PD starting to call it like it is

Refinance, Subject to Oversight--This reporting and editorializing the PD is doing on the bond job and the cozy arrangements is what we need more of in this town. We could also use even more numbers, less speculation, to see how this might actually benefit the public.

Avoiding the appearance of impropriety is what is called for, and we don't really have that in this situation. A school superintendent at Sanders' level should have enough common sense not to present such a lucrative target for criticism. What we do have, unfortunately, is a lot of the hired help telling us what they have to and don't have to do, and this doesn't sit well in a city that's continually conned by it's employees. We already have another embarrassment, regardless of how the deal eventually goes down.

It's time to shuck the third-world-country image and get on with ethical business practices.

Gypsy Beans lives the life, walks the walk, talks the talk

Gypsy Beans & Bakery in the Gordon Square Arts District in the Detroit Shoreway Neighborhood (Cleveland, Ohio)--I just clicked through the MTB ad network to this new website and was heartened to note, on their home page, that they're advocates of what Uncle Norm has tagged as "local production for local consumption."

Please note they also offer free wifi, but you have to ask them for access first. Only after that can you do what the suburban commuters do in Tremont: Go park in the lot, use the free wifi, and not buy anything from the merchant. We first ran into this freeloader, freerider phenomenon over at Scoops last year.

There's no mention of wifi on the Gypsy Beans site right now, but I'm sure that will be forthcoming.

if I ran the city, the series, #7: shoveled walks

I was out shoveling snow this morning and decided to do a little more than I had to and proceeded to clear the walk in front of the boardup next door. The pre-dawn Denison neighborhood looked great, as though everything were occupied again by people who were neat and industrious and considerate, people who had values and pride and self-respect, just like back in 1983. I also made it possible for my neighbors to use the sidewalk without slipping or sliding or struggling with an irregular frozen surface.

One of my main complaints for the past few years of my taking early morning walks around the city is that the public walkways are nearly impassable. Sidewalks on bridges have huge piles of snow and ice, and I feel like a mountain goat getting across. The sidewalk in front of and to the side of the church at 33rd and Denison is usually very unwelcoming because they shovel only from the parking lot to the church door, and I feel there sometimes like Don Ho or Dick Blake (sans clack stick, of course), doing slick dance routines with both feet firmly planted just to keep my balance.

I also was thinking about the recent TIWIDT move by Wendell Robinson, prompted by Jeff Hess and Henery Hawk, to do good deeds to raise the level of good karmic vibrations around these parts. Then I started thinking about how it's really never too late for anything, even to become a Boy Scout, and help people--as a pre-teen, I'd always been too terrified of their rumored circle activities to join.

Now, if I ran this city, I'd do what they do out in Bedford, for instance, and have a guy run around the whole city on some sort of little scooter/plow and keep all the sidewalks passable. But since I don't live in a city that puts the functionality of its own citizens first and doesn't seem to care too much about its own appearance, all I can do is to fill the gap until help shows up. And, I can do this by keeping my own space clear and also helping clear the areas that probably won't get cleared--in front of the boardups, in front of older peoples' homes, in front of the properties of the benighted investors who have been to Carleton Sheets seminars and taken them seriously.

I feel better already, and my arms are getting some tone back, and the neighborhood looks great.

Next on the agenda: overnight parking

if you get to talk about the money, you get to talk about everything

George has the podcast posted for the Jim Rokakis session last Wednesday, and Gloria, Jeff/Yellow Dog Sammy, and Wendell, and George, too, have already brought forth commentary to bear on the content and spirit of the talk we had. I think it's one of the better ones thus far, over the year and a half that MTB's been in play, but it can be argued that I'm biased, so you be the judge.

One of my favorite parts is where Jim recounts his running for county treasurer and getting comments from other politicians about why he'd ever want to have that job, where you only dealt with money. Jim's take is that, if you get to talk about the money, you get to talk about everything, and he does. Enjoy.

Rev. Robert Drinan, former head of BC Law, dies at 86

Congressman priest dies at 86 - Politics - MSNBC.com--Here's a story about one of those Jesuits who helped change the community dialogue and form our nascent social consciousness in Boston in the '60s. It's priests like him, on the front lines, who lent their ideas and influence to the movement that helped form such tax-credit-oriented development firms as Boston Capital and The Community Builders. Here's the middle of the article:

An internationally known human-rights advocate, Drinan was elected on an anti-war platform and represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House for 10 years during the turbulent 1970s.

He stepped down only after a worldwide directive from Pope John Paul II barring priests from holding public office.

During his Congressional tenure, Drinan continued to dress in the robes of his clerical order and lived in a simple room in the Jesuit community at Georgetown.

But he wore his liberal views more prominently. He opposed the draft, worked to abolish mandatory retirement and raised eyebrows with his more moderate views on abortion and birth control.

“Father Drinan’s commitment to human rights and justice will have a lasting legacy here at Georgetown University and across the globe,” said Georgetown President John J. Degioia.

“Few have accomplished as much as Father Drinan and fewer still have done so much to make the world a better place,” said Alex Aleinikoff, dean of the George University Law Center.

Drinan, dean of the Boston College Law School from 1956 to 1970, called for the desegregation of Boston public schools during the 1960s and challenged Boston College students to become involved in civil rights issues.

“He’ll be remembered in the country for his advocacy for the poor and underprivileged,” said John Garvey, the Boston law school’s current dean.

revisiting Kurosawa's Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia--I haven't seen this flick in over 40 years but decided to experience it again this weekend. Warrior things have been on my mind lately. The film still holds up; it's a remarkable and incredible piece of work. Actually, it's even better now because you can watch it on DVD and concentrate and appreciate it. The last time I tried to view it was in a movie theatre packed with others who, like me, were afflicted with cases of raging adolescent hormones and did lots of strange things during the subtle scenes. If you have 3+ hours for the show itself and another 2-3 for the commentary, it's a great experience for a snowy day. We didn't realize, back in the '60s and before the advent of the spaghetti Western, how much the lead samurai, Takashi Shimura, looked like Lee Van Cleef.

noosphere vs. cyberspace

Noosphere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia--I'd noticed in grazing through Chris Corrigan's material that he has a fondness for the term "noosphere," as did Teilhard de Chardin. The wikipedia entry is a good place to start on a refresher, or an introduction, as the case may be. I find it comforting to find people who have similar ideas on their back burners.

