It's a Sad Day When St. Louis is the Lead Story on CNN.com

I did not write the following. John King, chief national correspondent and host of CNN's "State of the Union" did. I heard a representative from Metro speak at a Board of Alderman meeting last Tuesday and was completely blown away by the fact that my mayor and the board accepted his words with little comment. I wanted to scream that the world as we know is about to alter completely for many more people than we will ever be able to comprehend. As Joni Mitchell sang, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."

BALLWIN, Missouri (CNN) -- For Stuart and Dianne Falk, it is a two-bus, 45-minute trip into downtown St. Louis to head to the gym and to volunteer at a theater group.

And it is a lifeline that ends Friday.

"To be saddled, to be imprisoned, that is what it is going to feel like," says Stuart Falk. "It is going to feel like being punished for something we didn't do."

Stuart and Dianne Falk are confined to wheelchairs. And the bus route that takes them downtown, and to one of the few tastes of personal freedom they have, is being eliminated because of a funding crunch.

In all, two dozen bus routes are being eliminated outright effective March 30. Numerous other routes have been shortened or otherwise modified, including less frequent runs. Light rail service schedules also have been scaled back as part of an effort to close a $51 million funding shortfall.

The reasons for the funding crunch have little to do with President Obama, or the federal government at all for that matter. But there are several connections to the big national political debates of the past several months, stretching back to last fall.

It was then that St. Louis County voters were asked to vote in favor of a small tax increase to add funding for bus routes and other mass transit operations in the bedroom communities surrounding the city of St. Louis.

Backers were optimistic, but then saw the mood change as the struggles on Wall Street mounted, and dropping 401(k) balances made voters more stingy. It didn't help, these backers contend, that anger at the first installment of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout also was festering on Election Day.

Now, St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley worries the cutbacks will have an adverse effect on an already struggling area economy.

"The worse case scenario to me is this, if we don¹t get people to goods and services, that means businesses will close their doors, that means more jobs are lost," Dooley told us in an interview on a light rail platform in Clayton just outside the city.

Dooley also said mass transit cutbacks make it harder to attract new businesses.

"We're talking about economic development and entrepreneurship: Who is going to come to St. Louis if you can¹t get people back and forth to work?" Dooley said.

Efforts to get the state to help close the budget gap have failed. And while many of those affected see it is a perfect use of the federal stimulus funds the president says are meant to create and save jobs, such spending is not allowed.

Stimulus money can be used for new mass transit capital projects, such as building new stations or buying new buses. But the money cannot be used for operational costs, meaning it cannot be used to keep existing routes open.

"No, I don¹t think that is right. Of course, that is not right," is Dooley's view. "I mean at the end of the day, it's about creating jobs and opportunity. ... Could the stimulus bill be of a great help to us? No question about it."

Without any cash infusion, Metro says it has no choice but to cut back from 9,125 bus stops to 6,801, significantly cutting back its reach into the outer ring of St. Louis County.

Riding the buses this week offered a glimpse at the impact.

At one stop Wednesday, a handful of developmentally disabled passengers boarded outside a local facility where they work. One told CNN she optimistic "something will get done about it" but said she isn't sure how she is supposed to get around after Friday.

Kimberly Barge is a staff attorney at Paraquad, the gym where the Falks and other local disabled residents attend classes.

"People are frustrated, angry -- almost to the point of hopeless in some cases because there aren't many other alternatives for the disability community as far as transportation goes," Barge told CNN.

Jean McPherson boarded the bus with her infant daughter. The 20-year-old is going back to school to get her high school diploma and though short on cash, she says she is now forced to explore buying a used car.

"I might end up losing my job or not being able to take my daughter to day care," is how she sees the consequence of her bus route being shortened so that it no longer stretches out to her community. "You can't afford a car; that is why you use public transportation. So a lot of people are going to be in a bad situation."

And the impact goes beyond Metro riders. Some 200 drivers also are slated to lose their jobs

Shaking her head, Dianne Falk offers this analysis: "That doesn't seem like what (President) Obama wants."

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Kinda Cheating...

I've been neglecting my blog and my writing of late due to the exhaustion that comes with a new job. But the itch to write has come back, but I saw this and thought it expressed my thoughts better than I could.

Taken from CNN.com.

(CNN) -- As the country frets about extricating itself from the financial mess, there is one group of Americans to whom the rest of us owe the most sincere words of apology.

