I woke up today thinking how ironic it is that a group from Charlotte came to Raleigh to learn about working together. In many ways, the Charlotte business and political communities work together much, much better than the ones in Raleigh.
Providence Day comes to Raleigh
Students from Providence Day learn about Raleigh’s CACs
As I had mentioned they would, a group of 150 9th graders from Charlotte’s Providence Day came to Raleigh today to learn about its Citizens Advisory Councils and to learn more about civic participation. As I expected, I loved every minute of it. I even called Kelly at lunch and gushed at how I was in my element.
I didn’t have a real agenda in front of me until this morning. That’s when I found out I would be leading the first hour of the discussion about what CACs are and what they do. I was wondering how I would fill up this hour but it turned out to be easier than I anticipated. We started quite a bit late and when asked to say a few words about how they became involved with CACs, some of the chairs on the panel talked at length about the whole CAC experience.
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What is flying over Denver?
What is flying over Denver?
A man approached KDVR in Denver recently with a claim that a strange aircraft was flying regularly over an area north of the city. The aircraft moves impossibly fast and appears to take off and land near a neighborhood:
DENVER – It’s a mile high mystery in the skies over Denver.
Strange objects caught on camera flying over the city and nobody can explain it.
We first learned about these sightings when a metro area man, who does not want to be identified brought us his home video. He captured the images on his digital camera from a hilltop in Federal Heights looking south toward downtown Denver.
He said, “The flying objects appear around noon or 1:00 p.m. at least a couple of times a week.” The strangest part is they are flying too fast to see with the naked eye, but when we slowed down the video, several UFOs appear.
I watched the video several times this week and get more and more curious with each viewing.
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Family of Delvote Tisdale sues over teen’s fatal decision
The family of Delvonte Tisdale filed suit against the city of Charlotte today, almost a year after the teenager sneaked into the wheel well of a 737 and died in mid-flight.
Again, it’s a shame that this young man died but he has no one to blame but himself. Only an idiot would attempt to stow away in the wheel well of an aircraft. I hope the courts throw this suit out posthaste.
NeighborWoods shifts focus to tree maintenance
I was quoted in today’s Midtown Raleigh News about NeighborWoods:
With fewer subdivisions being built amid the slow economy, NeighborWoods organizers said they are spending more time searching for new areas where they can offer trees.
The revised approach will put greater priority on pruning and maintaining trees that were planted since the program began in 2003, said Zach Manor, the city’s tree planting coordinator.
A greater emphasis on maintenance makes sense, said Mark Turner, chairman of the city’s parks board.
“I know of several NeighborWoods trees that did not thrive for whatever reason,” Turner said. “Having the opportunity to focus on keeping trees healthy should result in a better outcome.”
Incidentally, I haven’t heard whether the Midtown Raleigh News will also be going behind a paywall, since it gets distributed across the city for free. Thus, I expect to still be able to link to it.
via NeighborWoods shifts focus to tree maintenance – Raleigh – MidtownRaleighNews.com.
Raleigh Aquatics to do away with punch passes
At tonight’s Parks and Rec Fees and Charges committee meeting, I learned that the Raleigh Parks and Recreation Aquatics program plans to do away with the popular punch passes. The passes allow 15 swims apiece but will be phased out beginning in January.
Aquatics director Terry Stroupe said the goal is to get people moved to the monthly and annual passes, which offer greater savings. I believe there is also an issue with the new “class” system and swipe cards not being able to support the punch-pass type of transaction.
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Scary car warranty mailing from Autocare
Scary looking letter from Autocare
How is this legal? In the mail today we received an official-looking computer-printed card which screamed “important.” It had words like “2ND ATTEMPT,” and “REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION – TIME SENSITIVE MATERIAL ENCLOSED,” and “TO BE OPENED BY ADDRESSEE ONLY. PLEASE RESPOND WITHIN FIVE DAYS.” It was addressed to the prior owner of this home – the guy who moved out almost five years ago. I was considering forwarding it to the prior owner until I saw that it was mailed “presorted std. mail,” meaning bulk rate. Thus it wasn’t as important as it first looked.
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Sidewalks
The sidewalks along Frank Street across from Conn Elementary don’t reach to Brookside Drive. Being the civic geek that I am, I thought I would petition the City of Raleigh to put one in.
It looked like a slam dunk to me: the city will install sidewalks and pay for them provided the affected property owners agree. There’s been a well-worn “goat trail” from the Brookside crosswalk to the corner of Frank and Norris from years of kids coming and going to school. The city owns 75% of the affected property, with only one private property owner to deal with.
Therein lies my problem. The city may own most of the property affected but it doesn’t take a position on these projects. Thus it doesn’t count towards the petition. That means instead of getting the normal 75% of property owners to agree, I have to get 100% of one property owner to agree.
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“Public Treasury” quote is bogus
The other day one of my conservative friends, grousing about the presidential election, repeated a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville about democracy:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
The problem is that de Tocqueville never said it. Others have also attributed it to Alexander Fraser Tytler, a Scottish lawyer and writer, but Tytler never said it, either.
The statement has been traced only as far back as December 9, 1951. According to the excellent research by Loren Collins, it was seen in the Daily Oklahoman, quoted by a nobody named Elmer T. Peterson:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”
Like the Einstein Bees quote, the Jefferson Inflation quote and many others, this seems to be another case of someone attributing a quote to a famous person in order to give it added weight.
Some people think that if something gets repeated often enough it becomes true.
Disappearing Romney
A clever geek has created the Disappearing Romney website, showing a graph of Romney’s dwindling Facebook fans, updated in real-time.
Aren’t the Internets wonderful?
(hat tip: Mashable)