secession may provide the solution to what the PD wants

Callahan’s Cleveland Diary » Blog Archive » PD: Cut Council in ‘09, we don’t care how -- Callahan points up the fact that the local paper is calling for a reduction in council, regardless. I'd like to accomodate them. If Brooklyn Centre secedes, there will be at least one fewer council salary.

It's been difficult, over the years, watching our neighborhood be back-leveled through a denial of service. Before we reach the same level as Mayor Jackson's frames of reference of what a neighborhood ought to look like, we need to pull out and declare our independence, and take our money and our assets with us. From my point of view, the city has not been our friend.

All wards may have equal rights, but that doesn't mean a government must degrade prosperous areas to bring them to the same low level as failing wards.

A population size of 25,000 lives, give or take, more than puts us on a par with other suburbs in the coming regionalization craze. The suburbs are going to try to make every little podunk mayor Jackson's equal, and I don't see them getting much resistance. It's time for us to become re-individuated, as it was 200 years ago. Please don't preach me about economies of scale--show me the numbers, if you can.

beginning to understand what it all meant

AWEARNESS: The Kenneth Cole Blog: After 40 Years Of Olympic History, Tommie Smith and John Carlos Are Vindicated -- At the link is a double YouTube play, about 12-13 minutes in all, taking us back 40 years to turbulent times, showing the beginnings of making amends four decades later. These guys created quite an uproar, were judged as being out of line and traitorous, and paid a terrible price over the years for doing what they thought was the right thing. We're now understand better what they were trying to communicate, what they were adding into the cultural dialogue.

From the perspective of now, we can only begin to listen better, to be non-judgmental, to take words and gestures at face value and not load them up with our own baggage. We cannot ostracize a whole segment of our society any longer; we cannot afford to hold each other apart. We cannot afford to waste time any longer.

this is just about the last place to cut

Crain's Cleveland Business: RTA to boost fares, cut service to reduce red ink -- At a time when ridership is making buses bulge at the seams, cutting service and charging more for what remains is the last thing you want to have happen. Service and bus routes should expand; administrative staff should be cut; salaries should be cut; grants should be acquired; general taxes should be levied. But service should expand both in the number of buses circulating each route and in the hours of operation.

We found out recently that GCRTA has no idea how many people actually ride these things. We ride quite often, and the fare boxes are always inoperable.

The shopping areas depend on bus traffic. So do schools. So do the legion of newly minted commuters.

Here's some input from somebody who buys and uses a weekly ticket at all hours and for all destinations:

1. Make the bus appear every 15 or 20 minutes on each route during the
hours of 5 AM and 8 PM. Expand the workday to fit what many of us really
work.

2. Run the buses all day and all night.

3. Stabilize the routes and the scheduling, to the point where it becomes
intergenerational knowledge. Quit the switchey-change-o managerial flourishes
and give an area something it can depend on.

4. Maintain our investment: make the fare boxes work, replace the shocks
and the springs.

5. Make the buildout of the RTA a primary focus; now, the area see it as an
expense for transporting poor folk; it's actually an asset that enables a person
to save $8,000 a year in car expenses (see David Bach's Go Green, Live Rich). GM, Ford, the UAW, and State Farm will suffer for a while, but it's about taking care of the welfare of the individual members of the community first and foremost. Pretend for a while that we are New York City, and there's no way to have a car
reasonably.

6. If we don't do all this, then what the heck did we do spending all that time and money on Euclid Avenue? Was it merely for some short-term jobs and to cut back on the number of independent businesspeople? If we cut back on current service, we need to somehow get back the money we as a community just spent on the Euclid Avenue Extravaganza, and perhaps damages, too. Where do we start?

who else has one of these?

Burning River Roller Girls are back on the prowl for a second, rough-and-tumble season - Going Out - Cleveland.com -- I just thought that this quasi-punk, semi-jock, sports team/fashion statement might be one of our unique regional assets. Click through for an entertaining article and some fun photos as the Roller Girls go Bruising for a Good Time. You go, girls.