I am **hoping** that a longtime local friend - who holds many strong opinions, few of which are mine - can be talked into sharing this soapbox. And that the result will be neither a conflagration nor a Bambi meets Godzilla remake.
Thinking of our differences, I have to say that one of the most rewarding things for me about living up here has been the exposure to those differences. When your environment is a monoculture, you develop stereotypes about people who who live and think differently, and since you don't have much contact with these other people, there's a little problem with accuracy... Coming to Grass Valley and working and living alongside people from different backgrounds and viewpoints has taught me a lot.
What I hope will emerge here is the engaged blog Sean Bonner envisioned - to quote from him, in my previous post on this:
I would love to start a website with several bloggers from the left, and several from the right who were committed to discussing the issues at hand, rationally, with intelligent back and forth, and facts to back up their claims...
And **engagement** - you make a point, I'm obligated to respond, and vice versa. Otherwise, human nature is such that the airing of views devolves into a cherry-picking exercise - like a game of tennis where one person hits the ball, the other dodges, reverse roles, repeat...
Any other/better ideas as to how to structure this so that it'll help bring light to truth and strength to community? (sorry, link didn't work - it's part of the mission statement of local newspaper's ownership)
Any reactions to the words of others that I've misappropriated in previous posts?
Speak.
(but not all at once, we have limited bandwidth here.)
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