Jim's Mailings

Two kinds of people?

Robert Benchley said in "My Ten Years In A Quandry" that there were just two kinds of people, the kind that thinks there is two kinds - and all the rest. I agree! However, these are thinking people, and there aren't too many of them. The Nazis of the Third Reich thought there were two kinds of people, the Aryians and all the rest, who were regarded as "people of color." In this respect they modeled their society after the caste system in India, in which Brahmans were of the highest caste and lightest color, ranging on down to the untouchables, colored of course. In fact, German Universities had chairs of Eugenics from which scientists proved the case, pleasing the fuhrer, and practically all of those who considered themselves Ayrian. In Iran, being Aryian is a distinct social asset, and from which the country takes its name. I suppose that similarly, in Iraq, the Kurds regard themselves as Aryian and the rest of the population Arab, or people to whom color is more or less ubiquitous. The word Nazi is derived from National Socialist, or the German equivalent.
Nationalism is a common rationale in European countries, which infects most societies there, especially the British, except when they think of themselves as Imperial Britain, world colonizers, of which the United States were once the American Colonies of that Empire. They too have endowed chairs in Eugenics Choosing to measure the sizes of heads and the like, while judging the people of the isle of Ireland as 'people of color' which I suppose they are, largely because their hair is black or dark, unlike the classic Teutonic blond of the Anglo-Saxon race. Their skin is white.
One of the gifts Britain has given the world is a peerage system in which ownership of large acreages of land are considered an almost essential asset, along with the blond hair or possibly reddish. One might consider their distinctiveness to be an Ownership Society fostering a cohesiveness that resists time, dating back to the Anglo-Saxon, Danish and Norman Invasions. It has been an impossible task, however to weld the ethnic strains on those islands together into one nation, like some of the Continental Powers, so the Peerage sort of makes up the difference.
On the other hand, the Continent has its own differences, owing to the policies of the Roman Catholic Church. In the 1860's or so Pope Pius IX issued his decree of infallability. It is supposed that St. Augustine's view that what has been taught is true, as expressed in the paragraph of St Vincent, that "What all men have at all times and everywhere believed must be regarded as true." The church was threatened by the secular government in Germany under Bismark, who raised the issue of determinism, a Calvinist doctrine, to counter the Catholics who stressed the Ultramontane character of their beliefs. Lord Acton observed 'that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely,' whether from the Pope or from German Imperialsim.
The power of the Roman Catholic Church stems from its ownership of vast tracts of land, much like the peerage in England (which had siezed the lands of the monasteries in the time of Henry VIII), and the policies of poverty chastity and obediance, prevailing from the time of the crusades; this, as well as the prohibition of females in the clergy, or any who would have heirs who could legally claim church belongings. Gifts to the Church are on display at the Vatican, and represent holdings that could easily be classed as an ownership society.
Cohesive groups of people date from the most ancient of times, when as nomads, herding flocks of goats, sheep, cows and the like, it was incumbent to have a societal structure, in which cerain individuals were designated with the responsibility to look after, to protect the societal interests. Others had a resposibility to see that those appointed kept to their tasks, and overseers saw to it that the duties were carried out. The herd was the main property the group owned, but individuals who were derelict were cast out, and their ownership rights were withdrawn.
So it is today, the large groups of manufacturors have given way to corporations, who distribute ownership through the sales of stock in the enterprise. The Market has become the herd, and a goodly amount of responsibility is given to some individuals to ensure an orderly market. It can be demonstrated that the society at large is not protected in certain ways in which the corporation takes it share first, and society is left in the lurch, having to resort to governmental action to achieve worthwhile control through regulation. In this respect, large portions of the Market group are not protected, and redress only happens after damages are suffered.
We return again to the subject of a society with classes, which is heavily studied in academia, and in other groups who are concerned with sociology, anthropology or a host of other diciplines. Taylor Hartmann has a web site called "The Color Code" and offers a simple test to allow you to discover your most prominent personality trait. I happen to like these colors, Red, Blue, White and Yellow over the usual colors when discussing race which we intend to get into.


