing.  There might be others too.  If you look at the part of the quote above highlighted in red, you can see what I mean by "coincidence."

Who last checked the inscriptions on our city statues?