I decided to post today's LTE by W.H. Nash of Greensboro:
"With apologies to the Broadway musical “Damn Yankees,” the catchphrase in Greensboro these days appears to be “Whatever Robbie wants, Robbie gets.”
No sooner had the mayor been elected than we were informed that this city simply could not go on without a multimillion-dollar performing arts center. The Broach Theater had gone under and Triad Stage was digging itself out of a half-million-dollar hole, but we needed a snazzy new performing arts center right now!
Also, the mayor was recently critical of the number of boarded-up windows downtown and wanted something done about it. After all, someone might conclude that more than three decades of little more than buzzwords about “downtown redevelopment” has turned out to be just that, and that the downtown downturn is still here.
All of this comes down to the desire to create a facade (literally in one case) to portray Greensboro as what it is not. Just add a couple of glitzy distractions, and everything will be OK.
The naïveté of this whitewash effort sends a false message about what is really important to us “normal folks.” We just hope that the mayor and his colleagues become reacquainted with reality very soon."
By the way, I am willing to publish your letters concerning GPAC as long as you're willing to sign your name to them. Even if the N&R won't. Send them to recyclebill@gmail.com and include a telephone number so that I may verify you are who you say you are. I also accept anonymous tips without phone numbers but may not always publish them. My publishing of anon tips is kind of a gut thing so please don't ask me to explain it but with a 99% success rate I'm happy with the results I've gotten thus far. Also, often that anon tip I don't publish leads me to something I can and do publish later.
"With apologies to the Broadway musical “Damn Yankees,” the catchphrase in Greensboro these days appears to be “Whatever Robbie wants, Robbie gets.”
No sooner had the mayor been elected than we were informed that this city simply could not go on without a multimillion-dollar performing arts center. The Broach Theater had gone under and Triad Stage was digging itself out of a half-million-dollar hole, but we needed a snazzy new performing arts center right now!
Also, the mayor was recently critical of the number of boarded-up windows downtown and wanted something done about it. After all, someone might conclude that more than three decades of little more than buzzwords about “downtown redevelopment” has turned out to be just that, and that the downtown downturn is still here.
All of this comes down to the desire to create a facade (literally in one case) to portray Greensboro as what it is not. Just add a couple of glitzy distractions, and everything will be OK.
The naïveté of this whitewash effort sends a false message about what is really important to us “normal folks.” We just hope that the mayor and his colleagues become reacquainted with reality very soon."
By the way, I am willing to publish your letters concerning GPAC as long as you're willing to sign your name to them. Even if the N&R won't. Send them to recyclebill@gmail.com and include a telephone number so that I may verify you are who you say you are. I also accept anonymous tips without phone numbers but may not always publish them. My publishing of anon tips is kind of a gut thing so please don't ask me to explain it but with a 99% success rate I'm happy with the results I've gotten thus far. Also, often that anon tip I don't publish leads me to something I can and do publish later.
