Glenn
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:17:45 -0700
a.. Anyone who's attended one (or more -- which helps to show the pattern) of
the "citizen-driven planning" forums run by Penn Praxis knows they are
pre-framed debates in which the conclusions are foregone and certainly known in
advance by the folks running the show.
This seems to be the only type of meeting that citizens are allowed to endorse
in this new order that seems to govern us! I haven't seen anything else lately
except when people gather with their fists in the air.
I do feel there is some value for us to tell the stories, share ideas and
discussion on our populist. I agree with you that a next step is missing.
When the cops gave me misinformation about a carjacking, they said they should
have immediately referred me to their media unit. Our listserv and other
internet forums are considered and function as media. It's a small media, but
it's the place where we might expect to sometimes get honest stories and
accounts. I think that is part of what infuriated the barking cheese gang when
they couldn't shut up honest information here from someone like you. ( I
suspect you were one of the unidentified "ranters" that was targeted to be
pre-banned on the Penn list..)
One tangible thing that I believe concerned citizens can start doing is to
commit to always rejecting any plans that use the dog and pony shows; these
"citizen driven planning forums" When people play games, placing hoped for
outcomes over the process that gets there; the people always lose. I see this
as the reason that "divide and conquer" works so well.
Rather than being helpless, I see rejecting these dog and pony shows outright,
by all of us, as the important first step. When these entities demand that dog
and pony shows substitute for honest transparent information, they can not and
must not be trusted!
(I continue to focus on the credibility of Campus Inn and SHCA. They are
protecting lies given during official testimony to a government commission.
All of their additional studies, drawings, etc are completely irrelevant until
they publiclly apologize and start the process over from the beginning. Period)
If we could somehow band together around the principal that an honest process
must be more important than some hoped for outcome, the power to divide and
conquer is taken away. Here in the UC District we have hoped for some free
charity to trickle down and thus accepted these dog and pony shows for several
years.
If we don't come to some societal agreement to focus on the propaganda, lies,
and secrecy; I think everyone needs to realize that each of us will live in the
shadow of a campus inn eventually. When the deceivers toss out their trash, it
will drop on all of us!
This Department of Recreation problem should also have us all angry about the
Clark Park redesign money not ebullient that UCD is a "winner." I think we
need to tell the mayor to take back that big fat check to UCD and stop being a
party to dog and pony shows too.
Sincerely,
Glenn
----- Original Message -----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: UnivCity@list.purple.com
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 7:47 AM
Subject: Re: [UC] Pennspiracy & L & I response time to torture requests
In a message dated 7/2/2008 7:43:26 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL
PROTECTED] writes:
I don't believe that Nutter and Rendell have drunk the Kool Aid, I just
mean that they--Penn--are all over the place and should be subject to
the same scrutiny by the media as say Geno's steaks.
The mayor does seem in thrall to Penn.
This isn't all bad, notwithstanding past and ongoing ethical lapses which we
can't really tell are institutional or individual.
But, as I recall from reading "The Best and the Brightest" long enough ago so
that the recall may not be so good, President Kennedy didn't do all that well
by going for people with high IQs as their main credentials but who
simultaneously weren't well grounded in the realities of everyday life. Think
of Robert MacNamara and the Vietnam war. MacNamara was no Cheney, but --
whatever either of their motives -- the result was a disaster.
Also, I fear that Nutter is not being as free from the distortion of personal
feelings as he could or should be (or, perhaps, thinks he is). All this hooey
about Penn Praxis -- an objective look at the Delaware Riverfront (the mayor's
speech as reproduced in yesterday's University City Review) and it's having run
"an open, transparent, legitimate citizen-driven planning process" ...
a.. As was pointed out by a representative of one of the casinos in the
Inquirer a few days ago, Penn Praxis has already come out against the casinos
that Harris Steinberg characterizes ad "the windowless boxes" -- so penn Praxis
is hardly "objective."
b.. Anyone who's attended one (or more -- which helps to show the pattern)
of the "citizen-driven planning" forums run by Penn Praxis knows they are
pre-framed debates in which the conclusions are foregone and certainly known in
advance by the folks running the show.
Of course, we can talk to each other about this ad infinitum and achieve the
usual nothing. How do we get, as Joe would have it, the media to subject these
sorts of things to some scrutiny? Can we look to the Inquirer (or DN),
considering that former editor and still big voice, Chris Satullo, has been
part and party to many of the Penn Praxis "citizen-driven planning" forums?
a.. Fox News
b.. The University City Review, The Weekly Press
c.. The Public Record
d.. The University City Trumpet
e.. The (new and struggling) Philadelphia Bulletin
f.. The Philadelphia Tribune
g.. The DP
h.. A demonstration
i.. A press conference
j.. Nailing (or masking-taping) those theses onto the doors of City Hall
Remember, you read it first here, on the popu-list,
Al Krigman
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