Introduction (The Color Code of Taylor Hartman Ph.D.)
Everyone has a distinct personality pattern. Your personality includes specific ways of thinking, reasoning, feeling, and acting. Each person is born with a single Core Motive (or Core Color) that remains stable throughout life. While your Core Motive never changes, you can always develop strengths and/or limitations from the different personalities over time and in different situations.
The Color Code personality test will help you understand your Core Motive and provide insights to working more effectively with others. The profile will help you understand your innate strengths and limitations, and help you relate more effectively with others, both at work and at home.
How to Take the Test
The Color Code personality test is a 45-question assessment that identifies your driving Core Motive. You cannot pass or fail the profile. None of the Core Motives are innately good or bad, so don't be concerned about finding the "correct" responses, because there are none. Every response is correct and every personality has its own strengths and limitations.
You might find it difficult to select among some responses. It's important, however, to be as honest about yourself as possible, and always select only one answer. This profile is only as accurate in pin-pointing your personality as your ability to select the most accurate responses. Review each question carefully to select the most descriptive response for each word group or statement as it applies to you. You MUST answer all 45 questions. This will allow your core personality to surface from the responses. Once you have accurately identified your Core Motive, it will never change.
Time Required
You can expect the test to take about 10 – 15 minutes to complete. If you don't have time to complete the test now, you can pick up from where you left off later.
Life can be puzzling. People can be puzzling. But above all, your relationships can be most puzzling. Let's face it: All life is about relationships-personally, professionally, and socially. Do you wonder why some people are so easy to love, work for, and befriend, while others require constant effort in which to build and maintain a healthy relationship? What part do you play in making the relationships in your life work?
Every relationship begins with YOU. Who are you? Do you really understand why you think and behave as you do? Imagine the power of truly knowing yourself, what motivates you, and how you impact the relationships in your life.
The Color Code is the most revolutionary and ACCURATE measurement of your personality available on the market today. Once you have learned The Color Code you will never see yourself or others the same again! The Color Code is your best bet for understanding how to make sense out of life's relationship puzzles.
Take the FREE Color Code Personality Test (go to Color Code web site)
The Color Code introduces the following four personality "Colors," or driving Core Motives:
* RED (Motive: POWER)—These are the power wielders. Power, the ability to move from point A to point B, and get things done is what motivates and drives these people. They bring great gifts of vision and leadership and generally are responsible, decisive, proactive and assertive.
* BLUE (Motive: INTIMACY)—These are the do-gooders. Intimacy, connecting, creating quality relationships and having purpose is what motivates and drives these people. They bring great gifts of quality and service and are generally loyal, sincere, and thoughtful.
* WHITE (Motive: PEACE)—These are the peacekeepers. Peace, or the absence of conflict, is what motivates and drives these people. They bring great gifts of clarity and tolerance and are generally kind, adaptable, good-listeners.
* YELLOW (Motive: Fun)—These are the fun lovers. Fun, or the joy of doing something just for the sake of doing it, is what motivates and drives these people. They bring great gifts of enthusiasm and optimism and are generally charismatic, spontaneous, and sociable.
What "Color" are you? Find out by taking the FREE Color Code Personality Test.
Taking this profile will enable you to:
* Determine your own "Color," or driving Core Motive, in less than 15 minutes
* "Speak the Language" of others by identifying their Color, or driving Core Motive (TheColorCode.com allows you to invite as many of your friends, family, and co-workers to take the profile as well)
* Build stronger and more meaningful relationships by understanding what drives people and their behavior
The Color Code is different than ANY of the other personality profiles on the market today. It is the ONLY assessment that identifies driving Core Motives. Most other popular tests and assessments strictly identify your behavior, and leave it at that. In other words, The Color Code helps you to understand why you do what you do versus simply what you do. You can't possibly begin to understand yourself, if you don't know what motivates you!
