Gotta Love Politics!

I like to believe that being a student doesn’t end when the last book is closed on the last day of college. Learning is a lifetime activity, and boy do I have a journey left to go!

It seems that every time I say that I’ve seen it all, something always manages to surprise me. Just when I think I’ve seen the absolute worst in human nature, BAM! Some moron comes out of the backwater with just two teeth in his head and shows me that, yes, there are worse creatures in the woods.

And, we are in the perfect time of year to be surprised by the stupid nature of our fellow Americans. It’s legislative season. Yes! It’s that time of year when budgets are being hacked until they bleed, and the government workforce is in danger yet again of another slash-and-dash as those nearing retirement begin to ask themselves, “This year, or should I roll the dice one more time?” Gas is teetering on $4+ a gallon, and family vacations are yet again being rolled into the now politically correct term of “stay-cation” because no one can afford to leave their driveways.

Having begun the regular session $400 billion in the hole this year, and the education and general fund budgets bloodied before the gavel hit the podium on the first day, everyone was waiting with breath that was baited to see what would be the first acts to be considered…teacher and government employee job security? Insurance? Taxes?

As it turned out, it was economic development…sort of. In their wisdom, our esteemed elected officials in the highest order in our great state changed the name of the economic development office…to bring in more economic development interest.

Huh?

But, my favorite piece of pressing legislation that has so far managed to pass the House of Representatives has to be…wait for it…the bill about baggy pants.

Really.

The House of Representatives approved a bill last week that would allow Montgomery County to fine individuals wearing sagging pants that expose undergarments. The bill applies to pants that are worn in public and hang three inches below the waist.

If enacted, juveniles charged under the law would face fines of up to $100; adults would face fines of $150. In lieu of the fine, juveniles could be sentenced to 20 hours of community service; adults could face 40 hours of community service.

The legislation passed 59-0, and the representative who sponsored the bill wasn’t even in chambers for the vote. It was actually called ”a powerful piece of legislation.”

There are so many things wrong with this on so many different levels that I just can’t stop laughing long enough to explain it! Please…talk among yourselves! But, just remember to hold on to your pants!

Bully

I read the most frightening article today. The title of the piece would make anyone take pause, because odds are that it’s happened to you or at least someone you are close to.

It’s happened to me.

The article, “Your bullying boss may be slowly killing you,” brings to light a workplace situation that has become more and more the norm than we would like to think.

A supervisor is supposed to take care of his/her employees. At the very least, a supervisor is supposed to make sure that high-school antics such as bullying has no place in the office. But, what happens when the bully is your boss?

You change jobs. At least, that’s what I did.

According to one source in the article between 13-14 percent of Americans work under an abusive supervisor. What I can’t grasp is why this number is so high. We spend half of our lives at work. This is the one place we expect to be free of bullying tactics. This is the one place we SHOULD expect to be safe.

In a perfect world karma would strike at the heart of every bully from schoolhood to adulthood. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, and it’s high time I took off my rosy-colored glasses and view this as it really is.

Bullying is a simple concept: The bully needs to exert his/her dominance in the office. I know from experience that workplace bullies are no more than office trolls with minuscule amounts of power. Put one in a supervisory role, and you have the perfect recipe to create a power-hungry office monster.

Bullies don’t always come in the package of a supervisory roll. They are not limited to the normal workplace hierarchy. Bullies exist in the worker-bee role as well. I feel that the bully sitting in the cubicle next to yours is nothing more than a wanna-be supervisor. This person feels the company or organization he/she works for owes something to this person. You owe something to this person.

Not achieving a certain status in the office totem poll will pretty much bring the bullying attitude out in the least likely of people. Power corrupts.

According to the article, American employees are likely to tolerate the abusive situation for 22 months. I tolerated it for six years, and it put my health in jeopardy. It’s simply unnatural to drive to work every morning with a stomachache, and drive home every evening crying. The stress of dealing with the situation is enormous.

Some people don’t deal with the stress at all. Some resort to the ultimate form of poor stress management because they simply do not feel they can endure it for another moment and take their own lives.

