New Projects/project ideas

·       Drunk driving project: I come in contact with the issue a lot driving a cab. People get in my cab and want to be driven to their ca (which I won’t do). But this just opens up the general space/issue/gravity. As a site for meditation, Thoughtaction, etc., with the possibility of opening up new venues, doing more work to ameliorate. For example, a Thoughtaction approach can open up a need for supporting the experience of danger in drivers, so that this doesn’t get played down in normal processing of events and activities. Issues pertaining to legislation, of course, some “preemptive” aspects and the difficult standoff there is going to likely be concerning rights (probable cause) and the need to ascertain who is a drunk driver. As it stands, the checkpoint system, which no one is protesting, is already a kind of search without any probable cause other than the fact that the person is driving. There is a lot to understand about these issues. I don’t know how a project would (for me), but I have a natural inclination, like most of those I try to either imagine, project, or perhaps actually get going, that arises somewhat naturally from my dealings.

·       The Pittsburgh “bridge hotel” project. Far from my range of interests, at least in some ways, this keeps on suggesting itself to me as an interesting building project: build a bridge from near the convention center to the North Side. It would be a covered, pedestrian bridge that would house a hotel, restaurant(s) with be doable balconies over the river, etc. Do it in the Romanesque architecture of the old jail, an important Pittsburgh building. Everyone I toss this idea out to likes it. I tend to think it would be a sure thing, would connect with the developing North Side, the convention center, provide a new tourist novelty, hook up with the “city of bridges” idea, etc. It’s all upper end stuff, and would it be good for improving mass transit at a time when they are cutting back, threaten to close more needed services, etc.? No. Is revenue important? Yes. So I don’t know.

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