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People from Howland think everyone else is a hick. They don't realize they are too. They're really mad they have to use Warren as their address. Howland also resents Newton Falls because both football teams are the Tigers.

That sounds like how tough it would be to run Chicago with a name that isn't Daley, so why don't you just let them. I'm willing to put up with some rookie mistakes if it means not having a permanent political class. Experience in city politics isn't exactly doled out evenly.

So does everybody else, but they're making half as much PLUS they have student loans. Smoke that in your pipe. I will now shut up about generational angst. Sometimes working for the man is unavoidable. I was watching a Greatest American Hero DVD yesterday, which I highly recommend-- it was formative for me in my youth. Anyway, the main character lectures his students about how bad it is to bury hazardous waste in Utah. Ha! I buried hazardous waste in Utah. Didn't dig the hole myself, but you know what I mean. I did the paperwork to make it happen. The things we do with radiation... Greatest American Hero would not approve. I didn't even get paid that much for it. But it was that or nothing.

Speaking of the hipster coffee house bit, that McDonalds commercial with the two guys who get excited about the new McDonalds coffee drinks cracks me up. My favorite two lines are 'I can shave this thing off" and "We can call movies, movies again and not have to call them films" McDonalds (or Dunkin Donuts or other simlar place) needs to start advertising something like "I have inexpensive coffee that tastes good and does not require knowledge of any sort of insider jargon to order." They should compete with Starbucks by trying to be the opposite, not mimic. They're doing just that. You haven't seen the McDonalds commercial where the guys in the pretentious coffee shop admit they hate it and just wanna talk about sports?

I'm not arguing for flats over mall, I like the mall site. Just saying the flats is a better #2 option than TC. If the CC were to go in the flats, it may change the overall mix there away from residential. But not that much. Either way, I don't think anyone would consider living in the flats if they have a real problem with industrial/commercial noise.

They should not choose the TC site even if this one proves unsuitable. I really think it would be difficult to come up with a worse place to build this type of thing than behind TC. Nobody else is clamoring to buy that land! Nobody else has shown the slightest interest in it ever, as far as I know. There hasn't even been a random lark of a development plan for that site since the 20s, has there? At some point we have to admit that it's a steep slope overlooking a wasteland and move on. The flats site would be head and shoulders better as a backup option, so I hope people don't just blow Wolstien off at this point.

When I read some of these happy career stories from the 80s, it reinforces my theory that our economy has been in free fall since at least that time. People just a little older, between my age and my parents', seem oblivious to how hard things have gotten. People my parents' age have been watching their kids go through it and some are just beginning to understand. Some never will, due to a self-serving ideology that states if you have it, you were supposed to all along, and if you don't have it, that too is what nature intended. Those who don't understand generally blame the victims. "I just did what I was supposed to do and made good money with no problems. Therefore, your problem is you." Wrong. As far as us late GenX and GenY people are concerned, we've been ripped off by those who came before us and who have tilted every policy toward enriching themselves at our expense. We will remember this when you get old first. Now might be a good time to stand with us on the issue of our pathetic little salaries.

Newton Falls is considered kind of foreign and out of the way by people living nearby. There's something "off" about it. That barbershop sign sums it up. What is the barber trying to tell me? Should it make me uncomfortable? Why does it make me uncomfortable? Let's get outta here. My friends and I as kids believed that every illicit drug connection could eventually be linked to Newton Falls. I don't know why we believed this. It's really not that kind of place. Not compared with the Youngstown area as a whole, which I suppose IS that kind of place.

They really should do U-pass at Case. It's one of the best things CSU offers. Unfortunately, many CSU students go nuts when they get billed for it. They hate that is isn't optional. But there's no way RTA would offer such a price break ($25 for the equivalent of 4-5 monthly passes) if it were optional. I always worry that CSU's going to cancel it, under pressure from anti-transit suburban kids.

I started out with a business degree making 25k. Many teachers do no better. Whether 25k-30k is a living wage depends on your credit rating and your "inherent overhead" in life, i.e. student loans. My numbers were bad. Much of my 20s was a daily struggle against homelessness which I didn't always win. Without good friends I would have been on the street more than once, me and my college degree. From the bottom of society it was easy to see this downfall coming years in advance. I don't think anything will fix this besides a significant redistribution, something that rarely takes place in an orderly fashion. I can remember some friends in Youngstown saying "I don't know when 'it' starts, but 'it' will start somewhere around here. We've just about had it." The problem is that nobody has any money to spend right? I don't know how else to fix that problem. The money didn't just evaporate. Somebody's got it. I just hope people in charge realize we can't go back to the system that "worked" for the past 30+ years, because it never did actually work. All it did was lead, inevitably, to this situation we have today.

