The Dance of No Change

Let's dance, for fear your grace should fall.
Let's dance, for fear tonight is all.
Let's sway, you could look into my eyes.
Let's sway, under the moonlight, this serious moonlight.
And if you say run, I'll run with you.
And if you say hide, we'll hide.
-- Lyric from "Let's Dance," David Bowie. Photo by Elvert Barnes: Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe. Block Party, 2 August 1998.

Colbert King's column today, "Dancing Around the Facts of the Rosenbaum Case", has this to say about ongoing failures to improve DC government:

In the immediate aftermath of his death, the public was treated to an official dance -- with steps I've learned by heart after 16 years of covering the city government -- called the D.C. Boogie. It's one in which city officials, confronted with an unholy mess, try to dazzle you with their footwork, resorting to moves aimed at convincing onlookers that they are really doing something when in fact they are playing for time, waiting for the next big story to come along that will take them off the front page. That's how they fake you out.

I'm too old to take the fake. Besides, this story is not about a journalist with a major newspaper. It's one more tragic tale that is told across the city, especially in neighborhoods that are home to those without weight in Washington's power centers. That John Doe on Gramercy Street is a way to tell the story -- even if some folks downtown and others caught up in their small worlds don't want to hear it.

The systems and processes are the issue. And they seemingly don't change. When such systems are dysfunctional, that's a real problem.

Maybe we need more parades...

Revelers dressed as blind levee inspectors walk down Bourbon Street in New Orleans as they celebrate Mardi Gras Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2006. Revelers hit the streets of the French Quarter in beads and costumes ranging from the fanciful to the bizarre on Mardi Gras, the windup of raucous pre-Lenten partying as the city tried to cheer itself up after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)

Index Keywords: civic-engagement