Category: News-esque

News that doesn’t fit anywhere else

Is Toronto Mayor Rob Ford A Drunkard?

Seth Anderson0 comment

Dog on a Bender
Dog on a Bender

Of course, the Toronto Star is no fan of Rob Ford, because, truth be told, Rob Ford is kind of a jerk, not to mention a Tea Bagger Wanna Be…

That was backed up by three members of the Garrison Ball organizing committee, one of whom said Ford “seemed either drunk, high or had a medical condition.” Six guests at the ball were interviewed saying they had concerns over Ford’s behaviour. Given the Ford administration’s history of launching blistering attacks on its enemies, these sources insisted on anonymity. And, to be fair, others at the event were quoted saying they saw nothing untoward. But Councillor Paul Ainslie, a Ford ally, did confirm that the mayor was asked to leave. These allegations are what Ford specifically branded “an outright lie.” But they’re just the latest links in a chain of damaging incidents coiling ever tighter around the mayor.

Earlier this month Ford was at another public event where former mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson accused him of grabbing her backside while posing for a picture. Ford dismissed that, too, as a lie but a photo emerged showed him rumpled and stained — hardly an inspiring look for the leader of Canada’s sixth largest government. Ford caused embarrassment a few days later when he reportedly showed up disheveled at a gathering attended by several orthodox rabbis and awkwardly delivered a pro-casino rant. This was reported by the Toronto Sun, which quoted Councillor Joe Mihevc as saying: “He did not do honour to our good city.” And an incident at a downtown Toronto restaurant, on St. Patrick’s Day last year, generated concern about Ford’s drinking, according to sources cited by the Star.

Add to that Ford’s increasingly light work schedule and intentionally obscured comings and goings at city hall. The Star has amply documented this in the past . And the Globe and Mail, last month, used a freedom of information request to show that Ford hardly ever schedules meetings or events after 3:30 p.m. — a remarkably lax attitude for the chief executive of a $9.4-billion corporation. Can he not handle more? 

Then there are Ford’s repeated calls to 911, including an allegation that he resorted to obscenities with a dispatcher; his drunken tirade at a hockey game, inflicted on a Durham couple and flatly denied until overwhelming evidence forced him to confess; and Ford’s no-contest plea on a 1999 Florida charge of impaired driving . He didn’t tell the full truth about that, either.

Look at the pattern. In all sincerity, what does it show? An innocent victim, laid low by a conspiracy of liars, or a man struggling — and failing — to cope?

(click here to continue reading Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s pattern of behaviour tells a troubling story: Editorial | Toronto Star.)

Drunks at Duffys
Drunks at Duffys

Mayor Ford, predictably, denies angrily this charge, but not convincingly:

Ford responded angrily to the story on Tuesday, calling it “an outright lie.” Mihevc told Metro Morning host Matt Galloway that Ford’s reaction to the story was “not accurate.”

“Certainly the mayor’s comments yesterday were, let’s put it this way, not accurate,” said Mihevc. “There is something there and I think many of us have been privy to it. However I don’t really want to focus on that. It is up to the mayor to come clean and to figure out what he needs to do to pull his life together.”

Galloway asked Mihevc, a left-leaning council member who has at times clashed with Ford but remains friendly with him, whether he has seen Ford appear intoxicated in public.

“I have seen him in situations where it appears he is not fully there,” said Mihevc.

Mihevc was also critical of Ford’s claims there is a concerted effort by the media and those opposed to Ford’s cost-cutting agenda to oust him from office.

“Specifically that the whole world is conspiring against him. That simply is not true,” said Mihevc. “Many of us have deep political divisions with him, however it is just not accurate that there’s this grand conspiracy that involves members of the media and that involves member of his political opponents …. He does a lot of this to himself.”

(click here to continue reading Rob Ford response to drinking story called ‘not accurate’ – Toronto – CBC News.)

Link Dump for March 10 2013

Seth Anderson0 comment

 

Universal Magic

Universal Magic

I’ve borked my blog software installation again1, so instead of troubleshooting what’s wrong, I’m just going to dump a bunch of article tidbits for your amusement. No gambling.


 and…

How We Realized Putting Radium in Everything Was Not the Answer zite.to/Xtqjyw

Russian Police Say Dancer and Two Others Confess to Bolshoi Attack http://nyti.ms/YWjROq

A Locust Plague, Shy of Biblical Proportions, in Israel http://nyti.ms/Zh8yz3

Illinois Medical Marijuana House Committee Vote: Panel OKs Pot Plan, Full House Vote Next zite.to/12xxlGB

Scary Dairy Proposal: Aspartame in Kids’ Milk zite.to/13Jr3DB


Take What You Have Gathered From Coincidence

Take What You Have Gathered From Coincidence

and finally

can’t forget to mention Katha Pollit’s defense of Sheryl Sandberg:

Who’s Afraid of Sheryl Sandberg?