Let The Color Code be a part of your life. Improve your relationship vision to a perfect 20-20. Don't you think life is already hard enough without being able to see the big picture clearly? We can explain where the puzzle pieces go-and more importantly, why they go there.
Once you have embraced The Color Code, you will understand why so many people claim that they can never see themselves or others the same again after having learned this system. This is your code to successful relationships. We guarantee it 100%. There isn't a better place to start than right now, with YOU!<<<<<<<
Another author who examines purpose is Adam Smith (aka George J.W. Goodman) who has written "The Money Game and "Powers of Mind." In this book, Smith examines how the mind has amazing powers, which he has examined in many different ways, and grants us humans commensurate powers in our own life, through a comparable personal examination. One of his anecdotes is about an author, Norman Cousins, who has had a very unusual experience, which is related below:
"Norman Cousins Laughs Himself Back "
The end of Norman Cousins' Russian trip was not particularly pleasant. Cousins was,and is,the editor of Saturday Review. He publishes a lot of people, and he sits on a lot of committees, and in addition the magazine business is never without problems. Now Cousins was in Moscow, on his way to an important intercultural dinner set for 7:30 p.m., and he was late. The dinner was somewhere on the outskirts of Moscow, and the driver assigned to him by the Russians couldn't find it. While Cousins fumed in the car, the driver wandered endlessly around Moscow, looking for the site of the dinner. When they finally arrived, it was after nine. The hours from seven to nine were full of outrage: Cousins was an honored guest, and the dinner had been set up for a long time. After the embarrassment of being an hour and a half late to dinner, Cousins went back to his hotel, but he did not sleep well. The windows were open, he was on the second floor, and heavy diesel trucks roared by all night on the way to a construction site.
During his return trip to the U.S., Cousins had a headache on the plane, and noticed some heaviness in his legs and back. By the time he landed, he had a fever of 104°. After two days in bed, his doctor put him into the hospital. The heaviness in his legs and back was becoming paralysis. The least movement brought excruciating pain. Tests did not show what might have been the first guessheavy metal poisoning, perhaps from breathing in the fumes from the trucks. But one of the tests was alarming. The sedimentation rate of his bloodthe rate at which blood precipitates solidswas high. If normal is 12 to 20 mm per hour, 80 would represent danger. Cousins' rate was 85. Perhaps, said his physicians, it was a collagen disease, a disintegration of the connective tissue between the cells. But they weren't sure. They gave him two dozen aspirin a day, sleeping pills to sleep, and drugs for the pain. With the drugs, his disabilities intensified. "I wasn't hurting any more, but I wasn't moving, either," he says.
For more than two weeks, in the hospital, Cousins got quietly worse. He could not move his neckthen he could only move his jaws with difficulty.
"I was very scared," he says. "My doctors said something had happened. Maybe an allergy had lowered the normal protection. My physician was trying to get me to put my affairs in order." One of the doctors left a note for another doctor. When no one was in the room, Cousins read it. "I'm afraid," said the physician, "we may be losing Norman."
Cousins thought back over his trip and over the previous six months. It had been a very stressful time. He sent his wife out for books on stress, Cannon and Selye. "If negative emotions produce negative chemical changes, then positive emotions could produce positive changes."
Cousins announced he was taking the responsibility for himself. He checked out of the hospital and into a hotel room. He went off all the drugs. The pain was intense. "To move your thumbs was like walking on your eyeballs," he said. "But what I needed was laughter."
He sent out for Marx Brothers movies. A projector was set up in the hotel room. "I watched A Night at the Opera twice. It's still funny. I watched Animal Crackers. I sent out for segments of old Candid Camera shows. You know, Candid Cameral"
When I was taping these accounts, Cousins was harried and behind schedule. He had to be two places simultaneously, fifteen minutes ago. But as he told this part, his face began to change. The lines went out of it.
