Just Call Me Alice!

“Off with her head!” the Queen screamed. The blade hung in the air with a breath of hesitation and then the backward movement and the fast parting of air and then body. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.”

Just like that another NAMI-NYS Executive Director has bitten the dust.

And Alice stands there open-mouthed and aghast, having tumbled unwittingly down that bunny hole—finding herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep and deadly well. Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to the end? “Was it partially me?” she wonders. “Was it me who poked this sleeping mass—or was the blade already poised and waiting?”

Swish,swish, swish! Three ED’s in a row and NAMI-NYS stands at the threshold of disaster, or, perhaps, at the threshold of restoration.

“I don’t think they play at all fairly,” Alice began, in rather a complaining tone, “and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can’t hear one’s self speak—and they don’t seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them—

The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarreling all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and shouting, “Off with his head!” or “Off with her head!” Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, “and then,” she thought. “what would become of me? They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here: the great wonder is, that there's any one left alive!"

Alice was a smart and spunky (if not stupidly hopeful) little girl. And although, it would be so nice if something made sense for a change, she felt that good sense could bring good change. And although, the Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small: (“Off with her head!”) Alice thought, “Why they’re only a pack of cards, after all, I needn’t be afraid of them.”

And the time is now for total disembowelment; and then restoration to something a little further from madness….

Forgive me Lewis Carroll for my blatant plagiarism, but people are people; and almost 100 years later your words are apropos!