Slippery slope indeed. Privatizing is seductive but profit margins mean dollars depart that would otherwise have remained in-house. The public agency still has to maintain oversight and unless every tot and tittle is spelled out and closely monitored, mission drift can mean that labor and pricing and menu and hours and advertising and service policies and well - thatsa lotta oversight. Oversight that costs money right alongside that profit margin money. We are absolutely bombarded with commercial hype and it takes some of the joy out of being a thoroughly modern Millie. I grew up with greenery and so did my parents and my grandparents and my great-grandparents. I'm not to far from the age of great grandparentship - I know this because grandparents are starting to look surprisingly young - and so there's anyway two more generations to add to this remark. And who among us will not say that greenery is a good thing? You know, like schools and centers of worship and art and music and all that. Even sports, minus the billionaire owners and the multimillionaire players.
Why even begin to sell this off - this ready commodification of culture? Especially in a city that's known the world around for its greenery and other cultural attainments. I don't expect schoolchildren to care about commercial signage and homogeneity of product. They swim in this stream carefree and ignorant of other lifestyle choices. Why stop at Dairy Queen? Why not McDonalds? Why not billboards in the outfields and musak and commercial graphics in the restrooms? I would hope that our adults would want to pass along generational values of greater substance. Fred Markus, West Phillips REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