"Do you remember," Cousins said, "the Candid Camera where they put a speaker in one of those big street mailboxes? The guy is walking by, and the mailbox says, excuse me, sir, do you have a minute? And the guy stares. And the mailbox says, could you open the lid, there? The guy opens the lid, and the mailbox says, ah, that air feels good. Finally the voice in the mailbox says that it's fallen into the mailbox, could the passerby go get a cop? And the passer-by brings back this cop, explaining there's somebody in the mailbox, and as the passer-by and the cop peer into the mailbox, there's no sound at all."
Harried, and fifteen minutes behind schedule twice, Cousins was breaking up just telling the Candid Camera mailbox story. Then he looked at his watch and began dictating crisply.
"Ten minutes of belly laughter gave me an hour of pain-free sleep. My sedimentation rate dropped from 115 to 109 the first morning. I was caught up in something exciting. The body writes prescriptions for itself. I knew I needed adrenalin, or nor-adrenalin, and I knew Linus Pauling, who experimented with vitamin C and I knew vitamin C was related to collagen problems, so I took massive doses of vitamin C intravenously, slowly, so the acid wouldn't burn my veins out. The sedimentation rate began to come down ten points at a time.
"And every day I watched the Marx Brothers and segments of
Candid Cam-era, and the hours that were pain-free got longer and longer, and the more I laughed, the better I got."
"Under this treatment," wrote Cousins' physician, "his sedimentation gradually became normal. Since then he has never regained the slightest vestige of the syndrome. Was it a streptococcus contracted in Russia? There was also a diagnosis of severe, possibly irreversible, ankylosing spondylitis of the rheumatoid type."
Cousins' doctor went on: "The relationship of Mr. Cousins' treatment to his recovery was not clearly understood nor adequately explained, and was initiated at the specific insistence of Mr. Cousins. To date, I have not clearly established a rational cause, nor how Mr. Cousins cured himself via his own hand and mind."
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One is tempted to apply the Color Code to others, after he or she has taken the test. Some are fearful in taking the test (more in not taking it). In this case I would like to assign the color Red to Cousins. He seems to have figured a lot of things out and is not fearful of trusting his judgement on importand subjects. One can see a few tinges of other colors there, too, as is the case with most people, a predominant color, and usually one on the side.
I want to give the reader a test. I have four columnists who have sounded off on a subject of race, the kind with black and white colors, and let them try to label the authors, not with a two-sided - racist or unpredjudiced - but one of the four primaries of the Color Code. All in the last couple of days. Taylor Hartmann has good company in the four personality types, which seems to me very close to the four principles Tolstoy enunciated in the appendix to his book, "War and Peace." I chose the words "Free Will," Humane, Inevitability and Child-like to describe the personality types. Do you see such traits in the following columnists?
David Millican is a retired preacher in McComb, MS..., (forwarded by a lady from Fredricksburg, VA)
What I have seen since Katrina:
The poor and the wealthy hurt by the storm. Black, white, hispanic, oriental and Indian all hurt by the storm.
Christian people giving, giving, giving. Churches going all out to minister in Jesus' name. Neighbors going door to door helping one another
Thugs and hoodlums going door to door looking for someone vunerable.
Ice and water being fought over as police tried to keep the peace. People coming up from New Orleans taking over empty houses because shelters are full. Out of town volunteers coming with food and staying for now a week still serving it. The Churches all over this part of the country doing what Christians do in a crisis. Fema doing a wonderful job in getting help to us. The Red Cross doing a great job in the shelters. The Salvation Army doing a great job in the community.
Four Hundred crewman from everywhere bring back the power to our homes, churches and businesses. Lines at service stations a block to a mile long
National Guardsman patroling the streets of Mccomb along with Kentucky policemen protecting us from the hoodlums and thugs of McComb, Pike County and New Orleans (the most dangerous city in the world before Katrina.)
Drug dealers working outside shelters.
Doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel working tirelessly, evening sleeping the hospital to do the job God called them to do.
