Monday, May 15, 2006

More to Believe...

We believe innovation is a critical driver in today’s knowledge economy. We’ve yet to hear anyone argue against the role it must play when reinventing the region’s economy. The Plain Dealer’s Quiet Crisis Series reminded us how our region has slowly suffered without it.

The Quiet Crisis Series also encouraged us to recognize that innovation is infrequently, if ever a product of group think. This is why immigration is critical to a creative economy. It brings ideas from across the globe and from a variety of cultures to help overcome challenges being addressed in a region. That’s the power of diversity.

This means that our region and our state need diversity to be present wherever influence is exerted on the region’s economy. A friend of ours assures us that a group has arrived to support this need as it relates to the State of Ohio’s policy making.

This group is We Believe Ohio. It has the support of NCCJ. These organizations are working to ensure that diverse ideas reign in our state government and that no one religious denomination blurs the line between church and state. They’re encouraging Ohio citizens to join Northeast Ohio spiritual leaders and lay people in the promotion of the values of inclusion, compassion and social justice, as opposed to the religious politics of division and exclusion.

The We Believe Ohio-Cleveland Chapter will be launched at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, May 17 with a public press conference at the Cleveland Play House at 8501 Carnegie Avenue in Cleveland. Reverend Otis Moss and Rabbi Richard Block are co-chairing the event. We’re anxious to hear what they have to offer.