Thursday, April 10, 2014

"idiosyncratic behaviors"

When the trial judge wrote;

"Mr. MacQuigg has "exhibited idiosyncratic behaviors"
I went immediately to my online dictionary.  I found;
id·i·o·syn·cra·sy
noun \ˌi-dē-ə-ˈsiŋ-krə-sē\
an unusual way in which a particular person behaves or thinks
I can own that; sometimes I think and behave unusually.

Unusual thinking, including but not limited to;
  • I think that the leadership of the APS needs to step up as role models of accountability to the same standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students, and
  • I think that the leadership of the APS should restore the role modeling clause to their own standards of conduct.  In no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult, be lower than the standards of conduct for students.
  • I think there are only two reasons why a school board member or senior administrator would not hold them self honestly accountable to student standards of conduct; their own lack of character and or their own lack of courage.
  • I think there needs to be an independent evaluation of APS' executive, administrative, adult and student standards of conduct, and of actual honest accountability to those standards, and
  • I think the leadership of the APS needs to produce the findings of investigations of allegations of felony criminal misconduct by senior APS administrators and the leadership of APS' Police force, and
  • I think there needs to be open and honest two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and the community members they serve, and
  • I think, at the public forum and elsewhere, the leadership of the APS should respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly to questions about the public interests and about their public service.
For as long as, and for as many times as I have raised these points at the public forum, not one of them has seen or heard a good faith response.

I am not alone in standing at the podium of at a school board public forum, and noting that the people I'm speaking to aren't listening.

They're working on their lap tops, having side conversations, or playing with their phones.

In an effort to get the leadership of the APS to respond in good faith to legitimate questions, I found myself compelled to behave more "unusually".

Unusual behavior, included but not limited to;
  •  I advocate "obsessively" in favor of honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence for politicians and public servants within their public service, and
  • Sometimes I would print what I think, on a poster.   I would stand quietly and peacefully against a wall somewhere during APS school board meetings.
  • In 2008 I wore an elephant mask to a couple of meetings.  I stood quietly in the back of the room.  To describe what I did as attempt to menace, threaten and intimidate them into adopting accountability to ethical standards of conduct, is what is meant by grasping at straws, wiktionary.
  • The elephant in the room of course is the disconnection between their representation that they are role modeling accountability to higher standards of conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts!, link, and the reality; that it is nearly impossible to hold them accountable even to the law and
  • Once, when the Praetorian Guard bounced me from the lobby of a "public input" meeting, I moved outside with my poster.
L to r, me, a grinning Brad Winter, a grinning Steve Tellez, a grinning private police officer, and the free exercise of my civil rights

Whatever one might think of what I think, or how I behave; what I think and how I behave are protected activities.  I have a Constitutionally protected human rights to free speech and to petition my government.

Praetorian Guard rolls on "disruption"
Considering what else has been identified by the Supreme Court as "protected" activities, our standing quietly in the back of a room holding up posters doesn't seem all that unreasonable.

Wearing an elephant mask and standing quietly in the back of a boardroom doesn't seem so unreasonable.

I have challenged their character and their courage and they don't like it.

They have at their immediate disposal, a publicly funded private police force.  It reports directly to, and only to, the leadership of the APS.  It is in every sense, a Praetorian Guard.

They use it to stifle dissent.

They use it to hide the truth about public corruption in the leadership of the APS and their Police force.

Kent Walz and the Journal aid and abet.




photos Mark Bralley

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