Just as you admonished another Streetsblog reader who was concerned about the heat in this kitchen, perhaps you should take a taste of your own medicine:
“In re #67 -I don’t quite understand why folks show up sometimes on this blog and wail that we longtime hands and our bare-knuckled posts somehow discourage the public about becoming involved with these issues. Long before the internet existed this was often how advocates, stakeholders etc. worked things out–back then via letters to the editor, community forums, etc. And if a few slightly hardball posts make you shiver and cry, then you would do us all a favor by not getting involved. Any involvement with political processes (and that is what transportation funding and policy issues are–political) calls for having a bit of a thick skin and willingness to be forthright about where you stand.”

from http://la.streetsblog.org/2009/10/23/what-was-the-point-of-yesterdays-rant-from-gloria-molina/

So let’s get back to your own discriminatory condemnations of Damien Goodmon and Ridley Scott-Thomas. And before more of your glossolalia spills out, answer why it is that the west L.A. segments of the Expo line and the Pasadena portions of the Gold Line require that which the South-Central and East L.A. parts of the respective light rail will not and did not get, and why a community desiring them is led by “pandering” politicians who “rant.” Molina “rants” to get the same thing in East L.A. and people like you state that such features are not needed, that people should not be so stupid as to get hit by the train. Does that mean the extravagant crossing features of the Gold Line in Pasadena imply that people in Pasadena are so stupid as to need all that to not get hit by the Gold Line? I have yet to hear you kvetch about the overly expensive parts of the Expo Line in West L.A. nor have you ever stated one thing about the remarkable crossing features of the Gold Line in Pasadena; should one assume that all of that was acquired without “pandering” or “rants”?

Crude personal attacks just leave me dumbfounded at the self-destructive aspect.

Today’s Sentinel’s coverage omits any mention of Mr. Goodmon and confirmed my suspicion he may find things a bit crowded once attention is paid by the community powers that be.

http://www.lasentinel.net/Will-Black-Contractors-Participate-in-Crenshaw-Light-Rail-Project.html

And as the phrase goes, time wounds all heels…

I’ve stopped trying to figure out what fuels Dana and others. Where the border line is drawn between “amusing” and “pathological” I’ll leave for others to decide.

Re: Dana, when I do read him I visualize a pig and remember to old adage: don’t wrestle with them; I’ll only get dirty and the pig loves it.

I’m a dick to people sometimes too, and so is BusTard, but I think we’re more honest about it than SOCATA members. SOCATA is the kind of organization that will plead for civil discourse and then yell at you for having a different opinion than them.

Perhaps you should have spent some time months ago persuading your socata colleagues to stop with “personal attacks” as well as learn to be civil in public yourself: your ignorance regarding the “dwindling” blog to which I contribute might not be “dwindling” had I all day to attend it while being on SSI rather than rebuilding a small publishing house.

So what have you done after all these years with respect to RTD/MTA/Metro? (I believe I asked you that some months ago, and have yet to read an answer.) Even the BRU, against which you flail nonstop, has done more than socata. Do you think that Metro’s unprecedented move to create a PR blog had nothing to do with what The Bus Bench has been doing for the last couple of years?

Then again, perhaps you appreciate barely being able to get round in this dirt farmer bastion. Aftr all, your excuse to not attend the Measure R debate—two blocks from a Gold Line stop—was attributed to a distinct lack of Metro bus service.

I suggest you spend some years in the rest of the world so as to understand how things get done and stay done.

Randall, instead of personal attacks and unreadable rambling disjointed comments shouldn’t you be worried about your quickly dwindling blog? Or have you guys decided posting somewhere that actually gets read is the best use of your time?

Dana Gabbard, whose angry girth rarely reaches beyond the dust of a saturday afternoon at an olde folk’s home near 3rd and Hope as well as the questionable reach of the Internet that is his virtual armchair, makes clear that his perspective is one that fails to understand the few hundred years of how those who have been pushed into an intentional ghetto—there is a reason that the name South-Central exists, and it has to do with black folk being physically forced from the in-bound busses at Central Avenue in the eastern part of downtown Los Angeles, to give a whiff of Dana’s stench of gross ignorance—and it is not “pandering.”

Perhaps, Dana, you should tell the people of Pasadena that their train-crossings—which have features that extend to gates and lowering crossing-arms for even the sidewalks! (please name where else such extravagant measures exist)—are meant to make up for their own gross idiocy, for the absence of such features in east L.A. as well as along the segments for which “FixExpo contingent (aka Damien Goodmon)” are pushing will also exist in far better form in West L.A. owing to the subway going underground for the sake of safety. perhaps you might take the time to deconstruct the ways and means that Pasadena did and West L.A. is getting their far more expensive segments of subway, instead of hefting that belligerently ignorant bulk about in a way that has long since become tiresome and is now obviously discriminatory in its angry bounce.

It’s a thankless job. The most successful are those who “Get IT.” “IT” is the media-legal-organizing trifecta that is necessary to get any public agency to do what they oppose or are hesitant to do, which is often in our community. Very few do it well over a sustained period of time. Most burn out.

It’s not surprising people hate on him. White people never like when black people use the r-word. But it’s not possible to deny he’s shifted the power balance, filled a void, and helped create the political atmosphere that a subway motion in South L.A. can be offered.

Anyone who doesn’t get THAT doesn’t get community organizing or politics in general.

As I have noted before, this is a public process and we’ll see where it leads. I also note in my opinion both Parks and Ridley-Thomas are doing old fashioned pandering, a common aspect of the South L.A. political culture. Mr. Goodmon is making big noises about the motion. But Goodmon’s track record is big talk but little accomplishment. Whoever is paying the bills at this point must be wondering why keep throwing good money after bad, given the lack of outcomes beyond Mr. Goodmon’s abundent skill at accomplishing self promotion and grandstanding.