Well, in today’s news video we first see the building that apparently will go up (looks like a Microtel) and then they showed the PACNY proposed site plan. Would that the lovely yellow building with the mansard roof could be our Ronald McDonald House! But no, only the first version (below) is what we’ll get.

Screenshots from the video (scroll down to “Groundbreaking for new Ronald McDonald House 6-9-11″):

The building that will go up

The building we could have had... but won't

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1996–2001: On multiple occasions spies give detailed reports on bin Laden’s location. Each time, the CIA director or top White House officials prevent bin Laden’s elimination. [Los Angeles Times, 12/5/04, New York Times, 12/30/01, more]

2000–2001: 15 of the 19 hijackers fail to fill in visa documents properly in Saudi Arabia. Only six are interviewed. All 15 should have been denied entry to the US. [Washington Post, 10/22/02, ABC, 10/23/02] Two top Republican senators say if State Department personnel had merely followed the law, 9/11 would not have happened. [AP, 12/18/02, more]

2000–2001: The military conducts exercises simulating hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets causing mass casualties. One target is the World Trade Center (WTC), another the Pentagon. Yet after 9/11, over and over the White House and security officials say they’re shocked that terrorists hijacked airliners and crashed them into landmark buildings. [USA Today, 4/19/04, Military District of Washington, 11/3/00, New York Times, 10/3/01, more]

Jan 2001: After the Nov 2000 elections, US intelligence agencies are told to “back off” investigating the bin Ladens and Saudi royals. There have always been constraints on investigating Saudi Arabians. [BBC, 11/6/01, more]

Spring 2001: A series of military and governmental policy documents is released that seek to legitimize the use of US military force in the pursuit of oil and gas. One advocates presidential subterfuge and hiding the reasons for warfare “as a necessity for mobilizing public support.” [Sydney Morning Herald, 12/26/02, more]

May 2001: For the third time, US security chiefs reject Sudan’s offer of thick files on bin Laden and al-Qaeda. A senior CIA source calls it “the worst single intelligence failure in the business.” [Guardian, 9/30/01, more]

June-Aug 2001: German intelligence warns the CIA that Middle Eastern terrorists are training for hijackings and targeting American interests. Russian President Vladimir Putin alerts the US of suicide pilots training for attacks on US targets. In late July, a Taliban emissary warns the US that bin Laden is planning a huge attack on American soil. In August, Israel warns of an imminent Al Qaeda attack. [Fox News, 5/17/02, Independent, 9/7/02, CNN, 9/12/02, more]

July 4-14, 2001: Bin Laden reportedly receives kidney treatment from Canadian-trained Dr. Callaway at the American Hospital in Dubai. Dr. Callaway declines to comment. During his stay, bin Laden is allegedly visited by one or two CIA agents. [Guardian, 11/1/01, Sydney Morning Herald, 10/31/01, Times of London, 11/1/01, UPI, 11/1/01, more]

July 26, 2001: Attorney General Ashcroft stops flying commercial airlines due to a threat assessment. [CBS, 7/26/01] In May 2002, Ashcroft walks out of his office rather than answer questions about it. [Fox News/AP, 5/16/02, more]

Aug 6, 2001: President Bush receives an intelligence briefing warning that bin Laden might be planning to hijack commercial airliners. Titled “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US,” the briefing specifically mentions the WTC. Yet Bush later claims it “said nothing about an attack on America.” [Washington Post, 4/12/04, Briefing, 8/6/01, more]

Aug 27, 2001: An FBI supervisor tries to ensure that a hijacker doesn’t “take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center.” [Senate Report, 10/17/02] Headquarters chastises him for notifying the CIA. [Time, 5/21/02, more]

Sept 10, 2001: A number of top Pentagon brass suddenly cancel travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns. Why isn’t this news spread widely? [Newsweek, 9/13/01, Newsweek, 9/24/01, more]

Sept 11, 2001: Data recovery experts extract data from 32 damaged WTC computer drives. The data reveals a surge in financial transactions shortly before the attacks. Illegal transfers of over $100 million may have been made through WTC computer systems immediately before and during the 9/11 disaster. [Reuters, 12/18/01, CNN, 12/20/01, more]

