What is the Plural of Doofus?

Monday Night at the Circus. This tears it.

What is the plural of doofus? Doofi? Doofae? Doofuses?

And who qualifies for that label? The buffoons parading their ignorance in the guise of democratic (and Democratic) government? Or the otherwise intelligent people who subject themselves to this farcical display?

Though we have ongoing differences with the Deputy Mayor, we have to say that he is earning every dime of his top-of-the-heap salary. Yes, a few uniformed officers take home more money, but Carl Malysz deserves the whole $85,000 budgeted for his position. But to know that, you kind of have to have been there on any of the several past meetings of the New Albany City Council.

Casting shade over the council, particularly over D5 Diane McCartin-Benedetti, is our stated goal. And while some have dismissed us as exaggerators of the dismal state of representative government in New Albany, we have, in fact, been holding back substantially.

Frankly, it is foolish to continue to pretend that this council majority is not at war with all that is decent, holy, and right for New Albany. What little proof we have that some of these council members were elected with the help of, shall we say, the infirm, if not the deceased, is irrelevant. The task at election time is to save the city and it has become quite clear that the elections of last November did not do the trick.

So, we stop pretending. To treat with even minimum respect a council majority that despises everything we stand for is hypocrisy. Duty to posterity trumps any desire to be polite. So, from now on we call a fig a fig, and not a fruit-bearing and picturesque deciduous tree.

And boy, are these guys and gals dumb.

Not all of them, of course. Not all of the guys. But since all of them bear responsibility for council's errors and omissions, it's up to the not-dumb ones to eliminate or neutralize the influence of the dummies.

I will leave a little wiggle room. If they don't appreciate being called dumb, they can always adopt the other alternative --- evil...though one correspondent offers that possibility that they are both.

Whatever the label, there's no excuse for this degree of simpleness. And as time goes on, there will be no excuse for anyone to accept it as normative. Even in New Albany.