Father proclaims his son isn’t god

Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2011 22:59:59 -0400
From: Lot Voller
Subject: Memo to Mr. West: expanding one’s mind is good —

Last week a fellow who goes by the chatlist name “Tom West” made a humorous  post claiming that Mayor Randy Voller, who is my son, has proclaimed through his speech below to be “godlike” because he uses the word “apotheosis” in reference to the Chicago Cubs.

Well Mr. West, if you are worried, as his father I can allay your fears— and let’s be frank— all Chicago Cubs fans should be deified for their stubborn belief in a potential World Championship. Didn’t you get the memo?

Ok, all kidding aside, the metaphor refers to the concept of change and/or the *expansion of consciousness* as referred to in the works of Joseph Campbell* *and others.*

*Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth*

And really, what is wrong with the people in Chatham County and North Carolina expanding their minds? Is that an idea we should fear and mock? I would think we embrace the concept because it is *aspirational*.

I have attached the comments from last week below:*

*Voller’s  Public Comments to the Chatham County Board of Commissioners:

6/20/2011*

Greetings. I come before you as a private citizen, a fellow elected official

and the Chair of the Chatham County Democratic Party. I empathize with you

and I honor your service our community. In fact, I believe we chose to do

this because we all want to continue to enhance our community.

I do not believe we are at war politically. I believe that we can reconcile

our differences in the pursuit of common goals which serve and better our

community.

I believe we are in an evolutionary period for civil society that ultimately

will reconcile how we as a species will sustain ourselves and the biosphere

in the future.

The great question is how we will manage the endeavor and what our

overarching philosophy will be.

We must be all willing to consider that some of our ideas work in the

abstract, but not in practice. Our beliefs will become “means tested” and we

will experience a shift in perspective.

I personally had such an apotheosis in 2003, when I actually came to believe

that the Chicago Cubs would win a World Title in my life time. My

perspective has been adjusted. I now realize as a Cubs fan that it is not

just about the elixir of victory, but the shared journey of disappointment.

The Cubs will never be the Yankees—which is “ok”.

I ask that we consider such a similar shift when we evaluate the meaning
of

our local government and its reason for being. When we throw out fancy

consultant business terms like “streamlining”, “optics”, “core functions”

and “synergy” we need to remember our metric for the business of local

government. We are a non-profit. We should provide value to our citizens and

the business community. Our measurable is not based on the pursuit of net

profit, but rather on outcomes that are directly connected to our quality of

life.

In the “Death of Common Sense” author Philip Howard has an excerpt from a

1937 report on administration given to President Roosevelt:

“Government is a human institution…It is human throughout; it rests not only

on formal arrangements…but even more upon attitudes..It is certainly not a

machine…What we want is not a streamlined, chromium trimmed government that

looks well in the advertisement, but one that will actually deliver the

goods in practice.”

People matter.  The spirit matters. In Deus Machine. The ghost in the

machine.

Lothar A. Voller

Pittsboro, NC

Major, United States Airforce (USAF), Retired

Former President and current fellow Institute of Industrial Engineers

Board Member, the Advisory Council on Aging for the Triangle J COG

Lifelong Republican/currently a conservative Democrat