The "Ethnic" Spoils System
Rod Dreher, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, despairs of staying in the city when he sees the city council "tie itself up in knots" over the public's expressed preference to rename Industrial Blvd after Cesar Chavez. Dreher rails against the "ethnic spoils system." Maybe he yearns for the good old days, when cities had just a plain old fashioned "spoils system" and the ethnics were shut out altogether. In those days, naming highways for white leaders like Robert L. Thornton or Woodall Rodgers was not seen as part of an "ethnic spoils system." Whites weren't ethnics. That word was reserved for everyone else. Only now, when we start naming highways for people other than dead white males, do people like Rod Dreher notice the same politics at work and conclude its "ethnic."
P.S. A shorter version of this comment was posted to The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, where it was quickly censored.
Convention Center Hotel? Yes. Reunion Arena? No
The irony in the Dallas City Council getting embroiled in controversy over the name change for Industrial Blvd is that the public survey on the subject was intended to distract public attention from the more serious project of getting the city into the hotel business. The plan to have the city fund and build and own a downtown convention center hotel was conspicuously not put to public vote.
Michael Landauer, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, puts his finger on another irony. The same city council that is gung ho on getting the city into the hotel business is trying to get the city out of the arena business. Reunion Arena shuts for good on June 30. As Landauer says:
"Think about it. One group seems to be saying: Rail plus Hotel plus Meeting Space equals a Sure Thing. Another group is admitting that: Rail plus Hotel plus Meeting Space equals an unstoppable drain on city resources."
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