Recent road collapse causes speculation on origin and prevention but also leads me to call out and question local broadcast stations

Monday evening the road collapsed on US Highway 27 northbound, south of State Boulevard, just before the Kroger Fueling Station. This incident caused major headaches as the road in question is a primary route through town and the lights are timed at 28-32 miles per hour to make traffic flow smoothly, typically a twenty minute trip one way. According to an interview given to Stephen Parker @ Around Fort Wayne by Rachel Blakeman, a former blogger, and current Public Information Officer for the City, they checked all possible causes and their working position now is that a water main break ten years ago caused the soil to move or become settled and therefore caused the road pavement to buckle under and take the City on a wonderfully (35 miles per hour, across a 12 inch dip in the road, on a curve, at night) fun ride. The City hopes to have the road repaired, at a cost of 26 thousand dollars (INC 23 September 2009), by Friday, weather permitting.

The only question left to ask now is: Does the City need to go back and check the sites of all other previous water main breaks to prevent this from happening yet again?

My Problem With Local Broadcast Media

This incident was responded to promptly so I wont critique the City on interdepartmental communication this time but I will critique the local broadcast media establishments for not broadcasting the traffic alert at the bottom and top of the hours as the incident unfolded and progressed. Most of the radio stations that I tuned into were on national syndication at the time with no one answering phones or able to announce the obstruction to traffic on the air. Maybe we need to take stock in what we want from local radio? I am not saying that national shows and prerecorded programs are a bad thing, but when there is no one present to put out the traffic advisory for such a major road closing, or receive up to date information from average citizens at the event's occurrence, we begin to see another issue at play. What does that say about the intention of these people we entrust with our airwaves?

That is right, our airwaves!
Publicly owned airwaves!

This isn't an issue of local only it is an issue of local at all. Most radio stations rely on the prepackaged or syndicated programs to fill time and just milk the advertising dollars from such programs. I miss the days of long term, local hired, Disc Jockeys (excuse me, Personalities) whom actually get involved in the Community they serve and do more than slut out the top 40 list every couple of hours, we need more indie and local music.

We need independent stations that aren't owned by conglomerates in the same market. We need to celebrate the arts and music but also receive our news and commentary from many different sources rather than allowing one or two stations to provide every comment or thought from a biased, small minded, position of assumed public trust. We need to start having public conversations again on air and actually invite the best people to the airwaves not just the ones who have the loudest mouths or the most clout in the industry or social landscape.

Allen County needs its own radio station that celebrates the people, arts and music, cultures, reports the news, and offers a balance of commentary on everything. My only question, Whom is willing to start providing and maintaining a truly free press for everyone to participate in? Are You?


F6 EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS POST IS CROSS POSTED ON THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF ALLEN COUNTY BLOG.

One of the downsides to New Media: Old Rules

In true old fashion reminder that riddles with every person especially the minute they begin a new venture or start a new job within government or major corporations and small alike: scrutiny rears its ugly orifices. The person either has to sift their history or obliterate their previous or future independence of expression on views and events from the public view. One of the things that NEW MEDIA NEW RULES promoted, wrongfully so in my opinion, was "no anonymous blogging/comments"; unfortunately that lack of pseudonymous status, has now claimed part of the historical record of Fort Wayne politics and life events in its wake.

Rachel Blakeman, formerly the Editor of BE PART OF THE SOLUTION has, according to Jeff Pruitt @ Fort Wayne Left, accepted a position within the Mayoral administration of Tom Henry as the Public Information Officer; as a precursor to that event, BPOTS went dead about three days ago and is now completely wiped from existence. This is the ultimate reason why traditional print media will never go completely away as a primary source, because it provides an historical record and is independent from what your current and future boss or company might consider within the preview of your eligibility for or sustainability with employment. If we are going to embrace the New Media over the Old or Traditional, then the Old Rules need thrown out as well or at least revised to accommodate if not the independent thought then at least the historical recall; which due to these actions, whether undertaken by Rachel as a personal decision or directed to her as a condition of employment, has greatly diminished for our posterity part of the dialogs of our City's history.

