FreeMarkets founder Glen Meakem contemplates future in politics - PittsburghLIVE.com

Trib article Meakem said he doesn't have faith in the Pittsburgh electorate to put people in place that will make real change. He said he supported Bill Peduto and Michael Lamb in the Democratic primary, and urged that one of them pull out of the race and support the other in order to present a realistic chance against front-runner and eventual winner, Bob O'Connor, whom he doesn't view as a strong agent for radically transforming the way the city does business.

Both Lamb and Peduto are partly to blame for O'Connor winning the D's spring primary. I wish there was more teamwork among the challengers. Sadly, they fumbled those opportunities.

Dollar Bank Junior Great Race

I guess this can be the 10th annual -- but -- there was a time when the race was stopped in its tracks by Mayor Murphy. Refunds were given. A crisis was needed to waive in the face of residents of the city and suburbania and Harrisburg. Murphy's wisdom put a stop to the race despite the facts that The Great Race makes money.

WPXI.com - WPXI-TV - Dollar Bank Junior Great Race
The Great Race has Fun for the Entire Family, today, Sunday, September 18, 2005, at Point State Park.

Register your junior athletes in this non-competitive race for children 12 and younger. $5 for pre-registration; $7 on Sept. 18.

Start setting examples for your children while they are young. Encourage them to participate this exciting day of family fun that promotes health and fitness.

Parents can make this event more memorable for the kids by running with their children in the 1-Mile Fun Run.

Beginning at noon, Point State Park will be hopping. Children of all ages will enjoy meeting with favorite mascots, silly class and face painters.
www.rungreatrace.com.

Packet pick-up and late registration will begin at 10:30 a.m.

Recruiting grassroots leaders

Here is an interesting call for grassroots leaders from Alan Keyes. Grassroots leaders wanted for Renewamerica.us

RenewAmerica is looking for dedicated activists who would like to 'make a difference.'

The purpose of RenewAmerica is to inspire and develop grassroots leaders who are committed to advancing the principles of our nation's great Declaration of Independence and its framework for implementation, the U.S. Constitution.

We call this philosophy "Declarationism."

Our goal is to identify -- and prepare -- those individuals who believe enough in these uniquely-American ideals to DO SOMETHING, not just watch from the sidelines.

An appeal for leaders:

We're looking for self-motivated, patriotic Americans who are willing to lend their time, talents, and knowledge to building a nationwide grassroots movement of dedicated activists--activists who are willing to sacrifice for the cause of liberty in the tradition of their forbears.

Are you possibly such a self-motivated citizen-activist? If so, we'd like you to become an official member of RenewAmerica -- authorized to represent RenewAmerica in your sphere of influence (within guidelines set by the organization).

We'd also like you to consider organizing your own local chapter of RenewAmerica -- built upon Declarationist principles, but reflecting your own particular interests, perspective, and focus. Each chapter is meant to be fundamentally autonomous and distinctive, within guidelines created by RenewAmerica.

All chapters are local franchises of the RenewAmerica name and concept.

Are you interested? Do you have sufficient "moral heart" to lead out in reclaiming our republic? Are you willing to inspire and teach others to emulate your example--at least, are you willing to try?

What we have in mind is a unique organization that is built from the bottom up, and thus has much deeper roots and greater strength than any "top-down" political organization. We're absolutely serious about making this grassroots vision a reality.

We believe nothing else will work.

Please join us!

As our nation continues to show signs of increasingly-destructive erosion of the foundation our Founders gave us, there is great urgency to ACT in setting things right, within the parameters of basic decency, respect for law, and faith in God, through grassroots activism inspired by effective grassroots leaders.

If you've had enough disillusionment with our political process, with our government, and with powerful lobbies and special interests, consider becoming a recognized member of RenewAmerica--and also think about forming a franchised RenewAmerica chapter in your area.

Ultimately, our plan is to have over a million individual RenewAmerica activists in place throughout our country--and at least one RenewAmerica chapter in every county.

Visit the site and even see the CHAPTER FRANCHISE AGREEMENT, plus a Declarationists of America, Unite handbill. And as usual, reactions welcomed.