While I don’t believe that any situation can be so bad that the only way out is by one’s own hand in death, I can certainly sympathize and actually understand.

The worst part of this situation is that bullying is rampant in our society…so much so that it has invaded our workplaces and still thrives in our schools. Why won’t someone do something!

According to the article, 21 states have introduced some version of anti-bullying legislation, but no bills have yet passed. There are also 12 states to have legislation pending this year. Alabama is not among these states that are taking a stand on behalf of bullied employees.

Alabama almost always lags behind in innovation, education, and just about every other topic you can name. Don’t get me wrong. I’m Alabama born and bred, and I love living here more than I can imagine living anywhere else. But, considering that three of Alabama’s bordering states have at least initiated the conversation against workplace bullying, this is yet another area in which Alabama is letting down her residents.

I don’t believe in “big government,” but I do believe in a government that fights to protect the rights of those individuals it represents. Each election year, we are subjected to almost constant barrages of campaign rhetoric…never once has any politician ever campaigned on the promise to safeguard workers in the workplace.

It takes situations that television programs and movies have banked on before anything is done. Just a few months ago, a local postal employee went to work with a pistol. He was disarmed and the situation contained without bloodshed. But, is it going to take bloodshed before our lawmakers realize just how grave this situation truly is?

I’m one of the fortunate ones. I tried to make a better life for myself, tried to ensure that my hours at work are pleasant ones and not filled with yelling supervisors or employees who think its appropriate to throw things during business hours. Yes, I’ve had light office equipment whipped in my direction. It was soon determined that it was my fault for asking a question about an address. I determined otherwise, and I’m much better for it.

The Day the Internet Went Dark

Something remarkable happened today. If you are a creature of the Internet like most folks, then you noticed it as well.

In protest of two pieces of legislation currently working their way through both houses of the U.S. Congress, many Internet powerhouses went dark. And for good reason.

These bills have brought the First Amendment back into public conversation. Personally, I think that’s a great thing. It’s what’s coming next that’s frightening. I’ve said before that I firmly believe that your rights end where my rights begin. However, the First Amendment right of free speech applies to everyone.

The version of the bill in the U.S. House of Representatives is the Stop Online Piracy Act, and its counterpart, the Protect IP Act, is nestled in the U.S. Senate. Two bills with different names that would essentially produce the same result.

SOPA would empower federal law enforcement agencies to shut down sites that illegally post and sometimes sell intellectual property from the United States. PIPA would empower courts to impel Internet service providers to block access to certain foreign sites, which is tantamount to censorship.

It’s difficult to believe that our society is still dealing with the topic of censorship, especially that it could very well turn out to be a federally mandated form of censorship disguised as the protection of copyright.

Needless to say, these are not popular bills outside the Beltway.

Every good story has to have a little irony, and this one is chock full of it. The author of SOPA, the bill that would introduce stiffer penalties for copyright violations, could and should be caught in a web of his own making. The idiot actually has a copyright-protected photo on his website…a photo in which he did not seek or obtain permission from the artist to use. Shame on him.

In a show of ultimate support for the destruction of these bills, many online supergiants went dark. Wikipedia switched off for 24 hours, leaving surfers only pages concerning SOPA and PIPA available to read. Google’s famous logo was striped with a black bar depicting censorship.

If the cats in Congress didn’t the get message today, they are obviously not paying attention. This was an event that literally touched everyone at some point today.

We vote our leaders into office on the hopes that they will protect our interests and rights as given to us through the U.S. Constitution and fought for by generations of military might. So, what do we do when our leaders, whose jobs we gave to them, act contrary to our interests? We have to act.

Sending a message to Congress and The White House shouldn’t need to go to such extremes, but it simply doesn’t seem as though anyone is listening any more. When we stop listening to each other, basic communication breaks down leaving us with a type of government no one trusts or even wants. Actually, it sounds as though we may already be there.

Maybe this is The Change that was promised to us in the last election. Maybe this is the society that we created when we made marks on our ballots and submitted them for a count. Maybe this is just the way government has evolved.