I used Rachel's analysis to balance my own on certain thoughts and issues and the give and take across the blogosphere of Fort Wayne has lost a great contributer to the conversation. I hope and pray that at some pointe she will make an archive available. I also wish her the best as she explores these new opportunities to keep the citizen informed and government as transparent as possible. BTW, Jeff, thank you again for the information.

One score and twelve years ago....What an adventure it has been!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLD BEAR

Thirty two years ago this morning I was shoved out of my mother's womb three months and a day early. I was a two pound, nine ounce bundle of flesh that was seventeen inches long. I couldn't figure out what God was thinking when He came down and commissioned me from my mothers womb and then said "Now get out into the world." instead of letting me stay in this nice warm sack of fluid for another ninety three days. This is my five minutes of paying tribute annually to my mother and father.

Since I am my mother's first born she sucked down on the anesthetics and ended up passing out half way through delivery. My father, in regards to the minor miracle in front of him, responding to the intensive neo-natal conflicts of my premature birth did two things that have the highest honor in my life. They will forever reign in my life no matter what happens or what people say about me personally and professionally. Thirty minutes after I was born I was baptized and given my father's name, the highest glory he could give me, and then handing me back over to God in prayer and the doctors for health and safety. My mom woke up three days later.

ABORTION AND THE SOLEMN FEAST OF HOLY INNOCENTS AND MARTYRS

Today is the feast of the Holy Innocents (citations from my homily: Jeremiah 31:15, Matthew 2:16-18, Assumption of Moses 6:2-6) within the Octave of the Incarnation (Catholics take 8 days to celebrate Christmas Day and Easter Day, similar to Chanukah) . Therefore the issues of premature termination of any life has a very special place in my own history. I am for life from conception to natural death. Technically I was born at the very end of my second trimester. And yes if you do the math I was suppose to born on April Fools Day. Evil is not the opposite of Good it is any thing that takes away from our lives and living them for good will towards our fellow members of creation.

I am not going to make this too political; however I must address this, especially on my birth feast. I am against abortion however I am also pro choice, only in one regard. That is, the fact that if abortion were not legal, I as a member of the clergy, would be celebrating double the amount of funerals (both mother and child). I do believe though that abortion needs to be pulled out of the private clinics and needs to be a ethically guided and medically sound procedure. That just is not guaranteed in a private clinic setting. By requiring continued after procedure medical care and ethical guidance we can greater limit the ramifications of a termination on both the body and mind and soul of the individual whom has made the most tragic decision of their and someone else's life and the biological father's honor. We need to restore the father's right of choice in the decision as well. He contributed half of the byproducts (23 chromosomes and 30 minutes of hard labor) to form this new life, he should have some say in its future, 'possession should not be nine tenths of the law'.

ADMINISTRATION OF THE BLOG

If you take time to notice by actually viewing my blog directly (not through an RSS feed, or whatever else people use to scan this from a distance) I found out (totally on accident mind you) how to put certain things over on the main column above and below the blog entries. I hope you like some of these changes just remember to scroll down a little bit off of the main page to view everything. It is not quite done and completely updated or shuffled from one category to another but I will be finishing it up over the weekend.

Why did the sidebar link categories change?

This was done in an effort to clarify better what people are looking for. Before all the personal, political and news, commentary blogs were for the most part in one of two groups of link lists "what all d fagz r talkn bout!" and "3 rivers blogged down". One of the major complaints I received is people were getting dizzy trying to figure out which blogs they wanted to view because they couldn't always tell what type of blog it was. The new blog link list have new titles and a description underneath to better explain each category. Certain blogs have been reassigned to other categories completely that more appropriately align to the content of the blog. For instance Scott and Brian's or Blake's blogs are completely related to local sports and therefore are under all the links to "support 3 rivers athletics" while Undies Drawer has been placed under "don we now our gay apparel" I hope that these changes will help people use the resources that I am trying to provide to our greater local and queer community members.