Sept 11, 2001: Described as a bizarre coincidence, a US intelligence agency was set for an exercise on Sept 11 at 9 AM in which an aircraft would crash into one of its buildings near Washington, DC. [USA Today/AP, 8/22/02, more]

Sept 11, 2001: Hours after the attacks, a “shadow government” is formed. Key congressional leaders say they didn’t know this government-in-waiting had been established. [CBS, 3/2/02, Washington Post, 3/2/02, more]

Sept 11, 2001: Six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners make a tape recording describing the events within hours of the attacks. The tape is never turned over to the FBI. It is later illegally destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it. [Washington Post, 5/6/04, New York Times, 5/6/04]

Sept 13-19, 2001: Bin Laden’s family is taken under FBI supervision to a secret assembly point. They leave the country by private plane when airports reopen days after the attacks. [New York Times, 9/30/01, Boston Globe, 9/20/01, more]

Sept 15-16, 2001: Several of the 9/11 hijackers, including lead hijacker Mohamed Atta, may have had training at secure US military installations. [Newsweek, 9/15/01, Washington Post, 9/16/01, New York Times, 9/15/01, more]

Sept 20, 2001: Several 9/11 hijackers later mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report turn up alive. “Five of the alleged hijackers have emerged, alive, innocent and astonished to see their names and photographs appearing on satellite television…The hijackers were using stolen identities.” [quote in Times of London, 9/20/01, see also BBC, 9/23/01, more]

Dec 2001-Feb 2002: The US engineers the rise to power of two former Unocal Oil employees: Hamid Karzai, the interim president of Afghanistan, and Zalmay Khalizad, the US envoy. The big American bases created in the Afghan war are identical to the route of the projected oil pipeline. [Chicago Tribune, 3/18/02, more]

May 17, 2002: Dan Rather says that he and other journalists haven’t been properly investigating since 9/11. He graphically describes the pressures to conform that built up after the attacks. [Guardian, 5/17/02, more]

May 23, 2002: President Bush says he is opposed to establishing an independent commission to probe 9/11. [CBS, 5/23/02] Vice President Cheney earlier opposed any public hearings on 9/11. [Newsweek, 2/4/02, more]

May 30, 2002: FBI Agent Wright formally accuses the FBI of deliberately curtailing investigations that might have prevented 9/11. He is threatened with retribution if he talks to Congress about this. [Fox News, 5/30/02, more]

July 22, 2004: The 9/11 Commission Report is published. It fails to mention that a year before the attacks a secret Pentagon project had identified four 9/11 hijackers, including leader Mohamed Atta. The Commission spokesperson initially states members were not informed of this, but later acknowledges they were. [New York Times, 8/11/05, more]

2004 – 2005: A growing number of top government officials and public leaders express disbelief in the official story of 9/11. 100 prominent leaders and 40 9/11 family members sign a statement calling for an unbiased inquiry into evidence suggesting high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the attacks to occur. [Various Publications]

Aug 9, 2006: A book by 9/11 Commission chairmen Kean and Hamilton outlines repeated deceptions by the Pentagon and FAA, including the timelines of Flights 77 and 93. CNN News: “The fact that the government would … perpetuate the lie suggests that we need a full investigation of what is going on.” [CNN, 8/9/06 , MSNBC/AP, 8/4/06, more]

2006-2009: Over 50 former senior government officials and more than 100 highly respected professors publicly criticize The 9/11 Commission Report as highly flawed, and call for a new, independent investigation. [Professors, Officials]

For a 10-page summary of the 9/11 cover-up, www.WantToKnow.info/9-11cover-up10pg
For a powerful, engaging video revealing lots more on 9/11: www.WantToKnow.info/911video
For reliable resources on the 9/11 cover-up and what you can do: 9/11 information center

They didn’t tear it down. They kept it walkable, despite the pressures of all that oh-so-annoying traffic. They “allowed” old people to grow old right there in the village, unlike Fayetteville, which couldn’t have any of that. There’s a senior center and a senior home in the heart of the village of Manlius. And now they’ve somehow found a developer stupid enough to build according to the village’s stupid plans. Who do they think they are? Another Skaneateles? You know which one I mean, the town so stupid it figured out how to get people to drive for 40 minutes just to take a walk in it.

