In Case of Emergency- What if this Tag-Team Actually Wins ?

[Anonymous]

Hey MauiB – I told you I’m still around just busy as heck. I’m stretched out between Long Island and DC happily trying to fulfill my LA dreams.

 

Oh, don’t be so hard on Romney, if “you people” could look past his robotic exterior; you’d find that he’s a teddy bear.

 

“Corporations are people my friend”

Romney 20??

[Ernst Glaeser]

Be honest, hade ever a presidential election had an impact on anything?

Name the Presidents who were not involved in any type of wars.

Name the Presidents who came not into Office without having promised a lot and later were not in the position to push it through.

The years with the most impact, in consequence also to our profession, is usually their third year in power. This is the preparation for the next campaign. After that? Same old story.

[mark foster]

 They seem to have no problem going way beyond the somewhat boring, mundane and timid  (but still important) i.e.”How can I handle the grade change of this patio ?” and targeting something that may have profound impact, and sometimes even an immediate one.

This statement really bugs me and I need to get something off my chest.  

Why did you reference a current post to bolster your argument?  Those who ask a question in good faith should not be subject to cheap sarcasm–no matter how “boring, mundane and timid” you may find it—especially those who are new to the site.  They do not deserve such snark.

I do enjoy land8’s sometimes contentious discussions (including yours),  but I make an effort to be respectful to folks who are using the forum to seek practical information and advice.  I value the  responses I have received to some pretty geeky stuff (site design can sometimes seem this to those who don’t practice it), and hope I have been able to return the favor occasionally.

Next time, I suggest you use a hypothetical instead of dissing someone else’s post—especially when it in no way invited or deserved such notice. 

[landplanner]

Mark:

Man, those really irritating insects on one’s chest can be pesky little creatures. Glad you got that little bugger off.

I meant no intentional harm, nor foul in singling out your forum posting in the comparative and introductory part of this posting. My sole motivation, that you seemingly missed or skipped over, was simply this and remains so.

I gave you props, and have many others here, about the merit and importance about forum topics like your own regarding relevant matters about the uncommonly perplexing challenges encountered in site design and development. I have encountered and dealt with many of the same along my road to less than riches.  BTW, as odd as it may read to you and others here, I deal with those same kinds of “geeky” concerns here in China in the CD’s I review in red-line form, the only difference being it is all in metric. 

In the responses to your posting, I even learned a few ways to think about and address that design consideration from some very strong site design and construction minds (yours included) namely Andrew G, who never seems to disappoint.  

The main thrust of my mistaken use of your forum posting here was not to diminish or denigrate it in any manner. For that, my direct and sincere apology. My well-intentioned intention was to just cite the seemingly undeniable tendency here at Land8Lounge to pre-occupy ourselves with  conversational topics of mainstream interest, those are much safer and sanitary.  They are also highly invaluable and informative and will remain so.  

I just thought it was time here for posting topic that might stir up and uncover a little of the wide spectrum of care and concern a lot of us share here about what the course this country will take, no matter what leadership we benefit from or are left with, post November 2012. I tried to structure the main question so it had some relevance to what we do (or do not) as a profession and look at the responses so far…… Very few stuck with the main thrust and responded with their own projections. That is the risk one takes when you venture into sensitive circles like politics no matter how relevant or timely. 

I still do admire our colleagues at Archinect who seem to have absolutely no hesitation to express their viewpoints on this very same topic. Last time I looked, those comments were cresting around 400 plus and they cover a lot of political ground and gradient. It is worth noting that the Archinect forum topic was extremely general. I attempted to make this one relevant to what ramifications of the upcoming political choice before us will have on our profession,  both directly and indirectly. 

Next time, and there will certainly be one,  I will take your suggestion to heart and use the hypothetical next time. Far less ego-injurious. 

Lastly, I feel you ‘bro on this kind of irritation. I have to deal with here, from time to time, an obnoxious buzzing from another pest with the repeatedly demonstrated lower intelligence of an insect,  that virulent west-nile  virus infested mosquito, nicknamed MauiBob. He flies into my Zap Light every now and then, which one would think by now would have done its job. Goes to show one that even lesser life forms with intelligent quotients a few IQ points above a one-celled organism, are indeed persistent bastards. 

[Alan Ray, RLA]

at 60 yrs. I can tell you it’s always been as Roger Daltry said in the early seventies..”meet the new boss, same as the old boss” . If you think anything will change, I have a nice park in Manhattan I’d like to sell you….

[toby]

LP, do see what you started ?  The group on Land8 is not like that on Archinect, and some appear to be too easily offended.

And if anyone thinks my opinionated statement is directed at you, it probably is.  Hey!

 

 

[mark foster]

Just to be clear:  The reason I called out landplanner’s reference to that post was because it was NOT mine.  My hide is plenty thick when it comes to my own posts.

I remember how hard it was to get some pretty basic answers to site design issues when I first encountered the real world, and I just want to make sure no one is too intimidated to use this resource.

[landplanner]

Hey! Toby: 

Do you see what you can contribute here….opinion of the political genre that has some legitimacy and timeliness to it. That is if dare to “cross that line” of treacherous civil discourse. God forbid, we as individual representatives of our profession, boldly profess our viewpoints about how the ship of state will be steered in the next four years by whomever is at the helm. Or how that chosen direction/misdirection will directly or indirectly have some tangible effect on the meaningful work we purport to do ..

