



July's been a busy month for dictionary makers

Darlene Heslop "sighed and rolled her eyes" according to a story in the Chicago Tribune. For that she got ejected from the June 14 meeting of the City Council in Elmhurst, IL.I'm serious.Now, according to the Tribune's Editorial, the Elmhurst City Attorney has been directed to research the legal definitions of disorderly conduct and disruptive behavior apparently as a precursor to drafting an ordinance "to curb non-verbal outbursts." There is already a state law defining disorderly conduct as "an act in such unreasonable manner as to alarm or disturb another, or to provoke a breach of the peace."Somehow, to me, neither sighing nor rolling your eyes, even if done more-or-less simultaneously at a meeting of elected officials, seems likely to provoke a breach of the peace. A snort? Maybe. A chuckle or two, even? Perhaps.First we have the new verb, as in "" to describe taking something so egregiously out of context that it takes on a meaning opposite from what was originally intended. Now we also have the new verb, as in "," meaning he caused members to walk out undermining the meeting quorum yet succeeded in wasting tax-payer money by sending an attorney on a wild goose chase - over somebody sighing and rolling their eyes.Is it any wonder voters seem hard-pressed to trust elected officials to bring value to their work? To delegate to an attorney the task of devising a way to control facial expressions sounds like some farcical Monty Python sketch. Sadly, it's not - it's the state of the city in Elmhurst, IL.