It’s in Romeo and Juliet that Shakespeare gave the world the observation, from Juliet’s lips, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Well, it’s time to brush up your Shakespeare, because Whitewater’s renamed Corporate Drive as ‘Innovation Drive’ for the new technology park to be built there.
Changing a name is the last thing most would care about, but, I don’t know, it may be a vital step to someone here.
I think we fall short when we substitute the superficial for true reform.
If Shakespeare’s wrong, and names and name changes do have such power, then how about a few other changes?
Center Street could become Center of Opportunity Street. Once renamed, lucrative offers would roll in to residents there. For example, super-smart, highly-evolved people already contend that if you take a place named Whitewater, Wisconsin, and simply start calling it the Center of Opportunity (with no other changes), well, it’s sure to become a gold mine.
We could change Whitewater Street to Accountability Avenue. I’d go with Accountability Avenue if reform were the goal, and simply saying (or accrediting) something would make it so.
Alternatively, those who are already smugly complacent could cement their grandiose and self-important views with Pinnacle of the Known Universe Boulevard. That way, when some bureaucrat insists that he’s so significant, he could just point to the street sign for confirmation. If it says so on an official City of Whitewater street sign, then it must be true.
For everyone else, time to brush up your Shakespeare. While reading away through histories, comedies, tragedies, and sonnets, how ’bout a song from Kiss Me Kate, aptly entitled, “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.” These two guys, in their own way, are too literal, also.
Enjoy.