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October 23, 2005
Street Furniture is no substitute for community
New Urbanism anything but authentic
VIEWPOINT By Michael Ireton
Calgary News and Entertainment Weekly - August 18, 2005
Faux communities aren’t the way to achieve a healthy, happy lifestyle
New Urbanism, Part 2: Building a lie
VIEWPOINT By Michael Ireton
Calgary News and Entertainment Weekly - September 15, 2005
Houses should reflect modern-day reality, not false dreams of the past
I read these articles above sometime ago, and placed it on (or rather in) the stacks, no mountains, of "scratch" items I want to share or comment about. The Folsom Blvd. revitalization talk from the city has refreshed them in my mind, although Folsom Blvd. is never really that far from the top of my thoughts. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.
Michael Ireton nails down some thoughts and observations in these articles that I share, vigorously share, and feel are really important for folks in Rancho to think about. The problems on Folsom Blvd. cannot be solved with oldeanders and street furniture, styled light standards and landscaped medians.
Infrastructure isn't the problems, people are the problem.
No amount of TEA-whatever funding will make up for the disconnect between Rancho's leadership and the neighborhoods of La Loma/West La Loma, White Rock, Mills Park/ Croetto and Le Ann Drive.
At some point, Rancho's leaders have to accept responsibility not only for the services the city government provides for the "physical city", but for the "human city" as well.
I doubt that today's city council will ever be capable of that. Their preoccupation with protecting the interests of the Sundridge and Rio del Oro investors will be at the expense of, as they call it, "Riverside Rancho". Folsom Blvd. and it's "revitalization" will be for a future city council to tackle. The mission of this council, for at least three of them, is to make a pleasant presentation, with the appropriate garnish for the eye, but not to make changes in the menu.
The author skirts the term, but I'll use it; they are trying to manufacture a sense of community; one that either isn't there, or will supplant the one that is, the one that voted in cityhood, the one that made this council possible.
Memorable quotes that brought certain council members to mind:
Part 1:
The solutions the two groups arrived at could not be more different. For CIAM, it was the tower in the park with broad "efficient" streets between them. For the CNU, it’s narrow gridded streets lined with trees, front porches and picket fences. But both attempts are flawed in precisely the same way – a bedrock belief that built form can heal wounded psyches and magically create that oh-so-elusive thing called "community" (in itself a highly problematic term).
Part 2:
McKenzie Towne and many other "New Urbanist" projects like it throughout North America do nothing to reduce automobile dependency. They just try to hide it by putting garages on lanes at the backs of building lots so the front streetscapes can display those precious gingerbreaded front porches and pretend to be something they’re not. One could also argue that the rigidly gridded street pattern New Urbanism prefers (nay, insists upon) actually increases the amount of vehicular roadway, and therefore impermeable surface, in a neighbourhood. These are not the kinds of things that advance the cause of sustainability. Paul Hawken, the retailer/environmentalist who wrote The Ecology of Commerce, summarizes sustainability as "doing more with less." Dare I say this statement has more in common with modernist (boo, hiss) Mies Van der Rohe’s assertion that "less is more" than it does with the suburbs in disguise that represent much of the output of New Urbanism?Those front porches and all the other stylistic pretences of New Urbanism and/or Neo-Traditionalism in the service of nostalgia for a past that only ever existed on movie and television screens is mere set dressing. To insist on Victorian, Colonial or Georgian wrappers around houses brimming with stainless steel appliances, plasma screen TVs, iPods, home computing networks, cat-5 wiring and every other expression and "necessity" of modern living inside is nothing more than going up to the attic and playing dress-up with great-grandma’s old clothes. It denies what the house is – a dwelling for 21st century people. It is fundamentally dishonest – a lie told to make people feel comforted and less threatened by whatever it is about the big, bad modern world that terrifies them. It is infinitely more authentic and honest to build houses and neighbourhoods that are real reflections of the time in which they were created and a visual expression of the "character" of their present-day habitation and use. But Leon Krier has said, "even one modernist building is enough to destroy the spirit" of a New Urbanist project, so I guess honesty and authenticity are out of the question and nostalgia wins the day. Gee, that’s swell.