WHAT I HAVE NOT SEEN:
> The ACLU setting up a feeding line.
> People for the American Way helping in the shelters
> The NAACP doing any work.
> The American Atheist organization serving meals in the shelters.
> Jesse Jackson directing traffic at the gas stations.
> I could go on but you get my message. Its the Christian people with love
> and compassion who do the work.
The gripers in Congress should come on down and get in line to pass the water and the ice. Are you listening Hillary, Chuck, Teddy, and all the sorry loafers we call Senators and Congressmen. They don't have a clue as to what this life is all about here on the gulf coast.
Boy, I feel better now!
David A. Millican
Poverty's ill winds hit here as well
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Sam Fulwood III (Sam is an African-American, educated in North Carolina, on the PD staff for abt 3 years)
Plain Dealer Columnist
Cleveland is New Orleans.
Of course, we don't have Mardi Gras, Bourbon Street, the Superdome - or water flooding our streets.
But that's about all that separates our often-overlooked poverty from what's on public display in the Crescent City.
Hurricane Katrina turned New Orleans into a giant swamp, leaving hundreds of thousands homeless and prompting a nation of caring citizens to raise millions for their rescue.
Talk of costs associated with rebuilding New Orleans swirls to $200 billion or more. Probably a great deal more.
Meanwhile, Cleveland's persistent poverty problem - and the nation's - continues largely unnoticed as we heap attention and resources on New Orleans.
That's appropriate, given the death, destruction and disease on the Gulf Coast. A crisis demands immediate intervention. New Orleans is a city drowning in the greatest natural disaster this nation has ever known.
Still, it doesn't seem fair to ignore Cleveland.
In the federal government's latest ranking of big-city poverty, Cleveland dropped from first place to 12th, tied with - you guessed it - New Orleans.
But the similarities between our two cities don't end there. Just days before Katrina hit, the U.S. Census Bureau made it clear how much New Orleans has in common with Cleveland in its annual demographic report of the nation's largest cities:
The median age of residents in both cities is 34.8 years.
Cleveland had 182,000 households in 2004; New Orleans had 180,000.
In Cleveland, 32 percent of children under 18 live in poverty; in New Orleans, the figure is 38 percent.
Cleveland had a total of 214,000 housing units, 15 percent of them vacant; New Orleans had 213,000 housing units, 15 percent of them vacant.
Hey, where were the Hollywood celebrities and the prime-time telethons when Cleveland was named the nation's poorest big city last year?
Did anyone in Washington take notice? Or care enough to launch a federal investigation into the lingering effects of racial discrimination and other underlying causes of poverty here?
Does it take televised images of poor people waving bedsheets from the rooftops to make the nation take notice and spring into spasms of concern?
Shouldn't we know that millions of Americans live in poverty without Katrina telling us? Why can't our national leaders see and act on poverty before all hell breaks loose?
Is that what Cleveland needs? A death-dealing flood?
To be fair, I am grateful for this moment of national dialogue about the persistence of poverty and racial discrimination in America. Maybe lasting and significant public policy will emerge from this tragedy.
After all, President Bush has joined a much-needed conversation that used to be conducted exclusively on the left edge of the political spectrum.
Sounding remarkably like the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, Bush promised to combat a host of social ills in rebuilding New Orleans.
"That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America," Bush said recently. "We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action."
Those are welcome and amazing words from this president.
But did he mean them just for the people of New Orleans - or for us in Cleveland, too?
To reach this Plain Dealer columnist:
sfulwood@plaind.com, 216-999-5250 © 2005 The Plain Dealer
© 2005 cleveland.com All Rights Reserved.
John Leo - The Race Canard
A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF The Oregonian, in Portland, Ore., said of Katrina: "I am deeply disturbed and angered by the number of reports claiming racism has something to do with the delay in the relief effort. These claims are unsubstantiated and a complete lie. To even suggest that our government would allow people to die simply because of the color of their skin is despicable.... In a time of national crisis, another media-driven race war is the last thing this country needs."
