STIHOSOBFDTW

No, that's not a typo. Instead, it's a new weekly feature we've decided to insitute here at Working With Words. In case you can't solve the acronym puzzle, it stands for Smartest Thing I Heard or Saw on Brewedfreshdaily This Week. We do it in part to honor the central role our friend George Nemeth has played in starting and hosting smart conversations, even when he's not around, which is quite a trick. And of course also because we think there's value in steering you to particularly compelling conversations or points.

This week's STIHOSOBFDTW? We expect some weeks it'll be a tough call, but this initial choice was easy (and by the way, gentle reader, we'll welcome your nominations). It has to be a wonderful, pithy observation made by our friend Ed Morrison, an economic development guru with wonderfully contrarian instincts and Vesuvial intellectual energy (earlier, we wrote about him here), who had this to say in a string about debate over bringing casino gambling to Cleveland: "Here’s a basic law of regional economic development: If you don’t have any innovative ideas, money is always a problem. Conversely, if you have a habit of generating innovative ideas, money is virtually never a problem." Brilliant, Ed.