The Artless Mayor

The Fan District Slant is a new space to discuss politics and popular culture, to air out opinions. No attempt will be made to artificially balance what will be presented there. Advocacy journalism will be practiced without apology. However, this doesn't mean fairness and honesty won't matter.

Here's an excerpt from the new web site's first essay:

Pretending to care in a convincing way is something any ambitious politician has to be able to do. Mayor Dwight Jones’ problem is that when it comes to feigning an interest in some things he doesn’t care about, such as art and baseball, well, he’s not such a good performer.

Art first, baseball later:

When I first read Jones’ interview in Style Weekly (May 9, 2012), I laughed a couple of times at what I thought were funny answers to Don Harrison’s questions. It was a quick reading. A week or so later, a second reading had me wondering why Jones ever agreed to do an interview for which he was clearly unprepared.

To read "The Artless Mayor," which reacts to that interview with Richmond's Mayor Jones, click here.

As Virginia is a so-called "battleground state" this year and Richmond is in the middle of the commonwealth, I figure the Fan District must be ground zero. So, with no more permission than that the propaganda that surrounds issues and elections (local, statewide and national) will be examined and demystified at The Fan District Slant.

Comments are welcomed but will be moderated.

General news and notices about politics won't be posted there. Submissions of original OpEd style essays are welcomed. Please keep the length of them between 500 and 1,000 words. And, by the way, if all you want to do is simply parrot what is already being said at Fox News or MSNBC, don't bother. The Fan District Slant will post submissions from people who do their own thinking.

And, yes, please submit your original political cartoons. Good ones will be posted, no matter who is the butt of the joke.