Okay, I don't really have a lot of time to get into this right now, but for those of you who have ever lived in Rockford (or who still do), please read the following sentence, taken from a feature in this week's MKE magazine:
"Recent diversification and the stability of the remaining industries have allowed the city to invest in recreation and culture."
Uh, excuse me Eric Paulsen. I know you're doing your job, and you're trying to give Rockford a better name for itself than it currently has in most Milwaukeeans ears ("Rockford? Yeah! They've got GREAT coke there!"), and when assigned to the task of scraping up just a handful of nice things to say about any Illinois town, let alone one so depressing... well, it's daunting. But come on. One drive down State St. in either direction will show you the error of that sentence.
Well, let's see! Going west, we have drugs, prostitution, strip clubs doubling as cocaine distributors, an imploded carcass... oh wait, that's downtown... and if we venture east... ooh! STRIP MALLS!
Recreation and culture, indeed. And I'm sorry, but renaming North 2nd St. "Martin Luther King Boulevard" FORTY YEARS AFTER THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT does not diversification make. Did you not get the memo?
Tsk tsk tsk.
Posted by stephanie at August 4, 2005 04:57 PM