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Hartung is a saint and so is the lobbyist. Bringing coal and joy to toledo is the ports duty,, to,, their pals in business. The theft of the waterfront over the last couple hundred years is finally starting to move the other way a little. When we get it back the city will flourish. In the meantime, the hard times will inspire the arts and artists. We have some solar companies that will change the world,, are actually doing it now. We will know they are truly great when and if they match the contributions of Edward Drummond Libby and others.

The biggest corruption in the city is the influence of industry on all aspects of government, trumping citizens wishes even as they leave the city. Ford for instance, while they now spend a score of billions to build plants in Mexico to be fed with chinese parts, they shut down stateside plants.

There's some stuff to talk about.

posted by prime3end on Aug 22, 2008 at 12:45:46 am     #

I agree that this site should have a local focus. If you want to discuss national politics, there are plenty of other places to do that.

posted by Ace_Face on Aug 22, 2008 at 08:17:45 am     #

It's usually people's pet peeves about Toledo and there seems to be a lot of them.

According to a certain prominent member here Toledoans are "an apathetic, brain-atrophied, sheeple citizenry."

Perhaps that explanation suits you. But go into a coffee shop or a cocktail party. People talk about everything. Conversations ebb and flow from small talk to bullshit to politics, religion, sports.
People have mroe than just local interests.

posted by charlatan on Aug 22, 2008 at 08:28:43 am     #

It would help if this board had category based forums to post topics to instead 1 single open forum.

The other thing is that after 2 or 3 days off posts all topics end-up getting buried. Be nice if someone posted to a topic it bumped it to the top of the board.

Just a thought.

posted by transcom on Aug 22, 2008 at 09:48:08 am     #

If you want to discuss national politics, there are plenty of other places to do that.

I'm not going to search for the threads, but about a year ago when jr re-designed this site he stated a desire that it be about local topics and personal interests and with Chris Myers starting Swampbubbles that national political topics, etc. be discussed over there.

I may not have the timeline on this exactly right, but I'm sure jr can provide the accurate information. jr?

posted by McCaskey on Aug 22, 2008 at 09:50:05 am     #

"an apathetic, brain-atrophied, sheeple citizenry."

The best example to support the above claim is March 4, 2008 when some or many Toledoans voted to renew the 25-year-old temporary 3/4 percent payroll tax. These supporters bought the lies and bilge spewed by Toledo politicians. And I guess the non-voters didn't care what happened to their income. Toledo City Councilman George Sarantou was a major fear monger ahead of the March 4 vote. But nothing could top the wisdom of Toledo City Councilwoman Wilma Brown.

Councilman Wilma Brown was much more direct about the issue. "It's going to burn our city," she said during a finance committee meeting. Mrs. Brown said she would "flame-proof" her house and not drive her car because of the reduced police and fire forces should the income tax fail.

posted by jr on Aug 22, 2008 at 10:13:06 am     #

McCaskey, I'm no longer concerned about the distinctions. I do my own thing here, and everyone else can do whatever.

posted by jr on Aug 22, 2008 at 10:30:56 am     #

I somewhat agree with your view. If I want to read about national news or topics I tend to go elsewhere. I enjoy this site because it's a place to get dirt on local topics and people and learn more about my adopted home.

It's nice to see what other people think in a national/global sense as well. Though more local topics and less wiki-style storage of cross posted material would be nice.

posted by jshriver on Aug 22, 2008 at 11:41:10 am     #

Did you ever stop to think that maybe not a lot of Toledo residents are aware of this forum? Its not advertised or promoted as any sort of "official site" for Toledo residents.

Not that I'm saying it should be, of course...just pointing out that you can't take a site that probably less than 10% of the population is even aware of and try to use it as an example of the whole city.

(BTW - I'm pretty sure that Swampbubbles.com had discussions about most of the things you cited in your original post.)

posted by mom2 on Aug 22, 2008 at 05:17:02 pm     #

The only way i found this is when i was searching for something in google

posted by justphillips on Aug 22, 2008 at 05:47:48 pm     #

Perhaps the unorganized page layout and lack of consistant Toledo discussion (on the front page) is what turns people off?

