On Sunday morning, the Amarillo Globe-Republican Ghostly VoiceTM put its hands on its hips, took a good look around the room and decided that we all needed a good scolding. Dern kids! screeched the Ghost. Looks like you've been forwarding e-mails during work time again!
We hung our heads in shame, painfully aware that no one on the Globe-Republican staff would ever forward or write a personal e-mail while on the clock.
The Ghost was, of course, referring to the e-mail that shot around the city last week claiming that Greg Mitchell of Toot-n-Totum made snobbish comments about the riff-raff of Amarillo.
At this writing, there is no proof that the comments were made, and an employee of a local law firm has been fired for sending the e-mail. The e-mail may be a hoax, a misunderstanding, or a misrepresentation, but two caveats:
- PTS e-mailed KGNC to verify the e-mails and received two e-mails in response, both posted here last week. Both e-mails deny that Mitchell said exactly those words in exactly the context suggested by the e-mail. Both also stop short of categorically denying that Mitchell had said anything at all of the kind.
- KGNC is also claiming that no tape of the morning interview exists. We've been interviewed before and those interviews were recorded. And we've interviewed before and recorded those interviews. We find KGNC's claim suspicious, but . . .
. . . will give everyone involved the benefit of the doubt. Since no proof exists, we'll just assume that Mitchell said something totally innocent that was innocently misunderstood by the original sender of the e-mail, whomever it might have been. We'll assume that neither had the time to drop by Roasters for his/her morning coffee that morning.
So, just one question remains, the question blogarillo alluded to in this space: Why did the quote hit such a nerve with Amarilloans?
E-mail hoxes are a form of urban mythology. And urban mythology, like all mythology, seeks to allay fears and explain things that people don't understand.
This particular e-mailed mythology referenced both Toot-n-Totum and oil. The two intersect at the street corners of Amarillo, where we buy our gas. Citizens who are not corporate CEO's worry about the escalating cost of gas and fear not being able to pay bills. They do not understand corporate America and fear its power over their lives. There is no healthy outlet for such fear: how can one confront a corporation? How does one demand answers from a convenience store chain, especially when one feels powerless to construct meaningful questions?
Rumors, myths, and e-mails such as this one are symptomatic of this nameless fear. It is the fear of the black thing in the forest. It is the fear of death, of god, and of the devil. It is the fear of all things we don't understand.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, America harbors a superstious fear of corporate America that will only grow as corporations become simultaneously more ubiquitous and more unaccountable. This fear is a far, far bigger problem for Greg Mitchell than damage-controlling an arrogant, offhand comment he may or may not have made.
SPACEDARK
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