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May 18

My 5¢ – 05/18/2013

Posted on 05/18/2013 by Christopher Byrd

My 5¢

Solars Panels Are Nice But…

Wow…solar panels are going to be installed at the Broadway Market.  That’s nice, but it is like putting lipstick on a pig.

If the city the is truly committed to breaking the slow and steady decline at the Market, it would be better served in investing money into garnering more year-round vendors, improving the customer experience, create food related events that actually draw a lot of people and market the Market.

The Broadway Market’s decline outside of the Easter shopping season has been a problem for decades.  What is lacking from the city is a high level plan to address what I have outlined and proper management to implement it.  The Broadway Market should be viewed as the epicenter of rebirth for the Broadway-Fillmore business district and the neighborhood.  It is getting to the point where vendors can’t just survive on Easter alone anymore.  Why is it so hard to reinvent the place?

Is Progress Pushing People Out in Buffalo?

Whitey leaves…whitey moves back in…screw the poors and the blacks.

The NHL Doesn’t Get It

The beauty of the NHL’s Winter Classic was that it happened once a year on a slow day in sports.  It was showcase game.  Now the league is going to have multiple outdoor games.

The NHL powers want to capitalize on the popularity of the games outside on TV and in the stands as a money grab.  There is a part of me that understands.  On the other hand, what this does is make the games outdoors not so special.

Buffalo Story Project

If you are looking for a great blog to read, go to http://www.buffalostoryproject.com. Excellent writing and great stories…my only wish is that they would publish more content.

I loved their recent piece about an estate sale in the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood.

Carl Paladino and Buffalo Schools…HELLO!

Message to Mr. Paladino:

You have an opportunity to truly make a difference for Buffalo schools.  What I don’t want to see is a circus sideshow at every board meeting.  You are a successful businessman who obviously cares deeply about the city, its schools and the children of Buffalo. I am sure there will be fireworks at some of the school board meetings.  That won’t be hard to accept if what you are doing isn’t only for show.  The children of Buffalo deserve nothing less than your best.

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May 04

Audio: R2-D2 Loves Buffalo

Posted on 05/04/2013 by Christopher Byrd

R2-D2 DOES LOVE BUFFALO!

And, I clearly need to make better choices with my available free time.

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May 03

My 5¢ – 05/03/2013

Posted on 05/03/2013 by Christopher Byrd

Five Cents

Cruelty Free Meat

M E A T

Saw this posted on Facebook today.

Wouldn’t being “cruelty free” also include not killing an animal for consumption?  Premature death is not a good thing for any creature being killed by another creature.

Save Saint Ann’s

Saint Ann's Buffalo
(click on above images to view album)

With the news yesterday that Saint Ann’s in Buffalo is facing some steep obstacles to remain open, it caused me to reflect on what I do on the East Side.

Everything there is a struggle.  There are times when I just want to throw up my hands and say enough is enough.  For as much as Buffalo has taken positive steps forward, it seems there are parts of the city with little or no hope.  I wonder if I am making a difference at all.

May Day

The month of May always makes me think of Brad May‘s legendary “May Day” Sabres’ goal to sweep the Boston Bruins in the 1992-93 NHL’s playoffs first round.  The goal wasn’t even in May…it was scored on 04/24/93.

Let Metro take you to Amherst?

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In an idea 30 years behind the times, Amherst looks like it wants to get with the times and explore extending the Metro Rail out to Buffalo’s most populous ‘burb.

From the Buffalo News:

Amherst’s present leaders have been briefed on a new study for extending rail or bus service to the town, and they are – if not embracing – at least open to the idea 27 years after the line came to a screeching halt at the University at Buffalo’s South Campus.

What’s changed?

A number of factors – from rapid growth in Amherst to rising gas prices and congestion – are different now, they say.

There’s also the fact that more than 30,000 people each weekday ride public transit in the Buffalo-to-Amherst corridor – the highest ridership in the entire system.

What’s surprising to some, though, is that this time around, no one seems to be against it.

“Back then, there was just an overall feeling that some of the suburbs didn’t want to be part of the metro area,” said former Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority Chairman Raymond F. Gallagher. “But I can see that people have softened and times are different.”

Though the study isn’t coming cheap (wondering why it takes $1.6 million to arrive at a decision of common sense), this could be good news for the region and push us into an era where getting around the B-lo metro easily via mass transit becomes a reality.

Waiting for Superman

How can you not get chills watching the above?

I have been looking forward to the next Superman movie ever since I heard another was being made.

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Apr 27

My 5¢ – 04/27/2013

Posted on 04/27/2013 by Christopher Byrd

Buffalo Nickel

$250,000

That’s the amount of money poured into Buffalo School Board elections over the last two years.

The figure comes courtesy of some nifty reporting by Mary Pasciak.  She is by far done the best beat reporter covering the Buffalo Public Schools the Buffalo News I have ever read.

From her piece on Buffalo School Board election financing:

“Unions, companies that bid on contracts with the district, school employees, political leaders and others poured more than $250,000 into Buffalo School Board candidates’ campaigns during the last two election cycles, a Buffalo News analysis shows.

But many of those donations are all but hidden from voters, due in part to an archaic finance reporting system handled almost entirely on paper – and in part to candidates who ignore the state law requiring them to reveal who donated to them and interest groups who ignore the law requiring them to disclose how much they spent to independently promote a candidate.”