The penetrating insight of the prolific lyrics of one Don Henley, from the song “Inside Job” come to mind here 

Insect politics
Indifferent universe
Bang your head against the wall
But apathy is worse

As I have made it known here and elsewhere, we have nobody to blame but ourselves and the collective profession we make up when we remain too timid, shy and fearful of expressing opinion on subject areas where well-reasoned and civil opinion  ( I have had my own lapses here in that regard)really do matter. Yes this is one of the forums where that should appear. 

[landplanner]

Since I started what appears to have become a fractured and off-track dialogue thus far, here is my “take” more faithful to the original intent of the question, in an attempt to get this topic back to its “roots”…

• Environmental Protection Agency- Gutted and castrated to the point of being inconsequential. 
• Clean Water Act- (enforced by EPA) amended and weakened 
• Clean Air Act- (see Clean Water Act above) 
• National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)– Another pesky and bothersome federal mandate that gets in the way of “free-market” growth and job generation by the “job creators”. Look for NEPA to be streamlined, a wider interpretation of what projects would be exempt and so forth. Change the the “N” from National to “Neutered” ….and you get the picture. 
• Keystone Pipeline- The super-job creator project that has been supposedly “blocked and stymied” at every turn of the road by the present administration (actually the classic “lighted stick of dynamite handed off to whomever is in power after Feb 2013) will be “fast-tracked”.  Don’t overlook what kind of oil would come through that pipeline, where it comes from and the intensive energy inputs and damaging environmental impacts resulting to just get a barrel of that stuff) 
• National Park Service- Accumulated deferred major maintenance  and park improvement projects will continue to be on that same path….more will accumulate, more will be deferred (last time that direction was reversed was probably under the Clinton Administration (not fact checked) 
• US Forest Service-  “Hey don’t clear cuts make it easier to see things ?” 
• Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF)– continuously underfunded administration after administration (no matter what party is in power) …potentially zeroed out and the offshore oil lease revenues that fund it redirected to some other more “needy” budget priority
• Historic Preservation Funding- Let’s just say if the dissolution (code word for “privatizing”) of Amtrak is one of the budget-saving strategies of the Romney-Ryan administration, the meager funding of Historic Preservation Act does not stand a chance.

And that is just the “short list”

[mark foster]

Add to the “gutted and castrated” list:

FEMA

NASA

HUD

Dept. of Education

anything that has to do with non-military R & D

everything which has to do with the “Arts”   

End of tax breaks for any energy source that doesn’t burn or radiate.

[toby]

Hey!   should I have included a sarcasm notation in that last response ?

I certainly don’t mind contributing opinion; it’s what I know best.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

These are neither on anyone’s list of priorities to fix or nix on either ticket, nor what keeps many people from sleeoing at night.

 

As James Carville said twenty years ago when there was a very mild recession  “it’s the economy …”

Either accept that everyting is great,  and “the new normal” is a good thing, or that things are not so good and a change will do you good.

 

Why does it make sense to so many people when the president says “you don’t want to go back!”. What, to less than 5% unemployment, pay raises, and benefit? That would be horrible?

[landplanner]

Andrew:

Yes, that memorable quote is as powerful and observant now as it was for the first Clinton campaign in 1992. Whichever party does not emphasize the most obvious and current concern of the American electorate will be the “stupid” party this time around. 

My take on your comment about the President’s comment (“you don’t want to go back”) is that he is making reference to the time-tested and failed economic policies of predominantly Republican administrations, where:

• huge and inequitable tax cuts 
• along with massive deficit spending,
• unpaid for (off the books) wars
• unchecked defense spending
• and the largest expansion in Medicare expenses to date (the “donut-hole” of prescription medications) again with no offsetting revenues 
• erasure of financial regulation and oversight (Clinton administration was a major contributor to this also)

did increase job growth and prosperity but only in an illusory and temporary manner,  certainly not for the sustainable and long term. 

[landplanner]

Added to that short list: 

• EPA Sustainable Communities Grants 

http://www.sustainablecommunities.gov/grants.html

• Federal DOT Tiger Grants 

http://www.dot.gov/tiger/

• Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) 

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/comm_plann…

• Transportation Equity Act -21 

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/tea21/

Several of these programs above have already had funding that was previously earmarked for each, either sharply curtailed, frozen or completely eliminated. 

The most long-standing and enduring of the four above, Community Development Block Grants, appears to be headed for complete extinction. Remarkably this program was conceived of and launched under a Republican administration. Some of you might recall the name, Nixon. 

[Boilerplater]

Hey, even Joe Scarborough has conceded that he doesn’t expect Rmoney to win, saying he is a man with a lot of ambition and some gret accomplishments, but not what it takes to be president.  Yet you can still count on TP office-holders in smaller arenas to push for reduced government programs.  Maybe they’ll mount the armed insurrection that some of them have threatened to start if Obama wins.  Seeing how police treated the unarmed protesters of the Occupy movement, it will be interesting to see what happens if some senior citizens actually show up with guns.  It wont be a pleasant scene.

[Author]

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