It's good to have a divergent view*

* In 1983 I think, I attended a conference at the U of Michigan on the War Powers Act. It was convened by ex-President Ford and included people like Cyrus Vance and Walt Rostow as participants. Everyone of the panelists supported removing restrictions on the president to be able to foster war. Except one. He was a journalist-professor, who during the Vietnam war wrote editorials for the New York Times. His extemporaneous speech ripped into the basic paradigm of the conference, that the damn media cost the U.S. victory in Vietnam, as did Congress.

So during the break I was talking to this professor, and President Ford came up and told him "It's good to have a divergent view."

I said under my breath, "yeah, one!"

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Judge Glock and his Metropolis on a Hill blog often bugs the s*** out of me because he is conservative and takes a 180 degree position different from my own. That doesn't mean I don't feel I can't out-argue his positions. But it isn't always easy. Like the publications of the Manhattan Institute (a conservative organization), there's a good deal presented that while challenging convention, is hard to not agree with.

City Block is a blog by Alex Block, who is a prodigious commenter (or was, until he started blogging) on Greater Greater Washington. Alex is a transportation planner, but he and I have a very different take on organizational operations, vision, and approaching how to "fix" the world. All the more reason to read it...