For two decades, the Center for Urban Transportation Research has advised Florida policymakers on how to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to improve the state’s overwhelmed transportation system.

The University of South Florida think tank says every transportation option it examines undergoes a rigorous and objective analysis. It says it plays no favorites.

But a St. Petersburg Times analysis shows CUTR has often criticized one type of travel — passenger rail — while promoting alternatives it is paid millions to study. — One of rail’s biggest critics gets millions to study and promote alternatives

A question unasked is why DOT believes that CUTR can do better studies than DOT can in-house? If they want opinions and studies from different sources, are they spreading around the wealth to other “think tanks?”

Hit tip to Sticks of Fire – cutr’s anti-rail stance questioned

At New World Brewery (Ybor/Tampa)
Wed 08/12 Jacuzzi Boys, Davila and Others

At Ford Amph (Tampa)
Sat 08/08 Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert and Lady Antebellum

Sun 08/09 Coldplay, Elbow and Kitty Daisy & Lewis

Tue 08/11 Rockstar Energy Meyham Festival – Featuring: Slayer and Manson
With: Bullet For My Valentine, Killswitch Engage, Trivium, Behemoth, Whitechapel, God Forbid,
All That Remains, Mushroom Head, The Black Dahlia Murder, Cannibal Corpse & Job For a Cowboy

Wed 08/12 Dave Matthews Band

Fri 08/14 Def Leppard, Poison and Cheap Trick

It’s a great time to take the kids (or a significant other) and see this latest exhibit and to watch a movie in the IMAX dome theatre.

Mr. Mays, who is best known for his infomercials promoting Oxyclean along with a number of other products, was discovered unresponsive by his wife in their Tampa condo this morning.  He had returned yesterday from Philadelphia on a flight which caused concern when the plane blew out it’s nose tire on the runway at TIA.  Thankfully, noone was injured other than bumps and bruises.

Add his families of those who lost their lives earlier in the week.

Check out the video to see some of the things I experienced.

(Reading on iphone, watch here)

This would be Tampa’s Museum of Science & Industry (MOSI), the largest science center in the southeastern United States, including Florida’s only IMAX® Dome Theatre.

This video features the High Wire Bicycle at MOSI. It is the longest high wire bike in a U.S. museum. You should try it. Don’t worry the bike is counterweighted so you won’t fall off.

(On iphone? watch here)

[Note - I am part of the MOSI Virtual Ambassador Volunteer Program, see what we are doing while at MOSI on twitter #vapmosi.]

It’s clear who is responsible for cleaning up this mess. Bank of America. But, it’s also clear that they are indifferent and unlikely to respond.

So, what’s the solution? And not just for this lot, but for all the other abandoned homes that aren’t getting their lawns mowed and are falling into disrepair. It benefits the neighborhood more than the bank to maintain these properties. But, if I start mowing Bank of America’s lawn every week, I’m going to feel like a sucker. Why am I doing their work for free? Why can’t they be responsible for their property?

Should the City clean it up?

It would be nice if they did, but I appreciate that they’re busy, and they have procedural guidelines that need to be met. And, the less the City has to do, the better for my wallet.

So, what’s the solution?

Ad Hoc Action Committees, or AHA Committees.

My imaginary solution is that the City of Tampa puts up a page where citizens can post actions they’d like to see taken in their neighborhood. So, for example, I’d write that I’d like to see that trash picked up. Then, good-hearted community-oriented groups can select projects from this list and take action. Girl Scouts, Jaycees, church groups, neighborhood associations, fraternities, groups that put together floats for Gasparilla, etc. All of these groups then have a chance to get into a neighborhood and increase their reputation.

Of course, there’s no reason Florida (or Hillsborough County, or Tampa, or YOU!) needs to wait for the federal government to do something about it. We can start working to improve civic education today.

“If we hope to sustain American democracy, we need to treat civic learning as on a par with other academic subjects. To participate fully in our democracy, students need to understand our government, our history, and our laws. They need to appreciate the skills democracy imposes on us � consensus building, compromise, civility, and rational discourse � and how they can be applied to the problems confronted by their communities and our nation as a whole. Restoring this civic mission of schools will require a concerted effort in school districts, at statehouses, and by the federal government.”

Unfortunately, the end result is that the trash will most likely remain there while the City goes through their procedures to prompt Bank of America (the current owner of the property) to reply.

And, really, Bank of America should have dealt with this long ago. Even if they weren’t regularly checking their property, the person responsible has been contacted several times (and now seems to be avoiding our phone calls).

So, it looks like now that the city will wait until the last month in October to clean up the property. In the meantime they will be citing Bank of America and sending them official letters telling them they need to clean the property.

It’s occurred to me that I could flyer the local neighbors and have us all meet to pick up a bag or two, but the last time I tried removing trash even more got piled on top.

Finally, this brings us to a larger city-wide problem. Are banks doing their job in taking care of foreclosed properties? Is it possible to force banks to be good neighbors?

Computer Entertainment Thirty-Five Years From Today

So, I did some careful research on that subject. I realized that, yeah, for an old-fashioned audience like you, a mid-21st century computer is pretty amazing. So here it is. (Speaker pulls cloth napkin from podium).

