Monday, May 11, 2009

Regional Water Conference On May 21st Looks Promising

The Public Policy Forum is hosting a regional water conference on Thursday, May 21st, with an impressive line-up of policy-makers and advocates.

Details and registration materials, here.

3 comments:

Todd F said...

Oh man, I can't believe the way this is being framed.

From the site [with my comments]:
"While civic leaders develop exciting plans to make our region the world's "Freshwater Hub", proposals [read "threats"]to divert water from Lake Michigan threaten [who is doing the threatening here?]to bog us down in more regional controversy [oh no!]. What are the arguments on both sides of the water diversion issue [water diversion issues have been resolved, please move on], and is there potential for compromise?[any more compromising would dilute the Great Lakes Pact and in the end defeat it, the compromises have already been made] Could successful resolution of this issue lead to greater cooperation on other regional issues [successful from who's viewpoint?], or will this be another excuse for more regional discord [it's discord if Waukesha doesn't get all the water it wants for more expansion? please!]?

James Rowen said...

To Todd F: I think you are over-thinking this a bit.

Have you even looked at the speakers?

Also: diversion issues have not been resolved. There is a law, but no process, standards, precedents, etc,

There are years of work to be done.

The program is sponsored by very reasonable people.

Take a breath.

In fact, go there and see what's happening.

Todd F said...

Maybe so, but it still looks like the framing of the issues is hardly balanced. I was just trying to point out the loaded words being used.

By the way, some of words used by those setting up this "conference" are: "threaten", "bog us down", "discord". Now where are words like "preserve", "save", "protect", "scale down", "responsible", "stewardship", etc.?

I saw who would be participating, but that does not mean the "conference" will be balanced. It looks to me like a case of "see we've included both sides" when the frame is skewed. A tactic that we see over and over again.

Don't worry though, I'm breathing fine, as a matter of fact you may even say I'm sighing more than I'm hyperventilating. ;-)