The noosphere can be seen as the "sphere of human thought" being derived from the Greek νους ("nous") meaning "mind" in the style of "atmosphere" and "biosphere". In the original theory of Vernadsky, the noosphere is the third in a succession of phases of development of the Earth, after the geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). Just as the emergence of life fundamentally transformed the geosphere, the emergence of human cognition fundamentally transforms the biosphere. In contrast to the conceptions of the Gaia theorists, or the promoters of cyberspace, Vernadsky's noosphere emerges at the point where humankind, through the mastery of nuclear processes, begins to create resources through the transmutation of elements.
The word is also sometimes used to refer to a transhuman consciousness emerging from the interactions of human minds. This is the view proposed by the theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who added that the noosphere is evolving towards an ever greater integration, culminating in the Omega Point—which he saw as the ultimate goal of history. The noosphere concept of 'unification' was elaborated in popular science fiction by Julian May in the Galactic Milieu Series. (more)

through George, through Chris Corrigan: Art Of Hosting - The Principles

Art Of Hosting - The Principles--Here's a killer blogsite that came to my attention through George Nemeth and through Chris Corrigan, whom George has linked to a bit lately. Maybe I'm just dazzled or starstruck with all the new awarenesses or consciousnesses that are popping up out there, but here's another really good one, one that frames the practice as "hosting," and all of them seem to somehow be speaking in the same voice, or singing the same tune.

what goes around comes around: subprime stooge's karma's not instant, but quick enough

Tremors at the Door - New York Times--Two days ago, Cuyahoga County Treasurer Jim Rokakis alerted us to this phenomenon as it had made itself manifest just across the Harvard-Denison Bridge, in the North Broadway and Fleet areas. The podcast should be posted shortly over at Meet.The.Bloggers. From a moral standpoint, this guy Dallas, the subprime mortgage lending company poster child, is, in my opinion, reprehensible. If this "hey, it paid more money, what would you do?" attitude passes for business ethics, we need to do a lot of re-tooling. Here's the poster child's whiny lament, now that HE no longer has credit:

...William D. Dallas, the founder and chief executive of Ownit, would argue that his company has become an early case of road kill.

In mid-November, JPMorgan Chase, which provided Ownit with money to make home loans, notified the company that it was in default and would lose access to a $500 million credit line by Dec. 13 because it was losing money. It had taken on too much debt and its net worth had fallen, according to bankruptcy documents and people briefed on the company’s finances

....For his part, Mr. Dallas acknowledges that standards were lowered, but he placed the blame at the feet of investors and Wall Street, saying they encouraged Ownit and other subprime lenders to make riskier loans to keep the pipeline of mortgage securities well supplied.

“The market is paying me to do a no-income-verification loan more than it is paying me to do the full documentation loans,” he said. “What would you do?”

we need to take care of our warriors

Cleveland officer investigated on claim he beat suspect--I really don't know what is at play here, but in general what we as a community need to remember is that, when we pay a policeman to go to war for us--the regular economy--against the drug economy, we need to support him as he uses his best judgment in an attempt to get our drug bait back. What does 5.5# of cocaine cost, and who pays for that if the drug dealer decides to play cute and keeps it hidden in his house? We paid the policeman to use bait to trap the dealer, and we also charged him with recovering the bait. Criminals need to understand that they give up certain rights and put themselves at unnecessary risk when they commit crimes and then fail to cooperate.

We must protect our warriors, first and foremost. We must protect our community. Those who work against the best interests of the community, who take from the community and make it sicker and weaker by distributing drugs and robbing people of their potential, deserve no sympathy from the court system. We need to write special rules of engagement when it comes to the war on drugs.

Callahan's pizza run brings a community together: there's a meeting here tonight

Callahan’s Cleveland Diary » Blog Archive » Robbed at gunpoint--Heads up. There's a meeting around these parts tonight. Let our councilman [can you believe the size of the City Hall fonts? Where's the Tech Tsar?] tell you about it [emphasis mine]--

FYI – there will be a Crime & Safety meeting this Thursday, Jan. 25th at 7:00 pm at the Archwood UCC, which will be utilized to hopefully squelch rumors on the street relative to the murder on Riverside. These other crime trends will also be discussed. In addition, with assistance from the local development corp., the 2nd District Police and Huntington Bank, we’re holding a Brooklyn Centre Merchant’s meeting next Monday morning at 7:30 am at the Brooklyn Centnre Huntington Branch for area businesses to discuss crime trends in the commercial district (a few recent break-ins), as well as what more can be done to have businesses better coordinate safety strategies.

On the bright side, we saw Bill at the MTB session with Jim Rokakis last night, and he reports that the hoodied perps DID NOT take his pizza that fateful night.

I was trying to look at the positives of all this early this morning as I took out the rubbish and shoveled the drive and the walk, and the only thing that occurred to me was to be thankful that my mittens had a trigger finger.

I'm sure we'll come up with more and more positives at the meeting tonight.

I missed this in November: Frank Mills and the Urban Paradox

CATALYST CLEVELAND :: Viewpoints--Frank Mills wrote this viewpoint a few months ago, and it did not get into my purview until just now. It's a good read for anybody interested in basic talk and cutting to the chase, actually getting something done instead of just talking about it. I also see in COOL Cleveland that Frank is over at David Allen Moss' FUTURE Center on January 30th.

Urban Paradoxes founder Frank A. Mills invites anyone who is a "graffiti artist, psycho-geographer, urban explorer or interested in public art, urban planning or are an urban social worker" to join him at CIA's FUTURE Center for Design and Technology Transfer for Tuesdays@FUTURE on Tue 1/30 at 4:30-6:15PM Info and Info and Info.

Here's the lead-in thesis to the November piece:

The problem in Cleveland is that our Community Development Corporations (CDCs) are quasi-public agencies funded by block grants administered by individual City Council members. But the mayor's appointees in the city administration also control funding and directly influence what CDCs can do.Given the history of CDC funding in Cleveland and how it has driven some CDCs to poach in other CDC territories for funding, I do not believe you will find any CDC willing to demand that politicians or developers address the real quality of life issues that revitalize neighborhoods, including the creation of strong neighborhood schools.As I work in neighborhood revitalization around the country, I see strong neighborhoods and schools emerging in cities where CDCs are (1) grassroots initiatives, both adult and student, (2) funded privately, usually by a combination of resident and neighborhood business dollars, and where (3) businesses are willing to become directly involved. When foundation or public funds are used, they almost always come after a strong grassroots plan has been put in place.

