Bills QB Trent Edwards

From his perch high above Elmwood Avenue, Dave Staba writes:

Over the past decade, as the Buffalo Bills endured a parade of quarterbacks and coaches, you could always be sure of this much:

In the most critical of moments against quality opponents, something would go horribly wrong.

In the closing moments, the defense would passively allow the enemy quarterback to work his way methodically downfield, unable to get within swatting distance of him or his receivers until the other guys were celebrating in Buffalo’s end zone.

The Bills’ own attempts at late-game dramatics would end with an interception, sack or fumble. Or, just to shake things up, a sack and a fumble.

And, on those rare occasions when the offense and defense each performed their late-game duties with competence, you could look forward to a special-teams fiasco either mundanely procedural (watching the other team, lacking timeouts, manage to get off a decisive field goal as time expires) or historically surreal (watching the opponent execute a cross-field throw of questionable legality to produce a touchdown as time expires. In a freaking playoff game).

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Peter Reese makes an interesting comment on Bruce Fisher’s article about sprawl in this week’s AV:

I actually think the local school districts which come with towns are the biggest part of the problem. They facilitate white flight to these little cocoon communities. If you look at Jefferson County which contains Louisville you will find that the secret behind their regional success is the fact that they always had one county-wide school district. When they got hit with the inevitable segregation lawsuit, there was no Elma, Alden or Orchard Park to flee to. They were stuck with the issues of poverty and racism. Apparently they decided to deal with their problems, rather than running from them.

What are the chances that we will have a single Erie County school district in the next 100 years?

Is that possible? Is it a good idea?

The 2009 Toyota Corolla
In this week’s You Auto Know, AV columnist Jim Corbran takes a look at the redesigned Toyota Corolla, and talks about the long history of this old standard in America.

Read it here.