Tire clean-up nets nearly 600 from the landscape!

Bev of the South Side Slopes Neighborhood Assn posted a recap of the weekend efforts on a tire pick-up project.

We gathered 319 tires without rims and 70 tires with rims. Today's total is 389. From the same area we pulled out 150+ on April 17, 2004 and nearly 100 September 14, 2003 for a grand total of close to 600 tires! There might be ~10-15 left buried so deeply in mud that they cannot be removed. There is a great deal of trash that was bagged and piled for a later clean up. If you drive down Brosville, you will see the tires all piled for Monday pickup...

There will be photos in the Trib tomorrow and in the Reporter. The PG was also there sans photographer.

Thanks to the South Side Chamber of Commerce and Tier1 for the funding to pay the $0.75-$2.00 per tire fee for Proper Tire Disposal!

I am so very happy that we started cleaning this illegal dump area 2 years ago and have had such a great success, that new dumping has been curtailed with our surveillance! This is all due to the StepTrek calling attention to our public stairways. Thanks to all of you that will be very sore tomorrow!

We will be meeting at 9:00 am next Saturday to clean up the StepTrek routes. We will be at the UPMC SS Lot 21st & Josephine Streets. We will make our final pass on Saturday 10/1 for last minutes pick up. Then, the StepTrek is Sunday October 2 from noon to 4pm! We could use volunteers as early as 8 am.

Email Bev to help with the Step Trek. Or, just sign up and take the urban down and uphill hike!

Her Hopes Can Come True

Email from a pal in Pittsburgh's west end.

Mark--

Thank you for posting information about the eminent domain hearing on your blog. Incidentally, congratulations on your issue-oriented campaign for the Pa State enate. Your opponents waged one of the worst campaigns I have ever seen. Reading their ads, I felt embarrassed for both of them. I hope to see you in the running for City Council in the future.

Sincerely,

Kathleen

My Pet Goat: A cease and Desist letter sent to volunteers helping in the wake of Katrnia - OMG

My Pet Goat: "Cease and Desist

As background, our Katrina data project is a group of volunteers who are trying to aggregate data from numerous Katrina-related websites so that it's easier to search....

Read the rest there. I have much more to say about this, should I find the time.

Flashback: Any guess what these girls are doing? (Leave your ideas within the comments.)

New Climbing Wall to open -- we'll visit an older one in HK

We'll be missing the opening of the REI store on South Side Works. Harbor City in Hong Kong has a climbing wall too. Grant is giving it a whirl in this photo. Bike Pittsburgh was looking for some volunteers for bike parking duties on the opening days. Wonder if the union on strike will make a fuss with them as 'scabs?'

See ya soon. Tonight we are hosting a mini-party with two grad students and their buddies. In a couple of weeks, the two students join the four of us (photoed above) for a two week trip to Hong Kong.

Downtown in their dreams.

Candidates seek new Downtown plan. Downtown in their dreams.

If this was baseball, Weinroth hit a triple while O'Connor sat on the bench and sent in a pinch hitter.

Where in the world is Bob O'Connor? I'm not interested in hearing from a spokesperson. Bob is silent on Fifth and Forbes. Bob is silent on the budget. Bob is silent on property taxes. Bob is silent on closing schools. Bob is silent on everything. Furthermore, Skrinjar and Weinroth's statements are with serious holes and don't satisfy my urge to get Pittsburgh to thrive.

At least we heard George W. Bush repeat one of my often used phrases -- we want to thrive and not just survive. He was speaking about New Orleans in a prime time speech.

Candidates seek new Downtown plan - PittsburghLIVE.com The city needs to stop trying to do real estate development, Weinroth said.

I'd rather hear, "the city needs to stop doing real estate development." One could say, stop trying, just do it. Don't plan again -- just go.
But the headline, "candidates seek new downtown plan" is at odds with what Weinroth said. Weinroth wants a marketplace plan and that is simply no plan at all.