IBM full Lotus position

IBM Lotus Takes Social Networking to New Heights--I've been a LOTUS fan for years, from 1-2-3 to Magellan to Agenda to Notes, even through the transitional years of LetOnlyTheUsersSuffer when support was in short supply. Now, here's a new iteration we're going to have to watch closely. For me, reading the whole article, it sounds like it might help my workload and overall organization. Here's the lead-in:

With collaboration as its legacy, IBM's Lotus division went back to its roots and announced its plans to deliver social software for businesses.

IBM's announcements at the company's Lotusphere 2007 show here represent the "most dramatic expansion of collaborative technology ever," according to Michael Rhodin, general manager of IBM Lotus, particularly as opposed to competitive alternatives "that tell you what you have to buy."

Foremost among the new technologies IBM announced on Jan. 22 is Lotus Connections, which enables users to gather and share information through social networks and provides dashboard views of projects, people and connections in various communities.

The Lotus Connections software borrows from IBM's deep research pockets and features five Web 2.0 technologies: Activities, Communities, Dogear, Profiles and Blogs. Activities is a Lotus technology that shares and organizes e-mail, instant messages, documents and other items related to a particular activity or project into one logical unit. Dogear is social bookmarking software that enables users to bookmark pages within their intranet. Both technologies came out
of IBM Research.

Rhodin called Lotus Connections "the industry's first ready-for-business social software platform to connect us to you, and you to us, and you to each other and to others beyond this room."

no geeks need apply

The Turntables That Transform Vinyl - New York Times--Here are two turntables for rescuing vintage vinyl from the '60s and '70s, and you don't have to be terribly technically attuned to begin the process. I wonder if my old classmate Bernie Naworski out at Play It Again, Sam is going to be stocking these. Give him a call, before you go far afield to pick one of these up. Remember: Local production for local consumption.

NYT nonfiction book list: Frank's at #11

Gloria just gave me a heads up about the nonfiction bestseller booklist from The New York TIMES; she had been talking late this afternoon to Frank Warren of PostSecret on the phone about MTB, and he announced that his new book was at #11 on the current list. Checking it out, I see that the book I'm reading now is at #10, and the book George Nemeth seems to be chained to for eternity is at #9. We're hoping Frank comes to Cleveland soon.

government racketeers

Illinois Is Putting Lottery on Block for Quick Payoff - New York Times--This is the second time the government has sold out the citizens--the first time is when they installed the legalized numbers racket in the first place. Now, they want to sell the racket they've supposedly legitimized, and they want to sell it to private investors.

First, they claim they can't get by without running a racket, then, they claim they need to sell it just to get by.

We need to cut them all loose. Notice in the article how they use the politically correct term "gaming," trying to put lipstick on the pig.

The state of Illinois yesterday took the first steps in selling its state lottery system, hoping to attract as much as $10 billion from investors who, in return, would own a monopoly that could turn out to be the biggest jackpot yet.
The sale, which may occur as early as the spring, would not be the first privatization of public property — both Chicago and Indiana have recently earned billions of dollars by signing long-term leases with private companies to run toll roads. But the proposed lottery sale is almost certain be one of the largest privatizations of a state-run program, and it raises concerns that states, some of them critically short of cash, are selling valuable assets that could otherwise provide consistent streams of revenue.

Under the proposed sale, Illinois would receive a multibillion-dollar one-time payment, and the lottery’s new owners would receive all revenue and profit for 75 years.

Indiana is also considering selling its lottery, and bids are due later this month. That sale is expected to raise more than $1 billion upfront and annual payments of $200 million. Midway Airport in Chicago, toll roads in Pennsylvania and the New Jersey Turnpike are all potentially on the block.

where's Miss Jane?

New Scanners for Tracking City Workers - New York Times--If we had invested as New York is investing in managing it's human resources, we could have answered the question quite easily during the last administration. Using technology to monitor Cleveland city workers might be a better investment than using cameras at intersections to feed off citizens just passing through. Let's crank up another deep and meaningful Red Room Dialogue, and while we're scrapping the red-light district entrapment cameras, the omnipresent reminder of the sad, sad legacy of the Campbell administration, let's look into managing our human resources better at the city level. I think it's quite possible to do way better with way less, or way fewer, but we'll never know until we try. Let's start with monitoring the burgeoning employment pools at the Water Department and then at Muni Light. Let's also consider doing away with the protectionism of the civil-service system. We can't afford the overhead of public-employee refuge centers any more.

And since we're on the topic, where's Frank? Any sightings? Does his really low profile somehow give new meaning to the terms "invisible hand" or "transparent leadership"?

doggie dinner

Make your own bulgogi at home - Slashfood--When I worked for the US occupation/expeditionary forces over in Korea in the early '70s, the goon chiefs (village officials) once invited us Ugly Americans downtown, brought in the dancing girls, got us all cranked up on beer and rice wine, and fed us the greatest bulgogi, but then told us in the middle of the meal that our marinated feast was dog-based, not beef-based. Some of my compatriots blew chunks; others smiled wryly and put down their chopsticks; I called their bluff and asked for more. It's all in the marinade and the tenderizing.

Now, where in the Cleveland area can we score some kimchee/kimchi that doesn't have all sorts of salt and MSG in it as preservative? All the stuff we see in the stores around here comes out of Chicago or New York and has way too much in the way of additives and preservatives. Kimchee is one of the best accompaniments to bulgogi, and both of them together will keep you well all winter.

Sunday: catching up on LinkedIn

LinkedIn: Tim Ferris--Today was the sort of day to catch up on software and databases. I installed speech recognition software in XP and amused myself as it failed to understand me--just like adding another member of the family.

I also surveyed my realm after over three years of collecting names, beginning with a re-focus on community-based data in July of 2003. My LinkedIn connections are now approaching 400--my public profile's at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/30a/559. I used to think that people with that many connections were promiscuous networkers or insincere accumulators or just plain old obsessive-compulsive, but after a while of hanging out, you just happen to accumulate a good load of links. I still happen to think LinkedIn will have some usefulness down the road, but I've backed off Ryze, and I'm scared to death of MySpace. Other computer social or business networking attempts have come up short or even been darned annoying, and I can't even remember what most of them were right now, except for Konnects, the truly annoying one.