It seems like being elected to the Buffalo School Board is a pay-to-play scheme much like the rest of elected posts around Buffalo and Western New York.  A scheme where moneyed interests take a front seat and the students of the district take the back-seat.

Sad.

Jon Stewart is Awesome

And he is full of awesome here!!!


NFL Draft

The NFL’s draft is right up there with the NHL trade deadline as being the most over hyped and over analyzed sports moments out there.  Everything that prognosticators envision happening rarely does and fans usually walk away feeling let down as to what really happens.

Sabres Season Ends

buffalo-sabres-logoThe 2012-2013 version of the Sabres didn’t exactly go the way a lot of us fans thought it would.  Who would have thought when it started that Lindy Ruff would have been shown the door or there would be heavy talk of this being Ryan Miller’s last season in the blue and gold when all was said and done?

The off-season should prove to be interesting.  Will Darcy Regier be fired?  Will the team do a wholesale rebuild or will it rebuild on the fly? Is Miller staying or going?

The fans and media tend to overreact when things go south and want to take the fire everyone and get rid of everyone stand. I’m hoping that Terry Pegula and company take a measured approached in assessing the season and the current team. It looks like when Pegula bought the team, he came in here with blue and gold colored glasses.  Maybe this will be the wake-up call he needs to build the the winner he wants and we want.

Sometimes Jerry Sullivan is Good

I love this from Jerry Sullivan’s blog post on the passing of Larry Felser:

“At a time when people tweet their thoughts without filters and everyone wants to be the smartest guy in the room, it would be wise to remember Larry and journalists like him, who spent a day reporting and polishing a column that people read as if it were gospel.”

With the immediacy in which the internet brings us news, journalism suffers when the deadline is all the time.  Story development definitely takes a hit in a rush to beat out competitors in pushing news out.  We just have to look at what happened last week with the Boston bombings to see how this rush leads to misinformation.

Unfortunately, it is not going to change and will probably only get worse.

 

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Apr 16

My 5¢ – 04/16/2013

Posted on 04/16/2013 by Christopher Byrd

D O N U T

HARBORcenter: From this to this

HARBORcenter

How did the much anticipated Terry Pegula/Buffalo Sabres HARBORcenter project go from looking cool to looking meh?  I understand that building projects evolve before completion. The problem is that the city shouldn’t approve any project until the final renderings are in and they know exactly what they’re going to get.  In trying to alleviate fears over the latest design, the Sabres have indicated it isn’t final.  A new set of renderings will be available in the coming weeks.  My guess is that the original concept is dead.

(HT Buffalo Rising for the photos.)

And there is this from yesterday

As disturbing as the bombing was, there are disturbed people who take advantage of tragedies for their own disturbing purposes.

Facebook pictures asking people share them…you’ve seen them.

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I have no problem with photos honoring what happened in Boston and then organically shared.  What I have a problem with is people asking people to share or like.  It makes me think that the intention here is not the tragedy but to get likes and shares.

And don’t even get me started on the media or political types who turn such tragedies into ways to promote themselves or further their own personal agendas. Sick.

Fusion voting makes us suck

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I have posted a lot about fusion voting and how it needs to be eliminated here in New York.  What is fusion voting?  Simply put, it allows candidates to run on multiple political lines in New York.  It is a system which gives third parties way too much influence over the electoral process and is wrought with corruption.  It makes bit-players on the political scene players.

Read this piece by Rex Smith of the Albany Times Union on fusion voting—>

From it:

“Fusion voting encourages the sort of corruption most recently seen in the indictment of state Sen. Malcolm Smith, a Queens Democrat who prosecutors say was trying to buy his way onto the Republican ballot for mayor of New York. It leads to abuse of campaign spending, encourages unbridled patronage in hiring and breeds cynicism among people who truly do believe in the tenets of the minor parties.”

Amen.

Buffalo Green Code

If you don’t know what Buffalo Green Code is, time to start getting to know it.

http://www.buffalogreencode.com

Waiting for Darkness

This is my favorite non Randy Rhoads type OzzY Osbourne tune.

Lyrics:

Waiting for darkness
Why doesn’t anybody see, now
Deafened by silence
Why doesn’t anybody hear

I’m waiting for darkness

Playing with fire
But they’re screaming
When they’re burned, yeah
Out of the sunlight
Hasn’t anybody learned

I know what they’ll find
It’s in their mind
It’s what they want to see
Spare me from the light
Here comes the night
And here I’ll stay

Waiting for darkness
I’m waiting for darkness
I’m waiting for darkness
I’m waiting for darkness

Promise me rebirth
And then you tear me from the womb
Give me my freedom
And then you lock me in a tomb

I know what they’ll find
It’s in their mind
It’s what they want to see
Spare me from the light
Here comes the night
And here I’ll stay

Waiting for darkness
You gotta believe
You gotta believe it’s true
I’m waiting for darkness
I just can’t conceive
Why darkness is overdue?

I’m waiting for darkness
I’m waiting for darkness
I’m waiting for darkness

Who knows the answers?
Is it friend or is it foe
Don’t ask me questions
There are things you should not know

I know what you’ll find
It’s in your mind
It’s what you want to see
Spare me from the light
Here comes the night
And here I’ll stay

Waiting for darkness
I’m waiting for darkness
I’m waiting for darkness
I’m waiting for darkness
I’m waiting for darkness
I’m waiting for darkness
I’m waiting for darkness

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