Sorry, I get worked up. This article in today’s Post-Standard upsets me. The things they say! Look at this (bolding mine):

“In 2008, the village adopted its comprehensive Vision Manlius plan for development. The plan is a set of guidelines for fostering a pedestrian-friendly village with a rural feel, vibrant downtown business core, mixed residential and commercial development, plus parks and natural areas.”

and

“A key, said Dougherty, was to create a project that would encourage foot traffic through it and into the rest of the village. “It is nearly the inverse of how a typical developer would approach this prime site,” said Dougherty.”

and

“Parking would be in the rear and would accommodate more than 350 cars. A new road, called Village Road, would line up with Manlius Mart. It would be closed off to vehicular traffic in the summer for pedestrian flow and to allow the restaurants to open up for outdoor, patio seating.”

So what if traffic doesn’t flow rapidly through Manlius? It doesn’t do that in any town worth living in. That’s because people find it so rewarding to live there, they put up with the inconvenience of having to take just one aspect of their lives a little more slowly (examples: Newport, Boston, all of Europe).  If traffic discourages one more developer from turning one more of Pompey’s farmer fields into a mass of McMansions, all the better for Manlius.

Let’s see, then. Eastwood has had its own visionary overlay district guidelines for eight years. It has had development on James Street during that time, and most of it pretty good. It has suffered from a planning commission still subject to pressure from a mayor who has publicly come out against the guidelines. It is mired in a system that that allows developers to toy with (read: divide and try to conquer) the property-tax-paying residents. It is facing the same problems Manlius faces. But oh, what a difference when you have plans in place that will be enforced. Look at the kind of developer you get: one who will do the inverse of what has brought Eastwood to the brink, Butternut to the pit and Salina-Ballantyne over the edge.

Makes it kinda tempting to consider moving back home.

This morning, at home and in an equally pre-caffeinated fog, I did this:

What’s wrong with this picture? Hmmm…. seems I didn’t see that the lid was still on the coffee grinder. I thought I knew what I was doing. I expected one thing but got something quite different. It took me awhile to pick up the beans and put them where they really would be most effective.

This little adventure did wake me up. Got me to thinking about all the mistakes we make before fully awake. Within memory of our own grandparents, we used to think it perfectly fine to deny the vote to women and to lynch blacks. Then we woke up. During our own lifetimes we thought it fine to pollute Onondaga Lake and replace Syracuse’s historic buildings with parking lots. Then we woke up and gave some measure of power to the people who have devoted their lives to understanding the long-term effects of our deeds. We finally heeded the words of Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rachel Carson. After 30 years of ignoring the warnings of Al Gore and many others, we are finally waking up and paying attention to what the experts have been saying: global warming is a serious threat to the entire planet.

Isn’t it time Syracuse woke up and hired experts to make design and development decisions about our city? I don’t mean people who stand to make money or inflate egos off plunking down new construction that’s inappropriate to our city’s urban settings. I mean people who have graduate degrees in urban planning and design, people who understand the effects of our deeds within the complexities of physical and historical context. That means where our city, its buildings, its businesses and its inhabitants stand in relation to the past, the present and the future.

Please, let us not have “planning commissions” full of people who have no advanced education in planning. Please, let us not allow developers to be the sole “deciders” about what our children will be dealing with. Let us fix a system that allows the pre-caffeinated to build an interstate highway right through a cohesive neighborhood (thus dooming it for decades) or a small coterie of developers to bamboozle a city into thinking that we have to choose between sick kids and historic preservation (we don’t).

Keep your eye on what’s happening to the Kingsley-True house. If state or federal funding is sought by Ronald McDonald House, it must undergo a review process before any demolition takes place. See this letter from the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and this letter from the Preservation Association of Central New York to Mayor Driscoll for further details.

Please, Syracuse, wake up and drink the coffee!