Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Even my Ninety Three Year Old Mother

(who at various times had everyone from James Michael Curley to John F. Kennedy as her Congressman) thinks the Annual South Boston Saint Patrick's Day Breakfast ought to be quietly discontinued.
Her reasoning is simply "Politicians aren't witty anymore".
And you know what she is right, that Breakfast is a vast endangered species refuge for tone deaf  politicos and their leaden gubernatorial sense of humor.
But they got that way because we are living in an era of 24-7 political surveillance, these boyos are watched all the time, so my dictum is "as surveillance increases, spontaneity declines" hence the dearth of wit last Sunday.
Back in the 1950's democrat Adlai Stevenson was a noted wit even without his gag writers & even a stiff like Richard Nixon could get off a good line now and again....but these days all our elected officials live in mortal terror of a thoughtless bon mot with "ramifications"....
So I say turn it into a charitable dinner for the homeless or something...keep the parade (that much is worthwhile) but ditch the breakfast it's become a torpid embarrassment.

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