What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate?

Dan Reed of Just Up the Pike does one of his famous candidate interviews of myself, and generally does a credible job. However, it's possible that the long lag-time between the interview and the posting -- as well as a lot of intervening cramming for exams in the closing weeks of his senior year at University of Maryland -- may have caused his tone to drift a bit. Or perhaps I wasn't making myself clear.

I do in fact think that a lot of money could be saved by the County government by replacing Microsoft Windows(tm) on the majority of worker desktops. I think that's something that could go across the whole county, not just the public schools. Still, savings is savings, and the more, the merrier. For those who think that UNIX-like operating systems aren't ready for prime time, nor easy to use, take a good look at Mac OS X, which is a UNIX-like operating system. Under the famous "intuitive and easy to use" graphic user interface, the guts are based in BSD. Anyone who can use the command-line on a Mac can use the command-line on a Linux box, and anyone who can use the Mac OS X graphic user interface can use the KDE interface on a Linux box.

However, what Dan wrote about what I think, and what I wanted him to understand about what I think, that's where we encounter divergence.

I don't specifically point to Clarksburg or the Villages of Urbana as particular examples of how to move forward with development in Montgomery County. Frankly, I think that there's a population growth problem in Montgomery, in Maryland, in the USA, and around the world. It's time to deal with the real cause of global warming, which is to say the fact that there are far more human beings on this planet than can be sustainably supported by the planet's natural systems, and there are even more human beings on the planet than can be sustainably supported even by man-made unnatural systems.

Yet it's true: rather than see any more of our natural (or nearly-natural) world gobbled up by Suburban Sprawl served by traffic-clogged roads in an automobile-dependent culture, I would prefer -- and that is "I would prefer", not "I want" -- that any new housing be built close to or on top of transit hubs. New developments should be close in to employment hubs and zones, and new developments should be oriented around easy access to public transportation systems that can efficiently move large numbers of people with minimized fuel costs and associated greenhouse-gas emissions. We should place housing near shopping, or even intermix the two. We should not have to hop into the car and drive five miles to get a snack or soda or groceries.

Dan suggests that I'd think that Clarksburg or the Villages of Urbana are good ideas. Actually, I would think that, if they weren't both located at the outer edges of rapidly expanding Sprawl. Rather than saying "if we're going to have Sprawl, let's do it in this model", I'm suggesting that we might want to recycle -- in whole or in part -- aging core suburbs and even some of the older parts of the Sprawl. And when we recycle that, let's recycle it in the model of Clarksburg, just without the code and design violations. And let's do it where there is already adequate infrastructure. Let's do that sort of thing in Wheaton or Glenmont or Shady Grove, where there is MetroRail right there. Let's not do it at the end of long roads that perpetuate excessive time commuting and traffic congestion.

Now about my lengthy dissertations in long-lasting discussions, as a rule I try to avoid actual rants, assuming that by "rant" one means a diatribe that makes little sense. I have a long history discussing Urban Planning and related issues of city governance. Twelve years ago I was documenting the collapse and Revitalization of the District of Columbia. You may read in that proto-blog a great deal of outrage but you'll also read a lot of good sense on how to remove the leadership of a broken government and how to use oversight authorities to steer an ungodly mess back to a path on a road to recovery. Compare the District of 1996 with the District of 2009. See the wealth that's there nowadays. And remember back to how it was in 1996... with overdrawn budgets, outrageous spending on poorly managed programs. And you'll notice how many of my suggestions were adopted, whether it's my thinking that gets credit, or someone else's thinking the same thoughts that gets credit.

I'll discuss anything with anyone at any length, to see where they have errors in data or in logic, and if they don't have such errors I may think of them as my teacher, and I study hard. But when I find bad data, false premises, or errors in logic, I'll spend whatever time is necessary to try to correct those errors. Most people eventually learn, and change their ways. Those who don't tend to wind up looking like Marion Barry: discredited. Because, frankly, if you persist to your old thinking when all it does is lead you to disaster because you're just plain wrong in the face of the evidence, you deserve to be discredited.

So, once again, it's time for Montgomery's District 4 to choose.

Do you want more of the same old tired stuff that didn't work even when there was a ton of money to fling around, and collapses miserably under the stress of our present difficult times? Or do you want Real Change?

Do you want Real Change?

Or do you want the same old stuff?

You're the voter. You decide.

But from now on, if you want to form an opinion of me, try to not rely too much on third-parties. Ask me. And see my Campaign Website for more detailed information on how I will bring Real Change that conforms to your interests, desires, and demands as constituents.