SOMETIMES IT AIN'T FUNNY

LOST lives in a gated community, which is something of a contradiction in terms, I guess. After all, all this egalitarian talk and bam, living behind the gate, near a golf course, how much more yuppie-Publican can you get? In fact, one of LOST's best buds from College days - a GOP fiscal guy with a liberal heart - loves to close each e-mail with some reference to pretentious gated community, blah blah blah. Well, LOST didn't move here for the gate. The gate has always been kind of a farce, when all is said and done. But for some here in little Pleasantville, the gate has always been talismanic - nay, more than mere symbol, it was and still is and hallelujah evermore shall be the moat, drawbridge and dragon all welded into one hunk of chain driven sliding wrought iron. Pay no attention to those sidewalk width gaps on either side. We are inviolate. Out, damned interlopers! Away, would be squatters and posers! Oh, but you gardeners, housekeepers and babysitter nanny types, come on down!! We've got work for you.

Which brings me to the subject of this rant. Last week, the majority of our governing board, (yep, can't have a gate without a power hungry flaccid willed bunch of HOA board members and a toady property management company) actually voted to staff EXTRA SECURITY AT THE GATED ENTRANCES in this little corner of Stepfordise. What day did you say? Perhaps the anniversary of 9/11? Never know where those evil Al Qaeda's might hit, now doooya? Might be going after planned development common areas? Nope, not the day. Election day maybe? Nope, guess again. The wizened old majority of halfwits and nitwits actually discussed and voted upon protecting the neighborhood from vicious outsiders and their awful offspring who might otherwise come in her on Halloween night. None of the majority who voted for this raising of the neighborhood terror alert to Orange Black and Red had any evidence of a link between outsider visits to the 'hood on Halloween and increased mayhem or mischief of any kind. Also, understand something. This little 'hood has been frequented for years by outsiders coming to trick or treat in a "nice" neighborhood. It ain't about the Anglos, folks. The Nobel Laureates weren't talking about keeping Dr. Friendly and his brood of nine lily white issue outta here. They're talking about the li'l Brown ones. Yep. They sure don't want anybody standing in their way when it comes to getting their $20 a week gardener, or their $6 an hour backyard day laborers or their $50 a week cleaning lady, yesirree. But Doggone it if any of them aforementioned folks wants to bring their kid or their kids friend in here to score a nickels worth of candy x 100. Foul! Cry havoc and unlease the Dogs of Bigotry. Sickeningly sad, really. And one of the more vocal proponents of this clampdown smackdown is a fellow church-going member of my cradle Faith. I've been meaning to ask him where does Jesus say that you should love your neighbor as yourself - unless he doesn't look like you? As I recall, the Good Samaritan parable follows that little bombshell courtesy of the Carpenter, but like so much these days, the religious stuff is put on when it suits some folks, and tossed behind the old suitcase in the closet when it doesn't.

See, I told you. Some things just ain't funny.