Chicken Paprikash Cook-Off

Upcoming.org: Chicken Paprikash Cook-Off at Studio of 5 Rings (Saturday, January 20, 2007), AT 7:00 pm TONIGHT. Gloria and I are going and taking our friend Ed, who may make the best chicken paprikash in town. George Nemeth may challenge. Be there.

Where
Studio of 5 Rings
2400 Superior Ave.Clevelad, Ohio 44114

Description
It's the middle of winter - cozy up with paprikash and fine wines. We'll even have warm, spiced German Gluh Wein to help shake the chills off. Make your secret recipe and bring your finished dish. No entry fee, but be sure to RSVP since space is limited. 7:00pm - 10:00pm
http://www.studioof5rings.com

what's wrong with this picture?

Albright invests in emerging markets - InvestmentNews--I don't know, maybe I'm just overly sensitive today, but there seems to be something wrong with this picture of the revolving door, where prior high-level political contacts lead so many so quickly to new jobs moving money around.

Madeleine Albright, who served as U.S. secretary of state, now manages private funds.

Ms. Albright chairs Albright Capital Management LLC in Washington and has raised $329 million to invest in emerging markets, according to Bloomberg News.

All of the money comes from PGGM, a Zeist, the Netherlands-based pension fund that manages more than $104 billion for health-care employees and social workers, according to the report.

PGGM wants to join in the investing in emerging markets trend, but named fraud and political instability as key issues.
"That's why there's value in political-risk management and the involvement of Secretary Albright is a valuable one,'' Jelle Beenen, a portfolio manager at PGGM, told Bloomberg News in an interview.

Other former high-ranking government officials involved in fund management include former Treasury secretaries Lawrence Summers and John Snow, and former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.

the Chandler trusts, and Eli and Ron

Tribune Co. gets buyout offer from top shareholder - MarketWatch--refer back to our post from mid-November for more on people wanting to buy media companies. What's going on here?

Tribune Co. received a buyout offer from the Chandler Trusts, its largest shareholder, representing just a modest premium to the media company's stock price -- the latest sign that the marketplace is unwilling to pay high prices for newspapers during a difficult period of transition for the industry.

"The auction limped to a close," said Prudential publishing analyst Steven Barlow.

Still, amid expectations that Tribune's board of directors is likely to be forced into action of one kind or another, the stock was driven up 2.2% to $31 on Thursday.

The Chandlers' $31.70-a-share offer, disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, would involve spinning off Tribune's broadcast and entertainment businesses into a separate, publicly traded company.

A Wall Street Journal report said billionaire investors Ronald Burkle and Eli Broad submitted a proposal for Tribune on Wednesday, although it wasn't a buyout offer. Citing a person familiar with the proposal, the newspaper said the two investors are offering to put up $500 million in cash for a stake of about 34% of Tribune.

MSM (mainstream media) shrinking, or melting

Time Inc. Lays Off Nearly 300 - New York Times--more news about MSM downsizing. Go figure.

The retrenchment comes as Time Inc., the nation’s biggest magazine publisher, seeks to expand its branded properties on the Web, where the company sees its future.

time to get that huge monitor

Netflix to Deliver Movies to the PC - New York Times --Once again, Netflix is out ahead of the pack, and we all stand to benefit.

“We’ve gotten used to it,” Netflix’s chief executive, Reed Hastings, said of the doomsday predictions. But Mr. Hastings also said he understood why questions about his business kept coming up. “Because DVD is not a hundred-year format, people wonder what will Netflix’s second act be.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Hastings will begin to answer that question. Netflix is introducing a service to deliver movies and television shows directly to users’ PCs, not as downloads but as streaming video, which is not retained in computer memory. The service, which is free to Netflix subscribers, is meant to give the company a toehold in the embryonic world of Internet movie distribution.

vets smoking over ban, thought they were a private club

Veterans upset over inclusion of VFW halls in smoking ban--From the Dayton DAILY NEWS--Once again, they've been sold out by the REMFs. Check out the whiner who collects a paycheck yet whines "We have no control...we're hamstrung..."

COLUMBUS — Military veterans who voted for Ohio's smoking ban feel betrayed now that the state Health Department says the law applies to private clubs that have employees, including VFW halls, a veterans group said Tuesday.

Members-only VFW halls, which veterans believed fell under an exemption clause that appeared on the November ballot, shouldn't have to comply, said William Seagraves, state commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of Ohio. He urged the state to change its draft rules for enforcing the ban.

Seagraves spoke out at a third meeting of bar owners, public health advocates and other business groups who are seeking to clarify how the law will be carried out. The smoking ban, which aims to protect nonsmokers and employees from secondhand smoke, took effect Dec. 7, but the state won't issue penalties until dozens of rules are finalized.

"How can the state tell veterans that they have no right to smoke in their private clubs?" asked Seagraves, whose group represents 424 VFW halls in Ohio. Socrates Tuch, legal counsel to the state Health Department, said that while the law has a provision exempting private clubs, it also says that all employers — businesses, associations or private entities — that have employees must comply. That includes private clubs, such as VFW halls, that have bartenders and wait staff, paid or unpaid, he said.

"We have no control over how the law is written," Tuch said. "We're not trying to dismiss these concerns, but we're hamstrung as to what we can do."

how James Brown kept Boston from burning

Features : Radar Online--by David Gates, an event I'd forgotten about, following the assassination of Martin Luther King, in which James Brown saves Boston. These were some intense times. Check out the link ( James Brown, Boston Garden, April 5, 1968) in the Gates story to the recent Boston Globe article , as well.

link to MLK's "The World House" essay

In the title above is a link to Martin Luther King's "The World House." Here's a little bit more, below, about one group that promotes our knowing about it:

In the fall of 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks, members of the Rhode Island chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) went on retreat to study the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and reflect on their relevance to those recent acts of terrorism. We read "The World House," the last chapter of Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, a book now long out of print.

