In a message dated 7/2/2008 7:43:26 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
I don't believe that Nutter and Rendell have drunk the Kool Aid, I just
mean that they--Penn--are all over the place and should be subject to
the same scrutiny by the media as say Geno's steaks.
The mayor does seem in thrall to Penn.
This isn't all bad, notwithstanding past and ongoing ethical lapses which we
can't really tell are institutional or individual.
But, as I recall from reading "The Best and the Brightest" long enough ago
so that the recall may not be so good, President Kennedy didn't do all that
well by going for people with high IQs as their main credentials but who
simultaneously weren't well grounded in the realities of everyday life. Think
of
Robert MacNamara and the Vietnam war. MacNamara was no Cheney, but -- whatever
either of their motives -- the result was a disaster.
Also, I fear that Nutter is not being as free from the distortion of
personal feelings as he could or should be (or, perhaps, thinks he is). All
this
hooey about Penn Praxis -- an objective look at the Delaware Riverfront (the
mayor's speech as reproduced in yesterday's University City Review) and it's
having run "an open, transparent, legitimate citizen-driven planning process"
...
* As was pointed out by a representative of one of the casinos in the
Inquirer a few days ago, Penn Praxis has already come out against the casinos
that Harris Steinberg characterizes ad "the windowless boxes" -- so penn
Praxis is hardly "objective."
* Anyone who's attended one (or more -- which helps to show the
pattern) of the "citizen-driven planning" forums run by Penn Praxis knows they
are
pre-framed debates in which the conclusions are foregone and certainly known
in advance by the folks running the show.
Of course, we can talk to each other about this ad infinitum and achieve the
usual nothing. How do we get, as Joe would have it, the media to subject
these sorts of things to some scrutiny? Can we look to the Inquirer (or DN),
considering that former editor and still big voice, Chris Satullo, has been
part
and party to many of the Penn Praxis "citizen-driven planning" forums?
* Fox News
* The University City Review, The Weekly Press
* The Public Record
* The University City Trumpet
* The (new and struggling) Philadelphia Bulletin
* The Philadelphia Tribune
* The DP
* A demonstration
* A press conference
* Nailing (or masking-taping) those theses onto the doors of City Hall
Remember, you read it first here, on the popu-list
,
Al Krigman
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