Amen to that. The usual racemongers played their usual role. Jesse Jackson said the scene in New Orleans 'looked like Africans in the hull of a slave ship." Carol Moseley Braun, the former Democratic senator from Illinois, said the scene in New Orleans was similar to the fatal neglect of blacks after Reconstruction. Morning show hosts at a New York City rap station detected "genocide" in New Orleans. On a slightly more respectable level, black members of Congress, judges, and activists stoked racial polarization. "This is a racial story," said an attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. A black judge in Arkansas said Katrina revealed the "ugly, stinking, pus-filled sores" of racism.
A common charge was that aid would have come more quickly if New Orleans had been predominantly white. There is no evidence for this at all. Across-the-board incompetence at every level of government is a far more compelling explanation than racist intent or behavior. The hard-hit mostly white parishes around New Orleans waited just as long as the poorest wards of the city did for help.
Double standard. Evidence-free assertion of racism seemed everywhere. Robert Parham of the Baptist Center for Ethics in Nashville said Katrina "disclosed our racism in multiple ways," none of which he bothered to mention. The most poisonous statements were the ones linking failure in New Orleans to racist violence of the past. "You'd have to go back to slavery, or the burning of black towns, to find a comparable event that has affected black people this way," said University of California-Los Angeles sociologist and African-American studies Prof. Darnell Hunt, thus positioning the disaster in New Orleans as similar to some of the worst racism in history. This kind of rhetoric has an effect. Two thirds of blacks olled say they see racism as a cause of the failures to cope quickly with Katrina.
The mainstream media played a role, too. Several TV anchors and interviewers prodded or invited black officials to say they spotted heavy racism in New Orleans. Comedian Nancy Giles, on CBS Sunday Morning, announced that Katrina victims went without food and water for days simply because they were black.
Racial charges were endlessly recycled. Rapper Kanye West's claim that "George Bush doesn't care about black people" has been published more than 400,000 times, according to a Google search. Almost as famous are the captions of similar photos of a white man "finding food" in New Orleans and a black man 'looting." The captions were taken everywhere as evidence of racism. An editor in Kenya thought they were. The Washington Post ran a Page 1 story, "To Me, It Just Seems Like Black People Are Marked." The story was basically harmless, but the headline probably did some damage, confirming for many readers that blacks have been singled out for unfair treatment.
An essay on Katrina in the Post Style section used campus diversity jargon referring to blacks as "the Other," saying, "Mainstream America too often demonizes the Other because, well, we've been conditioned to do so." No explanation of why mainstream America, so woefully conditioned and addicted to demonizing, has donated over $750 million to mostly black hurricane victims.
Heather MacDonald writes on the City Journal website, "That people are giving so feverishly in spite of the competing images of looting by the flood victims and the reports of murder and rape is even stronger proof that racism has lost its grip on the American mind: The givers are refusing the bigot's reaction of impugning an entire race by the loathsome behavior of a few."
The media have been reporting on two tracks. One stresses the empathy and generosity of mainstream America, as reflected in the astonishing donations, the thousands of volunteers who poured into the area, the collection and shipping of tons of food and clothing, and the extraordinary efforts made by rescuers, often at the risk of their own lives. The other features the usual bitter denunciations of racist America. Which do you suppose is a better indication of where the nation wants to go?
U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT  SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
Thomas Hylton (printed in the Plain Dealer 20 Sep 2005)
Not in living memory has an American city been as thoroughly devastated as New Orleans. Recovery will take years.
Here in the North, we give thanks that overwhelming natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes are highly improbable. But even as we've been spared the violence - and the shocking suddenness - of a Katrina, cities like Cleveland have still degenerated, however gradually, because middle-class residents and their businesses moved away.
New Orleans suffered because the government did too little. Cleveland suffered (along with most other traditional cities) because government did too much: Using everything from highway subsidies to mortgage guarantees, it promoted the development of the countryside at the expense of long-established communities.
