An excellent rundown, John.
I have often wondered why the PPress and related Boyz support the projects they do, and as rabidly as they do. Chuck's example of the Chestnut overpass is a real classic -- they assumed that there was no opportunity cost at all to all that land being lost or all that money being spent. How could they do this?
For many years, I thought of this as an ideological problem -- they just see things differently than I do. After all, I'm not in bidness and all that, so I don't know just where they are coming from.
Well, recently, I've started to realize a few things. I'm knee-deep into a small business now, and I know what it's all about -- it's about knowing your customer, and meeting that with the lowest overhead you can get away with. And the way these guys want to swirl money down the flusheroo, they just aren't on the same page.
So when you talk about what's really needed to build on the success we have, such as infill development and partnerships that reach deep into the community, you realize there are two problems: The Old Boys won't be able to have tight control, and they'll have to think. Hard.
And there are no signs that these guys are interested in anything other than control, or that they are really all that capable of thought. As I think back to my days (daze?) in a big corporation on the East Side, I realized that the successful ladder-climbers were always all about control. And these big corporation people climbed their ladders by manipulating, bullying, and abusing.
Not by thinking. Oh, no. That's never all that important. New ideas are dangerous, and if unleashed make control harder.
So the Pioneer Press keeps stomping their feet about something really rather trivial (an intersection? Come effing on!) and we're all left to wonder what the Hell happened to make this the big deal it became. And the answer is simple:
They have to make it clear that they are in control, regardless of how tired and old their "ideas" are.
And like most bullies, they just aren't all that smart.
Erik Hare [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.comcast.net/~wabbitoid/ Irvine Park, West End, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, North America, Earth
Fine Amish furniture, cedar chests, and crafts http://www.harmonycedar.com
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