When I started reporting in earnest some 5 years ago (Gad, it’s been that long already?), I used to get a kick out of going to meetings and watching residents get all fired up at the council/school board/plan commission/whatever government entity I was covering at the time. They were fighting back against injustice, real or perceived, I thought. Sticking it to THE MAN. I applauded their tenacity, and anyways, it generally made an otherwise dull-as-toast meeting more fun to sit through.

Now? I’d rather shoot myself in the head or knee them all, one by one, in the nuts before sitting through one, especially when there’s going to be a ton of people.

I submit to y’all the meeting I covered tonight: the long-awaited public forum of the muni that got hit the hardest during the Great Flood of ‘06. At least 300 people showed up for it, which no surprise there since 1,700 homes were affected by flooding in some way. Ok, so various officials got up and repeated everything I’ve reported in the last six weeks since the flood, and then a guy from FEMA got up and started talking about flood insurance and the need for it whether you’re in a flood plain or not.

That’s when everyone, as Kaffy would put it in her gentle Southern way, started showing their asses.

You know, I understand that people suffered major damage from this flood; one woman who spoke said the damage to her house will come to $79,700, for example. And I can imagine that dealing with FEMA has been a bureaucratic nightmare. But people. People! Do you really think that heckling the town officials/calling them names/applauding every person who yells their situation because the more forcefully you say it, the better the point is helping? Because it’s not. All you’re doing is making the meeting go 10 times longer and making yourselves look like idiots, not to mention that I can’t hear what I need to report when you’re sitting behind me catcalling to everything anyone who has the floor is saying. And it’s pissing me OFF.

It’s called decorum and civility. Use it, for the love of God.