OK, I just have to lob this one...

When I set out to respond to The Spec article on departing City of Hamilton's Manager of Downtown Renewal Ron Marini, I had all kinds of opportunities to launch in decidedly vitriolic ways. In the conventional message board default of 'Argumentum Ad Hominem'. This would have been the easy approach, to tap into longstanding frustration and anger, and simply let the vitriol spill.

But the Downtown Hamilton issue is too important a one to get caught up in the usual 'righteous indignation' routine, so I tried to focus on the much-bigger picture, rather than take Mr. Marini (and The Spec) to task for being so conveniently judicious with their 'press release'. However...

However, there was a quote in the article that I just couldn't resist pointing out here...although I'm still managing to show restraint and not launch into a hearty round of gobsmackedness. Here it is, in all its simple profundity.

"Downtown has always been for specialty shopping, the things you can't find in malls."

Honestly, given this statement, I'm prompted to wonder whether Hamilton has people in place who are qualified and capable of undertaking the enormous task of resurrecting the downtown. Either that, or I'm prompted to wonder whether everything issued by someone at Mr. Marini's level is managed down to the punctuation, everything spoken to the press an appropriately framed sound-bite.

For the longest time, I've been ruminating on a creative project. It would be a riff on the film 'Liar, Liar'. Only in this scenario, a governing entity would be 'afflicted' with having to tell the truth within a set time-frame. No prevaricating, no hedging, no bafflegab. Every word spoken by everyone in the government was truth.

Given this premise, what do you suppose the Spec article would have been like? That's assuming that The Spec would have asked the right questions, of course.

I know, I know; now I'm being silly.