This is my General Electric Pocket Mediator. This one�s about five years old, it�s a student�s model. Personal mediators are a stable technology in my time, we don�t have to fuss with them much. Unfortunately it doesn�t have full functionality here in 2008, because we don�t have the cloud yet. As soon as I reached here, my Mediator reached out for the cloud to reload its apps and OS… and it tapped into something called �Window-Vista.� Then it just plain gave up. It�s gone completely limp now. There�s nothing left here but this frozen screen-saver pattern.

So I�m gonna have to kind of walk you through its many functionalities. Bear with me here. Moore�s law says computer power doubles every eighteen months�since I�m from 35 years in the future, that means twenty three doublings. So a laptop from my time is the rough equivalent of about eight million, three hundred and eighty-eight thousand, six hundred eight of your best laptops. But, like I said, this is just a cheap student�s model, several years behind the times. So it�s feeble. It�s no more than thirty two thousand, seven hundred and sixty eight of your computers.

As you can see, my computer is a network. Literally a network, because all the components are woven. It�s all fabric. The power cables are superconductive fiber�they�re charged up with ambient light through quantum solar nanodots. It also has shape-changing piezo-electric threads woven through it�threads that move, they�re a lot like muscle tissue�so it can expand, contract, fold itself up, even flap and fly around the room.

One particular eyesore is just down the street from me. After contacting Bank of America, and the Realtor on the sign out front, I contacted Code Enforcement, and today sent this message to Charlie Miranda, who I believe to be my representative on the council. With any luck he will excel in constituent services and the lot will be cleaned up soon.

Council Member Miranda – I’m hoping you can help me.

There’s house down the street from me that’s been abandoned for some time. About six weeks ago someone came and took all the belongings inside the house, placed them in trash bags and dumped it in the lawn.

Calls to the person on the realtor’s sign out front have been unsuccessful. They claim it’s not their property. (Though the sign remains). Calls to TXXXXX SXXXXX (877-4XX-4XXX) at Bank of America (property preservation) have also not resulted in the trash being hauled away. We believe that Bank of America now owns this property (which they verified on the phone) but hasn’t taken responsibility for maintaining the property. The address is ….

I began to put the bags in my own trash, thinking that over the course of weeks I could get rid of it all. But it looks like someone took that as a sign and pulled even more trash out from the back. Today the pile grew even bigger. Soon it will take up the entire front lawn.

I’ve contacted code enforcement, but I’m not sure what they could do, other than issue some bank a warning.

I’m hoping that you might be able to help me get this garbage off our street. I’m writing to you because I believe you are the representative of this neighborhood on the City Council.

thanks,
dave

We’re halfway through the month and I needs lots more votes.

Don’t be overwhelmed by the number of choices. You aren’t expected to vote in every category. AND, if there’s a category you don’t see, Invent It!

Either vote in the comments here, or send me an email at patadave AT gmail.com.

This week is a pointer to Probe is Turning-on the People!

This is the kind of music site that makes me delirious with joy. There’s no top 40, or classic rock, or indie, or alternative rock, or techno, or any of that other worn-out tedious overly-sincere pop music. This page is all about obscurity, oddness, and fun.

Here’s Chick Webb & His Orchestra, featuring Ella Fitzgerald performing Chew-Chew-Chew (Chew Your Bubble Gum).

And, here’s Martin Denny’s easy-listening-for-the-psychedelic-set version of Midnight Cowboy.

Check it our for hundreds of more little gems of sonic brilliance.

(Thanks to the always wonderful PCL Linkdump for bringing this page to my attention)

1. Voting registration drives in the political off-season. During the heat of a political season, wary citizens are afraid of being bamboozled and would rather just not vote. Non-partisan door to door education about how to register and how/where to vote will increase the number of people registered to vote. Handouts to volunteers will help explain why cynicism (�it doesn�t matter who wins�) and apathy (�i don�t pay attention to politics�) damage the American philosophy of political engagement.

2. Voting parties � regular get-togethers at the polling place to remind and reinforce people of the locations they will visit when they vote. At these get-togethers non-partisan information is made available reminding people of voting days and the offices being voted on, and the responsibilities of people in these offices.

3. Monthly meetings at branch libraries with someone to explain �civic literacy� – where to vote, how to vote, why to vote, what gets voted on, the responsibilities of officeholders.

4. Voting holidays would help. Civic-minded businesses need to close for the day. It�s not just they need to allow their employees time to vote, it�s that an aura of celebration and fun needs to surround voting days. Newspapers, tv stations, blogs can provide free advertising to businesses with the gumption to close to help celebrate voting day.

5. Having a city/region you can take pride in increases public investment in what happens locally.

But, in all candor, I’m not so sure increasing voter turnout would change anything. Uninformed people will make uninformed choices. The best way to increase voter turnout is to invest heavily in public education and prioritize classes in civics. But, liberal ideas like that are not popular in Florida.

But, anyway, it’s a thoughtful post, go check it out. And if you ran the zoo, how would you increase voter turnout?

“So maybe Sarah Palin doesn’t have all that much “experience.” Maybe she doesn’t pay much attention to your fancy-pants “foreign policy” or “domestic policy” or “policy.” Maybe she’s “crazy” and “corrupt” and was picked by a “vetting process” that consisted of “tossing darts at a phone book in the middle of an all-night Ambien-and-Ketamine binge.” But maybe that’s just because Sarah Palin’s just too busy being a real American to hang around with your namby-pamby liberal candidates with their arugula lattes and their east coast Ivy League universities and their “qualifications” while they tax the Jesus Fetus to pay for gay Muslim healthcare!”