Patiently standing guard in front of City Hall, and a short block north of County Hall, are four very large marble lions.  Since their arrival in 1907,  they’ve been majestically perched ground zero in the heart of the city, with a towering view in all directions.

Well, I say for nearly a hundred years, our lackadaisical lions have done little more than lounge around. It’s high time we put them to work.

Before Buffalo as a city became stupid, we used to be smart. After the turn of the century, our lions proudly watched as Buffalo became the eighth largest city in the U.S.,  able to tout a rich legacy of visionary foresight. They saw a city that was a mesmerizing magnet that attracted the very best and the brightest. Olmsted, Richardson, Wright, Sullivan and hundreds of luminaries in  practically every field flocked here to do business.

Now, a hundred years, and several thousand bad decisions later, Buffalo is a mere shell of its former glory. Through a century of myopic leadership, we lost our vision and systematically discarded and destroyed the riches it helped create.

Fortunately, hope is beginning to raise its head above the ashes.

In recent years, a forward-thinking renaissance movement has emerged to rebuild our treasures and set a sustainable course for our future. Tirelessly working weekends and after hours, this amorphous group is banding together to save priceless landmarks from destruction, building new galleries, reconnecting our parks system, and reshaping our waterfront. Armed to the teeth with every high-tech communications gadget made, this band of warriors has quickly become a force to be reckoned with.

Unfortunately, the near-sighted power structure that has caused this mess, and the public officials they employ didn’t just suddenly up and leave town. For some of the old guard, things are simply business as usual, while others scramble to find/buy a silver bullet that can magically make the sins of the last century go away. A savy, well connected bunch with very heavy wallets , they still put up quite a fight to be players in a race to the bottom.

Time To Roar.

This is where the lions need to step-up and earn their keep. If they want to preside over a prosperous city, they must use their proximity to power, 360 degree view, and tons of marble muscle to help us guard the gate.

To let people with good ideas for the sustainable success of the city in.

And to keep self-serving power brokers that are still looking through the wrong end of the telescope out.

Well OK, this may be far to daunting a task for four 100 year old lions to handle by themselves.

It will be my pleasure to pitch-in and lend a hand to such a noble effort. I’m sure we can count on your help too.

Collectively, we’re smart people. By all of us sharing our thoughts, ideas, and a positive vision for the future, I know we can somehow figure it out.

After all, we’re Buffalonians. And it’s time to make our lions proud again.

by Keith Olbermann – MSNBC

Bush has been ‘making it up’ for too long, and the people have let him

We are, as every generation, inseparable from our own time.Thus is our perspective, inevitably that of the explorer looking into the wrong end of the telescope.

But even accounting for our myopia, it’s hard to imagine there have been many elections more important than this one, certainly not in non-presidential years.

And so we look at the verdict in the trial of Saddam Hussein yesterday, and, with the very phrase “October, or November, Surprise” now a part of our vernacular, and the chest-thumping coming from so many of the Republican campaigners today, each of us must wonder about the convenience of the timing of his conviction and sentencing.But let us give history and coincidence the benefit of the doubt—let’s say it’s just “happened” that way—and for a moment not look into the wrong end of the telescope. Let’s perceive instead the bigger picture:Saddam Hussein, found guilty in an Iraqi court.Who can argue against that?He is officially, what the world always knew he was: a war criminal.

Mr. Bush, was this imprimatur, worth the cost of 2,832 American lives, and thousands more American lives yet to be lost?Is the conviction of Saddam Hussein the reason you went to war in Iraq?  Or did you go to war in Iraq because of the weapons of mass destruction that did not exist? Or did you go to war in Iraq because of the connection between Iraq and al-Qaida that did not exist? Or did you go to war in Iraq to break the bonds of tyranny there, while installing the mechanisms of tyranny here? Or did you go to war in Iraq because you felt the need to wreak vengeance against somebody, anybody? Or did you go to war in Iraq to contain a rogue state which, months earlier, your own administration had declared had been fully contained by sanctions? Or did you go to war inIraq to keep gas prices down?

How startling it was, sir, to hear you introduce oil to your stump speeches over the weekend. Not four years removed from the most dismissive, the most condescending, the most ridiculing denials of the very hint at, as Mr. Rumsfeld put it, this “nonsense.”There you were, campaigning in Colorado, in Nebraska, in Florida, in Kansas — suddenly turning this ‘unpatriotic idea’ into a platform plank.“

You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources,” you told us. “And then you can imagine them saying, ‘We’re going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following.’”Having frightened us, having bullied us, having lied to us, having ignored and rewritten the Constitution under our noses, having stayed the course, having denied you’ve stayed the course, having belittled us about “timelines” but instead extolled “benchmarks,” you’ve now resorted, sir, to this?We must stay in Iraq to save the $2 gallon of gas?