This chapter, based on Dr. King’s Nobel Peace Prize lecture, seemed truly prophetic and prescient. We wondered whether the tragedies of September 11 and a whole lot of other human suffering might have been averted had activists, scholars, journalists, religious leaders, and elected officials taken King’s message seriously. Dr. King's World House vision seemed to offer a paradigm shift away from nation-state thinking and toward a global Beloved Community — what King would have regarded as the Kingdom of God on earth.

Many of us in Rhode Island have dedicated ourselves to disseminating King's prophetic World House message, aware that it is virtually unknown to the American people and cannot be acted upon until it is understood. Working through such organizations as the FOR, the RI Committee for Nonviolence Initiatives, and the Rhode Island Peace Mission, we have produced materials and promoted the World House vision and agenda with members of the Rhode Island Congressional delegation.

We have constructed a portable World House replica to use as an educational tool in schools, churches, and with community groups. Our exhibit was on display at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center for the Revolutionary Women 2004 event that coincided with the Democratic National Convention.

We wish to thank Dr. Dorothy F. Cotton, one of Martin Luther King's close associates, for calling our attention to the World House vision. "If you want to know what Dr. King would be doing today," she told us, "read the last chapter of his last book." We are grateful for the direction and support Dorothy has provided as we undertake this work. We also want to credit Nondas Voll of the Fund for Community Progress for the terrific idea of building a moveable exhibit to explain Dr. King’s vision.

As Dorothy reminds us, we accomplish this work only in community.

so who's in the dark ages, really?

University Circle Blog - Friends of the University Neighborhood--I just had to drop what follows as a comment on the cheerleading going on at the University Circle blog for the misnomer corridor, where people have the opportunity to whiz through Cleveland without ever having a Cleveland resident breathe on them. EEEEWWW! Here's my comment:

I don't believe the Opportunity (for whom?) Boulevard (?) is a good answer either. Increasing bus riders and rapid riders is. Increasing Cleveland residency is. Making it quicker and easier for people to drive blithely through established Cleveland neighborhoods isn't; suburban people working in a host city should conform to the city; the city should not have to conform to the fact that the suburbanites have made impractical decisions about where they live and where they work. Nor should we have to economically support their distaste for mixing with native Clevelanders; we should not subsidize racial, ethnic, and social intolerance. Having neighborhoods with all social strata and all income levels, much like a small town, would have the effect of reducing the need for heroic roadbuilding. Let's get real, for a change. Our common financial resources are not unlimited. Work with making incremental, sensible, economical improvements to the rich city we already have.

from your lips to God's ears

How to Speak a Book - Books - Review - New York Times--This came up last week, and I wanted to share it. This is where I want to be by the end of this year--dictating. And, I had no idea that in having these needs and wants I would be in such great company--Socrates, Thomas Aquinas, James Joyce, Stendahl, Milton, Worsdworth, Dostoyevsky, and two of the literary heroes of my youth, Wallace Stevens and Henry James. This is an incredibly good read, referencing the voice-type dictation of geekdom back to our common literary roots.

freeware for Windows bloggers

Review: Windows Live Writer Beta Makes Blogging Better - News by InformationWeek, from a few weeks ago, when my Blogger Beta was biffed--

If you're a blogger, chances are you do most of your writing directly in a Web browser. Microsoft has now rolled out a standalone blogging application, Windows Live Writer, which not only works with the Live family but with Blogger, LiveJournal, and any blogging system that supports one of a broad range of APIs.

So why use a standalone program to do your blogging, when almost every online blogging service out there already has a fairly powerful WYSIWYG interface that runs in your Web browser? After working with Windows Live Writer, I think the answer is pretty self-evident. For one, Live Writer offers a more consistent and less browser-dependent way to blog, especially if you're dealing with many blogs hosted on multiple services. It also provides you with an interface that's not shackled to the limits of what can be presented in a browser without plug-ins or add-ons.

Officially, Live Writer is still in beta, but it's solid enough at this point that I could use it for production work without any major hitches. Once installed, it can be immediately configured to work with many common blogging systems, including Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, and, of course, Windows Live Spaces. If you don't know what your blog runs, you can simply point Live Writer at the blog's homepage, submit your user name and password, and Live Writer will automatically discover the necessary data. I have blogs set up through Movable Type, another popular blogging and content-management system, and Live Writer was able to figure it out without much trouble. ...(more)

Norm on Ohio's new Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits

Give former Governor Taft credit for signing Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit into Law REALNEO for all--Our friend Norm Roulet posted this account of the new historic tax credits available in Ohio. It's a critical distinction to note that a tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar offset of taxes and is therefore more valuable than a tax deduction, which is a lessening of the amount to be taxed. This incentive can drive a lot of the restoration we've been needing to do around here for 50 years. It rewards us for placing the emphasis on preserving our heritage buildings, which we have in greater abundance than just about anybody anyplace else. I'm looking forward to using this on projects in the City of Cleveland these next few years.

An Inconvenient Truth: I'm three times gassier

An Inconvenient Truth > Carbon Calculator--Here's the way you can measure your "carbon footprint," as we learned from Jeff Friedman this past Thursday at the Midtown Brews event at Webtego. My personal, business and family footprint is 23.5 tons, which I guess is more like a sitzmark, since it makes me three times gassier than the 7.5-ton national average. Yes, I am an American! Jeff's session should be posted soon on Meet.The.Bloggers.

I wonder if they have banks gone wild?

The Story of Ireland’s Economic and Social Growth - New York Times: Seems a lot has changed since my grandfather hopped the ship at Londonderry about a century ago. There may be lessons to be gleaned from the Irish. Should we chalk a lot of it up to literacy and schooling?

"A rote list of statistics is more effective than pallid drama. Consider: The gross national product of Ireland grew 400 percent between 1986 and 2004, according to the documentary. The work force has doubled. Only Japan is now home to a higher proportion of scientists and engineers.

Church attendance in Ireland has halved in the same period. The average number of children per family has fallen from to two from five. Google, Intel, Wyeth, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Apple now have substantial Irish divisions. Finally, 20 percent of American foreign investment is now committed to Ireland. That’s amazing. "

an indentured nation: serfs up?

Banks Gone Wild - New York Times--Years ago, many of our forefathers came to this country as indentured servants, or slaves, or debtors. As you read this recounting of how we live in a nation of "banks gone wild," you wonder whether we're just about back in the same boat as they came over on. I think it's time we took our money, our lives, and our freedom back.

