Our Very Special Square
Last night at the City Council meeting, the City of Tacoma’s Downtown Redevelopment was honored with an award by the Washington State Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration. Every year they recognize outstanding projects for their “Awards of Excellence”. The 2007 winner of the “Best Special Project Award” was….
Tollefson Square.
Wow. We don’t know what say.
9 comments
L Laura Hanan December 10, 2007
Nice guy, but limited as a council member and afraid to take a stand on pretty much anything.
As a business owner he had a unique perspective to examine the issues that continue to plague the existence of a successful retail area in downtown Tacoma but chose to focus his energy on the Proctor District, where his business is located.
His answer to question number 2 indicates a limited understaning of critical issues facing Tacoma such as business investment and development, state and local transportation, crime, and balancing social services with city resources.
While it is admirable, not to mention politically correct, that Evans supported “extending protected class status based on a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity,” I find it bizarre that this is what he considers to be the most important achievement as a member of Tacoma’s city council.
M Mofo from the Hood December 11, 2007
Laura, what does that mean to say someone is politically correct? How did politics get to the stage where a person with convictions may be intimidated not to speak or vote their conscience?
Of course the implication of my statement is that people have a conscience. And to have a conscience or sense of what is morally right or wrong implies that there is a supernatural lawgiver that placed that conscience within people.
Like the following statement or not: Without God people have no moral obligation to others. There could be laws to govern behavior, but there still would be no moral reason since right and wrong would be determined by feeling or pragmatism. You see once you make God obsolete, then anything is possible.
E Erik Hanberg December 11, 2007
I think I agree with Mofo … but I’m not sure.
Either way it doesn’t seem bizarre to be proud of passing a civil rights ordinance that prevents discrimination in the community that elected you. I am pretty dang proud of the vote I made in November of 2002 that helped keep it from being overturned. I don’t see a disconnect.
M Mofo from the Hood December 11, 2007
Can an Ethiopian make his skin white by reason?
Can a leopard make his spots disappear by thinking?
We could make a law that says black men are white.
We could make a law that says leopards don’t have spots.
But neither law would be based on truth.
Why is there a need for a protected class status? In a pluralistic society like ours today the groups that claim to be the most tolerant are the ones that only tolerate others that are the same as them.
Think it through.
E Erik Hanberg December 11, 2007
Mofo,
The ordinance and the subsequent ballot did pretty much only one thing as I recall, which was to add sexual orientation to the short list of reasons you can not be discriminated against by an employer in Tacoma (the others being the federal standards of race, creed, age, and gender). I don’t think it provided any more protection than that.
M Mofo from the Hood December 11, 2007
That’s good to know. That’s certainly interesting.
Is it legal to be heterosexual? I just want to know if I’ve been living my life in accordance with the government. Not that I would compromise my hetero status, I won’t.
But even more to the point, I have never seen an employment form that asked a person’s gender preference for a sexual encounter.
Why is it necessary to legitimate that question or sexual activity by government sanction?
I’m really concerned that in the future that people will be incarcerated for offending someone’s feelings.
J Jake December 11, 2007
It is my understanding that it doesn’t matter if you are hetro or homo they are both sexual orientations therfore they are both protected classes.
A hetrosexual business owner can’t fire someone for being homosexual.
A homosexual business owner can’t fire someone for being hetrosexual.
M Mofo from the Hood December 11, 2007
Why?
M Mofo from the Hood December 12, 2007
Laura, Marx was so excited when he read Darwin. He thought he found a legitimate basis for his doctrines.
Sorry Karl. Evolution is not a fact. It can never be proved. It is a faith, but a weak one because of the weak evidence that the faith is based on.
The basis for approving or disapproving a public issue is what I’m concerned about.
If we make laws that allow people to condemn others because feelings have been offended then we really will create Hell on earth. What is Hell? Christians would define that as absence from the glory of God (or good, if that clarifies it better).
The disciples of Christ and the disciples of Marx are only similar to the extent that they insist that their world view be coherent and internally consistent.