There’s a deep culture of “no” at city hall when it should be “let’s figure out how to do what people want, like and love.” There’s a feeling that official communications are untrustworthy and institutions are broken. There’s always some mistruth, injustice, inequality, inexplicable policy or officiously useless regulation. There’s always something that just should not be the way it is and some clearly obvious and better way to do it. That title comes to mind when writing and thinking about local Toronto politics, but my version is, “The War Against Cynicism” - it’s easy to give into cynicism if you spend any time following municipal politics. It nimbly sums up the late British author’s constant struggle to be fresh, original and true to one’s self. “The War Against Cliché” is the title of a collection of Martin Amis’s writing.