Aside from timely posts, of course. (I need to get paid to do this full time, be much easier.)
You will not see a post, or link about the roanokerailcam.com nonsense. First off, it's not exactly firefox-friendly, nor is it all that interesting. The aim of the camera is horrible - even though they installed one of those fun "user-targeting" cameras - they left that option out for the public. It's java based - which is good, but uses almost none of the fun java-capable features. It is very nice for viewing the downtown skyline, but shows little else but the butt-end of the TMA, the nearly vacant Market St., 4 tracks of NS lines (2 of which see intermittent use), and the City Market Building (which really needs Roanoke painted on it's roof again).
Unlike the Star Cam where you can watch people come and go from the "unused" mountain, watch storms roll across the valley, and who knows what else as the year progresses - this RailCam is a one trick pony. Until it snows, then it will be great to see downtown coated in snow. But then what?
Anyway - the merciless whoring of this railcam (no less than 3 e-mails, each with the same exact message) prompts me to dub it the RoanokeFailCam, as it fails to show anything beyond what you see in the first 10 seconds. Oh, and the zoom function sucks too.
/crank off
You will no longer see any posts about the TMA, unless they do something astoundingly stupid. Really, it's a moot point since they tore down the Lonesome Dove - and I think now, a majority of the people (meaning those who are not already connected to the museum, or read "Atlas Shrugged" daily) are beginning to realize exactly how ill-fitting it looks downtown. Wait till it opens and people realize that it's filled with what are considered in the "fine arts" community call "filler pieces."
I am still, however, lobbying for a Museum of the City of Roanoke - mostly due to the vast amount of history this town forgets it has.
You won't see gripes and complaints about places I do not live, unlike some other blogs. I live in the City - what happens in the county is their problem to deal with. I will stay within jurisdictional lines, with the exception of the Roanoke-Allegheny Regional stuff.
I will not be harping on about the presidential election, except to say that I am dreading having to vote for either one of these two numbnuts.
All that being said - I want to leave you with a comment from a friend of mine - in relation to "sustainable pratices" and "green living." It's brilliant.
"
In my area the farmers grow mostly seed corn. If they do grow anything else they charge far, far more than the local grocery stores or Sysco does and they don't deliver.
So am I going to go burn up even more gas and my time to go chase the stuff down, I think not. How about every restaurant in town running about the countryside to get their own produce. How about every little farm in the area putting their goods into the back of a truck and going to every restaurant in town to sell their goods. Yeah there is a brilliant waste of gas, resources and not to mention greenhouse gases.
At the local "farmers market" there are three or four farmers that actually grow their own produce and sell it in season. The rest buy from the same market Sysco buys its local stuiff from. One "farmer" has bananas for sale every weekend. Imagine that a banana farm here in Michigan. Another specializes in fresh mushrooms. Chantrelles in May anyone? I have seen tomatoes in May and Peaches in October presented as "homegrown."
I don't shop at the local farmers market anymore, it is a joke.
The organic produce at the grocery stores sits on the shelf and rots.
I ask the produce clerks about it and they tell me it's a complete loss and they throw or give most of it away. So, they carry it so people can feel good about shopping there, becuase they have organic produce available? What a joke and a waste of resources.
The three vegetarian places that have opened here in the last 10 yrs have failed to get past the 1 year mark. The only place that "claims" to practice "sustainable" is a complete facade.They put tomatoes on their salads in January too. Here in Michigan, is a green leaf salad in January an acceptable sustainable practice?
There may be places where folks really cares about these things. The Pacific Northwest, Northern Califonia, and some of the larger cities that have a higher population levels but here in mid town USA, I am catering to the avg joe(and the farmers, lots of them). A place where they ask how big is the portion, not how good is it or is that free range chicken and organic produce. I do have some who ask if the salmon is farm raised or wild caught, not because they actually know something about it, but because they heard somrthing about it from someone, somewhere once.
In my observation of the movement:
The same people who cry about trees getting cut down and the loss of valuable resources, have no problem preaching organic farming. A practice that is known to take up twice as much land to produce half as much. This means cutting down more trees and using more resources to put into pratice. For what, so you can feel good about not using a few pesticides? These are the same people that think our American farmers are greedy, corrupt, polluters who know nothing. There are many, many farms here that have been in the same family for over 100 years. The ones that are still operational, produce more per acre than ever before.You would be led to believe by the organic movement that with modern practices, these farms should be wastelands incapable of even growing ragweed after 100 years of farming with pesticides and other "unsustainable methods." These are the same people who freak out about wild salmon populations and protecting them but won't eat anything but wild caught. (The same with shrimp.) The same people who look to Goverment as the end all, be all, will not allow the Goverment to set uniform standards when it comes to what is and what isn't organic farming. The same type of standards that other farmers who are not "organic" have to follow like a religion.
And we don't want to talk about those who won't subsidize farmers in America and have allowed many, many, farms to disappear and wont put into place a set of standards or rules for organic farmining, want me to carry fair trade coffee (subsidized)and organic (complete total lack of standards and ignorance of the reality of "fair trade and organic" movement) from another country. These same people that want me to carry "fair trade organic coffee" from another country don't want me to get tomatoes in January from the same countries that grow coffee.
These people who will cry about killing a cow for beef and agonize over the safety of our food supply i.e. e coli, want us to eat vegetables that have been fertilized with cow ****.
These same people who let a few towns and many farmers die a slow death in Oregon over water for some damn fish and it turns out that it's not really endangered by the practices of the farmers. But they sure felt good about it.
The same people who think that the most efficient model of transportation and distribution of products known to man that can move hundreds of thousands of cases from California to New York or Brazil to New York is the biggest polluter and is grossly ineffiecient, offer no real alternative other than the one I discussed in the first paragraph.
There are a few individuals who truly practice and believe in it, but from where I sit the whole organic sustainable movement is nothing if but a farce of itself. Another big money making, government grant grabbing machine with an agenda that is far more than what it appears to be on the surface.
Your other question, you ask is it all about the money.
I ask have you ever had to pay the light and gas bills, payroll, vendors, taxes, mortgage or rent? Have you signed your name to a loan for big enough to buy a couple, three, four houses while pledging to the bank everything you own or will possbily own for the rest of your life? I am thinking not, otherwise you wouldn't ask such a foolish question.
If my customers expect green salads with tomatoes in January they are going to get them.
I don't care if they taste like cardboard or not. I have 35 employees, some with families, who expect to have a job next week and I going to do everything I can to make sure they do.
Enough ranting, I think I am going to walk down the street and pick some wild mushrooms, hopefully I can find a few more chanterelles as the season is almost over here. They are really awesome with the tomatoes from my garden. Too bad I cant serve them in my restaurant. But alas, all the food I serve has to come from approved sources."
