Readers' Comments
Readers' emails have trickled in. So far our Readership-of-Three tends to echo what Feisty wrote yesterday in the Comments section.
"Sauga needed this."
(thanks Feisty)
One reader felt the same way but said,
"When are you going to get to the point and write about Municipal Government?"
Yes, we acknowledge that our gait out the Blog-gate has been a tad slow. Our Blog has five entries so far --the first, "Hey there, Mississauga" just being (more or less) an introduction to the three principals of Mississauga Watch so Entry-1 wasn't about Municipal Governance.
Then we had Good Night, Mississauga, about "Mississauga" --our ever-vigilant sheepdog-watchdog and even though he was being ever-vigilant and On Watch at The Big Yellow, that entry wasn't about Municipal Governance either.
Then we had the remaining-three Blog entries:
On the Nature of "Fact"
Voices, Faces and Facts
Tha's a fact, MAN!
Three Blog entries with "Fact"s in the title --and two entries with the actual dictionary definition of "FACT" in them.
You can now make that three Mississauga Watch entries with the definition of "FACT" in them.
And that's the Point
The point in all this "--Eff-Ay-See-Tee-- FACT" stuff is that last line in the dictionary definition:
"in fact : in truth"
See? Fact is Truth. Facts are Truths.
Unless you cherish Facts/Truth as you would your own beating heart, you'll never be able to understand Municipal Governance --or any other level of government for that matter.
Most readers would agree that people are capable of both Good and Evil. For decades I've believed that it's the role of government to ensure that the Good prevail. A few months ago, I surfed to the dictionary to check out the definition of "government".
I expected something like "a formal or informal human construct to ensure The Common Good" --I don't know, something like that. Boy was I surprised at the real definition of "government"
Don't you hate when you look up the word "government" and then you have to go to "governing" or "govern"? Well, I did and the definition wasn't the sweetness-and-light of "ensure The Common Good" or "ensure that the Good prevail".
This definition wasn't chirpin' to the opening bars of "O Canada".
Here. Check it out for yourself (I even made this image bigger so you can see it easier).
Those yellow highlights throughout are my emphasis --not the dictionary's. Let's examine the main themes here of the word "govern":
: to exercise continuous sovereign authority over
: to control
: to rule without sovereign power and usually without having the authority to determine basic policy
: manipulate b: to control the speed of (as a machine) especially by automatic means
3: to control, direct, or strongly influence the actions and conduct of
b: to exert
: to hold in check : restrain
4: to require (a word) to be in a certain case
1: to prevail or have decisive influence : control
2: to exercise authority
The conclusion is inescapable. Government --to govern-- means "control". Government --to govern-- is all about controlling the vertical and the horizontal.
When Government has control of the Vertical and the Horizontal, they have control of all of us. We hear that "Information is Power." We hear that the key to Power is control of Information. When you control Information, you control people.
Moving Forward....
What is Information? Data?... Certainly the most-cherished pulses of information are Facts. But we must never confuse facts with data. Facts and Data are the Ying and Yang of CONTROL.
I keep hearing one reader say:
"When are you going to get to the point and write about Municipal Government?"
That's the Point, Dude.
Ying. Yang.
Let's examine the "face" of a Municipal Government --in this case, the City of Brampton. The "front door" of a municipality's webpage is its "face". Brampton puts on a Happy Face surrounded by a multitude of tulips from The Flower City.
Brampton --HappyHappyHappy and Blooming with Possibilities.
Surfin' to Caledon...
Caledon --HappyHappyHappySMUG --and White!
I know, I know, the website you've all been waiting for!
Mississauga --Moving Forward Happily-Joyously
Uner a Happy-Joyous Mississauga Sun
It's instructive to take a peak at one more website's "front door" --the website of
The Happy-Joyous President of the United States, George W. Bush:
America --Moving Forward Happily-Joyously with our Happy-Joyous Iraqi President-Ally
So. Returning to an earlier comment by a reader?
"When are you going to get to the point and write about Municipal Government?"
I have been. Here's the point --a question, really. Ready?
What if a municipality's webpage was as accurate a reflection of reality as that of the U.S. President's webpage?
I know, I know. I had the same reaction when I first raised the question. Paper bag over nose and mouth. Deep slow breaths. Try to relax.....
'nuff for today.
On Deck Tomorrow
As we mentioned all week, The Mississauga Muse has been on assignment. Tomorrow, she will address the question:
"What if a municipality's webpage was as accurate a reflection of reality as that of the U.S. President's webpage?"
Til then, Klaatu barada nikto. Above all -- Good Night and Good Luck.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue." --Edward R. Murrow
VIDEO CLIP OF THE DAY
This is a must-see clip. Jon Stewart of Comedy Central interviews Juliet Elperin --a national reporter for the Washington Post. What follows is:
"corrosive to the soul."
And now for our Mississauga News John Stewart at RANDOM ACCESS.
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