With the publication of Lean In, a feminist-accented self-help book for college-educated young women with bright prospects, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg provoked such wrath among feminists that some of them couldn’t even wait to read the book before condemning it as a rich woman’s vanity project. Talk about leaning in! She’s been mocked as a Silicon Valley Marie Antoinette. She’s been equated with Marissa Mayer, the Yahoo CEO who scorns feminism and abolished working from home for her employees—never mind that Sandberg embraces feminism, the word and the movement, and devoted three whole chapters to combining work and family life in saner, fairer ways. The trouble is not that women are attacking women, but that they are using sexist tropes. Melissa Gira Grant, for example, chides Sandberg for having “staff to help keep house, raise her children and throw her women’s leadership dinners.” Grant means to contrast Sandberg’s privileges with the insecure lives of working-class women (not that she knows how much Sandberg and her husband pay their staff, or even that they are women). But the very fact that the morality of hiring nannies and cleaners and—no! not that!—caterers pops up only when a powerful woman is discussed shows how gendered the attack on Sandberg is. Message to Grant: these people work for Sandberg’s husband too.

(click here to continue reading Who’s Afraid of Sheryl Sandberg? | The Nation.)

That should give you something to read for a moment…

Footnotes:
  1. WordPress widgets are broken – cannot add, delete, or modify anything on my sidebar over there on the right. Probably a conflict with a plugin, or some other problem. Daylight savings has sapped my energy at the moment, so I really don’t feel like digging in and fixing it today, especially since I don’t yet know the solution [↩]

Commonwealth of Belle Isle

Seth Anderson0 comment
Zoot Suit in Detroit

Zoot Suit in Detroit – source Shorpy

 

An another addition to the crazy urban planning file, though probably less realistically going to happen than our last sojourn into Detroit…

In his book, titled “Belle Isle: Detroit’s Game Changer,” Rodney Lockwood, an executive with a successful Detroit-area real estate firm, outlines a very specific plan on how to develop the city-owned, uninhabited 928-acre island in the Detroit River, between U.S and Canadian waters.

Lockwood’s pitch is for a group of wealthy investors to buy the island from Detroit for $1 billion and “build a supercharged community with its own laws, customs, transportation systems, taxation and currency, transforming Belle Isle into the ‘Midwest Tiger,’ rivaling Singapore and Hong Kong as an economic miracle,” according to Lockwood’s website.

The island would then be developed into a city-state of about 35,000 people, complete with “its own laws customs and currency, under United States supervision as a Commonwealth.”

Belle Isle would be founded on the principles of limited government, “exceptional” aesthetics and “respect for all citizens,” Lockwood says. Citizens would be submit themselves to criminal background checks before moving to the island, and once there, would not pay any corporate or income taxes.

Lockwood imagines that people would immigrate from all over the world to live on Belle Isle, but to gain citizenship, people would first have to apply and be approved and then post a fee of about $300,000, which would be used to repay the group of investors as well as finance infrastructure and back the nation’s own currency.

The island would also be an environmental haven.

“Served by a monorail, Belle Isle is a walking community, with restricted hours for vehicles. With emphasis on great planning and architecture, people from all over the world come to Belle Isle, to be part of its freedom and opportunity culture,” Lockwood writes.

 

(click here to continue reading Detroit author Rodney Lockwood presents island utopia concept to revive depressed metropolis – NY Daily News.)

Ok, you join first, and if it works out, maybe I’ll come visit…

Why the weird religious ravings on Dr. Bronner’s soap

Seth Anderson0 comment

Dr Bronner Magic Soap does not contain GHB
Dr Bronner Magic Soap does not contain GHB

 I’ve used Dr. Bronner’s soap for many years, and still have not bothered to read the whole container. There is a documentary about him and his soap, but I’ve yet to see it. Sadly, Dr. Bronner passed away in the 1990s.

Cecil Adams gave the Straight Dope in 1988, including:

Talking to the doc on the phone is the audio equivalent of reading one of his labels. He can be pretty linear when he wants to be, but eventually always veers off into a rap about the Essene rabbis and whatnot, delivered in a nutty-professor German accent. Believe me, it’s an experience.

Bronner has had an eventful life. The son of a Jewish German soap maker, he emigrated to the U.S. and pleaded with his father to do the same when the Nazis came to power. The old man refused. One day Bronner got a postcard with the words, “You were right. — Your loving father.” He never heard from his parents again.

Initially settling in the midwest, Bronner married the illegitimate daughter of a nun, who eventually became suicidal and died in a mental hospital. (He says she was tortured by the hospital guards.) He also began devising his plan for world peace. Fittingly, he took to the soapbox to promote it. One of his listeners, Fred Walcher, was so inspired that in 1945 he had himself crucified in Chicago in order to publicize the plan. (He survived.)

Later Bronner was arrested while trying to promote his plan at the University of Chicago and was committed to a mental hospital. He escaped three times, finally fleeing to California in 1947. He’s been there cranking out soap and soap labels ever since.

(click here to continue reading The Straight Dope: Why the weird religious ravings on Dr. Bronner’s soap?.)

