Orwell In Action -OR- Small Town Charm

I've mentioned before that I live in a thrice strange place, that does thrice strange things for thrice strange reasons. It certainly wasn't like this when I settled here. Times were very different then. It was Brigadoon, existing out of time and place, in proximity to the vast resources and amenities of Chicago's metro region, but content being apart from the dysfunction of big city life. When it re-emerged in 1999, a new attitude took over. It was silly to have our location and not fully capitalize on it..., so the trade-offs began. Those who wanted to maintain the comfortable, laid-back attitude were caught flat-footed. The place was ripe for the plucking and the pluckers took over.

The intervening years have been an almost laughable -Bad-News Bears-esque-, exercise in ineptitude, deception and loss.
Hype and marketing! "If we build it, THEY will come! It'll be great!" For this braintrust, the ends always justify the means. They employ a hybrid of the Jedi mind trick to dispel any notion that they're not self-serving pricks to their very core. Under the commission form, they act as legislators and administrators giving themselves a broad range to run their business as they see fit. While we are blessed to have a local newspaper. Its ability to report is dependent on information sources that have been brought under the Mayor's Office of Information. Some might call it a gag-order. Our mayor calls it a safeguard against having his authority questioned inaccuracy. Especially when he is being quoted; verbatim.

Watch the video in the link and see what passes for "public discussion" on new policies about village employees who surf the web and interact with internet social media.
No Reason; Just Policy.

Three beats two. Suck on that!