The moral of the story is this:  If you don’t like something, then take steps to change it. And, there’s that word again…”change.” I’m not adverse to change, especially when the public is forced, yet again, to watch our elected leaders fumble the ball. Things have to change in order to move forward to something better. The only problem with that is, well, change.

What type of change do we want? Personally, I love the fact that I can speak – or in this case, write – my mind without fear of being persecuted or prosecuted. I also love the fact that I have the freedom to share my musings and ideas displayed in my blog, a freedom that also protects my work through our copyright laws.

So, what’s next? I have a feeling that more sites will go dark before this “change” is complete. I would like to think that today’s protests will have caught the attention of those officials in Washington, D.C., but that little voice in my head is screaming at me that messages don’t get through the red tape that easily.

Sometimes, It All Goes Right…

…and it’s about time! I can’t think of a better way to cap off a crazy year than the way I did in December. On Dec. 10, I finally hit the jackpot by achieving the penultimate in my profession.

No, I didn’t write My Great American Novel, but that’s on my list.

I passed the exam that earned me the title of Accredited in Public Relations and gave the professional distinction of APR. For the first time in a very long time, I did it right, and it felt damn good.

Being Accredited in Public Relations is more than three little letters. For those in public relations, or any profession that has a way to elevate the practitioners through continued education, you know what it means to achieve such a distinction. It’s not through experience alone, but hard work, determination, research, a deep understanding of what makes your profession tick…and steadfast willpower not to give up when faced with the prospect of pass or fail.

To reach a professional destination that I’ve journeyed to for so long doesn’t leave me wondering, “What’s next?” Instead, I find myself thinking, “Bring it on!”

Now, let’s move on to My Great American Novel…

Recycled

Back in 1982 John Carpenter directed a horror movie entitled, The Thing.

In the early 1980s, special effects in movies were certainly not what they are today, so movies had to rely on strong story lines to pull the audience into the action.

Skip ahead 29 years later and The Thing is back.  No Kurt Russell or Wilfred Brimley, and definitely no John Carpenter.  Eye-catching special effects.  But no, I don’t plan on catching the recycled version.  Why bother?  I’ve already seen the original, though this updated version is being called a “prequel.”  Whatever.

In 1995 Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo and Kevin Spacey starred in a movie entitled, Outbreak.

Talk about a fictional foretelling of the U.S. swine flu outbreak from a few years ago, Outbreak was about as good a warning as any.  In the movie, government scientists backtrack a deadly viral outbreak to its singular source.

This September, Contagion hit the theaters.  Several friends asked if I planned to see this movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon and Jude Law.  I had to laugh!  I told them that I saw it the first time it came out when it was entitled, Outbreak.

Hollywood has lost its originality, but you’d never notice it when you purchase a ticket.  Inflated prices for recycled junk doesn’t make the recycled junk any better than it was the first time.

If you’re a student of the cinema as I am, think for a moment of all the recycled junk the Hollywood bigwigs are selling:  The Avengers, Man of Steel (a reboot of Superman), The Amazing Spiderman, Twilight Zone, blah, blah, blah.  These are upcoming titles, not sequels.

In public relations, there is a long-standing saying we use that someone in Hollywood should key in on:  “If you do the same thing over and over again, you’re bound to get the same results.”

This is true in any situation.  That’s why I love public relations so much!  Unfortunately for those who only think PR is a game of press releases and spin, they don’t understand that it’s based in research and common-sense knowledge for what should be done, for what reasons, and how the action would affect the public.

As multifaceted as the profession of public relations is, apparently those in Hollywood only want to partake in the publicity portion of the genre.  Sticking to the theory of, “well-it-worked-once-before,” and hoping that lightning will strike twice doesn’t always work.  I don’t think the economy can be blamed for all of this summer’s flops.

I guess that’s why I choose not to live my life in a vacuum where the answer to every question is always, “Yes, sir.”  I left a job because of that.  Best move I ever made.  Cost a lot of money, but my morals and ethics are still strong, and my bank account will recover even if I have to revert to my collegiate diet of Ramen and Cup O’Noodles.

The moral of this story, kiddies, is to never compromise, never do something a second time the same way you did it the first time “just because it worked before,” and never, never say, “Yes, sir,” unless you mean it.

