Daniel Tosh, a very amusing comedian I’ve followed for some time, has a nice little show on Comedy Central, and guess what, they found the Ray Lyman videos on YouTube. For those of you that don’t know, Ray Lyman is part of the cast of characters that goes to City Council, or Consil in Ray’s case, and cause a bit of a ruckus.
One of his videos on YouTube has over 1.3 million hits (he didn’t put the video up). They are admittedly hilarious.
Mr. Lyman obviously has a disability of some kind, so I feel like this is exploitative. While the battles that Council members, particularly Judy Gatelli, have gotten in with Lyman are amusing, I tend to think they shouldn’t happen, that patience should be given to some extent. Gatelli’s decision to appear on this show, while, again, funny, feeds the spectacle. And sure, people love the spectacle. Maybe this is unrealistic in the City of Scranton, but I’d like to see civility and respect be the name of the game for Council. I een understand Gatelli’s desire to make light of this and to get her fifteen minutes.
However, this whole situation, from Comedy Central to the decision to feed it, further stifles any meaningful attempts or even desire to establish an atmosphere of respect at City Council.
I always thought it would be sophisticated to use the word “quixotic” on NEPArtisan, and low and behold, Judy Gatelli has provided us an opportunity.
While none of the current Scranton City Council candidates shine brightly as beacons of hope in Scranton’s seemingly endless dark (fine, it isn’t that bad, I felt like being dramatic), Judy Gatelli’s addition to the race won’t really even be a blip on the radar.
Had she been on the ballot, then this would be a different story, but she’s running a… here it comes… quixotic write-in campaign for Council.
The effort required to win a write-in will be insurmountable. Maybe this is a statement. Maybe she really thinks she’ll win. NEPArtisan doesn’t know.
On an amusing, if consistent, side note. Janet Evans wasn’t available for comment, according to the Times article. Is she available for anything other than grandstanding at Council?
The 4AM ticketing spree by the Scranton Police Department may have sucked, but Judy Gatelli’s explanation, that officers are trying to hurt Doherty’s re-election, is insulting to the profession and rooted in paranoia. Sure, a lot of officers aren’t fans of Doherty, but to ticket to hurt his election is a little much.
Cops don’t have to issue warnings, though it would be nice if they did. In fact, I think the officer who issued all of those tickets should’ve warned people, especially since that type of parking has been in practice for years and has not elicted any tickets previously.
But Gatelli’s assertion degrades the issue and changes its focus. Instead of “the officer could’ve been courteous” the debate changes to “the officer hates Doherty” which, I’m sure most people realize, makes little to no sense. Negative sense, actually.
I like Gatelli better than the other choices for Council, honestly. But it’s things like this that got her voted out.
