You know all these empty factories popping up? I have an idea...

[Inchworm]

Wheelchair Frisbee Golf!

Discuss.

:hi:

[LiberalAndProud]

1. Frisbee Golf?

Clearly, you are not a golfer. The term is Disc Golf. The factory thing ... Don't quite see how that could work, but if you've got a plan, go for it.

[Inchworm]

3. I passed a hobby store and saw a portable "hole"

then a lightbulb went off.

I was thinking since the vacant factories were generally concrete floors.. voila!

If they left in the manufacturing works, they can stay as obstacles.

:)

PS: hmm, I guess a lightbulb actually went on.. but it didn't type right.

[cherokeeprogressive]

15. When I started playing it in So. Cal. in the seventies, we called it "Frisbee Golf". n/t

[LiberalAndProud]

24. That was when you still played it with Frisbees.

It's a whole new game these days -- they have drivers and putters and all different weights of discs now. I know these things because my brother used to be a disc golf fanatic.

[benddem]

2. I've a better idea

they could easily be converted for homeless people ....especially vets. But your frisbee idea is fun.

[Inchworm]

5. Well.. see.. if my idea gets big enough

We create interest.

Any interest is better than heathen children seeing how many windows they can break out.

:P

[Dramarama]

7. Not bad.

[BeatleBoot]

4. Empty Factories Popping Up? Like starting in May of 2000?

Not a new phenomenon in the Motor City and its environs...

30% unemployment in the city.

[Inchworm]

6. Well, I actually thought of Benton Harbor, MI when the idea came

I was there in '90-'91ish and yes.. when Whirlpool left it was a freaky phenomena for me as a carpenter/construction worker. I left soon after. It was creepy.

:hug:

[Octafish]

20. So what's with the creepy idea of turning them into 'wheelchair frisbee golf' places?

BTW: I was raised in Benton Harbor/St. Joseph, so I know what you mean about creepy.

[Inchworm]

21. I saw so many sit. (die)

I wonder if they still do.

Seems like I was a trustee and Beering County Jail for longer than it takes to forget the experience. Whirlpool killed the whole area.

It is kinda something that drew me to politics.

:hi:

[Octafish]

22. Fixing factories means jobs. Jobs mean no poverty.

Most white people blame the riots of 1968, when the major fraction of white people moved out of Benton Harbor for St. Joseph. But really the whole area fell apart after the good-paying manufacturing jobs left -- Whirlpool, Bendix, Heath Kit, Auto Specialties Company, Modern Plastics, etc. Now it's all tourism and the locals hate the FIPs.

PS: Sorry to hear you spent time in the Berrien County Jail. Most of the people there, working and staying, are decent sorts. It's just our society has become this monstrous thing of power, worshipping money.

Keep going forward, Inchworm! Forward!

PPS: The other sure cure for poverty is an education. And we've seen where the powers-that-be fall on that issue, as well.

[Skittles]

my idea: bring our fucking jobs back

[Inchworm]

9. Again! If MSM gets bent on Wheelchair Disk Golf

It'll be enough to remind everyone what really going on.

:shrug:

[Skittles]

8. dup

[scarletwoman]

10. How about doing what the workers in Argentina have done -- take over the factories

and start making stuff that their communities need.

Workers in Argentina Take Over Abandoned Factories

The workers at the IMPA aluminum plant here all can remember when their company was privately owned, and a few veterans even recall when it was the property of the state. But these days, as a result of the worst economic crisis in the country's history, it is the workers themselves who are the factory's stockholders and managers.

When the economy collapsed here 18 months ago, the situation was so bad that the owners of many factories simply shut their doors and walked away, in most cases owing their employees months and months of back pay. Rather than accept that situation, workers -- backed by neighborhood associations and left-wing groups enamored with the idea of ''people's capitalism'' -- have sometimes been able to persuade bankruptcy courts to let them take over the company's assets.

''The only boss here now is the customer,'' said Plácido Peñarieta, one of nine employees at the Chilavert Artes Gráficas cooperative, which prints art books and posters, calendars and concert programs. ''We've learned to depend on ourselves and nobody else, because we know that our success or failure depends on what we, and we alone, do.''

Across this nation of 37 million people, at least 160 factories employing an estimated 10,000 people are now being run as cooperatives by their employees, ranging from a tractor factory in Córdoba to a tile and ceramics plant in Patagonia. But the largest concentration is here in the capital and its suburbs, where the nucleus of the country's industrial production is situated.

With 172 workers making aluminum cans, foil and wrappers, IMPA -- the Spanish acronym for Metallurgical and Plastic Industries of Argentina -- is the largest of the so-called retrieved factories here. Production is still far from the peaks of the 1990's, but since workers took over with an initial 50 employees under contract, production has tripled, to 50 tons a month.

''We could easily be turning out 90 tons a month, because we've got the orders but not the working capital,'' said Guillermo Robledo, chosen by the workers to be the plant manager. Instead, he added, ''we're in the ironic position of having to extend 60-day credit lines to our customers, some of whom are large multinationals'' with much easier access to capital than a workers' cooperative.

Like most of the cooperatives, this factory is run by an administrative council, whose members are elected by the workers. Monthly assemblies are held to discuss issues like salaries -- which have nearly doubled since the low point as the economy collapsed -- how many new workers to hire and who they should be.

The IMPA workers have even voted to turn space that was not being used into a neighborhood cultural and arts center. Dance, drama and music classes and performances now take place regularly there, movies are shown in a small theater on an upper floor and artists have been allowed to set up studios where they paint, draw and sculpture.

''Being a factory and a cultural center simultaneously is something unique,'' said Eduardo Murúa, a leader of the cooperative. The positive response to the cultural activities, he said, provides ''an umbrella that prevents the banks from acting against us'' and has gained the factory favorable publicity and financial support from city government.

Faced with the loss of jobs and tax revenues, the municipality has sought to help by taking legal title to abandoned or derelict factories and the machinery inside. Under new legislation, it rents the premises to the workers' cooperatives on concessionary terms for two years and supports them in their efforts to negotiate with creditors.

sw

[Inchworm]

12. Do they have frisbees in Argentina?

I kid.

:sarcasm:

[Iggo]

11. War Ball!

Or 'Crossfire' if you prefer, or my favorite name for it: 'German Dodgeball'

[Inchworm]

13. Hmmm

details?

Or should I be afraid to ask?

:hi:

[Iggo]

16. It's dodgeball with two teams.

Let's say a large rectangle (usually the indoor basketball court on a rainy school day) is divvied up into four smaller rectangles...not four-square-style, but stacked like books on a shelf, one after another. In the first & third sections would be players from Team A. In the second & fourth sections woud be players from Team B. This is no doubt where it got the name 'Crossfire'. I don't remember how many balls we used, but it was more than one. And the longer you survived in one of the middle sections, the more bad-ass you were. I really loved this game.

[CAG]

14. SSSSHHHHHH!!!! Obama's settin'em up for the internment camps!!!!

Haven't you been to the comrades meetings????
:-)

[Inchworm]

17. Comrades Meetings...

remind me too much of home!!

:wow:

:hi:

[anigbrowl]

18. That's not what you want. This is what you want.

[Inchworm]

19. They're not nekkid

!!

:hi:

[anigbrowl]

23. Gotta wait until the 3am DJ for that :-)