The following is an excerpt from a piece in this morning's Inquirer. I'm genuinely sickened by the thought that the city is going to run four of what we, in UC, have come to know and hate as the "Foregone Conclusion Forums" run by Harris Sokoloff -- now not just a prof in Penn's Graduate School of Education but the "director of the Project for Civic Engagement." We've all seen how these shams operate -- a discussion carefully framed by the people who sponsor and run them, leading to vague conclusions supposedly given credence by calling them "principles" (or am I getting that term wrong?). Then the sponsors claim -- well, the name says it all -- "civic engagement." Al Krigman >From the Inquirer: ____________________________________ ____________________________________
Then, at 7 that night, the first of four community budget workshops will take place, in which residents will have an opportunity to consider actual city budget data for the 2010 fiscal year. Hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Project for Civic Engagement, the forums will be run as workshops, and residents will be able to comment on the budget decisions facing department leaders. "We have interactive small-group exercises for citizens to work together to figure out what they are and are not willing to live with, and what we learn from that will become the advice we give to the city," said Harris Sokoloff, director of the Project for Civic Engagement. "We'll see what happens." **************The year's hottest artists on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards. AOL Music takes you there. (http://music.aol.com/grammys?ncid=emlcntusmusi00000002)