Bingo! I try to avoid starbucks for that reason. Everything about it seems so fake and forced. Their ridiculous size-names like "venti" have been parodied so much you think they would quit, but no. They still correct me when I say large. Hell, Fridays quit using flair after it was parodied in Office Space. Try a little self-awareness, starbucks. Obviously this total-immersion marketing plan has been effective, but I want it to collapse as soon as possible.

This is complex because on the one hand, the commissioners made the right decision. On the other hand, they made the right decision so badly that they almost shouldn't get away with it.

Keep an eye on drought conditions. I don't think we would have had such a depression in the 30s without that. I read an article (which I can't find now) about California farmers being denied routine loans because they can't prove they'll have water access this summer.

Obviously we can't replicate those people or that situation. But the idea that we can never replicate their work is... incongruous. And yes, labor has become more expensive but it's also become less necessary. I mean, a lot of this stonework could be mass produced now, and it doesn't necessarily have to be stone. Modern materials last longer anyway. I don't know if that argument works as well for hardwood. My point is that we, as a species and a civilization, have not lost the ability to build nice things. That's preposterous. We've simply lost the will to make it happen.

I don't think that it is fair to say that we are building things cheaper. Back in the day, it was not as expensive to hire stone masons to do the work that they did. Stone material and the labor involved was relatively much cheaper. Really? I'm not disagreeing; construction isn't my field. Just trying to understand... I was unaware that stone supplies had changed that much. It makes sense that they would, as with anything else that can be depleted. As for labor, I'd like to know who is negotiating salaries for all these sculpture majors. Is it a union issue? I guess that's likely. But every university art dept has a few sculpture majors, right? Where are they all working, that it would cost so much to pull them away? Is their skill set inapplicable to this? How inapplicable? I mean, it's not like we're trying to replicate the pyramids using ancient technology. I'm not inclined to believe that we, as a society, have lost this much capability in 100 years. That would represent a pretty major collapse. If we are in a full-scale societal collapse, I guess the sooner we admit it the better.

I second that motion. At the very least, CSU police need foot patrols. I wonder what plans they have for campus safety with the building of the new dorms. I'd be amazed if those plans involved much hiring.

We can. If "progress" means everything we make and use has to be cheaper and crappier, then we're being sold a pretty weak version of "progress."

I hereby renew my cry for increased foot patrols downtown.

I get where you're coming from, but it's tough to hold A responsible for B's crime. The bystander was hurt by the criminal, not by the gas station, and private entities aren't generally expected to anticipate or protect others from criminal acts. Let's say you get the door open for a negligence claim. Failing to follow internal procedures is not negligence per se. You'd probably have to show that the attendant knew or should have known that the robber would shoot that bystander. Good luck. I'm not saying the claim would never fly, but it's pretty weak. Edit: It's been a while since I read it, but I don't think the "danger zone" case involved a criminal act. I thought it was a series of mishaps that ended in somebody dropping their dynamite (?)

Doesn't sound like something a jury would go for. "This guy was so bad at being a crime victim that he should owe money for it. Everyone knows you have to let the robber win."

You can't simultaneously question the foundation and jockey for high value.

Not if it's actually zero interest. That's a different animal. That's retailers letting individuals buy like businesses, which I'd like to see more of. Getting rid of interest equalizes things. When there's any interest at all, that's when lower payments can really hurt-- like at Aaron's or Rent a Center.

I'll be lucky if they'll let me finance both. Financing is lame in general. Edit: Financing in lame in general, but only when they charge interest.

Actually, according to my math, it would be about 80% off....but who's counting? You're right, I had the box price at about 120. Looks like its closer to 60.

They also offer free credit reports on TV but you can't actually get one. You can get coupons that take about 1/3 of the price off of a digital converter. So a new TV is really a good bit more, contrary to what I said above. But I still think that's why there isn't as much interest in used TVs these days.