I will admit that, while I hate movie reboots and sequels, there is one genre all to itself in which one movie was rebooted, and I didn’t care.  I love the genre too much to bash it.  And, I’ll give a gold star to any James Bond freak that can name the original movie and its reboot…and a platinum star if you can name the actor who played Bond in both movies.  No fair if you use Google!

Uncomfortably Numb

There’s nothing worse than finding out that the person who left you is not only doing well, but also living well with a spouse and three children.  Except maybe what happens after you discover that he’s happily married with three children and you end up more than just sick to your stomach.

When he left, I felt my life begin to spiral.  He said such horrible things to me.  He said I simply wasn’t worth the effort of a relationship, nor would I make a good mother.  He ended the relationship by saying those famous words:  “I don’t think I even want to get married again.”  Yes, I would have been his second, and he my first.  But, the truth is out now, and it’s a very old tale every single woman has undoubtedly heard before.  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be married; he just didn’t want to marry me.

I don’t know why seeing the photo affected me the way it did.  It’s not as though I’ve been waiting for him to come back into my life and apologize for all the horrible things he said and did when we were together.  So, why then did I feel so sick seeing him with his bride on a beach with their three adorable children?

I’m not a jealous person, I’m really not.  I’ve always said he deserved to be happy.  But, somewhere in this cloudy mix of passion, love and pain, don’t I?  Why does his happiness come at the expense of others?  How is that supposed to work?

After staring at the photo for a good half hour, and then getting physically ill, which I’m even less proud of, I finally went to bed hoping for a few hours of sweet sleep and much needed rest.  I’ve been sick for a week, lost a few pounds, and not really getting much better.  But, I just sat in bed…wondering…and that picture burned in my brain.

I’ve shed so many tears for him over the years that I couldn’t shed any more.  Instead, I just sat in the dark listening to my little pup softly snore beside me and allowed my mind to wonder.  The relationships I’ve had have all ended the same way…with him walking way, easier than I would have liked, and then a friend sending me a link or a note letting me know that, “Oh, by the way, have you heard that blah-blah-blah got married?”

I’m too old for games of romance, but I’m not too old for some answers.  I think I finally got those last night.  Maybe God’s trying to teach me some lessons?  Maybe I was never meant to have the husband and family I always dreamed I would have by now?  Maybe my ex was correct, and I’m not worth the effort?  I’ve been beaten to a bloody romantic pulp by every man I’ve been attracted to since high school, so why would any guy bother with what’s left?

I doubt my ex even knows about my blog, cares about the words I craft, or even wants to know that this one is about him.  But, should that same friend who showed me his happiness happen to show him The Writer Gal, enjoy…and congrats.  You finally have what you really wanted in your life.  Don’t screw it up this time.

So, Where’s Carrie Bradshaw When You Need Her?

I am a fan of the HBO series Sex and the City.  As unrealistic as it was, it made for great television, a great escape from the everyday mundane life of my own.  Being a writer, I naturally identified with the character, Carrie.

Carrie’s life seemed so wonderful at times, while heartbreaking at others.  Yet one thing remained constant – she was a writer for a weekly newspaper in New York.  And, not a reporter whose articles appeared every day, which meant she was out working a beat and cranking out articles one after the other.  No, Carrie was a columnist writing about life in the Big Apple.

There’s such a romance wrapped up in Carrie’s lifestyle, the lifestyle of a writer.  Staying out late doing “research” with friends, eating in the best of restaurants, wearing the most stylish of clothes, and teaching everyone that Manolo is a good thing.

I want that!

Unfortunately, real life doesn’t always imitate art.  If it did, I’d be living the life of any number of James Patterson’s characters living on my bookshelves in my office.  Or, I’d be living as one of the many great Southern characters in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird that’s sitting on my nightstand.  I think you get the picture that a lot of characters live inside my house through the books I read.

My love for writing has led me to a new venture.  I’m freelancing and trying my hand with a few magazines.  Researching ideas, pitching articles to just the right magazine, contacting editors, interviewing subjects, photographing locations, photographing locations again, checking in with editors, only to sit on an article until that coveted contract comes in for an article is not just thrilling, it’s exhausting!

