I think Gary makes some good points about the worthiness of supporting local eco-friendly enterprises whenever possible. But I have to admit that this mowing thread is getting on my nerves for two reasons. One, I tend to agree with the list manager that this really isn't Minneapolis-specific. Sorry, but almost any issue can be trained back to Minneapolis because it relates somehow to life as we live it or wished we could.
Second, this is getting way too preachy for my tastes. I think we need to be careful about exalting our own eco-friendly choices lest we look as intolerant and condescending as those who would see those same choices as off-beat or crazy. The point should be educating people about the costs and benefits of the different types of mowing options, as well as a host of other choices people make in their daily lives (where to shop, what kinds of food to buy, what types of entertainment to enjoy, etc.) For example, every dollar spent going to a Twins game may mean dollars not going to a host of other worthy local enterprises. To my mind, Minneapolis should be a place where people's individual choices are respected and encouraged, even if, at times, they would vary from what I or others might want. (Hello, diversity!) Let's educate folks about the options and empower them to make the decisions that work best for themselves and their community. Steve From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 09:05:28 EDT To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Mpls] Mowing & Minneapolis --part1_41.1d804c48.2a1cf198_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yikes! Not to offend our good list manager, but I *do* see this as a critical Mpls issue. I agree with Mr. Hohmann (see below) as well. We nedd to re-design our yards to be ecologically sound as well as beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. Reducing lawn size and designing lawns to be mowable without electric or gas-powered machines is one way to exercise good urban citizenship to the end of creating a healthier watershed without costing the governmenttaxpayers a dime. I do human-powered and earth-friendly yardening as a part of my business. I know at least one other man in town wjo does the same - going as far as using human power to get from job site to job site as well. A couple of weeks ago I was working on a yard in the Fulton neighborhood when an elderly neighbor of my clients came over, shook my hand, and thanked me for using a rake instead of a blower. Across the street, a huge truck had pulled up towing a trailer, and disgorged loud, smelly mowers and blowers to do lawn care. How strange to observe a grown man chasing some leaves down a driveway on a windy day, with a loud stinky blower in hand, with grim determination to make the grounds of this house leaf-free! If the good citizens of Minneapolis would employ local, neighborhood people to do human-powered, earth-friendly yard-care, we would make a huge step forward in handing on a place worth inheriting! Now, there are subsidies for studies for stadiums and the like -- half a million dollars here, half a million dollars there...I submit that our Mayor and City Council should create a program to incubate neighborhood micro-eco-enterprises related to household-helper work, energy, waste and water-management retrofitting, and transportation. (I know, the state legislature did the $500,000 deal to do stadium study stuff for the billionaire Vikings enterprise, but that's truly a state issue -- I'll talk to my *state* legislator about that...) How about it Mr. Mayor, City Council Folks??? How about creating a business incubator for micro-eco-enterprises...perhaps also related to luring some of the huge and growing renewable energy industry businesses and jobs to our town? (oooops.....new thread?) Gary Hoover King Field _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