Some examples of really well put together sites from where I'm at and just north can backup my opinion and what I really think this site can be:

http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/
http://forum.dallasmetropolis.com/
http://www.okctalk.com/
http://forums.seattletimes.nwsource.com/forums/index.php
http://www.kctalk.com/

And on and on and on. It is amazing the discussions that go on there, especially when topics are organized and easy to find. The unorganized Wiki style here just makes it too hard to find past topics or follow up on something since it'll fall off the front page in a couple days.

posted by JustaSooner on Aug 22, 2008 at 07:40:51 pm     #

I enjoy this board for the "lighter" problems in Toledo. If I want the heavy duty - down and dirty, I use Glass City Jungle. Its kind of like Troy Neff vs Fred LeFebvre. Troy gives you Toledo issues with valium and Fred gives it to you with a club. Just depends on my mood.

posted by RobRob on Aug 22, 2008 at 09:09:39 pm     #

Fred's one of the biggest hacks to ever host a show in ANY city.

posted by Ryan on Aug 23, 2008 at 10:26:12 am     #

Doesn't Wilma Brown openly ask people to dumb down issues so she can understand them? Or am I thinking of someone else?

posted by charlatan on Aug 23, 2008 at 12:06:53 pm     #

If you don't like how Toledo Talk is set-up and or the material, make your forum. I think it's fine how it is. Does everything have to be serious all the time?

posted by hunkytownsausage on Aug 23, 2008 at 04:15:32 pm     #

What? And be procative? Nah, it's much easier for people to just complain.

posted by Ryan on Aug 23, 2008 at 05:34:05 pm     #

Sure...pay for the domain name, I'll do the rest.

posted by JustaSooner on Aug 24, 2008 at 06:11:16 pm     #

This blog is fine as is. Just crawl & compare with some other cities' blogs. And after reading the published "scandalous" Jim Hardtongue emails, I'm thinking "no comment" is 'nuff said.

posted by justareviewer on Aug 24, 2008 at 06:38:09 pm     #

This site is legit, informative for those of us that have moved here recently. However, I'd like to see it in a better discussion forum layout, so that some topics won't get put on the backburner quicker.

posted by djimpelr on Aug 25, 2008 at 11:42:47 am     #

Doesn't Wilma Brown openly ask people to dumb down issues so she can understand them? Or am I thinking of someone else?

posted by charlatan on Aug 23, 2008 at 01:06:53 pm #

Yes, you must be thinking about Phil Copeland perhaps?

posted by CharlieA-Z on Aug 25, 2008 at 10:09:11 pm     #

"... unorganized Wiki style here just makes it too hard to find past topics or follow up on something since it'll fall off the front page in a couple days."

What do you mean unorganized wiki style? Nobody uses the wiki features but me.

"I'd like to see it in a better discussion forum layout, so that some topics won't get put on the backburner quicker."

For Toledo Talk, the default view for the home page is to sort the postings by the order they were created. If you click recent comments in the sidebar, that would give you a view similar to the default view on message boards.

The first thing I do after logging into ToledoTalk.com is click recent comments. That sorts the postings by recent comment activity. And since I'm logged in, I get to see the number of new comments per post. And when I click on the "new", it takes me to the start of the new comments. I suppose I'm the only one who clicks recent comments.

I can play around with the default view so it sorts by news posts and comments.

So what do you think about the default views of sites like MetaFilter.com or Fark.com or Reddit.com ? MetaFilter and Fark sort the postings by the order they were created.

Speaking of local, active message boards, check out MonroeTalks.com.

If I was going to use bulletin board software, I'd use bbpress, which is produced by the dudes who make Wordpress, the blogging tool.

posted by jr on Aug 29, 2008 at 07:56:15 pm     #

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