The thing is, writers don’t always write to get rich, although getting paid is a nice thing.  But, writing is something a writer simply HAS to do.  Whether it’s something for a blog or something for a small paycheck, it has it’s own rewards.  However, I haven’t been able to find a story that will allow me the payday large enough to afford my own pair of $485 Manolos.

I love the romance of being a writer.  When someone asks me what I do, the word just rolls off my tongue now so easily.  There was a time when I never really confessed my passion for being a wordsmith, but now I wear it like a badge of honor.  Some say that books and newspapers are slowly dying.  That may be true.  But, the art of writing will outlive us all.

Write on, friends!

Nothing But the Truth

When I was in college at The University of Alabama, I was always looking for the story that would catapult me from lowly collegiate to cub reporter.  That was the description of every journalism student in the College of Communications.

My first internship was with The Autauga Times, a weekly newspaper in which I was kept very busy.  It may have looked like an internship on paper, but with a staff of four, it was up to the other reporter and me to find the news, report it, and make sure we had our facts correct every Tuesday afternoon when the paper went to bed.

I had so many beats that most days I didn’t have time to eat lunch!  I covered courts, city council, county commission, police/sheriff departments and the board of education.  At that time, all I wanted was the hard news…no fluff for me!

To this day, when I get ready for work in the mornings I have some kind of white noise on in the background.  One morning that summer, the white noise turned out to be All the President’s Men.  If you want to fire up a young reporter, this is the movie to do it with.

I walked into the office that morning with a fire in my gut that didn’t go out for weeks.  I was early to every public meeting, stayed late, asked questions, got opinions from residents in attendance…everything a reporter was supposed to do.  I felt invincible!

All my articles were written and turned in early, and that’s when my editor caught on.  He joked that I must have seen All the President’s Men at some point during my internship, and he also added that it should be required watching and discussion for all journalism students.

I agree.

And, I haven’t seen a movie since that has moved me quite so much since then until last night.  Even though I’m no longer chasing after elected officials or police officers to get quotes for articles, this movie made me stop and think about the way I conduct myself as a public relations practitioner…it mostly made me wonder what I would do it put in a similar situation.

Nothing But the Truth is a 2008 movie inspired by true events starring Alan Alda, Kate Beckinsale, Vera Farmiga and Matt Dillon.  Farmiga is a CIA operative who writes a paper opposing war in Nicaragua when her colleagues differ in their reports and ultimately siding with the president.

Beckinsale’s character is an upstart young reporter itching for that one break in the news cycle to hang her career on, and she gets it with a tip that Farmiga is a CIA officer.  Beckinsale confronts Farmiga at the school where both of their children attend only to be met with a stern denial.  The story breaks wide open, and Beckinsale is quickly scooped up by federal officers and ordered to reveal her source.

Alda portrays Beckinsale’s attorney, and he has the best line in the movie.  He admits early on that he’s defending Beckinsale’s character, not her principle.  When the case finally comes before the U.S. Supreme Court, nearly a year after she is jailed for not revealing her source, Alda says, “With great people, there’s no difference between the principle and the person.”

SPOILER ALERT!  The CIA officer is murdered on her doorstep.  The reporter is beaten within an inch of her life while in jail only to later on find out from her attorney that her husband is having an affair.  And, the U.S. Supreme Court finds that national security stands over a reporter’s right to protect a source.

The local judge orders her released anyway, and on the drive home, the federal prosecutor has her arrested again on different charges.  Instead of jail, this time the reporter goes to prison for two years.  Lives lost and forever changed because of a secret kept.  Was it worth it?

There are so many arguments to be made here about protecting a source.  Confidentiality between a source and a writer builds trust and leads to a stronger relationship.  A reporter’s word is, to me, the same as anyone’s word.  If I give you my word on something, I will stand by it.  The law, however, doesn’t see it the same way, and that’s the risk every reporter has to understand before they schedule the first interview for the first article they will ever write.