Posted by cystdog at 11:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 21, 2005
Headed to the 'Buttes - 10/22
I passed south of the Buttes on the way home from Ukiah this weekend, and it got me stirred up about making the bike trip through there I'd been talking about for so long. So, Saturday AM, I'm gonna load up the bike and camera; my super safety kit for riding around drunks and set out for West Butte Road to begin my ride.
Posted by cystdog at 05:58 AM
October 20, 2005
Man, is it everywhere?
When I read this article on Monster, it brought back memories of dozens of people I'd worked with over the years, some who JFKd me, and many I'd watched pull a Dealey Plaza on my friends or my superior; a manager, a supervisor. Duplicitous hydras who you have sometimes, for a wee second, hope are genetically predisposed to developing colon cancer. Usually, these people end up burning so many bridges, that they find themselves isolated, or finally file the disability or stress claim, and move onto another tour de force in yet another unsuspecting workplace.
This has to be treated as mental illness, pure and simple, and if you get caught plotting with the fates to snooker someone, and have to get meds for it, along with counseling, it should be noted in your personnel file.
"Likes to conspire against fellow workers. Note: Takes nutty pills".
Handle a Sabotaging Coworker - Clerical & Administrative Career Advice from Monster.com
by Beverly West
Monster Contributing Writer
We all like to think of our coworkers as friends, but what happens when you become the target of a coworker's dirty politics? Here are some strategies that can help you keep the peace without losing your edge, shared by fellow soldiers on the office wars' front lines.
Posted by cystdog at 10:51 PM
October 02, 2005
Cool Utility : vnc desktop capture converted to flash movie
pyvnc2swf-0.6.4 is released. It runs on Unix/Linux/OSX/Windows. (Aug 23, 05) Recent changes.
What's It?
Vnc2swf is a screen recorder for Flash movie. It captures screen motion through VNC protocol and converts it into a Shockwave Flash (SWF) file.
Vnc2swf comes with a command-line editor which has the following functions:
* Editing a recorded movie.
* Previewing. (it's not yet perfect though)
* Attaching MP3 audio files.
Posted by cystdog at 10:59 PM
Ah-nold terminates "phishing" in Calehfornia
California makes phishing punishable by law - Security - MSNBC.com
Schwarzenegger signs first of its kind bill
Updated: 1:15 a.m. ET Oct. 1, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Friday making Internet "phishing" identity theft scams punishable by law.The bill, advanced by state Sen. Kevin Murray, is the first of its kind in the United States and makes "phishing" — getting people to divulge personal information via e-mail by representing oneself as a business without the approval or authority of the business — a civil violation.
Victims may seek to recover actual damages or $500,000 for each violation, depending upon which is greater. Phishing often involves the use of names of legitimate banks, retailers and financial institutions to convince recipients of bogus e-mail offers to respond.
Posted by cystdog at 03:22 PM
What makes a city resilient?
I spotted this podcast interview on Planetizen of an author whose asked the question "What makes a city resilient?" in his book "The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster"
My question is, does he acknowledge "air supply lines"?
Smart City Newsletter - 09/29/2005
Coming Up on the Next Smart CityWhat makes a city resilient? What gives a city the ability to re-group and come back from natural disaster and human tragedies stronger than before?
Those are questions Thomas Campanella has attempted to answer in his book, The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster, and he is our guest this week on Smart City.
Posted by cystdog at 03:04 PM
October 01, 2005
Early Bird: Terminator secures second term
Schwarzenegger signs paparazzi, health club bills
Schwarzenegger signs paparazzi, health club bills
By STEVE LAWRENCE, Associated Press Writer
Friday, September 30, 2005
(09-30) 17:32 PDT SACRAMENTO, (AP) --
Paparazzi who commit assault in their pursuit of celebrity photographs could be hit with hefty civil penalties under legislation signed Friday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.The measure by Assemblywoman Cindy Montanez, D-San Fernando, stems from an incident last May 31 in which Los Angeles police said a photographer rammed his van into a car driven by actress Lindsay Lohan.