That group consists of the oldest of our fellow citizens -- the men and women who went through the Great Depression when they were young, who fought and endured World War II when they were just a little older, and who had hoped for a sense of peace and tranquility in their final years on this earth.

They don't deserve what they are going through. You hear it again and again from money experts: Take the long view of the economy. If you don't need cash from your stock market accounts in the next five to 10 years, leave it in there. Time will heal our current woes -- the economy, even when it's in tatters, runs in cycles. Just wait it out and be patient. Especially young people -- fiscal stability will arrive again in your lifetime. You'll see.

Nice words. Yet they leave out that one group of people -- the people who have a right to be terrified when they are told the economy will only be brutal in the short term. They leave out the people to whom the short term is all they have: our parents. Our grandparents. The men and women who never should have had to worry about their personal security again.

It's never wise to generalize, yet it is safe to say that, as a group, the men and women who endured the Depression and World War II played it straight when it came to putting their trust in financial institutions. They didn't try to game the system; they didn't believe in esoteric money schemes. As a group, they were cautious, because the two defining national events of their lives taught them that you can never really count on anything. They watched their own parents suffer during the Depression, they went overseas for years on end when our nation asked them to save the world, and when they came home, to the prosperity of the Eisenhower years, they crossed their fingers and hoped the good times were not an illusion.

The mistakes and tricks and reckless gambles of the supposedly sophisticated masters of Wall Street have wounded these men and women, many of whom, before the last year, had never even heard the names of the men who ran the biggest investment banks and brokerage firms. Which is why what those oldest Americans are going through is so unfair. Once more, in a lifetime that has been filled with sacrifices, they are having to pay the terrible price for decisions in which they had no say.

For a while, after Tom Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation" focused belated attention on the quietly heroic lives of our parents and grandparents, it finally seemed that the oldest Americans were being allowed to take a victory lap. One of the points Brokaw made was that, for all the pain those men and women lived through, they seldom complained. They just soldiered on.

That appeared to be the elegiac theme of their final chapter: a warm acknowledgment by us, to whom they gave a better world, that we understood and honored their steadfastness -- that we appreciated and were moved by the uncomplaining way they had made it through their hardest years.

We didn't realize that they would be asked to do it again, in 2009 -- we didn't realize that our parents and grandparents, the vestiges of their retirement income suddenly diminished and threatened, would be asked once more to stoically accept hardships they had done nothing to bring upon themselves.

Think of the disdain they must feel for the Wall Street titans who have hurt them. When they hear about a brokerage executive who spends $1,400 on a wastebasket, their first thought undoubtedly is not that the man has taken advantage of his shareholders, or of the federal government. Their first thought -- remember, these men and women were children of the Depression -- is that the man must be a fool, a complete and utter sucker, to pay someone $1,400 for such an item. If you grew up having nothing, your contempt for such an idiotic expenditure is just about absolute. And you wonder about a society in which a person who would spend money that way is expected to prudently handle the money of others.

All that the oldest Americans asked for, in their final years, is a sense of safety, of stability. Twice in the nation's history, they knew what it was like to go to sleep night after night with their stomachs knotted in fear. What we as a country owed them was nights, at the end, when they never again had to feel that dread in the darkness.

Now they are feeling it, and there is nothing that we -- their sons and daughters, their grandsons and granddaughters -- can do to convince them that their fear in the night is groundless. What they are being forced to go through now is -- in the most elemental sense of this word -- a shame. I hope they know how sorry we are.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene.

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Welcome to a New America...

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night.

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Words Sometimes Seem Superfluous...

"I stand here today as hopeful as ever that the United States of America will endure, that it will prevail, that the dream of our founders will live on in our time."
~ Barack Obama
At the Lincolm Memorial concert on National Mall in Washington, January 18, 2009, two days before his inauguration as US President.

What an amazing time we live in. The world is a very volatile place right now with wars spanning the globe and our economy -- as well as nearly every other country's -- teetering on the brink of collapse. But Barack Obama stands as a beacon of hope in the darkness. And as I watch the events of today unfold on CNN, I am saddened that I am not standing on the Mall with the approximate 1.2 to 3 million people enduring the freezing cold, but I am beyond thrilled to be witnessing this moment in history regardless of where my seat is.

While these times are uncertain and frightening, it seems as if the whole world love Barack Obama. Not only is he the new leader of the United States of America, but it seems as if he will be bringing the world towards the light.

