Now, I know that–consciously or unconsciously–we all engage in spin; what each of us sees as reality is shaped to a considerable extent not just by our individual beliefs and/or prejudices, but by how much we really know about the subject at hand. But more and more, people are spinning whole cloth?what we used to call lying.
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And So It Begins…
Two items from the ongoing culture wars give evidence of the challenges facing the gay community in the wake of the 2004 election. I could have chosen many others, but these will serve to illustrate my point.
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The New Jews
Well, it worked. Karl Rove’s goal was to get four million Evangelical voters who had skipped the 2000 election to come to the polls in 2004. His strategy was to use gay men and lesbians as the "bait," through ballot initiatives to ban same-sex marriage. And it worked. My youngest son, a lawyer, worked at the polls in Ohio, where he reported large numbers of voters who came in to "vote against the queers."
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Unigov & You
In 1977, when I first walked into the City-County Building after being appointed Corporation Counsel, I was handed a formidable green, spiral-bound book by John Krauss, who was then Executive Director of the Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee. Its title was "Unigov and You," and it laid out in great detail the operations of "unified" city government that had gone into effect in 1971.
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Investing in Cities
The problem is, when we must pay businesses to come or stay downtown, we are engaged in treating a symptom, rather than addressing the root problem. What is it that employers want but cannot get in our city? What can local government do to ensure that downtown?and the city overall?is a place businesses want to be? What civic improvements might make financial incentives unnecessary?
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