...A boomerang effect has appeared, too. The new law contains a provision forcing many debtors into Chapter 13 compulsory repayment plans. The bill’s backers expected this fresh squeeze on debtors to produce more cash for the banks, but the trend appears to be downward.

In adopting the provision, Congress disregarded the advice of every disinterested group that has looked at the question, including three presidential commissions, the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office. It also ignored a past House Judiciary Committee report, which declared that such compulsion might well amount to the imposition of involuntary servitude. [emphasis mine]

So the lending goes on. People classed as the “working poor,” now beginning to be tapped by the credit card vendors, no doubt constitute a rich supply of coveted potential revolvers — fresh customers for the banks to draw into the credit maze, with its minimums and its unending late fees. In signing the 2005 act, President Bush declared that it would make more credit available to poor people. Unquestionably so. And 30 percent interest was just what they needed, wasn’t it?

more on the empire of debt

Cablevision Buyout Bid Is Raised - New York Times--The NYT now gives us a permalink to articles that will not expire when the article goes to the NYT archives. This article is about the Dolan family, which has a local presence. Here are some of the numbers from the article:

The Dolan family, the controlling shareholders of the Cablevision Systems Corporation, yesterday increased their bid for the company by about $1 billion, to $8.9 billion, from their October offer.

James L. Dolan, the chief executive of Cablevision, and his family want to take the company private.
The family, which owns 20 percent of Cablevision equity and controls 70.4 percent of the vote, said in a letter to the special transaction committee of the board, that this was the family’s final offer and it was good until Wednesday.

The company, which owns cable systems as well as several cable programming networks, issued a statement saying it had no comment on the offer.

The family, led by Charles F. Dolan and his son James, also said it would not resell the company if its bid for Cablevision was successful. That effort is a type of insurance that aims to protect shareholders from a buyer flipping the asset at a higher price. The family said it would be willing to discuss a contractual agreement on the issue.

It also said that it would respect the vote on the decision by a majority of the minority shareholders and that it would not sell its control position if the company stayed public...

...As it stands now, the equity portion of the bid has risen 11 percent, to $30 a share.
But at that level, the company may be beginning to bump up against its debt covenants, analysts said yesterday. The company currently has $11.2 billion in debt.

The newest offer would require the Dolans to pay an additional $6.8 billion to buy out the 228 million public shares. That would bring the total debt level to about $18 billion, and the average annualized 2007 cash flow is expected to be about $2 billion. That puts the debt-to-cash-flow ratio at a multiple of nine times, which is the limit on the debt covenants, said Chris Marangi, who follows cable at Gabelli & Company. Gabelli’s parent company, Gamco Investors Inc., owns 20 million shares of Cablevision stock.

Analysts also said that the Dolans told the company that their advisers, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns, would provide preferred equity financing for the deal, although the family did not say how much of the financing would be preferred equity.

Although preferred equity, which carries a higher interest rate than debt, does not count in debt-to-cash-flow ratios, the family said only that they did not do this because of debt covenants but because the capital structure made the most sense.

What I can't see--and I'm probably just naive--is how you can pay $8.9 billion to buy out the 80% of the company you don't own and then be $18 billion in debt? (8.9 divided by .80 = 11.125 billion, encumbered with 18 billion of debt?) What am I missing here?

Robert Anton Wilson: never rule out any possibility

The Blog Paul Krassner: Literary Loss The Huffington Post from Paul Krassner, on the death of Robert Anton Wilson: In 1964, I ran another front-cover story by him, "Timothy Leary and His Psychological H-Bomb," which began: "The future may decide that the two greatest thinkers of the 20th Century were Albert Einstein, who showed how to create atomic fission in the physical world, and Timothy Leary, who showed how to create atomic fission in the psychological world. The latter discovery may be more important than the former; there are some reasons for thinking that it was made necessary by the former....Leary may have shown how our habits of thought can be changed...."

And from The New York TIMES:

Mr. Wilson contended that people should never rule out any possibility, including that lasagna might fly. On Jan. 6, in his last post on his personal blog, he wrote: “I don’t see how to take death seriously. I look forward without dogmatic optimism, but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying.”

Two good articles about a fascinating fellow help to begin to put our culture into perspective, finally. Tune in.

Google Toolbar (re)Installed

Google Toolbar (re)Installed, with a version dated 01/12/2007, and now, it appears, the "send to Blogger" or "Blog It" function is fixed.

and tomorrow, we all have coffee and congeniality

Here's some more info I got from Betsey Merkel. I think the Midtown Morning/Brews blog/website at the link needs updating, so my data below should be considered more current information.

Midtown Mornings (Info here) Share an awesome view of The Lake at a very cool Midtown loft office space. Sip early morning coffee and bagels, make new connections and work on transformative initiatives.

Date: Friday, January 12
Time: 7:30 A.M. - 8:30 A.M.
Place: Nead Brand Partners
3631 Perkins Rd, Suite 6A Cleveland, OH 44114
P: 216-431-9301 ext.12

Coming up...Friday, January 19, Andreas Boardwalk Cafe

Read the I-Open White Paper here.

Learn about economic development in a networked global world. Read the EDPro Weblog here. Ed Morrison, Editor.

tonight, Jeff Friedman shows and tells what he learned in Nashville

Midtown Brews (Info here) connects innovative thinkers with global perspectives on our regional economy. Join us this week to learn about The Climate Project, a movement to educate and challenge citizens, and governments about the growing crisis of global warming.
The Climate Project brings education, community information, research and citizen action programs to communities across the country as a follow-up to the film, An Inconvient Truth. Learn more about climate change and how you can get involved. We include a healthy dose of good food and good beer.

Date: This Thursday, January 11, 2007
With Jeff Friedman, National spokesperson for An Inconvenient Truth and Meet The Bloggers
Time: 5:30 P.M - 7:30 P.M.
Place: Webtego, 2530 Superior Avenue, Suite 600 Cleveland, Ohio 44114
Phone: 216-348-8700

Participate.net is a growing community of film lovers and activists who are dedicated to engaging their minds, sharing their passions, and improving the world around them. If you are a blogger, teacher or eager to learn how you can connect to a sustainability-minded community, go here.
Listen and learn from last month's fascinating interview and discussion with Lawrence Krauss thoughtfully examining global climate change, missile defense, and science education here.

yet now here comes Steve with his own iPhone

This is an interesting way to collaborate, given the evidence of the previous post. Read the whole article, from the New York TIMES today:

Apple chose the name iPhone even though Cisco Systems, the network and consumer wireless company, has recently introduced a Wi-Fi-based phone with the same name. Mr. Jobs had been negotiating with Cisco executives over the trademark in recent days.

new iPhone is not made by Apple?