In New Austin, Accommodating the Broken Spoke Honkey-Tonk

Seth Anderson0 comment

Vintage
Vintage

Same argument raged when I lived in Austin – does everything old have to vanish to focus on what’s new and sleek? Les Ami, Captain Quakenbush’s, and many, many other institutions of the Austin I grew up in are no more.

Old Austin clashes with New Austin nearly every day, causing much worry among the city’s natives: Will these new condos and luxury hotels rub out everything that makes their weird city great? Will the shows for hipster musicians dry up? Is $10 guacamole really worth it?…

A generation of Austinites has unsuccessfully battled against losing iconic institutions like the Armadillo World Headquarters, Liberty Lunch and Las Manitas — all razed to make way for New Austin. But one developer is trying to prove that the old and new can cohabit.

For the last eight months, the developer, Transwestern, has been overhauling a seven-acre plot in South Austin. The area is a mess: bulldozers and excavators sit among tall piles of dirt and rock; 20-foot-high concrete piers jut out of the ground; and a jagged eight-foot trench is framed by hundreds of feet of orange-and-white highway barriers lining the road’s shoulder.

At the center of this chaotic scene sits an old, squat red building, dwarfed by pipes and slabs, looking like the last proud holdout in a world gone mad. This is the Broken Spoke, and it is arguably the greatest honky-tonk of all time. The Spoke, which was built by James White in 1964, has hosted everyone from Bob Wills and Willie Nelson to an unknown George Strait. It attracts tourists from Japan and England and celebrities from Hollywood. They gawk and drink and dance at the most famous club in a city that bills itself as the Live Music Capital of the World.

(click here to continue reading In New Austin, Accommodating the Broken Spoke Honkey-Tonk – NYTimes.com.)

Waterloo Records
Waterloo Records

Of the places mentioned in this NYT article, I’ve been in the Broken Spoke, eaten eggs many times at Las Manitas, and where I first stayed in Austin1 was a scant two blocks from the Armadillo2, but by far the biggest loss to me was Liberty Lunch. I went to probably over 100 live music events there, from the time I was a snot-nosed 15 year old in the mosh pits, up until I moved away. I saw punk rock, heavy metal, reggae, acts like Thomas Mapfumo, Burning Spear, Sonic Youth, Bob Mould, Timbuk3, yadda yadda. I would have seen The Pogues, circa 1989, but I got too drunk and fell asleep on the Congress Avenue bus. J’Net Ward was some sort of business partner at the restaurant I worked at to put myself through school3, and I always remember her being an all-around cool person.  

Your So Happy (sic)
Your So Happy (sic)

Anyway, let’s hope the Broken Spoke doesn’t get plowed under too.

Willie Nelson Blvd
Willie Nelson Blvd

Footnotes:
  1. in the summer before my entire family moved to Austin [↩]
  2. even though it was already shut down by then, about to be replaced by a corporate park [↩]
  3. Magnolia Cafe South [↩]

Five Hundred Homicides Is Far Too Many

Seth Anderson0 comment

Don't Bring Yer Guns to Town
Don’t Bring Yer Guns to Town

As a follow up to this, the count keeps growing higher…

The murder of Martinez, 32, brought the city closer to 500 homicides this year, statistics show. This year is the first time the city has had this many slayings since 2008.

While the city of Chicago has more working police officers per capita among the five major cities, it has the second-highest homicide rate. In terms of raw numbers, the city will finish 2012 with the highest number of murders in the country, statistics show.

It’s difficult to pinpoint a single cause for the increase in shooting deaths, but some point to gang turf wars, unseasonable warmth earlier in the year and the disbanding of special police units that specialized in tackling violent crime.

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy blamed the proliferation of guns onto Chicago’s streets and conflict among the city’s larger gangs for the rise in homicides. At recent press conferences, McCarthy has consistently said that while murders have increased, overall crime is down.

(click here to continue reading Man shot dead before he can ‘get out of the game’ – chicagotribune.com.)

and then the City reached that particular metric:

[Nathaniel T. Jackson’s] death was the 500th homicide in Chicago this year, marking a grim milestone. The city last reached that toll in 2008.

…

As of Thursday night, homicides were up 17 percent over last year in Chicago, and shootings had increased by 11 percent, according to police statistics.

Largely contributing to the spike was the unusual number of homicides that occurred during the early part of the year, when the city experienced unseasonable warmth. In the first three months of the year, homicides ran about 60 percent ahead of the 2011 rate.

(click here to continue reading Grim milestone: Austin shooting 500th homicide in Chicago – chicagotribune.com.)

Not to make light of the situation, at all, but having just watched Michael Moore’s documentary about gun control, Bowling For Columbine, I feel like I should add that it is rare that I feel threatened by gun violence in my normal areas of the city. When walking around, I don’t feel like I am in a war zone. A quick glance at the Near West Side Crime map validates my perspective – in the last month there has only been one homicide in this large area. If one adds in the Loop, the number of murders is still only one (i.e., there were zero homicides in the Loop in the last 12 months). 

