New Convention Center Prevents Baldness, Promotes Natural Male Enhancement!!!!!

Are the figures in this study of the proposed new convention center exaggerated? YES!!

Of course they are. This is, after all, the age of Politics As Marketing. [It's part of the creeping commidification of society and the consumerization of all aspects of life, about which I have many strongly held opinions that are useful for clearing the space around me at cocktail parties] Public policy today is packaged and sold like soap flakes ... well, I suppose that's too quaint; like drugs is probably the better example ("ask your representative if New Convention Center is right for you!"). Is it possible that the convention center could create 1900+ jobs and add millions to the downtown economy? Yes. Is it likely that the hyper-optimistic forecasts that support these figures will turn out to be correct? No. But it's not the job of the public officials who are touting this white elephant to tell you all that negative crap ... caveat emptor and all that.

Does this mean that the convention center is a bad idea? Not necessarily. (Is this getting too Rumsfeldian? Absolutely). Either God or the devil (or both) is in the details, and we're not likely to hear a lot about those from the Conventionistas. It just seems a pretty lousy way to go about things.

Maybe this particular complaint is just too highfalutin'. Of course it would be nice if people would get lots of sound information on such issues by watching a local version of C-SPAN and have productive, fact-based discussions of the merits of various proposals by the water cooler. "Reality TV", however, is far more interesting, and sound bite politics are here to stay.

There are different kind of salesmen and different kind of products. My trouble is, this system plays into the hands the snake oil peddlers. Better ideas don't win - better marketing does, and the people (cough murkowski cough) to whom government is about what you can get away with know this.