This morning, one of our tech friends alerted us to the great technology behind the new iPhone, and in searching for more information, we came up on this December 19th AP release--

SAN FRANCISCO - The iPhone has arrived, but it's not made by Apple Computer Inc., which was widely rumored to be working a cell phone-iPod combination of the same name.
Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems Inc. that makes networking equipment for the home and small businesses, unveiled the new line of Internet-enabled phones this week.
The phones use the increasingly popular Voice over Internet Protocol, better known as VoIP, and also allow users to switch over for traditional landline calling.

They also can search the Web and allow users to see when friends are online and ready to accept calls. Several other companies have similar offerings.
But the name has caused a stir. Cisco has owned the trademark on the name "iPhone" since 2000, when it acquired the company that originally registered the name, InfoGear Technology Corp.
Industry watchers have speculated that Apple was close to releasing some kind of iPod and cellular telephone combination, possibly for unveiling at Macworld in January. Until the Linksys announcement, the name "iPhone" was a logical guess.
Much of the speculation about Apple's activity centers on an application the Cupertino-based company filed with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for a "portable computing device capable of wireless communications." The company has not discussed its plans, and declined Tuesday to comment on "rumors and speculation."
Analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies said a convenient naming option for Apple may have been eliminated, but the Linksys announcement will likely have little impact on Apple's plans.
Apple is believed to be working on a cell phone with music-playing ability, a markedly different technology than a VoIP phone, and still may have a surprise in store for the naming of any such device, he said.
"In our industry, naming the thing is almost as hard as creating the technology," he said. "It's pretty clear it's not going to be called 'iPhone.' But Apple's still pretty clever. They still could be very creative."
© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

don't forget this month's SKYPE special

While I'm thinking of telephone service, don't forget to take advantage of the $14.95 Skype-out service, which will go up in price at the end of this month.

Unlimited Calling gives you a full year of unlimited calls to anyone, on any phone, within the US and Canada for just US$14.95.(US$29.95 after January 31st 2007)
Use SkypeOut to call anyone, anywhere in the world. Just buy Skype Credit to pay low per-minute rates. The credits are deducted as you make your SkypeOut calls.
With the unlimited you get:12 months of unlimited calls to any phone in the US and Canada - right from your computer. More than an hour of international calls*.
Over $50 in coupons to get a Motorola headset, Netgear WiFi phone, and a Polycom speakerphone.

free at last, the final cleansing

Today, I threw out my old AT&T Yellow Pages and AT&T White Pages, dated July 2006. We don't appear in them any more and haven't used AT&T since our last major altercation with them, stretching from the summer through the fall of 2005, during which time we transitioned to Vonage. We've cut our bill by 2/3rds, even including the cost of the Time-Warner cable service to carry the VoIP line--it used to be in the area of $350 monthly. We kept one of our old numbers, the back line, but lost our main business line in the switch--AT&T got nasty and/or grossly inefficient, and we couldn't transfer a number we'd had for business purposes since the mid-1980s.

still hating the Blogger Beta-That's-Out-Of-Beta-They-Say

This morning, I thought a long-standing problem of the Blogger beta had finally been rectified; I thought the "BlogThis" or "Send to Blogger" feature of Blogger was functional. I jubilantly did my "send to," made the appropriate links, fine-tuned my deathless prose, and found that...

ERROR
Required field must not be blank
Stop showing errors for this post

.

was the new order of the day, the new dysfunctionality, the latest hangup, preventing me from completing my posting.

You'd think they could do better, given the huge client base. Then I remembered, I don't pay them anything for all this, and I can't really make a lot of demands.

freedom from oppression, only $19.95, while supplies last...

We were invited by Richard May to the Ward 20 Republican Club last night, where Cleveland City Council President Martin Sweeney gave a reprise of the policital scene, recounting the past year, trying to let it pass in review. Some of the big sore spots are the red-light districts with traffic cameras, where the self-righteous and newly converted elected and appointed whores are hooking citizens, for the greater good of the city and an increased revenue stream. Here's an ounce of prevention. The pound of cure is just too severe, severe enough to serve as a deterrent to decades of economic development. Meet The PhotoBlocker--

Protect yourself against the unscrupulous ticketing practices being used today!

NEW AND IMPROVED, PATENT-PENDING!Reflects photo radar flash. Spray it and make your license plate invisible to cameras. Proven to beat photo radar and red light cameras.
Independently tested by FOX NEWS and Denver Police Department.

NEW AND IMPROVED, PATENT-PENDING!
REFLECTS photo radar flash, helping to prevent a costly ticket!
FAST spray-on formula is easily applied in minutes!
INVISIBLE to the naked eye, only you will know it is on your vehicle!
EXCLUSIVE formula! Good for up to FOUR plates.
BEST alternative for those areas where you can't use an anti-radar license plate cover!
One application of PhotoBlocker is good for life. Will not wash off,

How does "PHOTOBLOCKER" work?Photo radar cameras often utilize a strong flash to photograph the license plate on your car as it speeds by. "PHOTO BLOCKER's" special formula works to reflect the flash back to the camera. The result is an overexposed and unreadable picture, often preventing a costly ticket.

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Remove plate, clean, and place flat.
2. Spray PhotoBlocker evenly until surface is totally saturated. Let dry and repeat 2-3 times until plate is very glossy.
3. Let it dry for about 2 hours. Should be good for life! (more)

temporary link to BFD at MTB

George has run into a service problem with GoDaddy--follow the link to have an alternate path to Brewed Fresh Daily until George straightens out what shouldn't have to be straightened out in the first place.

Sorry. GoDaddy.com has screwed up my registration. Please help me spread the word that you can get to BFD using this link until further notice.