Deadwood Fan #1 

That said, something drastic needs to be done to reduce the number of gun murders in our city, our state, our country. The answer is not to bring back Al Swearengen and the thugs of Deadwood as suggested by the idiots of the National Rifle Association and their minions. I’d rather try Chris Rock’s solution of making each bullet cost $5,000…

“You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. Men, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars… five thousand dollars per bullet… You know why? Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars there would be no more innocent bystanders. Yeah! Every time somebody get shut we’d say, ‘Damn, he must have done something … Shit, he’s got fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his ass.’ And people would think before they killed somebody if a bullet cost five thousand dollars. ‘Man I would blow your fucking head off…if I could afford it.’ ‘I’m gonna get me another job, I’m going to start saving some money, and you’re a dead man. You’d better hope I can’t get no bullets on layaway.’ So even if you get shot by a stray bullet, you wouldn’t have to go to no doctor to get it taken out. Whoever shot you would take their bullet back, like “I believe you got my property.”

(click here to hear  Chris Rock: You don’t need no gun control, you know what yo….)

A Game of Compare and Contrast

Seth Anderson0 comment

Liberty Loans - Seattle
Liberty Loans – Seattle

I was amused to read about both of these incidents in the same morning.

Compare and contrast this story:

Police in Washington, D.C. are investigating NBC’s “Meet the Press” after the show’s host David Gregory appeared to display a high-capacity ammunition magazine during Sunday’s program, a spokeswoman for the police department confirmed to the Washington Post early Wednesday.

Washington, D.C.’s firearms regulations state that “No person in the District shall possess, sell, or transfer any large capacity ammunition feeding device” even if it is not attached to a firearm. During his interview with National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre on Sunday, Gregory held what he said was a magazine capable of holding 30 bullets. 

(click here to continue reading D.C. Police Investigating ‘Meet The Press’ Over Gun Prop Used During Show (VIDEO) | TPM LiveWire.)

Party Favors
Party Favors

with this story:

Maybe the most bizarre part of that Post article on the Freedomworks coup is the part about Dick Armey’s henchman coming into the office with a handgun. So my question is: was that legal?

DC is really strict on gun laws, even after Heller, which tossed out some of the strictest gun regulations. So if there’s anywhere this would be illegal, it would probably be DC. But it sounds like the real issue might be something hard to get a read on beyond what’s contained in the Post article itself.

The article suggests an air of menace in the use of the gun — and that’s not terribly surprising if the situation was an inherently confrontational one (Armey was ordering people out of the office) and Armey associate came with a holstered handgun. But a lot of that is going to come down to perceptions. And the Post reporter might have played some of the gun angle up for effect.

But using a firearm to intimidate someone can be assault.

(click here to continue reading Is That Legal? | TPM Editors Blog.)

Where Are the Tears for The 260 School Children Killed in Chicago

Seth Anderson1 Comment

 Killing People Is Rude

The gun fever has not abated in our country, but we have to pay closer attention to it, for all of our sakes. 

David Muhammad writes:

It was a colleague in Chicago. I had emailed her the day before asking for research into one of the mentoring programs in the city’s schools for youth with the highest risk of being shot. 

She provided me with the information I was seeking. Then she included a P.S.: “What a devastating horrible day in CT. But frankly I wish people cared this much when it was children on the south and west sides of Chicago.”

I was snapped back into reality with the email. The tragedy in Newtown was truly horrific. But there is similar carnage carried out every day in the streets of America’s cities, especially in the President’s hometown of Chicago, where I work in Oakland, in Philadelphia, and many other cities across the nation. 

In 2010, nearly 700 Chicago school children were shot and 66 of them died. Last year, Mayor Rahm Emanuel attended a memorial for 260 school children who had been killed in just the previous three years. On several occasions in the past year, tens of people have been shot in a single weekend on the streets of the city. The worst three-day stretch saw 10 killed and 37 wounded in gun fire. But Google the term “Chicago weekend shootings” and the results are far too many deadly weekends to count. 

Oakland, Calif. has seen a huge increase in shootings. Last year, three small children were murdered in shootings. The youngest victim hadn’t yet turned 2. Oakland has become the first city in the country to have its police force taken over by a federal court. Because of a lack of resources, the city has one of the lowest police to resident ratios in the country. 

Gun violence in America is a pandemic, but there is no round-the-clock news coverage. No national address from the President with tears. No pledge for urgent change. 

(click here to continue reading 260 School Children Killed in Chicago in 3 Years — Where Are the Tears for Them? | Alternet.)

Just to continue the theme: today’s Tribune reports

An 18-year-old man was shot and killed and five other people were wounded, including an 11-year-old boy, across Chicago Christmas evening and early this morning.

…

About 7 p.m., an 11-year-old boy was grazed in the arm in the 6200 block of South Michigan Avenue and taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, according to police. He was walking in a group when he heard shots and felt pain.

(click here to continue reading Chicago Tribune – Overnight shootings leave 1 dead, 5 wounded across Chicago.)

