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Yearly Archives: 2013

Transit Planning

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Transit planning.  If the phrase gave you a cold shiver as it called up memories you’d rather repress, we should talk.  It’s been a real horror show here in St Paul as a parade of officials and hired engineers have stood in front of citizen committees and neighborhood gatherings telling us whatever they thought we wanted to hear and never (never!) listening.  The decisions were always made long ago by people more interested in chasing pots of money, appropriate or not.

The same shiver went up my spine when I heard that the West Side was holding a meeting on their own transit plans along Robert Street (or US52).  I read up on the materials, talked with people, went to the meeting and … I have to tell you, I think this is gonna be allright.  And when we get our plans going in the West End soon we have every reason to hope this will work out.  Here’s why.

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Plain Talk

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Sequestration.  It’s a big word that most people have never heard before.  Constant repetition in the media doesn’t help explain or define it, and the implications of what is pending (barring a last minute deal) are brutal.

The word “sequester” means to “set apart”.  In this case, $108B per year is planned to automatically be set aside from the US Budget, half from the military and half from other discretionary programs (that is, not including Medicade and other entitlements).  This is not a sequestration, it is a meat axe to the budget.

Assuming there isn’t a plan to stop this at the last minute, either by delaying it or passing a real budget for the first time in four years, what we have is the axe.   You’re probably tired of hearing about it by now, but the use of words is important.  The lack of a clear, common talk shows just what this is all about – an inside game that has to stop.  How do we get past it?

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Back to the Future … ?

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As the slow ride towards sequestration continues it’s hard to find anything more to say.  The possibility of a significant economic downturn and genuine pain being felt by many people has failed to move the parties towards any progress.  How can government be this dysfunctional?  How did it get this bad?

In attempting to answer this question I decided to take the Zen approach of unasking it instead.  This led to a wisdom all parties must take heed of – both in this quote and in the larger context:

As we peer into society’s future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

This is a part of President Dwight Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, delivered 52 years ago.  The whole address, beyond the famous parts, is well worth absorbing today.

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Forbidden Fruit?

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How can a company have too much money?  If you believe hedge fund manager David Einhorn, Apple certainly does.  Many in the tech industry “view their self-importance by the size of bank accounts,” according to this Apple investor, and he’s aggressively promoting a unique way of distributing the $137B Apple cash reserve to shareholders ahead of the company’s annual meeting on 27 February.

While Apple’s attitude is on trial – in the courts, the stock market, and the media – it’s hardly an unusual position for a technology driven manufacturing company.  What is unusual is how Einhorn is approaching that pile of cash and how it is distributed.  This may be more evidence that the days of corporate raiders as we know them are over and a potential new golden era for tech companies is ahead.

Right now we still have a fight to finish before anyone can claim victory.

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Streamin’

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When in doubt, you can always talk about the weather in polite Minnesota conversation. Days like today, when we are expected to have yet another big winter storm and the potential for Olympic Ice Dancing on the roads, it’s a topic you can count on.  It’s not controversial but it provides a nearly endless supply of entertainment much like driving a flaming bus through a wall of televisions, at least in the sense that it’s likely to be lethal.

Many of us learn to be fascinated by the weather in ways that seek awkward and geeky to people in other parts of the nation. That’s a shame because a hard study of weather is a form of meditation that can clear your mind like no other form.  Plus, it’s on teevee.  Here in the middle of a vast continent we are at the mercy of whatever blows our way.  It’s something that everyone can talk about – even if no one does anything about it.

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