Good Guys Sometimes Win – Nov. 28, 2017

Toronto has a vibrant, active downtown where people actually walk to the many small shops and restaurants that line the streets.  Downtown Rochester, NY, where I am from, is quite dead in contrast, strangled in the 1960s by the kind of urban planning that will always be associated with Robert Moses.  At last they are filling in part of the Inner Loop – which would be better called the Noose – and planting grass.  A belated victory for Jane Jacobs.  If you can’t preserve, you can still restore.

Quotation of the Day – Nov. 19, 2017

“Influencing the news cycles seems to be the principal goal; achieving short-term tactical advantage, you bet. But ultimately, it’s all noise and no signal.” – Sen. Jeff Flake

Quotation of the Day – Nov. 12, 2017

Today’s quotation comes from an old movie that still seems relevant.

Senator: Would you recommend a preventive attack?  Hit the enemy before they could hit us?

Leffingwell (played by Henry Fonda): No I wouldn’t recommend a preventive attack.  I would first try to bargain, try to agree to some of their demands if they’d agree to some of ours….  I believe war must be avoided, but I don’t believe it can be avoided by rattling sabres.

From Advise & Consent, dir. Otto Preminger

Word of the Day – Nov. 11, 2017

I have a pet peeve when it comes to the most misused term in our political discourse, “climate skepticism.”  Skepticism is a healthy reluctance to accept something merely on faith or the force of tradition.  When it comes to climate change, however, there is little that is healthy about the position of most opponents.  Al Gore gets it right when he says that Trump has surrounded himself with “the absolute worst of climate deniers.”  But he’s quoted saying this in a Guardian article whose sub-headline refers to “skepticism from Trump administration officials.”  Let’s call them what they are: not skeptics, but climate-change deniers.  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/10/al-gore-donald-trump-climate-change

Quotation of the Day – Oct. 8, 2017

“When a group at the top of society secedes and forms a globally mobile republic, able to choose which jurisdiction they wish to operate under, the public is right to ask why we allow this to happen. Why should taxes just be for the little people?” – from today’s Guardian