I am considering creating a Tumblr blog just to focus on Chicago gun violence, and related topics, but haven’t gotten around to doing it yet.

Politicizing Tragedy

Seth Anderson0 comment

Fashionsense
How Mike Huckabee Imagines the World

I wasn’t going to write anything about the horrific events in Newtown, CT, but Christian Taliban propagandist Mike Huckabee has really enraged me with his illogical bloviating.

Steve Benen of Maddowblog has the video and transcript:

Neil Cavuto said that many invariably ask after tragedies like this, “How could God let this happen?” Huckabee responded:

“Well, you know, it’s an interesting thing. We ask why there is violence in our schools but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage? […]

“You know, God wasn’t armed. He didn’t go to the school. But God will be there in the form of a lot people with hugs and with therapy and a whole lot of ways in which I think he will be involved in the aftermath. Maybe we ought to let him in on the front end and we wouldn’t have to call him to show up when it’s all said and done at the back end.”

So, by Huckabee’s reasoning, the separation of church and state is at least partially responsible for a gunman killing 26 people, including 20 children. There are a few problems with such a perspective.

Theologically, many Christians believe God is omnipresent, and can’t be “systematically removed” from anything. For that matter, there’s very little in the Christian tradition that suggests God punishes children when constitutional law hurts His feelings.

Politically, Huckabee’s comments — seeking to exploit a violent tragedy to push a bogus cultuyre war agenda — are reminder that the former Arkansas governor and failed presidential candidate occasionally just isn’t a nice guy.

(click here to continue reading This Week in God – The Maddow Blog.)

According to Huckabee’s reasoning, if the children had sacrificed a virgin goat that morning, god would have taken time out of his busy schedule picking which football teams win, and whatever else he occupies his time with, and stopped the massacre. God may omnipotent, but he is apparently also petulant. “No goat sacrifice in my name today? Then thou shall die by the hands of a nut job with a high-powered gun.” As any student of history realizes, Christians, even devout Christians, are not immune to violence. 

So nice of Mr. Huckabee to blame the victims for not praying harder, after they are shot to death. I blame the NRA instead. They are actually on this earth, and from my perspective, as culpable in the murders as any other entity.

Who Would Jesus Shoot

which leads me to the second point I’d like to make: namely that the corporate media is complicit with their shameless and breathless reporting whenever a slaughter occurs. Where is the same sort of hyperventilating when ten people were shot just last night in Chicago?  Unfortunately, a fairly typical number of shootings for 21st century Chicago. 

Watch Your Damn Mouth.jpg
Watch Your Damn Mouth

Roger Ebert said it more eloquently: 

Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, “that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about ‘Basketball Diaries’?” she asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?” The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.

(click here to continue reading Elephant :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews.)

Vast Land Deal Divides Detroit

Seth Anderson3 Comments

Detroit Michigan 1906
Detroit Michigan, 1906.jpg

Hmm. Urban blight vs. maples. Or the oak vs. the maples, whatever. Still better than Houston…

John Hantz says he has a dream: to purchase 140 acres of derelict land in the heart of Detroit and turn it into the world’s “largest urban farm.”

A Web site set up by Mr. Hantz, a wealthy entrepreneur, to advance his proposal says the farm would return the city “to its agrarian roots.” The repurposed lots — cleared of blight and planted with roughly 15,000 hardwood trees — would establish an economic zone, raise property values and return vast tracts of abandoned land to the city tax rolls, according to Mike Score, the president of the venture, Hantz Farms. Ideally, the enterprise has signaled, it would eventually become a major source of local food.

In a city where entire blocks of foreclosed homes and crumbling buildings have been bulldozed, the proposal has drawn some support, notably from the mayor, Dave Bing, and some city council members. But the proposed sale has drawn objections from some residents and city officials who say it would amount to a land grab.

“This is not the way to grow a vibrant city,” said Kwame Kenyatta, a City Council member. “Just because we have vacant land doesn’t mean we should turn Detroit into a farm.”

The council is set to vote on the proposal on Tuesday.

(click here to continue reading Vast Land Deal Divides Detroit – NYTimes.com.)

Just A Little Bit of Daydream
Just A Little Bit of Daydream

My quick reaction is that since this land has been derelict for decades, why shouldn’t it be reclaimed? If Detroit had the money to repair these areas, they would have, but they don’t, and won’t any time soon. Why not try something new? Of course, John Hantz has ulterior motives, but that seems a fair price to pay.

Per the Hantz Neighborhood proposal PDF, the proposal includes such provisions as:

Hantz Woodlands will give the City a Cash Payment for the total purchase price at closing, as well as cover the estimated costs for property title work ($750,000), demolition of dangerous structures ($2 M) and removal & disposal of illegally dumped debris ($450,000)

Hantz Woodlands will demolish or improve dangerous structures within the development zone (at the very least, 50 structures within two years).

Hantz Woodlands will clean up and maintain all parcels, removing illegally dumped trash and mowing at no more than a three week interval.

