I lost my old man when I was 17. He was 57. There are things he might have wanted to say to me and share with me. While the bulk of what I've set out is my efforts to make the world a better place, things I know need to change and get some attention, there are stories about my life and some of my poetry. That's been done "just in case". You never know.
Any one of us could be dead by the end of the week, in a flash. I want something left behind just in case, so my son will know the kind of man I was and be able to reflect upon it, and so his kids will come to know me just in case I'm not there when their minds want that part of their own legacy.
This has also given me the idea of seeing if our hospice wants to use this medium, so people who are facing their mortality can leave something behind for their families. This is my statement to who and what I was, and what made me what I am. These sites contain my memories, my creativity, my dreams and realizations, my ideas and hopes for the future. The contain my humanity, and reflect my will to change the world for the better. Each site in the sidebar has a description, so you link to the description to find the site.
And, until I can save them a little better, here are some links to recent stories that show a little of what I've been up to, what I think, and what I've exposed my son to
The recent fight against the schools to do the right thing:
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/090607/opl_197180101.shtml
The war against the school board to keep Normandy Elementary open. They shaved down the district, cut their resources, and VIOLATED THREE provisions in the Florida Class Size Reduction Act, acting ILLEGALLY to close the school, said they would save $200,000 but failed to mention the extra $140,000 they added in transportation, and NORMANDY SCORED AN "A" as a school when EVERY OTHER SCHOOL around it scored a "C". This is part of the story:
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/050404/met_normandy.shtml
I usually had my son with me, and took him to political rallies and events in almost every election, going as far as to explain never to just carbon copy my or anyone else's views, but to try to understand the issues, and make his own decisions, and stand up for them. We went to an anti-Bush rally, and my son is for freedom and loves the military and firefighters, and thought it was his duty to join me. I didn't ask him to, he came with me, insisting when he knew where I was going and what I was doing. I think I'm a lucky father, and proud of him: http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102404/met_16999877.shtml
I may be pretty much a Democrat, but I'm moderate in most things, and a radical centerist. I think I'm more purple than blue or red, and see a pragmatic approach as the best. If a "socialized" medicne and school and road/infrastructure system works best, use it, and if allowing the private sector to bid on and run some goverment functions works well, then so be it, and I do think goverment should be as small as it can be yet still serve to protect the People and serve our collective interests. This was from near election time as well, and right around the time Mayor John Payton PROMISED me that if I ever wanted to talk to him that he would "have an open door policy". Hey Peyton, you Liar, keep your word, and give me ten minutes!
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/051103/met_12509517.shtml
In April of 2006 I watched a small boy get hit, go flying, and slump as a heap on the road. He lasted ten days and died. I came full circle with Three Seconds Red, and knew it was time to start to try to change how we all pass through intersections. We can wait a little longer, go a little slower, and maybe not died so much. www.dreamsbeginhere.org/agenda_minutes/Minutes305.htm
The school system (DCPS) may have "removed" my public comments from view because I'm fighting them to get a/c (and that's illegal!) but I've been fighting to get a/c on buses for over a year now. http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/commentlist-oneauthor.php?author=skot%20wilson&email=worldofcolor@lycos.com
I don't know if the link will stay, so I've copied and pasted this one from the Folio-weekly blog called "Flog". It's by Susan Cooper-Eastman, a writer there-you can try the link first, if not, I've copied it
http://www.folioweekly.com/folioblog/
FlogFolio Weekly’s Daily(ish) Blog-->
low fidelitySeptember 21st, 2007 by Susan Cooper Eastman
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When the city of Jacksonville wooed Fidelity National Finance to its shores, it presented the company with a riverfront corporate campus with sweeping views of the St. Johns, a package of financial incentives that has so far amounted to a whopping $23 million, and a city willing to do just about anything to please. Fidelity is just one of a cluster of corporate giants that have transformed the strip of Riverside Avenue between the Acosta Bridge and the I-95 overpass.
For those of us outside their corporate embrace, we mostly experience their presence as a cruise through low-slung, sleek, gray glass and important-seeming busyness when driving along that stretch of Riverside Ave. But it’s the more humble antidotes to that nondescript modernism that the eye notes from the car: the shotgun houses lined up in a row a field away in Brooklyn, the buff-brick Fire Station #5 at the curve. And it’s the fate of such remnants that says something about us, about whether we can stitch future with past, whether we understand the value and sacrifice we came from, or whether we honor who came before. The past resonates in architecture, especially in a building like the fire station, which has been in continuous service since 1910. Such layers of use give depth to something as simple as a drive down a road.
The deal that the city cut with Fidelity over Fire Station #5 doesn’t inspire much faith that our leaders understand how to make the city’s past a meaningful part of its present. In order to obtain a small urban park that will probably be used mostly by Fidelity brown-baggers, the city and Fidelity agreed in 2005 that the city had five years to move Fire Station #5 from the Riverside waterfront. If it doesn’t, Fidelity can tear the building down. It wants to build a parking lot there. (See here.)
This has mostly gone unnoticed, but Jacksonville blogger Skot Wilson recently launched a campaign to save the fire station on his blog. His campaigning led City Councilmember Glorious Johnson to introduce a bill last week asking the City Council to designate the station a local landmark.
The Historic Preservation Commission agrees with Wilson and Johnson that the fire station should be designated as a landmark, and has referred a staff report recommending the designation to the City Council. But even if approved, that designation might not save the building. It would merely put another layer of bureaucracy in the path of demolition. Fidelity would have to seek permission from the commission in order to proceed. But at least the process would be brought back out into the public arena. When the City Council approved the land swap with Fidelity for the firehouse in 2005, it waived the requirement that the deal go before the Historic Preservation Commission and a city code requirement that it be auctioned to the highest bidder.
The station was built in 1910, when fires in Jacksonville were still fought with horse-drawn equipment. It was designed by architect Robert Lee Sevil, who also designed several Riverside homes, and built during the administration of fire chief Thomas W. Haney, who led the force that battled the Great Fire of 1901.
So — meaningful city history, or another office building? Tough decision.
Posted in Riverside, Architecture 2 Comments »
flog suggests: environmental seminar