But, it’s that line that has stayed with me:  “With great people, there’s no difference between the principle and the person.”

So, who was the source?  Well, that’s the heartbreaking part.  The reporter was jailed for nearly a year, went to prison for two because of a conversation she had with a child on a field trip.  The child told her about how her Mommy and Daddy fought over a paper her Mommy wrote about a country.  “But, please don’t tell anyone I told you.”

The reporter kept her promise.

Tuscaloosa

I spent four years living in Tuscaloosa when I was attending The University of Alabama.  I won’t tell just how long ago that was, but the campus has changed quite a lot since I walked across the stage to receive my diploma…my Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism…since I managed to lose the keys to my brand new Honda Civic while dashing through a rainstorm from the Coliseum across the street to the College of Communication’s ceremony…since my mother had the Dean announce my loss.

This loss needed no announcement.

Many Alabama residents watched it live on the 5 p.m. news as the dark, spinning cloud dropped into view at the far end of 15th Street.  The live-feed camera had everyone riveted to their televisions watching in horror as the EF-3 tornado began to move toward McFarland Avenue, closer to the camera.

I was one of those people.  I sat barely batting an eye watching the debris field grow around the base of the spinning cloud.  I prayed there were no people in the buildings the twister was destroying, but given that it was dinnertime during “Dead Week,” the students had to be somewhere.

My mind took me back to my time at The Capstone.  I began to wonder, “Was the bakery still there?”  There was nothing better than the smell of freshly baked bread, and my friends and I would visit the bakery’s store at least once a week for bread and other goodies.  My roommate loved those horrible pink coconut cakes, and she always loaded up the basket with as many as she could carry.  My favorites were, of course, Twinkies!

The local news interrupted the national news in order to continue coverage of the Tuscaloosa tornado.  It was relentless.  Most tornadoes are on the ground for just a few moments before they are sucked back into the clouds and evaporate.  Not on April 27.   This monster continued to grow, engorged on the buildings lining 15th Street.

“What about the Del Taco?”  The cheapest taco in town could be found at Del Taco, but on a student’s modest income, or no income, it was the best taco north of the border.  It was nothing more than a tiny shack, and there was no way it could have withstood any of the wind speed bearing down the lane…even if it had survived all these years since my days at The Capstone.  The same with the old Chinese restaurant.

But, Krispy Kreme was an icon for generations of UA students.  Many a student pulled an all-nighter holed up inside the walls if this sweet sanctuary, including this one.  My favorite table was the booth against the window on the right as you walked in the door.  My favorite treat?  The chocolate-covered, cream-filled doughnut.  Back then, we didn’t really care about calories, carbs or sugar.  Those were the things that kept us awake long enough to study Media Law.  All that was left was a slab where the green and white building once stood.  No “HOT NOW” today.

Last Friday, I was in Tuscaloosa on business.  I vowed not to travel down memory lane.  The memories lived only with me now, and I didn’t want to be reminded of what was but is no more.  My first stop with my supervisor was in Northport, so we bypassed the city completely only to return to the campus by way of University Boulevard.  After our last meeting, we parted ways, and I was forced to literally drive down my worst fear.

Traffic stopped at the light at McFarland and 15th Street.  I was the first at the light.  I couldn’t help but look to the right and try to imagine what was so many years ago.  I also couldn’t help when the tears came.  So many lives were lost in Tuscaloosa that day, and there I sat in the middle of it.

I have a lot of friends who are first responders, such as emergency management personnel, and I don’t know how they do what they do.  I sat in my car two months after that deadly day and found myself extremely emotional over the loss of memories and places.  I mourned for people I never knew.  But, these wonderful people, with such strong wills and big hearts, are the ones who rescue the living from the wreckage and respectfully recover the bodies of those left behind.

The City of Tuscaloosa is rebounding, slowly.  Progress has certainly been made in the two months since that awful day.  But, the city is now scarred by a memory all of Alabama will remember forever, especially those of us who love the city and University of Alabama so dearly.

