Your rant and my rave combine with every other heathen bark promulgated
here or elsewhere in Moscow to create our community. You live out of town
and I live in town. Your nieghbors don't have dogs, mine do. Eventually we
all bounce off each other enough times in a community this size that our
beliefs are forced to ruffle together.
One of the Aristotle quotes Daniel Kemmis used in The Good City and the
Good Life reflected on the difference between your appreciation of the
country accouterments and the accouterments needed to make our community a
sustenance Mecca for all of us - "The city comes into existence,
originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the
sake of a good life."
Your life needs have already been afforded by electricity, food, water,
septic, phone (GTE?) etc. The bare needs of our community, you and I
included, are much more ethereal. They are not just wider streets, but the
civility that wider streets encourage. They are not trees, but shade in
summer and the drop dead beauty of rust-brown-red leaves in fall. The good
city is a spiritual being, not a concrete one.
And sometimes spirituality depends on the whiners, just as much as it does
the do-gooders and the glad-handers. Vision2020 is an invaluable tool that
can be used to bring us closer, but we fall apart, I believe, if we don't
also knock heads at city council meetings or boggie at Rendezvous. The
Daily News, such that it is, contributes to our commonality just as the
Lewiston Tribune and National Public Radio do. The kids at Friendship
Square who toss their Pizza Perfection remnants along Main Street mean as
much to me as the city staffers who come by and pick up after them.
We are a community, you and I. Many people hate Greg Brown, I don't always
agree with him, but he has always made me stop and think. Dale Pernula, Gib
Myers and Joel Hamilton are often matter-of-fact here (sometimes I wish the
political climate in which they work allowed them to be more openly
passionate), but their postings of relevant city material and meetings and
overall willingness to inform us is just as important as our willingness to
trash what they've posted.
You can blast me one day, and the next you can provide the key to a
fascinaing story. We are remiss to casually discard others, you are right,
but sometimes it's just plain fun to volley and spike interesting ideas.
Unfortunately this destination in space allows for some anonymous slander,
but that's ok by me. In the end - if we don't take ourselves too seriously
- severe honesty leads to greater understanding. The key is to not slam the
door on the person you've just been bloody honest with, forthrightness and
compassion mesh hearts.
greg
>Folks,
>
>Unfornately, the tone of some of the responses that come across my screen here
>remind me of what I've called the "Cynical Sarcasm Chic" so common in
>modern American culture (see many popular magazines, as well as
>editorials in our own Daily News like those tearing down Jim Waddell
>and the school district's recent sportsmanship policy). Whatever
>happened to honest disagreement, civil argument and respect for one
>another? I've become more aware of the tone of my comments and have
>resolved to try not to contribute to this trend in my own
>correspondence, and I'd encourage others to do likewise.
>
>I live outside of Moscow, and I greatly enjoy getting
>out of town, avoiding the constant noise of my neighbors' cars and
>barking dogs (Jim Fisher, I've been there and I totally empathize,
>but that's another topic), being snowed in, and sharing my land with wild
>turkeys, owls, and deer -- all of which is part of a long American tradition.
>I am not miserable, isolated or inconvenienced. Rather I am enriched by my
>closeness to the rigors of life in nature (all but forgotten in the
>greater artificiality of life in urban cocoons), my increased appreciation of
>my neighbors, and my enhanced valuing of my friends elsewhere in the county.
>
>The bottom line: there are a variety of lifestyle preferences in this
>community
>and benefits and costs accrue to all of them...
>
>Also -- Carbondale may or may not be as bad as Greg Brown describes, but the
>point still remains valid (there are lots of towns out there that fit
>Greg's description).
>
>Chuck