A couple of weeks ago, Colin Dabkowski of The Buffalo News wrote about the ongoing financial troubles of Studio Arena Theater.

Two weeks ago, in the face of an unthinkable closure, an emergency fundraising effort managed to pull in about $225,000 from a combination of foundations, theater board members and local banks, according to Studio Arena board President Daniel A. Dintino.

That money, according to Dintino and CEO and artistic director Kathleen Gaffney, will ensure that the theater produces at least its next two shows: the family-friendly Christmas play “Indian Blood,” which is scheduled to begin in previews Tuesday, and January’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“This kind of operation, even with the cuts that I made throughout last year, having [only] one set designer and so forth, it’s still too expensive,” she said. “And the audience is just not, they’re not coming.”

Of course, this begs the question; Why aren’t the audiences coming? After sitting through a tedious and mediocre performance of A.R. Gurney’s “Indian Blood”, a play designed to appeal to the “Old Buffalo” set, I had my own ideas. I had intended to write about them last week, but time got away from me…

The Public Policy Institute of New York State, the research arm of the state Business Council, released a study Tuesday comparing average annual wages, electricity costs, commercial rents and tax burdens across the United States.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, New York ranked high on the list of most expensive places to do business in America, finishing second to be exact. Who are we behind? Hawaii. Of course, Hawaii is a couple of thousand miles from the Continental United States and costs of business due to that separation are understandably high. New York…What’s our excuse?

In other, surely unrelated news…

The state’s workforce has swelled to its highest level in more than 12 years, putting more pressure on the state budget, according to a report issued Wednesday by a conservative think tank.

The state had 235,014 full-time equivalent workers on the payroll at the end of September, 3,158 more than last year. That’s the most of any year since 1994.

Also, in a surprising twist, two senior economists find that higher taxes lead to lower population growth…

Buffalo, NY - In 1987, President Ronald Reagan gave a speech in the shadow of the Berlin Wall and the Brandenburg Gate, imploring the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to “tear down this wall”. Two years later, it came down as a democratic revolution swept over the Warsaw Pact countries within the course of about 5 months.

The Berlin Wall wasn’t just a physical barrier. It was symbolic - it was the very embodiment of the East’s lack of freedom. It prevented its prisoners from visiting the West, where they would certainly come quickly to realize the inferiority of the brutal totalitarian state in which they lived. It was also one of the most brutally fortified de facto international frontiers in existence.

During the Berlin Wall’s 1963 - 1989 history, there were 5,000 escape attempts and 239 people perished trying to escape a communist totalitarian dictatorship and make a better, freer life in the West.

In 2007, a group of non-profits and community activists calling itself the “Waterfront Coalition” drenched itself in offensiveness and irony.

In order to protest one “wall” - the bermed Route 5 - the Waterfront Coalition purchased space on an actual wall. A billboard.