Hantz Woodlands will plant at least 15,000 trees during the first two years of the agreement.

Residents who have community gardens or have maintained vacant lots prior to December 2012 will be offered first option to purchase at a price lower than that paid by Hantz Woodlands.

The agreement involves approximately 1,500 of the 5,200 parcels in the development zone – leaving more than 70% of the parcels owned by other parties.

If I had a vote, I’d vote for it…

Email Of My Digital Day

Seth Anderson0 comment

We Deliver - Just not Saturdays
We Deliver – Just not Saturdays

If you are interested, in the slightest, in my daily travails and triumphs, you should sign up for my daily email post – automatically created via Google’s Feedburner. In this email, you’ll see my most recent ten photographs, and I will do my best to give you a few interesting articles to read every day. Ideally, you’ll see portions of 9 or 101 articles, plus a sampling of my photographs of the day.

If my work day allows it, there might also be a few blog posts as well included in the email – which are usually longer entries, but to be honest, I don’t seem to have the stamina to create blog posts each and every day any more. Basically, the email will contain items that will never appear on the blog itself – mostly because I’m a lazy fr*ck.

As far as what kind of content you’ll receive in the email, I’d guess the mix of topics to roughly be:

  • Photographs
  • 40% national US politics
  • 5% Chicago politics
  • 5% local politics somewhere else like Texas or California, or somewhere I have an interest (Baltimore, Oregon, San Francisco, New York City, Guam, Austin, Yurtistan, yadda yadda). Yeah, I read a lot. I do. Every day, usually.
  • 10% music and music history – jazz, blues, rock, Bob Dylan, whatever. 
  • 10% film and film history – I am a film school drop-out after all
  • 10% Apple related – I’ve been a Mac user since before it was cool
  • 10% humor, or what I find funny 
  • 10% weird and unusual stories from the old, weird America and the old, weird world…

Truthfully, the email is a simple communication tool, and you should go ahead and sign up. Even if you don’t get around to reading every single one, you’ll still find items of interest when you do read the email. Plus, the email is free…

What do you have to lose?

Footnotes:
  1. the Feedburner limit [↩]

Vitaly Borker, Owner of DecorMyEyes, Sentenced for Threats to Customers

Seth Anderson0 comment

Thou Shall Not Kill - Stop Killing - Stop Violence - Limousine
Thou Shall Not Kill – Stop Killing – Stop Violence – Limousine

Wow! Remember that guy Vitaly Borker? We blogged about his crazy case back in 2010, he figured out how to game Google search with the realization that even bad comments elevated his site in Google rankings. It sounds like it was even worse than we know. Four years, plus three years of probation is a stiff sentence, but it might not be enough.

A Brooklyn man who terrified customers of his online eyewear store with threats of violence, including rape, was sentenced on Thursday to four years in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $100,000 in restitution and fines.

Vitaly Borker, 36, who owned and operated DecorMyEyes from his home in Sheepshead Bay, pleaded guilty in May 2011 to charges of fraud and sending threatening communications. He admitted that he had scared dissatisfied customers with phone calls and e-mails, in some cases vowing rape, murder or dismemberment, according to prosecutors.

… 

A handful of Mr. Borker’s victims were summoned to testify about calls and e-mails they had received, which turned out to include a threat to slice off the legs of one customer. Federal District Judge Richard J. Sullivan said, at the end of one day of testimony, that he found the victims credible and so disturbing that he revoked Mr. Borker’s bail, which had allowed him to live at home under restrictions.

…

In addition to four years in prison, Mr. Borker was told he would be on probation for three years after his release, during which he will not be allowed to use a computer. He was also told to receive psychiatric and substance-abuse counseling.

(click here to continue reading Vitaly Borker, Owner of DecorMyEyes, Sentenced for Threats to Customers – NYTimes.com.)

Save the Endangered Globe

Seth Anderson0 comment

Miniature Office Globe
Miniature Office Globe

Personally, I’ve always had a globe around ever since I was a boy interested in cartography. I have dozens of maps and atlases around my office and home. The globe pictured above I bought circa 2005 when a previous globe was damaged via a leaky roof. I don’t see a date anywhere on it though.

actual globes are increasingly rare. When did you last see a globe in an office, or a living room? American schools, too, have seen a decline. Officials for major school systems — including Chicago and Seattle — report that most classrooms no longer have them. …

The first globes were “celestial” models of the heavens — what Atlas shoulders (it’s the sky, after all, that seems round). The first “terrestrial” globe was made around 150 B.C. (by Crates of Mallus, in case you’re ever in a barroom brawl over what the Stoic grammarians ever did for us). The oldest Earth globe that survives today is from 1492. It was spectacularly ill timed, though a colorful cast of saints, mermen and Sciapods make up for the absent Americas.

