Columbus: E W James to Become 4 Lane Highway

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www.FrontPorchColumbus Dot Com

I wish the above headline was going to be put into TruthinessInColumbusPolitics but it is true. The plans put forth by the always brilliant Department of Transportation has Columbus cutting the sidewalks in half, and taking all parking away so from East and West James Street so they can have a 4 lane Highway running through the middle of Columbus.

If they are not able to do this Columbus will lose all sorts of street funding. Sounds like black mail to me!!

ARE THEY ABSURD? Have they been smoking crack? Yea - seems like a WONDERFUL idea. Lets make the streets unsafe for pedestrians and basically kill downtown.

I tell ya - you ain't heard nothing yet when comes to complaining. Knowing how ten television stations jumped at the chance to come to Columbus for the Public Enemies Celebration I think we have something going on here as being a "pet" city and I think we could get some pretty good air play and some pretty bad press for the DOT if this happens.

I also believe that if our new Mayor Bob Link let's this happen it would be the BIGGEST bone head blunder among all the other bone head Mayor blunders in the history of all Columbus Mayors.

I hope I can get some loud support on fighting this crock of BS if/when the time comes. I'll have more on this once I get more details.

Now I'm on the warpath.
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Even before I knew I was one quarter blooded American Indian I was always wondering why the Indians were always the bad guys. When a group of people try to take your land and you fight them why are YOU the bad guys!

There is a celebration in Tennessee this weekend as for the first time two Cherokee Nations are getting together to celebrate their history. In 1838 federal troops rounded up 18,000 Cherokee (and other Indians) and forced them to march with only the clothes on their back and no food from Tennessee to Oklahoma, 1000 miles. Along the way 4000 died for various reasons.

The Cherokee were given used blankets from a hospital in Tennessee where an epidemic of small pox had broken out. Because of the diseases, they were not allowed to go into any towns or villages along the way for food and clothing.

In the Cherokee language, the event is called Nunna daul Isunyi - “the Trail Where They Cried”. Now called "The Trail of Tears."

This all started with Andrew Jackson made a promise that he would remove all eastern Indians from the territory. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. The Cherokees sought help from the US Supreme Court and the court ruled in their favor. Yet Jackson refused the ruling.

Many Cherokees were forced marched and became known as the Cherokee Nation. The ones left behind are called the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians.

Cherokee were not the only tribe removed. Also removed were the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, and Seminole (sometimes collectively referred to as the Five Civilized Tribes).
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This whole wonderful story started when I came across this plaque in Madison that so brightened my day when I read it.


It says:

On July 21, 1832 during the Black Hawk War, the U.S. Militia "passed through the narrows of the four lakes," Madison's Isthmus, in pursuit of the Sac Indian leader Black Hawk and his band. Near this location, the Militia shot and scalped an old Sac Warrior awaiting his death upon his wife's freshly dug grave.

sigh.

On a side note. Once I took that photo I walked up the street feeling a little blue and took this photo. What caught my attention was that round green roof with the glass building behind it. Just lots of geometric texture.

BTW - I now have been FORCED to create a small buisness that now has it's own small buisness account. Figured the IRS would like that.

Melotte Photo Imagery

Have a good weekend. I'll be at the Midwest Horse Show being a photo judge . . . somewhere. Not sure where I'm suppose to go but . . . . . I'll be there.

Rod