Lohan suffered cuts and bruises and the photographer, Galo Ramirez, was arrested on an assault with a deadly weapon charge and released on bail.
In addition to existing criminal charges, Montanez's bill would allow people who contend they are victims of paparazzi assaults to file lawsuits seeking up to three times the damages they allegedly suffered.
The plaintiffs could also ask for punitive damages and a court order requiring the photographer to give up any income earned from the pictures involved.
"This bill hits the paparazzi where it hurts — the wallet," Montanez said. "Money is their motivation, so taking away their money will be the solution."
In other news, Schwarzi announces that plastic surgery will be both deductable from your state taxes, and amortizable over a 10 year period.........
Posted by cystdog at 05:22 PM
Just In: Sun MAY affect Earth's temperature
My personal belief is that in 50-80 years, the scientific community and historians will view our contemporary understanding and arguments about global warming as reflective of a self obsessed, myopic, arrogant society who, with little or no historical statistics of the Earth's climate, and even less data about the Sun's solar flare and sunspot activity (see wtf? about tree rings and Beryllium 10) , pronounced judgement and certainty about global warming, after only studying it for a quarter century, and less than a decade with the assistance of modern weather satellites and ocean temperature sensor arrays placed worldwide.
I think our historical perspective on past judgements of scientific facts, such as the notoriously controversial "Is the Earth flat, or is the Earth is round" argument, or the debate about the "Ptolemaic Universe", really lend evidence that, at best, it can be said that we have our head up our asses on this global warming question.
Study: Sun's Changes to Blame for Part of Global Warming
Study: Sun's Changes to Blame for Part of Global Warming
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 30 September 2005
Increased output from the Sun might be to blame for 10 to 30 percent of global warming that has been measured in the past 20 years, according to a new report.Increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases still play a role, the scientists say.
But climate models of global warming should be corrected to better account for changes in solar activity, according to Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West of Duke University.
The findings were published online this week by the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Scientists agree the planet is warming. Effects are evident in melting glaciers and reductions in the amount of frozen ground around the planet.
The new study is based in part on Columbia University research from 2003 in which scientists found errors in how data on solar brightness is interpreted. A gap in data, owing to satellites not being deployed after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, were filled by less accurate data from other satellites, Scafetta says.
The Duke analyses examined solar changes over 22 years versus 11 years used in previous studies. The cooling effect of volcanoes and cyclical shifts in ocean currents can have a greater negative impact on the accuracy of shorter data periods.
"The Sun may have minimally contributed about 10 to 30 percent of the 1980-2002 global surface warming," the researchers said in a statement today.
Many questions remain, however. For example, scientists do not have a good grasp of how much Earth absorbs or reflects sunlight.
"We don't know what the Sun will do in the future," Scafetta says. "For now, if our analysis is correct, I think it is important to correct the climate models so that they include reliable sensitivity to solar activity. Once that is done, then it will be possible to better understand what has happened during the past hundred years."
Posted by cystdog at 11:43 AM
A nougat of Kitty's Litter?
Paragary group sued by EEOC - 2005-09-30
Paragary group sued by EEOC
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit in federal court Thursday against Paragary's Restaurant Group, alleging sexual harassment, gender bias and discrimination on the basis of national origin against workers.Co-owner and president Randy Paragary said in published reports that he hadn't seen the lawsuit, but the some of the allegations described in it were "ridiculous" and that complainants were "making it up."
The San Francisco office of the EEOC filed the lawsuit in Sacramento against the restaurant group, Paramoor Inc. and PK Partnership, which the agency said own and operate nine restaurants and a bar in Sacramento County, and operated the now-closed Paragary's Bar and Oven in Rancho Cordova.
Posted by cystdog at 10:50 AM