God bless you President Obama. It's a great day for all Americans.

And all our fellow human beings.


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History is Written by the Victors

On Sunday afternoon, I had lunch with my friend Tom. We ended up at a little neighborhood coffeehouse, Murdoch Perk, where we discussed politics over the most decadent chocolate cheesecake I think I have ever consumed. And I've indulged in some cheesecake therapy in my day...

Part of the discussion was about the history of impeachment... but most of it was about how history looks back on former Presidents.

The impartial eye of history magnifies the accomplishments, and debacles, of former Presidential administrations, but it also takes the emotion out of the events.

Now, as some, most, or -- most likely -- all of you know, I am not George W.'s biggest fan. In fact, I have said on more than one occasion, I expect the person holding the highest seat of power in the land, nay the entire world, to be smarter than I am.

Which really isn't that great of a feat.

In fact, I am embarrassed that George W. Bush is not only our President, but that the American people elected him a second time.

But Tom argued that historians might look back with a more objective eye and see things differently. That if the war that I think is idiotic and completely unnecessary (and that Tom seems to concur on me about) takes a turn that will only underscore Bush's reasons for having a U.S. Military presence there, then the history books will be kind to him.

I protested vehemently, arguing that there is no way that Bush could pull out of the tailspin of his disastrous 8 years. But Tom returned with how FDR and Truman were vilified at the time, but look at them now...

Of which, I couldn't really dispute. Truman was practically vilified by the American public when he left office and now he is practically revered by historians... and Americans alike. What a difference a generation or two can make.

I was suddenly sweating if my animosity was misguided or, at the very least, a little too rabid. (<--Note, word use is a tip of the hat to Maggie. She'll understand.)

But then I saw this on CNN and it occurred to me that while things might yet turn out better for Bush than he will ever deserve, Katrina will forever remain a blight on his record. There is no amount of spin that can rectify turning his back on his own countryman.

None.

Now, there are those who can argue that it was Congress that didn't allocate funding to help out the devastated areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, but my God... If the leader of the free world is not at the forefront of helping the people who elected him, then what is wrong with this picture?

My same argument stands for 9/11. I may think that Mayor Giuliani was (and still is) nuttier than a fruitcake, but who was the one person that rallied a broken and terrified country to stand tall once again? Not the President of the United States of America, whose very country was attacked. It was the Mayor of New York, who had been battling tabloid stories and genuinely bizarre behavior. Rudy Giuliani was not made Time Magazine's Person of the Year because he was a good mayor to New York. But he was the best non-elected President of the United States we could ask for.

I could also argue that the first term of George W. was not one that he was elected to, but I'll spare you that diatribe for another post.

So Katrina... A horrific natural disaster that occurred in August 2005, of which the effects are still felt by the residents in the path of the hurricane. And not just irritations and annoyances are felt by those displaced for a period of time, then tucked back into their lives. We're talking about people who are still homeless. Why has George W. Bush not moved Heaven and Earth to help these people?

This was not a rhetorical question; I really don't have an answer. Maybe you know?

I hope that he has a few answers on Thursday night when he gives his farewell address. I have no real interest in hearing his convoluted phrasing of not only the events of his administration, but his infamous ability to butcher simple English grammar. But at an estimated ten to fifteen minutes in length, I think I can stomach the speech for that short duration of time.

Then, Super Tuesday! TRUE history in the making. And unless Obama totally falls out of step with his proposed changes, I think that his highlights will cast a serious shadow on the previous administration.

And, to be completely catty, it won't take too much work.

Maybe Tom and I should rendezvous in 20, 30 years and revisit the conversation. Because at this point, it's all conjecture.

And plus, I'm always up for any reason to have chocolate cheesecake.

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To-Do List...

Okay, so I'm a little late with my first posting of the new year, but after the gluttonous gorging I had over the holidays, I got a little sleepy.

The holidays are difficult for me at times, and being unemployed this year didn't help the matter any, so I'm going to skip over the highlights of the season. Instead, I'm going to look forward to a bigger and better 2009!

And with the new year comes new resolutions. But rather than call them resolutions, I'm going to make myself a "To Do" list. If I give myself goals to achieve, rather than tasks to accomplish, I might actually be able to cross some of the items off my list...

1) Bike 100 miles this year. I know people who can crank this out in a weekend, so why can't I get it done over the course of 12 months?

