If life gives you lemons, it’s time to go into the lemonade business.

When Forbes calls you dead- it’s time to show them a thing or two:

Looking to prove that nothing could be further from the truth, and timed to celebrate the article’s 1st anniversary, the Ten Living Cities Symposium and Arts Festival is the brainchild of Peter Benkendorf, executive director of Involvement Advocacy, and Mike Elsass, owner of Color of Energy Gallery, both of Dayton.

Taking a page from Woodstock, Benkendorf and Elsass have declared August 7 -9, 2009 as “Three Days of Ideas and Inspiration,” in an effort to bring together artists and activists, community leaders and organizers, and civic-minded people from the 10 cities. Having concluded that there are amazing people doing amazing things in Dayton, imagine the possibilities if that power were multiplied by 10!

via Symposium and Arts Festival: Celebrating the Human Spirit.

Although I question the value of spending time dwelling on something that’s already been forgotten everywhere other than the 10 cities on the list, if it makes people feel good- go for it.

My feeling is it’s better to concentrate on things we can achieve quickly and efficiently that get us some positive reaction: the Dayton Bcycle project would be ideal. Frankly, I don’t care about the other 9 cities on the list- I just care about Dayton. Sure, we might put our collective heads together and come up with some ideas, however, we do enough of that around here. I’d rather spend the time on action.