I would like to dedicate this to all my friends who are Alabama’s first responders, our emergency managers, our guardian angels.  In the case of Tuscaloosa, the Emergency Operations Center took a direct hit from the storm, yet EMA Director Billy Green and his staff took cover, stayed safe, and came out fighting.  They are the example of what Alabama must now do…come out fighting.

PR 101: A Refresher Course for Politicians

The Public Relations Society of America is the premiere organization for public relations practitioners.  Each member holds PRSA’s Code of Ethics as a guide to help carry out whatever challenges the job may bring.

This Code of Ethics has two parts:  the Member Statement of Professional Values and the Code Provisions.  These are simple, common-sense and practical outlines that public relations practitioners use as a measuring stick, of sorts, to gauge our pursuit of excellence in our profession.

I think every person who has accepted the duty of public office should have a copy of PRSA’s Code of Ethics.  It should be engraved in stone and placed in the official’s office.  It would appear that our elected officials are in dire need of a dose of ethics.

In the PRSA Member Statement of Professional Values, honesty is defined as “adhering to the highest standards of accuracy and truth in advancing the interests of those we represent and in communicating with the public.”

Moving on to the PRSA Code Provisions is Disclosure of Information, or to build trust with the public by revealing all information needed for responsible decision-making.  Outlined here are six definitive, unmistakable provisions:

1. Be honest and accurate in all communication.
2. Act promptly to correct erroneous communications for which the member is responsible.
3. Investigate the truthfulness and accuracy of information released on behalf of those represented.
4. Reveal the sponsors for causes and interests represented.
5. Disclose financial interest in a client’s organization.
6. Avoid deceptive practices.

How many of these provisions do you think have been broken by our elected officials in the past few months?

First, there was former actor/California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Next came Rep. Anthony Weiner.  The sad part about this mess is that we voted these people into office putting our trust into their words and work.  California has it’s own crisis to work through in the aftermath of “The Governator,” and “Weinergate” is in full swing.

And now, there are the jokes, which aren’t all coming from the mainstream comedians or late night talk show hosts.  In the case of Rep. Weiner, for more than a week before admitting his culpability in his own caper, the jokes and puns came from his own mouth during most every interview of which he was the center of attention.

It’s a bad situation when a politician’s own political party demands that one of their own steps down because the incumbent has brought shame on that house.  That’s the case with Rep. Weiner.

So, how did this train jump the tracks?  Well, obviously he shouldn’t have been sexting.  That’s a big DUH moment he probably would like to take back, or at least take back that he got caught at it.

In light of being caught, what else could Rep. Weiner have done to attempt to salvage his reputation before the bomb exploded?  Once something hits the Internet, it’s out there.  That’s a bell that can’t be unrung.  Make no excuses, own up to it, apologize for the incredibly horrible lack of judgment, and move on.  Make the story a nonevent, AND MOVE ON.

This story snowballed into something much bigger than Rep. Weiner could have ever contained with his failed wit and moronic puns.  Now that the media have their teeth in it, they smell blood, and they are digging for more.  They’ll find it, too.

Back here in Alabama, we have elected officials on trial as well.  It’s a case of cash for votes in the Alabama Legislature for the passage of a bingo bill during a recent legislative session.  At first, everyone screamed innocence to the heavens!  Then, a few brokered jailhouse deals to testify against bigger fish.  Eventually, yet not long before the trial was scheduled to begin, one of the big fish, who had been screaming innocence the longest and loudest, folded.  He’s not an elected official.  He’s one of those accused of buying the votes, so once again, Alabama politics is about to get red hot.

Voters put their trust in those they elect for office.  Sometimes, we are given a choice of someone who’s not great and someone who’s maybe just a little less great…a lesser of the greats, so to speak.  We may not agree 100 percent with the political views of our choice, but we may agree even less with the other guy.

What do we do once they are in office and these officials are caught, literally, with their pants down?  They don’t just embarrass their political party.  They embarrass all of us who took part in the electoral process.  Political pundits always seem surprised at low turnout during election seasons, be it on the local, state or national level.

Here’s a thought:  Take a look at what’s in office.  Yes, we voted for the likes of Rep. Weiner, but we had no idea he would spend more time soliciting sex on his Twitter account than he would voting on the House floor.