Just across the Columbian divide is the Hunt-Lenox globe, circa 1510, which features portions of the Americas, and the weighty term “New World.” The globe also bears cartography’s only known deployment of “here be dragons” (in Southeast Asia). Elizabethans, in particular, loved globes — “the whole earth, a present for a prince,” was Queen Elizabeth’s awe-struck response to a gift of a globe — and then there is the name of a certain theater. In “The Comedy of Errors,” Dromio rudely maps the portly kitchen wench: England on the chin, France on the forehead, and just you guess about the Netherlands.

Such glorious history makes the decline of globes only more perplexing. Perhaps no four-billion-year-old design can escape the occasional hiccup in brand maintenance. But there are more likely culprits. As reference tools, home globes can’t compete with detailed, up-to-date online resources (though note the Wikipedia logo, an incomplete globe). The decline of globes in schools, according to Robert Chisholm, program director for history and social studies in Boston’s public schools, is also because of the squeeze of standardized math and English testing on subjects like geography.

Mad Men Drapers Office 3
Mad-Men-Drapers-Office

It is the absence of globes in most professional environments, though, that reveals the most about us. Don Draper of “Mad Men” has an office globe. But none of the dozen or so executives I contacted could remember when they last saw one. The more global their work, the more they found the idea of a globe unappealing. Globalization is the alleged triumph of travel, trade and connectivity over the planet’s bricks-and-mortar (or rocks-and-water) limitations. It’s a measure of globalization’s success — and hubris, perhaps — that its original icon appears literal and unsophisticated.

What’s lost when we lose sight of globes? An accurate sense of home, to start. The view of a Roman street on Google Maps is wonderful — but only after a globe has shown you Italy. And no online or paper map has yet succeeded in stretching a round planet onto a flat surface. Choose your complicated failure: Mercator? Sinusoidal equal area? Equidistant conic? Only a globe is both simple and right — simple because it’s right.

(click here to continue reading Save the Endangered Globe – NYTimes.com.)

So, perhaps buy a globe for *your* office, and spin it randomly on occasion…

West Nile Outbreak Shaping Up as Worst Ever in US

Seth Anderson0 comment

Couldn't Get Ahead
Couldn’t Get Ahead

A new thing for the media to fixate on…

The nation is heading toward the worst outbreak of West Nile disease in the 13 years that the virus has been on this continent, federal health authorities said Wednesday. 

But it is still unclear where and how far cases will spread. Dallas declared an emergency last week, and West Nile deaths have been concentrated in Texas and a few nearby states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma, as well as South Dakota.

So far this year, there have been 1,118 cases and 41 deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Lyle R. Petersen, director of the agency’s division of vector-borne diseases, said Wednesday in a telephone news conference.

“That’s the highest number of cases ever reported to the C.D.C. by the third week of August,” he added. “And cases are trending upward.”

…

Only about one infection in 150 becomes serious enough for the patient to need hospitalization — usually when the virus gets into the brain and spinal cord. But 10 percent of those hospitalized die, and other patients are left paralyzed, comatose or with serious mental problems. A recent study by doctors in Houston found kidney disease high among survivors.

There is no vaccine, and no drug that specifically targets the virus, so health authorities advise people to avoid getting bitten.

(click here to continue reading West Nile Outbreak Shaping Up as Worst Ever in U.S., Authorities Say – NYTimes.com.)

But What Shall We?
But What Shall We?

The numbers may be small, but death is pretty serious, especially since there is no vaccine for West Nile. Illinois is gearing up as well:

The mosquito responsible for the West Nile virus flourished during the summer’s record heat and drought. Now, officials are concerned about emerging signs that a widespread outbreak may be on the horizon in Illinois.

Updated figures from the state Department of Public Health show extremely high numbers of the Culex pipiens species have tested positive for the disease — 71 percent in DuPage County and nearly 60 percent in Cook, the health department reported.

Although the 27 cases of West Nile virus in Illinois don’t represent a particularly high number, experts start to get anxious when just 10 percent of samples of virus-carrying mosquitoes test positive.

The reason, said Linn Haramis, program manager of vector control for the health department, is that history suggests that the 10 percent infection rate is a strong indicator the percentage is going to accelerate rapidly over the summer.

The rate of Culex pipiens mosquitoes statewide that had the West Nile virus stood at 25 percent Tuesday, Haramis said. Last year, that percentage was 8 percent, he added.

(click here to continue reading West Nile: Banner year for West Nile – chicagotribune.com.)

and it appears to be a mostly unremarked side effect of global planet change: 

Mosquito activity is highly weather-sensitive. Cooler temperatures and heavy rain reduce the number of Culex pipiens, experts said. Downpours can wash away larvae growing in places such as catch basins and gutters. That didn’t happen this summer.

But high temperatures allowed the virus to replicate quicker, building to dangerous levels inside the mosquito, which infect people through its saliva, experts said.

Even the warmer winter may have helped. The mild weather then and in the early spring, combined with the hot summer, might have fostered conditions favorable to spread the virus, according to CDC officials.

“It’s a banner year for West Nile,” said Richard Pollack, a public health entomologist with the Harvard School of Public Health. “Not such a good year for people.”

Cases usually flare in the summer because the illness is most often transmitted from infected birds to people by mosquitoes.