It took 50 years rather than a week, but Cleveland has lost 430,000 residents - nearly half its peak population. While New Orleans' historic architecture was ravaged in a single catastrophe, Cleveland's physical legacy crumbled in a thousand increments, squandered through neglect or bulldozed for parking lots. The destruction of the Humphrey Mansion is the latest loss, all the sadder since residents had rallied to protect the property.
The city hit bottom years ago and has since invested hundreds of millions of dollars for museums, stadiums, hotels and housing. But Cleveland still has too many empty lots and vacant buildings, too many needy citizens and too few middle-class ones. To fully realize its potential, it must build on its strengths: history, compactness and human scale.
In 1945, the ancient city of Munich lay in ruins. Four years of Allied air raids had pulverized medieval, baroque and neoclassical treasures into 9 million cubic yards of rubble.
Presented with a blank slate, the city fathers decide to rebuild Munich  exactly the way it had been.
"Munich," said the Lord Mayor in 1947, "will hold fast to its traditional coziness."
Every building that could possibly be restored was restored. Those that could not be saved were recreated. With each new building, ironically, the city looked more historic rather than less so. It was a contrived authenticity, perhaps, but time has proven the wisdom of Munich's policy. People had lost everything but their heritage. They made it the foundation of their recovery. Munich remains compact, beautiful and resolutely focused on the pedestrian. While serving as southern Germany's commercial hub, Munich attracts millions of tourists annually, including about 240,000 Americans.
Birmingham, England, another city destroyed by World War II bombing, chose the opposite course. To accommodate the cat, expressways cut through and around a cheaply rebuilt downtown. The city's historic core was obliterated. In a 1988 documentary, Prince Charles disparaged the city center as having "no charm, no human scale, no character except arrogance." By the early 1990s, Birmingham decided to start over again, demolishing much of its modernized downtown and rebuilding it on a pedestrian scale.
Postwar Americans rearranged every aspect of their environment - not just cities - to promote maximum mobility for the car. New highways encouraged new housing, shopping malls and office parks to be scattered across the landscape, filling vast tracts and making cars a necessity.
For decades, the suburban experiment seemed liberating. Now we're finding this lifestyle as untenable as a city below sea level with low-budget levees. Americans spend ever more of their lives commuting through dreary landscapes. Driving instead of walking contributes to unacceptable levels of obesity, exacerbates air pollution and deepens our dependence on foreign oil. And filling the tank has become alarmingly expensive.
Changing demographics, as well as car-weariness, are persuading more and more Americans to consider a change in lifestyle. Singles and childless couples, good candidates for city living, compose a substantial portion of our households. Sophisticated young workers seek vibrant communities with ample opportunities for personal growth. Baby boomers, 77 million strong, are reaching retirement age and looking for smaller dwellings within easy reach of cultural attractions, medical facilities and lots of other people.
Despite its problems, Cleveland is well-situated to attract these potential urban converts. For 25 years, the city's true believers have passionately defended its magnificent architectural legacy against demolition, mutilation and abandonment. They have turned ornate old warehouses and office buildings into fabulous housing and commercial space. They have sustained the city's priceless transit system. While much is gone, even more has been saved. New Orleans can rebuild around its unique French Quarter and Garden District, providentially located on high ground. In Cleveland, the core elements for the city's rebirth are also in place, thanks to a foresighted few; and their vision is more compelling than ever.
Hylton, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is author of "Save Our Land, Save Our Towns. "He is the speaker at the Historic Downtown Cleveland luncheon on Wednesday. For more information and reservations, call 216-344-3937-
-----------------------------------------------------------------My apologies to the publications who have not given permission.
Now for the test: Is Millican a Yellow? Sam Fullwood a Blue? John Leo a Red? Tom Hylton a White?
Now read my previous blog on Lincoln, and try to assign a color to him, without my assistance. Thanks.

posted by James E. Opfell @ 9:03 PM