Saving base of stack now would be absurd

For a second there, I thought sanity had broken out in a glorious burst of transcendent clarity, when everyone gave up on trying to save the Sinclair smokestack and agreed the exercise was too dangerous and too expensive. Not to mention, we could use the money (and bricks) saved to fill potholes.

Now the die-hards have fallen back on “Save Our Plinth.” I have a great idea, if the Cedar Rapids City Council goes along with that moronic endeavor: Let's make The Plinth the cornerstone of an industrial amusement park.

The chief features of “industrial amusement” are the clever Philistine ways the City Council can dream up to burn money without adding anything of value to the daily lives of taxpayers.

Of course, if they want to turn the plinth into a “science center” kind of place, I would recommend storing Sinclair's old odors there - the eye watering, gasping, gagging and wretched scents of the old Sinclair meatpacking effluvium, stored in huge stainless steel bottles and released through nozzles for the bemusement and edification of stunned visitors.

As a final nuance, may we not also add a booming recorded voice exhorting visitors to breath deeply? After all, “That's the smell of money, kid!”

David C. Oshel

Cedar Rapids