{"id":80312,"date":"2019-10-08T15:26:20","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T20:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=80312"},"modified":"2019-10-08T14:59:56","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T19:59:56","slug":"the-view-from-the-balcony-tete-a-tete-with-a-whistleblower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-view-from-the-balcony-tete-a-tete-with-a-whistleblower\/","title":{"rendered":"The View from the Balcony: T\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate with a Whistleblower"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Whistleblower: a person who exposes secretive information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct\u2026 The information of alleged wrongdoing can be classified as a violation of company policy\/rules, law, regulation, threat to public interest\/national security, fraud, or corruption. (Wikipedia)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, September\n25, The Balcony was empty except for me. I was enjoying a bit of reflection when\nthe door next to my corner opened and out came a guy with a Moscow Mule and sat\nat the middle table, up against the brick wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A master of the\nsideways glance, I saw that the guy\u2019s Levi\u2019s, blue Oxford-cloth shirt, and navy\nblue vest were all quite baggy. His Ole Miss baseball cap was pulled low on his\nforehead, with wisps of hair protruding all around, and he wore Blues Brothers\nsunglasses. He was an odd looking fellow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I raised my glass as a\nfriendly hello, and he did the same. I went back to reading Rumi as he flipped\nthrough The Local Voice<\/em>. A few minutes later he spoke up. \u201cExcuse me,\nsir,\u201d he said, sounding like a prepubescent boy. He cleared his throat and\ncontinued, this time sounding like a 50-year smoker with a sore throat. \u201cDid\nyou write this article?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYep,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMay I come over and\ntalk to you?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I motioned to the empty\nchair closest to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan I trust you with a\nsecret?\u201d He whispered even though we were the only two there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust don\u2019t tell me\nyou\u2019re a terrorist or a serial murderer,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know about all\nthat whistleblower stuff in the news?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKinda sorta.\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019m the\nwhistleblower,\u201d he paused, \u201cincognito.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took a draw on my\npipe and a sip from my drink. \u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t believe me?\u201d\nhe asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shrugged, \u201cMaybe I do; maybe I don\u2019t. Does it matter?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With that he pulled out\nhis wallet and handed me his Maryland driver\u2019s license. The picture on it was that\nof a woman. I did my best Clint Eastwood squint at him and he opened his shirt\njust enough for me to see some pretty convincing evidence that he was a she.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be damned,\u201d I snickered.\n\u201cThe Lord still works in mysterious ways!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He \u2013 uh \u2013 she told me\nthe story of T-rump\u2019s phone call with the President of Ukraine and how her\nsecurity clearance made her privy to such a high-level conversation. She said\nshe was one of a half-dozen others who have been trying to get solid proof of\nT-rump\u2019s loose cannon behavior. They believed that this phone call gave him enough\nrope to hang himself \u2013 figuratively speaking, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 She said they all wanted to be the one to play\nTHE trump card. Despite the ridicule from the right, they would be seen by many\nas a genuine patriot. She\u2019d snagged the gold ring by winning a game of beer\npong (credited to her six years as an Ole Miss sorority girl). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was to pull the\ntrigger on the operation, then get out of town until the dust settled and T-rump\nwas solidly vilified,\u201d she said. \u201cI could leave D.C. without suspicion because\nmy mother is seriously ill and I\u2019ve been going to see her a lot lately.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy Oxford,\u201d I asked,\n\u201cother than having gone to Ole Miss?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt feels like home here,\u201d\nshe said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd the crappy disguise?\u201d\nI asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCloak and dagger,\u201d she\nchuckled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I continued, \u201cAnd\nyou\u2019re telling me because\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI HAD to tell somebody,\u201d\nshe said. \u201cMy best college friend still lives here. She\u2019s on The Balcony a lot\nand said that people tell you all kinds of stuff and she\u2019s never known you to\nbetray a confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd if I were to write\nabout this?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoesn\u2019t matter. Just\ndon\u2019t reveal my identity. If you write about it you know you\u2019re gonna get\nsucked into the vortex, don\u2019t you?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m old and I don\u2019t\ncare anymore. Actually, it sounds kinda fun,\u201d I said. \u201cGonna be here long?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot sure,\u201d she\nreplied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, come on back and\nI\u2019ll introduce you to some of my friends,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho would you say I am?\u201d\nshe asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy nephew, Watt R.\nGates,\u201d I replied, \u201cbut we\u2019ll just call you Deep Throat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She laughed so hard her\nMoscow Mule shot out of her nose. \u201cYou\u2019re fond of irony, I see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGuess so,\u201d I said. \u201cNow,\nif you\u2019ll excuse me for a moment, I need to call Robert Redford and Dustin\nHoffman. They need to start work on their sequel to All the President\u2019s Men<\/em>.\nHow does All the President\u2019s Women<\/em> sound to you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeachy,\u201d she said. \u201cTotally\nimpeachy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026and that\u2019s the view from The Balcony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whistleblower: a person who exposes secretive information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct\u2026 The information<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":39753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11902],"tags":[12670,31,13250,10878,15416],"class_list":["post-80312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-randy-weeks","tag-balcony","tag-city-grocery","tag-the-view","tag-the-view-from-the-balcony","tag-whistleblower"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-5-11-View-from-the-Balcony.jpg?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}