ENOUGH of the ‘negative vibes, man’ (to quote Oddball loosely from that old movie classic, Kelly’s Heroes).
It’s pretty evident from the response to last week’sarticle about a ‘call to arms’ (paintbrushes) by several Scottburgh businesspeople for everyone to spruce up for spring is just the medicine many are waiting for.
Readers are tired of newspapers (the Mail included) harping on about the Wimpy debacle, beachfront binge parties, potholes, stones from resurfaced roads cracking windscreens, vagrants being dumped here from Durban, crime, crime, crime…
“Give a dog a bone, for crying out loud,” they say. “Surely there’s something positive happening that can lift all our spirits in these rather trying times?”
Well, that is going to be the Mail’s quest from now on.
We would be failing in our duty if we ignored the injustices and we will still be the voice of the aggrieved. We will still report on issues that affect people’s pockets, lifestyle or security.
After all, if we ignored that, we just wouldn’t be doing our job properly.
However, we are also going to go out of our way to look for things that people, organisations… and even local government… are doing “right”.
Who knows? Maybe we can help in a small way to tip the scale and encourage everyone to see the glass as half full, rather than half empty. (A hackneyed cliché that is still rather apt in this instance.)
For starters, Umdoni Municipality does have a grand plan to develop our beachfront and that is going to be our first mission, to give readers an insight into what’s on the drawing board.
Nothing is going to be transformed overnight, but we can dream about it in the meantime.
There just has to be light at the end of the tunnel.
(PS: Don’t forget that the Mail is offering a free half page advertisement (double if you are an existing advertiser) if you are judged a winner in the “Spruce Up for Spring” competition. We need ‘before’ and ‘after’ photographs by the end of September and we will ask our CEO of Tourism, Justin Mackrory to do the judging. E-mail adriv@dbn.caxton.co.za. Any other prizes will be most welcome.)
