Don't let Detroit die ...

Dragon Mood? -- nodding my head in agreement

Good Sunday morning to you all! A misty, rainy, VERY HUMID Sunday morning here! I'm in the weekend house, on S's laptop and I read an editorial from the Detroit News that I think has a lot of merit. It also has a lot of anger. And invective! Take a read:

A city must be awfully hard to kill. How else do you explain that Detroit is still breathing?

Detroit is down with a fatal case of chaos. The structure of government has dissolved, with every public institution in dysfunction and disarray. Last week's shouting match between City Council members and mayoral appointees looked a lot like anarchy.

And it was brought on by public officials who are all about serving themselves, rather than their people.

Kwame Kilpatrick once promised to leave a legacy as the boy wonder who gave Detroit back its dream. Now, his stubborn refusal to step aside despite facing perjury and corruption charges has assured he will be remembered as the man who strangled a city.

In other places, the City Council might be counted on to offer stability when a mayor stumbles. But this is Detroit, and the Detroit City Council on its best day barely rises above inept.

Instead of putting out the fire, the council poured on fuel by getting itself entangled in a federal bribery probe. The council can't very well yank the mayor for corruption when some of its members may be heading to the courthouse with him.

While City Hall is burning, no one seems to notice that the Detroit school board is at war with its newly hired superintendent. The school district has mismanaged its finances so thoroughly that it is just a bounced check or two away from insolvency. ...

Nolan Findley goes on to say that Detroiters need to get angry, rise up and take back their city. Gee, Nolan, here's where you lose me. I think Detroiters are so busy trying to keep their jobs (if they have them), not lose their homes to foreclosure (if they still have a home), keep food on the table (milk for $3.29 a gallon?) and oh yeah, put $4-plus a gallon gas in their aging, gas-guzzling SUVs, do they really have the energy, the fire in their collective bellies to clean up Detroit's messes?

I wonder?