Meanwhile, the twisted logic in Dem's side is horrid. Bob wants downtown as a neighborhood. Neighborhoods have neighbors and residents. So, "If you have a population of residents, the businesses will find their way there," Skrinjar said. Yes, but, downtown is cramed and full of business now. Or, at least it was full of business to the point that downtown living got to be too expensive. The business influences elbowed out the residents, mostly. So I wonder how businesses can follow residents when the landscape is already overwhelmingly that of business.

Or, let's look at the other side of the landscape. A neighborhood -- say Fox Chapel -- has a lot of residents with a lot of spending power too. That does not mean that businesses can go there and follow them just because there are residents.

Even on Rt 28 we had to build with a major TIF (tax break) a suburban mall -- Pittsburgh Mills. Sure, that isn't quite within the limits of Fox Chapel proper, but it is for those shoppers. The county government officials had to bribe the businesses to go there.

So the O'Connor plan is to empty downtown of businesses, make downtown more residential, then hope more businesses are going to move there from say the mall at Pittsburgh Mills.

I don't want to subsidize housing for rich people.

ANOTHER PITTSBURGH ROAD TRIP for PA Clean Sweep's Russ Diamond

Russ Diamond will be traveling to the Pittsburgh area once again on Monday, September 19th. There will be a TV taping with Bruce Krane on PCTV 21, which is scheduled to end about 2:30 pm, but after that, we'll be looking for another informal get together in the evening.

If you'd like to help out by being our point of contact for such a gathering, please email info -at- pacleansweep.com. We had a great time with everyone who came down to Station Square on Wednesday evening and we hope to repeat that with another batch of CleanSweepers! It was great to meet everyone in person!

Speaking of road trips, for those of you in other areas of PA, why not help organize a road trip to your neck of the woods? All we need is a backyard barbeque or some other informal setting to help reinforce the PACleanSweep excitement and get new people in your area involved! Email info -at- pacleansweep.com if you think you could put something together in your area.

On the Snake River

Flashback: From September, 2004. Photo of Erik, Grant and I speaks to the bi-polor city we live in. Sometimes is it good to get away from it all and cherish the memories.

Bad week for the airlines

Bad week for Delta and Northwest. Like this is going to make us feel better? Remember when all the cities had crime -- so we are just like them. Remember when the rust belt north lost its population. So, we are like them? I say think again. Too many leaders just go along and follow.

ESPN.com gives Swann some ink in race for PA Gov job

ESPN.com - NFL - Garber: New arena Swann lacks experience, but celebrity status a plus

AlterNet: WireTap: To Have and Have Not -- unplanned parenthood thrives in Ohio

A longer read about Kent, Ohio, and the kids in the high school.At one school, 64 girls are pregnant.

AlterNet: WireTap: To Have and Have Not: "Timken High is a well-policed fortress; it's a shame the real threats -- politically motivated ignorance and soul-crushing boredom -- lie within its walls.

In the net. Market House soccer is about to begin. If you have younger children, especially if they've not been on a sports team in the past, the activity is worth your investigation.

Eminent Domain gathering here in Pittsburgh

Kathleen Walsh at Ridgemont neighborhood friend from back in the Fifth-Forbes days wrote with this info. I put in for a time to speak.

The State Government Committee will be holding a hearing on eminent domain at 11:00 am., Sept. 22, City Council Chambers, City-County Building, fifth floor. The public is invited to attend. People who wish to speak must register before the hearing by contacting Susan Boyle by either email, sboyle@pahousegop.com or by phone (717-772-3465).

She will schedule speakers as time permits. Please attend whether you plan to speak or not. There are very few speakers scheduled thus far.

... After our struggles of the past, it will be very sad if the committee comes to Pittsburgh and does not get a full picture of the problems we have had and of the community's deep opposition to eminent domain.

I am sure you are aware of the recent Supreme Court decision which approved the use of eminent domain to transfer property to private parties for so-called economic development, which is just the sort of legalized theft that we fought against.

In response to that decision, a number of states are considering legislation to restrict the use of eminent domain. In Pennsylvania, two bills have been introduced, House Bills 1835 and 1836. You can find the text of these bills at www.legis.state.pa.us. The hearing is concerned with problems that have been experienced with eminent domain, and what type of reform is needed.