The Fort Wayne blogs have been broken down into three main categories:
+ bare it all along 3 rivers (news & politics blog roll)*new*
+ 3 rivers blogged down (personal blog roll)*revised*
+ coming together on 3 rivers (community organizations, public interest blogs)*new*

(GLBTIQAS) blogs have been broken down into three main categories as well:
+ what all d fagz r talkn bout! (gay and lesbians, etc. personal blog roll)*revised*
+ is 1 penis and 2 testicles worth 1,000 thoughts? (pictorial and graphic blog roll)*new*
+ queer community and culture (national perspectives blog roll)*new*

[EDITOR'S UPDATE: Please see the post from 05 March 08 for further updates on formating]

What are some of the other things that you have toyed with on F6?

One is adding a third colour to the blog for subtitles and emphasis in actual posts, but the jury is still out on that one. Trying to find colours that coordinate well with the existing scheme is a bitch and a half sice I am working with two opposites initially. The background has been grayed out a little bit so as to give the appearance of recycled paper.

The three quotes and the Jay Brannan video player have been moved to the main column of the profile for people to have an easier time viewing them or picking which video to watch.

Tracking oneself across the blogosphere or letting your readers see where you've been.

In addition, I have added as a new idea in response to "New Media New Rules" and the "Civility Code" from a few months back is a link list entitled "what I did say!" which is a list of the fifteen latest comments of mine on other people's and/or organization's blogs. This is an effort to challenge especially the local authors and everyone to be more accountable for their activity across the blogosphere as well. One last benefit to this decision is that now when I leave a comment I can go back and check directly on a response from others or the author/editor of the original blog.

The links to my comments on other's blogs are listed in the following format:
1. international date (yyyymmdd)
2. the first two initials of the origional blog's authors name (Eric White=EW:)
3. followed by the acronym for the origional blog (Kody's blog is KT:TV for Tinnel Vision)
4. next is a synopsis (three words max) of the title of the original blog
5. lastly in parenthesis is the order in number of the comment that you posted eg:(6)
As a note of courteousness if you do set one of these up make sure to set the link list to "Reverse Sort Alphabetically" in order to view the list in the proper order.

The only slight downside to this link list of my comments elsewhere is everyone else can read them as well. Sometimes people don't realize they are dealing with two different persona's when reviewing the crassness of my blog (and the historical series that was F6's original old media venue) versus my personal or pastoral commentary on other blogs and sites. I challenge everyone to take time to think about the possibilities and provisions for improving your surrounding community and the communication between neighbors. Whether friends or enemies, specify or at least declare your biases and predispositions when writing; remember also, facial features aren't usually illustrated well in written commentary.

[EDITOR'S UPDATE: This feature was discontinued after 2 months. It didn't work as intended, became cumbersome to keep track of , and some blogs don't allow links to a single post.]

CLARIFICATION AND APOLOGY

And that leads me to my clarification and apology then the closing of this post. In my review and follow up of the New Media New Rules forum held on the twentieth of this month, I referred to Rachel Blakeman and Nathan Gotsch in what some would assume is a demeaning manner.

What you are not all aware of is my internal mental animation. I have a cartoon that plays in the back of my head (hence my warped humor or views on certain things) and I see people and events in cartoon format as well as how they appear in reality. This skill comes from teaching preschool for several years. There are only so many ways to illustrate "pigs flying off a cliff" to three, four, and five year olds.

The first time I met Rachel was after the general election this year at the Thirsty Camel. She came in, sat down in a slump, and strained her neck veins to raise her head after a very hard fought election cycle; therefore my mind recorded an image of her in both reality and in animation format and it stuck, hence the mule reference. My apologies for not having clarified the terms of endearment. Now that I have somewhat explained the process with Rachel let me just say that certain actions or illustrations done by Nathan reminded me of a combination of a kangaroo and a jackrabbit (picture provided) with a cute little cotton tail bouncing into the vegetable garden and tearing it all to shreds. I wont even go into the notion of my wanting to see him in clip on rabbit ears and fur lined bikini except to mention them briefly (all puns were intended) in this forum.




I hope you all have enjoyed the thoughts and perspectives I've shared thus far. I look forward to the adventures over the coming few months and enjoy the continued Cross Blog Debate and conversation with each of you.

Blessings Along The Journey!

MRev. Kenneth White, Jnr., Editor,
F6 ~ Fun Fag FAQs From Father Fozy
http://frfozybearftwin.blogspot.com/