2) Walk Lance at least 5 days a week. It doesn't have to be far, but it has to be done.

3) To go hand-in-hand with the walking of Lance, I need to walk at least 10 miles a month. It might not seem like much, but it's better than nothing. Which is sort of what I'm doing now.

4) If I can't afford to replace my kitchen cabinets, I need to at least paint them. I have lived with them for 34 years, but I vow by my 35th birthday that they will no longer look like faux-woodgrain Formica covered cabinets. They will be a solid neutral, like white.

5) I will rearrange the bedroom for optimal flow (pardon the pun) to get to the bathroom. Right now, Lance's dog bed sits in front of the Master bathroom door.

6) I will spend more time with my friends actually DOING things, rather than spending money. Some of the activities might require spending money, but let there be something meaningful that comes out of it. I already have two friends who want me to teach them to knit, one who wants to teach me how to purl and a few others who just want to 'create' when we get together.

7) I will write more... and hone my drawing skills. I set aside drawing for numerous reasons, but sometimes when I try to convey an idea through words, all I can do is visualize it my head -- and not be able to adequately describe what I'm thinking. I realize now that what I see in my head, I need to put down on paper.

8) I will my ass up off the couch more and live my life, rather than hide behind my laptop during my free time. It's a bad habit that I got into and I need to find a good habit to slide into instead. I am open to suggestions.

I could have been cliche and put that I will get a job (which I will) and lose weight (which I hope), but I thought if I gave myself small projects and goals, then I'd accomplish more than if I looked at the big picture, which is kind of scary.

Happy New Year to you and yours. And happy New You!


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It's the Holiday Season

I think I had a little too much holiday cheer this past weekend.

It's Tuesday and I think that I'm still recovering from my exploits. Either that, or I'm getting sick. Which I refuse to believe.

Friday night, I did something that I've been wanting to do for the longest time... I saw the light display at Tilles Park. For years I've driven past it, but never turned in. This year, Barry and I, along with Dev, Peggy and Jim, piled into Barry's Rav4 and took in the sights and sounds. While it wasn't the most comfortable of viewings, the company was truly enjoyable and us in the back seat were united in our discomfort.

I'm sure there's an adage about out of discomfort comes strength, or some other bullshit, but it's eluding me at this point.

Rather than write a review of the experience, I'm going to say that if you enjoy drive-through Christmas light displays, then it is well worth your time. I would go during the week, though, when there is less traffic. If it's not your scene, then hit something else.

I enjoyed it immensely.

Saturday, our house was Kid Central. Our friends Jason and Jennifer brought over their children so that we could give them their Christmas presents. I fretted a bit over whether the gifts would be enjoyed. I needn't have. Lots of squeals and pestering of Uncle Barry to play with them ensued. Love the sound of children's laughter... especially in this house.

A couple hours later, Cara and Todd brought over their boys. I had been warned that they would swing in, then out, because the boys had already had full days and were starting to get tired.

But when they arrived, their oldest dropped his coat on the floor and joined the melee. The youngest apparently was power napping when they arrived, for he soon woke up and joined the commotion.

For those of you not in the know, my house has a kitchen that connects to both the family room and dining room. Which are also connected. So there is a zig-zagged wall that acts as the center, making it perfect for kids to run circles through the house.

I loved it!

So did Lance, who followed the parade of children running through the house, occasionally giving kisses to whomever would stop to catch their breath.

After they left, Tom came over to watch 'The Ref' and 'Bad(der) Santa.' I had never seen 'The Ref' all the way through and Tom had never seen 'Bad Santa,' so it was new for everyone but Barry.

Popcorn, cookies and cherry limeade was consumed, but none of us can stay up late the way we used to back in the day, so we called it a night.

Sunday, Barry and I went to his sister's so he could get his hair cut... and so we could help her pick up a metal cabinet that she bought at an antique mall. And while not the most festive day of the weekend, there was certainly an air of giving that day. Plus, the desire to shop weighed heavily on my mind.

I don't know if they exist, but when in doubt, always feel free to give me a gift certificate to an antique mall.

So as I sit here on the couch, I truly think that I OD'd on the holiday spirit this weekend.

Or maybe I just want to get out of going to my brother- and sister-in-law's house on Thursday.

Naw. Couldn't be.

But thank God Cara and Todd dropped off a bottle of holiday wine on Saturday. I plan on sampling it on Christmas.


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