It is interesting to me that the federal administration is so calm about deficits when they come from tax cuts or military increases but so vexed about the possibility of spending adequate funds for housing. Frankly, I think there's no need to cut housing funds from Minneapolis if they can afford to spend wildly on some of these other plans, such as the gargantuan, Ceaucsecuan Homeland Security Department. __________________________________________________________________ Read the Spokesman-Recorder editorial. It is quite militant, but it fails to try to answer the question of "what if you build it and they DON'T come?" That is, what can really be DONE to increase inclusivity when minorities just aren't interested. Did the editorialist actually TALK to some minorities who wanted in and found barriers? What barriers were there? Does NRP fail due to holding meetings on weekday nights? Then NRP committees could reschedule to non-work nights. It is an information gap? How could that be remedied. Would interested minorities register their phone numbers so they could be called (with, of course, times when they'll be there if they don't own an answering machine?)
In short, less militant rhetoric, more practical talk, would be welcome. I've gone to the meetings here in Longfellow, and we're lucky if ONE minority shows up who can be DRAFTED to represent the whole community. The problem we seem to have is a Catch-22 that if the membership is overwhelmingly white, it therefore loses its interest to non-whites. -------------- Jim Mork--Cooper "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our Country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out." Gen. William T. Sherman (1864) Letter to the Mayor of Atlanta. Get your free Web-based E-mail at http://www.startribune.com/stribmail TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. Cut as much of the post you're responding to as possible. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
