What follows is something that I've wanted to share with you all for quite some time, since it illustrates one of the little discussed problems of being interested in or deeply involved with public policy in South Florida in the Year 2008.
You show up at some un-attractive govt. bldg. or office complex for a meeting or forum of local or state government or agency types seeking public feedback on some aspect of public policy,
intending to make some reasonable and fact-based arguments that you think are both logical and persuasive for most open-minded people, few though they are.
You've written some notes that buttress your main points and know what you'll say even before you show up, and if you're like me, you usually show up early to get the lay of the land and see who else might be there, especially if there are any reporters you know.
(Are they the handful of smart and well-informed ones, who really know what they're talking about, or are they the ones who are there because they drew the short end of the stick that morning at the station or in the assignment editor's doghouse?)
In those early moments, you might meet like-minded people from places you've heard about but never had a real reason or incentive to ever visit since returning to South Florida from D.C., like Tamarac, Lauderdale Lakes, Southwest Ranches...
Nice enough places I'm sure, just not part of the regular social circuit I ride.
Sometimes it's very pleasant and collegial, like being at an important sporting event or political campaign event, when you meet people who are strangers but whom you soon come to realize
see eye-to-eye with something you highly value.
But then, there are those other times.
Those afternoons when you're sitting in a seat surrounded by nothing but empty chamber auditorium seats as you nurse the cold Coke you got from a govt. break room upstairs or from a
hot dog vendor outside, before you came in from the heat or rain and flashed some ID and got your official name tag or pass.
And you spy out of the corner of your eye someone who seems like they could authoritatively play the role of a loner in just about any story you can possibly think of.
And when it comes time in the program for public comments, you are the person who directly follows that certain someone who marches to beat of their own drum.
The following dialogue is verbatim from the Minutes of a South Florida meeting I might've attended at some point over the past two years, and your job is to imagine how you'd follow this person, while the people up on the dais that you're trying to persuade are either still giggling or still in a state of shock from what they've just heard.
In order to protect the innocent, I've changed the names of the actual speaker to "Mr. X" and the person conducting the meeting to "Madame X."
(Due to the Olympics being in Beijing and all, I've been thinking a lot lately about longtime South Beach Hoosier film favorite Gong Li while I was imagining how I'd describe this situation,
see http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000084/ and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsRjK2V2jQI&feature=related , but you are, of course,
free to think of any other dark and mysterious beautiful woman of your own choosing for the role of Madame X.)
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(identifying himself at beginning of remarks)
Mr. X: Mr. X, Division of Intergalactic –
Madame X: Thank you.
MR. X: -- Affairs, formerly –
Madame X: Thank you for understanding.
MR. X: -- Environmental Ficus Management.
This is a great feel good issue, and I will get to the real issue, which is the hotel at the Convention Center at the Space Station. And I did my homework, 2001, and we need to go back to the future and all.
The history of the space program, Sputniks, Americans on the moon, the Space Station couldn’t have been constructed without the Russian proton rocket that put the hub up.
It was too big and too heavy for the shuttle. We had trouble with the outer rings and tiles, and the Russian Soyas brought people back and forth, the Progress brings the groceries and takes out the trash.
The shuttle’s reaching the end in two years, and the Orion’s still on the drawing board in four years, which means eight years or ten years.
Russia’s the next thing -- I mean, China’s the next thing.
They’ll be launching and all that. Barak says Peoria and not Mars. McCain says Mars and not Peoria. 5-4 vote. Bush is in Slovenia at the convention in the summertime, helping them with their launch program.
This is kind of protectionism, of course.
The Space Center is where it is because of the proximity of the equator, and also we have the trouble with the Everglades down here, and Disney bought the rest of the state and all that.
And so the Space Center’s going to stay where it is. It makes sense.
And it will only be overtaken by innovative thinking, and we will take the lead once again, but we’ve got to wait until we get a next launch vehicle. And they’re still working on it.
It’s like a hotel at a Convention Center, right?
If we were in Pennsylvania, you’d be voting to keep the steel industry there. If we were in Atlanta, you’d be voting to keep the cotton industry there.
If you were in Connecticut, where I’m from, you’d be keeping the textile industry. Made in China.
So this is a feel good measure, and I know you all want to feel good at the end of the day, because it’s been a long day. But I just wanted to point out some of the reality of it and all. This will have a natural evolution of its own, and it needs to have a life of its own which is greater than political considerations and all. So I wouldn’t vote against it any more than mom or apple pie.
But -- and you’ll do what you need to do politically.
Thank you for letting me speak. Wait all day. Thank you.
Yes, it's 100% verbatim.
That's what it's like sometimes going to meetings in South Florida in the Year 2008.
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