Yesterday, the domain was parked, but no one I know did it. Here’s a copy of the info from their page:

WHOIS Underlying Registry Data:

Whois Server Version 1.3

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

Domain Name: BREWEDFRESHDAILY.COM
Registrar: GO DADDY SOFTWARE, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
Name Server: PARK11.SECURESERVER.NET
Name Server: PARK12.SECURESERVER.NET
Status: clientRenewProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Updated Date: 03-jan-2007
Creation Date: 28-feb-2003
Expiration Date: 28-feb-2007
I was on the phone with them this morning, to no avail. The guy I’m hosting with told me that he’s heard of several similar incidents with GoDaddy over the past few months.

FYI, if you still have an MTB Network Ad, you might want to replace the domain name with the IP address. Contact me for details if you need help with that.

Filed under: Opinion by — George Nemeth @ 10:19 am

Stormin' Norman at the outset of the year

Our friend Norm Ezzie has kicked off his news commentary for 2007 with a vengeance. Stay tuned, to Norm and to WOIO Channel 19 with Bill Applegate.

This may be the year of revelations. Watch your canaries in the coal mine, or perish.

day of infamy

From The New York TIMES, a grim reminder:

"On Jan. 4, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson outlined the goals of his 'Great Society' in his State of the Union address."

all that rises must converge, or words to that efffect

PC Magazine announced a new product today that seems attractive, and it also has navigation software built in. This whole bundle, to me, seems valuable, finally, since it includes a phone, a modem, and Bluetooth and 802.11b/g WiFi. Is there anything they left out? Read the whole article, but here's the lead-in:

GPS firm Pharos today launched its first hybrid GPS/cell phone, a Windows Mobile smartphone called the Pharos GPS Phone.

The GPS Phone is a pull-out-all-the-stops Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC, with a top-notch SirfStar III GPS chip and a range of high-end features. It's a quad-band GSM world phone, with high-speed Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, and an EDGE cellular modem. You can take pictures with a 2-megapixel camera, or listen to a built-in FM radio. The device has a 2.8-inch, 320-by-240 touch screen, but no built-in QWERTY keyboard.

Pharos has made the unusual choice of selling the GPS Phone unlocked, letting users pop in an existing Cingular or T-Mobile SIM card. While this keeps the price high, at $699.95, it lets Pharos bring the phone to market without the drag of carrier approval processes—so it will be on sale next month.

marring the streetscape, for three administrations

Once again, I'm asking if anybody knows who is responsible for the omnipresent Omni Media advertising kiosks which have been marring the metropolitan Cleveland streetscape since Mike White contracted for their installation as one of his final cruel pranks. The PD article at the link has a date of 01/04/2001, nearly 6 years ago. Now that yet another year is passing, we should have some report of the revenue the City of Cleveland garners from these design monstrosities. I've seen nothing lately.

Can anybody tell us who controls these kiosks, who books the advertising, and how much the city gets for allowing its streets to be used so poorly? Who benefits? Is it some French company, perhaps the same one that currently controls the ads at the airport?

Why is our accountability so poor around here? Don't we deserve to know whether these things are delivering as advertised? There are 195 of them, according to the article, so who is responsible for them? I don't think this is asking too much, to know about assets with easements on our common city property. If they're not productive, then perhaps we should get them off the streets; to me, they are unwelcome visual clutter. If we are going to make a point of being a breeding ground of artists and other genteel, sensitive people who hold dear proportion and integration, we can't go around being so thoughtlessly tacky.

NCB wipes off the booger

Our friends over at CLEVELANDADA brought this to my attention:

CLEVELAND, Jan. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- National City Corporation(NYSE: NCC) has announced the completion of the sale of the First Franklin origination franchise and related servicing platform to Merrill Lynch & Co.(NYSE: MER), effective Dec. 30, 2006. First Franklin is a leading originator of non-prime residential mortgage loans through a nationwide wholesale network.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030428/NATIONALCITYLOGO)
Under terms of the agreement, Merrill Lynch paid a $1.3 billion purchase price for the San Jose, Calif.-based First Franklin, and affiliated business units, Pittsburgh-based National City Home Loan Services and NationPoint, headquartered in Lake Forest, Calif.
About National City National City Corporation (NYSE: NCC), headquartered in Cleveland,Ohio, is one of the nation's largest financial holding companies. The company operates through an extensive banking network primarily in Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri and Pennsylvania,and also serves customers in selected markets nationally. Its core businesses include commercial and retail banking, mortgage financing and servicing, consumer finance and asset management. For more information about National City, visit the company's Web site at http://www.nationalcity.com.

SOURCE National City Corporation

Burke Lakefront, and WORTH Magazine

WORTH Magazine and The Robb Report spend a lot of time and printspace talking about private personal and corporate aircraft. The January 2007 WORTH on page 78 addresses the issue of how "today's private jet owners seek to manage soaring costs by scrutinizing the maintenance and operation of their own aircraft." I'd link to the article if I could, but I can't.

It's been occurring to me that Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL) is an idea whose time has finally come. What other city has a jetport so close to its downtown with its best restaurants and classiest hotels? What better way could there be to do business, with your plane in such close proximity? I don't know that I'd fly in to negotiate any deals with any of the current leadership here, but I would make it a sort of "third place" for dealmakers, outside the major financial centers like NYC and San Francisco.

One problem may be the marketing. Going to the BKL page, there's really no mention of what sort of corporate jets may be accommodated, and clicking on the Cleveland Hotels link gives us a bunch of Baymonts and Days Inns. The city's continuing to fumble the ball on this one, and you wonder, after all these years, whether it's intentional, whether they systematically waste the opportunity, and the asset, by neglecting to do even minimal promotion. What are their other designs for the airport land? Who's supposed to get this unique asset when the city gives up on what it never really started?

How many outsiders know about the capacities or proximities or amenities of Burke?

Schlesinger shows us the way: Folly's Antidote

Arthur, in his New Year's Day piece in the New York TIMES, may be showing us the way we need to proceed from here on in, as citizens who promote and maintain the civic dialogues for the benefit of all of us.

The great strength of history in a free society is its capacity for self-correction. This is the endless excitement of historical writing — the search to reconstruct what went before, a quest illuminated by those ever-changing prisms that continually place old questions in a new light.

History is a doomed enterprise that we happily pursue because of the thrill of the hunt, because exploring the past is such fun, because of the intellectual challenges involved, because a nation needs to know its own history. Or so we historians insist. Because in the end, a nation’s history must be both the guide and the domain not so much of its historians as its citizens.