T Drummond - Discarded
T Drummond – Discarded

Wear long sleeve clothing when walking in dusk and evening, avoid pools of standing water, and make sure your last will and testament is current. What more can you do?

Scatter while ye may
Scatter while ye may

More on the global change aspect from Scientific American:

According to the Centers for Disease Control, there have been over 1100 reported cases of West Nile virus disease in the US this year, including 42 deaths. If these numbers seem high, they are – in fact, it’s the highest number of reported cases since West Nile was first detected in the US in 1999, and West Nile season has just begun. Given that the peak of West Nile epidemics generally occurs in mid August, and it takes a few weeks for people to fall ill, the CDC expects that number to rise dramatically. But why now?

Though the CDC doesn’t have an official response to that question, the director of the CDC’s Vector-Borne Infectious Disease Division said that ‘unusually warm weather’ may be to blame. So far, 2012 is the hottest year on record in the United States according to the National Climatic Data Center, with record-breaking temperatures and drought a national norm. It’s likely no coincidence that some of the states hit hardest by West Nile are also feeling the brunt of the heat. More than half of cases have been reported from Texas alone, where the scorching heat has left only 12% of the state drought-free. Fifteen heat records were broken in Texas just last week on August 13th.

The heat waves, droughts and other weather events are the direct effects of climate change say leading scientists. As NASA researcher James Hansen explained in a recent Washington Post editorial, “our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.” He says that the European heat wave of 2003, the Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year are all the repercussions of climate change. Confidently, he adds that “once the data are gathered in a few weeks’ time, it’s likely that the same will be true for the extremely hot summer the United States is suffering through right now.”

The fact that the worst US West Nile epidemic in history happens to be occurring during what will likely prove to be the hottest summer on record doesn’t surprise epidemiologists. They have been predicting the effects of climate change on West Nile for over a decade. If they’re right, the US is only headed for worse epidemics.

…

While the CDC is hesitant to blame this year’s West Nile outbreak on climate change directly, the science is clear. Record-breaking incidences of West Nile are strongly linked to global climate patterns and the direct effects of carbon dioxide emissions. Climate change isn’t just going to screw with the environment, it will continue to have devastating public health implications. In addition to better mosquito control and virus surveillance, we need to focus our efforts on reducing and reversing climate change if we want to protect our health and our well-being.

 

(click here to continue reading Is Climate Change To Blame For This Year’s West Nile Outbreak? | Science Sushi, Scientific American Blog Network.)

Timing an Urban Stroll Isn’t a Walk in the Park

Seth Anderson0 comment

 Alhambra Seattle

Alhambra Seattle

Walking is my most frequent form of exercise, so I’ve noticed that online maps are a little suspect as far as providing good time estimates.

Such discrepancies reflect teething problems for the growing industry of providing walking times. “It’s largely not a problem that anyone has solved in the world perfectly,” says Manik Gupta, senior product manager at Google Maps in Mountain View, Calif., about walking-time estimates.

Estimation of walking times poses many questions: How fast do people walk and how much does it vary? How do hills and traffic lights affect speed? Do popular walks—say through city centers—vary in time according to time of day, slowing down when other walkers congest the routes?

Various walking-time providers answer these questions differently. Their assumptions of walking speed can vary from 2.5 miles per hours to 3.1 miles per hour, and their treatments of hills varies, too. Some assume a walk in a crowded urban area will be slower than in a park, while others ignore stops at traffic lights. And most aren’t yet adjusting for congestion—a big factor when walking among thousands of spectators to Olympic venues.

Google didn’t disclose what baseline walking speed it assumes, saying journey times vary anyway based on other factors. Jim Stone, executive director of walking-advocacy group WalkSanDiego, says he has found Google can say a mile will take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the details of the route.

Walkit, a U.K. walk-routing website, adjusts for hills using Naismith’s Rule, developed by William W. Naismith, a Scottish mountaineer, in 1892. The rule adds time for uphill stretches, proportional to the elevation gained; subtracts time for downhill walks at light slopes; and adds times for steep downhill treks. The site also provides three options for walking speed—slow (two miles per hour), medium (3 mph) and fast (4 mph).

Time estimates can surprise infrequent walkers. “People think that a mile sounds really far,” says a TfL spokeswoman. “You say a mile, and they say, ‘That’s forever!’ But say it’s 20 minutes, and they say, ‘That’s achievable.’ “

How long walkers remember a journey taking can depend on factors other than time, such as variety of scenery, says Barbara McCann, founder of Washington, D.C., nonprofit National Complete Streets Coalition, which advocates street design that accommodates all users, in addition to cars. “It’s nice to provide walk times for people,” says Ms. McCann, now an independent consultant, “but you have to be aware it’s a super-subjective thing.”

(click here to continue reading Timing an Urban Stroll Isn’t a Walk in the Park – WSJ.com.)

I’ve also noticed that I walk faster when walking by myself, with just headphones, music and camera(s). Walking with someone, or with a group, inevitably slows everyone down.