Keller @ Large: Key Figures In Baltimore Fiasco Are Insane
BOSTON (CBS) - I am no Einstein, but Albert Einstein was, and he is widely credited with a quote that seems appropriate given the current nightmare unfolding in Baltimore: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
What better way to describe the behavior of all of the key players in the Baltimore fiasco?
I wasn't surprised to see Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake exposed as a clueless, out-of-touch bureaucrat.
Three years ago she was in Boston for a meeting to discuss food deserts, the ostensible denial of access to decent food in poor neighborhoods. When I noted two recent scholarly studies that declared food deserts were a myth, then-Mayor Menino acknowledged the problem might be more complex, but Mayor Rawlings-Blake dismissed the studies she hadn't read as "false."
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There's no use expecting change from a closed mind, as Baltimore residents victimized by police violence – a vile tradition that goes back a long way - can attest.
The looters are also acting out familiar roles; whole blocks of Baltimore still haven't recovered from the 1968 riots there.
More broadly, we can look to several generations of political leadership at all levels, and in both parties, that have failed to embrace innovation and reform. The wretched Baltimore schools, the stark economic inequality, the broken, dysfunctional families, the segregated housing patterns, the list goes on and on.
What's been happening in Baltimore is insane.
No wonder.
It's the handiwork of people who insist on making the same mistakes over and over.
Listen to Jon's commentary:
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
