Life before Caller ID had certain pitfalls

In those innocent days before Linda Thompson had announced her intentions to seek the office of mayor, we remember amusing ourselves wandering amongst the various pathetic blogs populating our little corner of the Internet. One day we happened upon a posting on PennLive by citizen activist and Harrisburg resident, Tattoo Jim.

We were taken aback. Shocked really. We’ve been surfing the web since we found free porn and it takes a great deal to shock us. But Jim’s tale of a telephone call he received from Ms. Thompson is chilling. Past performance is the best predictor of future behavior.

We’ll let him tell it:

First let me say I struggled with posting this. Heck, I struggled processing the phone call for a couple of hours. It started here on PL, so I thought it would be appropriate to continue recording it here.

Council President Linda Thompson called me on my cell phone yesterday morning around 11:15. We had some pleasantries and then she began speaking about a post I submitted on PL. I think I was the Al Sharpten post.

The conversation quickly became one sided. Her shrill, angry delivery was actually scary. I can’t speak to exact content because I just woke up (I work second shift) but she was going OFF. Racism was thrown in, Penn Live contributors are “losers” was thrown in, at least one Bible reference to the “belly of the beast” was thrown in, it was actually shocking.

When she took a breath I said that the way she made Dan Miller leave his seat at the council bench and speak at the citizen’s podium was appalling.

Ms .Thompson started saying the word “appalling” and repeated it 3, 4 times escalating her volume and shrill factor until she hung up on me, without any ability for me to respond. Man she HUNG UP ON ME!

Do you really want a person representing you, with this kind of anger and hostility at her core? I don’t anymore. You shouldn’t either.

Man I was, and am, totally amazed that she would talk to a constituent this way. I supported her re-election, but now, no more. She needs to go. I’ll donate money, provide server space, and provide web design help to a ham sandwich that runs against her.

I’m a nobody. No political power, no influence, nothing. I’m just a regular guy. Nothing more, nothing less. I just type a lot and share my thoughts here. In the interest of full disclosure I do donate the cost of the domain names, hosting, and maintenance of the city council website to the public at no charge. I swear I was ready to yank that support but then the citizens of Hbg would suffer, so I could never do that.

Let me say, I am not racist, but I do question authority regardless of your resume. Anybody that knows me will back me up. If you don’t agree with her and you’re white, you’re a racist. I would argue to Ms Thompson, you should look in the mirror. You are the racist madam President. Chewing me out for my opinion and eventually branding me a racist is sad Linda, just sad. I forgive you. You need help, your anger isn’t healthy. You’re problems aren’t with me, or my opinion. They are in your heart. I’m no threat to you. You are a threat to you. Please don’t call me and yell at me ever again. I don’t respond well to that.

Oh, and before I close let me thank Darnell for forwarding my comments to Linda. No problem man I stand by my views, that’s why I use my name and not some pseudonym. I just find it curious that you sent my post to Linda. You’re starting to look like a lap dog, hope that isn’t the case man, I’ve always liked you.

~ Tattoo Jim

When we emailed Jim to ask him if he had a copy of the post (of course he did, nothing ever dies on the Internet, take note of that Linda) he added the following coda:

The funny continuation of the story goes like this . . . I was at the Pep Grill with my wife and who walks in but the Mayor. Like everybody knows who I am so at the end of the evening the Mayor walked over to me and said, “good night Jim.” I shook his hand and said, “You know Mr. Mayor, we may not agree on a single thing, but I have no problem separating politics from humanity. I like to thank you sir for dedicating your whole life to public service . . . that was very, very cool of you.”

His face lit up, got a huge smile and pulled me in and gave me a big hug. He said “Thanks Jim, you don’t know how much that means to me.”

Well, fast forward a week. I get a call from LT. Apparently she had an epiphany during church and she wanted to say she didn’t really think I was racist. When I hung up the phone I looked at my wife and said, “She’s running for mayor.”

Sure enough she announced the next week.

At the Zembo Tempo debate, Linda excoriated bloggers calling those of us who prefer cloaked identities "cowards."  We prefer to think of it as prudent.  We've seen LT's bodyguards interacting with citizens and have no interest in allowing our air time to be burnt up with calls from raving lunatics.