Please see my latest entry on the FAN blog, “What Is a Neighborhood Advocate?”
Neighborhoods don’t have opinions, people do. Let’s embrace the full diversity of neighborhood stakeholders and those who are passionate about the quality of life in our neighborhoods.
Hmm; The article is decently written and quite consistent with the vocabulary you use in this issue… but, I would have avoided evoking xtian scripture since the point chosen is not really an equivalent analogy and, also being a matter of a different order of magnitude, risks turning the audience off.
The article still reads quite solidly with the first three sentences omitted.
@ChadV, others have had the same comment about the commandment comparison. I’ve yet to find anyone who is actually offended by it, as opposed to just thinking that someone else might be offended by it. Are you personally offended by it?
Oh naw, I’m not religious. But knowing local culture, a comparison between scripture and outsider politics probably would offend someone. Maybe try an analogy about representative democracy on the Federal level?
I’m open to alternate opening analogies that engage people to read further.
But still, I haven’t yet found anyone who was personally offended by the commandment comparison.
I think the piece is great! Was not at all offended by anything, well slightly irritated by “insist” at the end because being respectful is an important part of the groups mode of operation, and the word may offend someone if taken literally, then we lose them because of the approach to delivering the message. Likewise calling someone a “sinner”, which could be a literal reading, could certainly be offensive. I’m not a speech police person, & personally think we have gone way overboard as a society getting caught in literal traps. Having said that if you started out with something like… What is “the neighborhood”? … instead of the first three lines, it might be equally effective. Up to you, I’m not going to insist 