Mr. President, there is no other conclusion we can draw as we go to the polls tomorrow. Sir, you have been making this up as you went along.This country was founded to prevent anybody from making it up as they went along. Those vaunted Founding Fathers of ours have been so quoted up, that they appear as marble statues: like the chiseled guards of
China, or the faces on Mount Rushmore. 

But in fact they were practical people and the thing they obviously feared most was a government of men and not laws.They provided the checks and balances for a reason.No one man could run the government the way he saw fit — unless he, at the least, took into consideration what those he governed saw.A House of Representatives would be the people’s eyes.A Senate would be the corrective force on that House.An executive would do the work, and hold the Constitution to his chest like his child.A Supreme Court would oversee it all.Checks and balances.Where did that go, Mr. Bush?And what price did we pay because we have let it go?

Saddam Hussein will get out of Iraq the same way 2,832 Americans have and thousands more. He’ll get out faster than we will. And if nothing changes tomorrow, you, sir, will be out of the White House long before the rest of us can say we are out of Iraq.

And whose fault is this? Not truly yours. You took advantage of those of us who were afraid, and those of us who believed unity and nation took precedence over all else. But we let you take that advantage. And so we let you go to war in Iraq to oust Saddam or find non-existant weapons or avenge 9/11 or fight terrorists who only got there after we did or as cover to change the fabric of our Constitution or for lower prices at The Texaco or…?     

There are still a few hours left before the polls open, sir. There are many rationalizations still untried.And whatever your motives of the moment, we the people have, in true good faith and with the genuine patriotism of self-sacrifice (of which you have shown you know nothing), we have let you go on making it up as you went along. Unchecked and unbalanced.

Vote.

I know, this was originally meant to be an exclusively local, Buffalo Blog.

But what the heck, it’s Election Day, and after 6 years, we finally have a fleeting moment of George Bush’s attention.

-mark donnelly, publisher

Spend $165 million, $500 million, or do it right for $1 billion—who decides and who pays?

by Bill Zimmermann
The Buffalo Waterfront Alliance will hold its second part of series of waterfront agenda open forums on Wednesday, November 8th at the CPO Club at the foot of Porter Avenue from 6-7 pm, free and open to all.This month’s meeting focuses on: Our Buffalo River and the WNY waterways pollution facts, as well as resolve plan options. A month ago Buffalo News’ Mike Beebe did an excellent two-day coverage article reporting hard news and details about our fate as a community regarding our rivers and our waterways… it was truly an amazing piece of helpful community journalism – a positive orientation pointing leaders to conditions of our most cherished natural resource. So what now?Present for this month’s forum panel: Mike Beebe of the Buffalo News, Julie O’Neill of Buffalo Niagara Riverkeepers, other members from Riverkeepers, and a few more notable panel guests. It’s free and open to the public, starts at 6 pm and runs till 7 pm at CPO Club. CPO Club is located next to the Buffalo Yacht Club at the foot of Porter Avenue.

Some of the questions we’ll ask the panel at November’s Buffalo Waterfront Alliance meeting are:

·          Did most Buffalo folk read and absorb Mike Beebe’s articles on the Buffalo River and WNY waterways?

·           Do we believe the public is sincerely interested in our dilemma of waterways pollution, and if not, why?

·          Is the government and general media interested in continuing to profile this as a big issue?

·          Do we have a responsibility as a community to respond? What are the tools we have access to?

·          What are the next steps our community/government/media should take to make this issue more prevalent?

·          Do we research and talk about what they’ve been doing successfully in Hamilton?

·          What are the next action/funding/resolution steps, and who will run with them? If we do not actively participate, will our voices and opinions be heard?

·          Was this a serious story, and if so, do you think the media and community responded, and if not, why not?

·          And what steps would it take to let the people know they have a voice?

·          Does Buffalo really care about its rivers, and waterways, or was the silence following this story a matter of weakness due to our economic inability to react?

·          Is it just an unattractive subject compared to, say, our skyway teardown issue?

We know that the facts of the story shed both shocking truisms and yet no one refuted the facts, so why the silence in the aftermath?
What can community media-supported action groups do to initiate a strong voice in this discussion?

Can we use the power of community media bloggers and community led groups to effect change in order to make this an apt issue of concern in our community?

Please attend: Wednesday, November 1st, CPO Club (at foot of Porter, next to Buffalo yacht Club…FREE to all). If you wish to be a panel discussion member: contact Bill Zimmermann at 716-885-6936, or wnysail@yahoo.comOur Buffalo Waterfront Alliance: a truly open forum for voices and action, diversified but eager and participating, forming committees, alliances, and voices that can Stand Up and Make Change for Buffalo and its Waterfront…