Martin Tower response: the friction that makes the machine run smooth (16)

(16th in a series on Martin Tower)

Martin Tower demolition May 19
www.martintowerbethlehem.com

Writing in haste in case the recordings and my rushed thoughts
can be of any use tonight.

Nobody has asked me who my Gadfly heroes are. I give a nod to Socrates in the very first words of the Gadfly “About” page. Obvious choice. He’s a given.

But Thoreau too — Henry David Thoreau. The guy who lived by himself in a cabin for a year or two and wrote the classic Walden; or Life in the Woods.

He was a fierce social critic. Read “Civil Disobedience.” Or “Slavery in Massachusetts.”

Quite a guy.

Thoreau talks of the necessary friction that makes the machine (of government) run smooth.

I like that idea. It’s a Gadflying idea.

The 11 people who spoke to the Planning Commission might be seen by some as friction-filled.

In fact, the ugly term CAVE people rattled around in my mind. Remember that unhappy episode from last year? The unfortunate notion from a source or two on Council that “Citizens against virtually everything” show up to sour City projects.

But I saw these people as the necessary friction that makes the machinery of government run smooth.

Or try to.

Gadfly was very proud of what he saw and heard on last Thursday and which he archives here below — hoping that you’ll listen.

In a comment to a previous post, follower Al Bernotas thanked Gadfly for relaying “public sentient.” I thought at first that was a misprint. But I liked the unusual phrase.

Then the sound of it led me to “public sapience.”

Kind of nerdy, I know — sorry — but what Gadfly sees here is “public sapience.”

They who have ears to hear, let them hear.

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Here are the full recordings of the presentations I clipped in my previous post Martin Tower: “Please, City of Bethlehem, make this a jewel” (15). The presentations are all short. If you are being selective, take a look at the clips in the previous post for speakers you might be especially interested in.

Brian Hillard