paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- sharks, politics, poetry Every once in a while I have to step back and wonder about what keeps me here, in a place as weird as this. Or maybe it is the weirdness that transfixes me. This city steeps in a mysteriously huge amount of stupidity and short-sightedness so vast it both baffles and amazes the rest of the citizens. Lets begin with a geography lesson: we span two states and have 8 counties and 116 municipalities all with their own government structure and yet we function like a region. Not only that, but we dare to wonder why neither state supports us and our efforts to move forward. Even our decent, workable ideas get the good old central state guys up-in-arms. And our local politicians go to their respected state capitals and never manage to point out who pays a weighty chunk of the taxes in each state. That�s the boring stuff on which I�ll build my tale. One of the 8 counties consists of boring, affluent suburbs. They don�t play well with others and they do the equivalent of running with scissors on other people�s carpet. For example, they built too many schools during the first influx of masses of short-sighted people running to the promise of a place convenient to the city but with good schools and a small town pace. On the other side of the state line and in the other counties, residents sometimes poke fun of the attitude of those in the county (as it is called). For example, it is important to the government of the municipalities in that area that residents appear to be young. Most cities spend their efforts balancing budgets and worrying about crumbling roads. In this place, the city tore down an unused school building instead of allowing developers to rework it for a residential place for seniors. The reason quoted �we don�t want to think our city has a lot of old people.� Several times this has happened as young people move further and further away from the inner-suburb and abandon infrastructure like elementary schools. Instead of remodeling buildings to become condos for retirees that are centrally located, in an effort to deny the trend through image, they just tear down the buildings, loosing out on taxes. While I harp on this one county that wins the race in affluence but has no culture, the area that is paved with parking lots and roads causes flooding problems. Back in the 1970s Federal money was available to build a series of reservoir lakes that would solve the flooding problem, but developers opted instead for this horrible, sprawling, ugly, useless mess. We could have had lakes with boating and fishing, water supply, etc. We could have been envied, but instead we are mocked. All because of greedy developers and foolish, fearful people. I wonder why so much power lands in the hands of developers � at least in this huge city we have a few key players who team up with the thirteen families (there may be more but I like the sound of this � the big-money, been-here-forever families whose blessing and wishes preside over the city) and seem to make and remake the city for their own fantasies and profit. While the local governments struggle and seem to be filled with incompetent people placed there, perhaps by the powerful, for their ability to roll over. And now for my question � because no one reading this is probably from a place as strange as this place and may well not care about our local ineptitudes. And now for my question, why don�t we vote? I vote. People I know vote. But I think I travel in the voting minority. Yes, I know voting was made a mockery of in the last presidential election. But it is because Americans don�t get out and vote in large numbers for anything, especially locally. Our last mayoral election for the city where I live had 18% voter turnout. Our last school board election had 6% voter turnout. I have not had to wait in line for more than 5 minutes to vote since the Clinton/Perot/Bush presidential race back in the very early 1990s. When two skunks run, I get in there and sniff around, trying to see which skunk stinks least. It seems to me that it is even more important to vote when two skunks are running�. I connect this with another trend near, dear and problematic to my heart. My friend T. told me that he does not read poetry because he doesn�t know how to evaluate it. He is insecure about whether what he likes is also what the hip like. He worries that a poem might just be a joke on the part of the poet�s trying to dupe people into liking something that is not good. OK. He has obviously never written a poem. But, his perspective represents that of a thinking and honest person so I cannot write-off his concerns. (Although I became frustrated when he said �who reads small poetry journals � why go to all the trouble just to be read by a handful of people? It made me wonder that the follow-up question for me might have been then why go to the trouble of living at all if the only thing that mattered was public recognition?�) We live in a culture that revolves around what people like and what they have. And, what people like revolves around commodities of some sort. Even art, in this scenario, becomes a commodity. I don�t know the answer to any of these things but in my own thinking they are becoming closer and closer together. Not voting. Not reading poetry or literature. Do poetry reviews need to become quick, catchy and flashy and in the entertainment section? Would that be anti-poetry? I give Carl Dennis� latest book a two-thumbs-up, by the way. Just some mindless meandering during the work day, sparked by reading an article about the greatest mistake in the history of that county I was mentioning � not building the lakes. And I guess sparked by my lack of trust in the process that holds this country together and moves it forward. I have serious problems being an advocate of democracy when it is in such a shambles but at the same time if I don�t believe in it and help young people believe in its potential then it will become even more of a shambles. The sharks will rule and all the little fishes will become extinct in the belly of the whale. 11:55 a.m. - 2003-06-04 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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