Wife Paid $2.1M to Serve on the Boards of Several Healthcare Companies

via [ Post-trib ]

INDIANAPOLIS — As a board member of several health care companies, Sen. Evan Bayh’s wife has collected lucrative payments from some of the same businesses that would be most impacted by Congress’ proposed overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

Bayh, D-Ind., contends that the $2.1 million his wife, Susan, earned by serving on the boards of public health care companies from 2006 to 2008 represents no conflict of interest

Read more

Bayh health firm ties studied :: Indiana/Politics/Elections :: Post-Tribune.

Thomas National

via [ www.liquidassets.psu.edu ] 

This evening I happened to click on the East Chicago Public Government Channel which for all purposes has been the Mayor’s personal campaign channel. But to my enormous surprise this evening they were running this wonderful documentary “Liquid Assets.” I don’t know who coordinated the broadcast, but I was thrilled to see something of real substance and value to the community on the channel. Very Good.  

Liquid Assets is a public media and outreach initiative that seeks to inform the nation about the critical role that our water infrastructure plays in protecting public health and promoting economic prosperity.

Combining a ninety-minute documentary with a community toolkit for facilitating local involvement, Liquid Assets explores the history, engineering, and political and economic challenges of our water infrastructure, and engages communities in local discussion about public water and wastewater issues.

Thomas Adaptive Reuse, Case Studies, East Chicago, The Water I Drink

The government gave the green light Thursday to four so-called “eco towns,” claiming it is playing a leading role globally in promoting carbon neutral communities.

The green towns are designed as the first of 10 such projects Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government wants to set up by 2020, despite criticism and local opposition in some cases.

“The revolutionary concept of eco towns is a unique opportunity for us to confront two of the most urgent priorities” facing Britain, namely providing more cheaper housing and fighting climate change.

Housing Minister John Healey added: “We are leading the way on the world stage with these developments by radically rethinking how we design, plan and build our homes.”

The towns chosen are in Whitehill-Bordon in Hampshire; Rackheath in Norfolk; Bicester in Oxfordshire, and a development near St. Austell in Cornwall.

Greenlight given for first eco towns - Yahoo News.

Thomas Case Studies, Urbanism

[ Website: www.joyceowens.com ]  [ Blog: Artist on Art ]

I first came to know Joyce’s work about a decade ago and then again recently when she sat on a panel discussion about southside artists - [ The Invisible Artist - Creators from Chicago's Southside ] 

For me these paintings make plain the strength of the Human Spirit - in there ambition and worry. I have always loved the portrait. 

Out of the Box Series

(Click images to enlarge)

“These paintings are dramatic renditions of the black middle class men and women shown in photographs during the Paris Exposition in 1900… There is a depth to our African American ancestry that we need to be able to build on; the wooden box is a symbol that can both hold the truth and tell the truth.”

 - Joyce Owens

Thomas What I am Looking at

This appears to be a very promising show

via [ Exit Art ]  June 13 – July 31, 2009 at 475 Tenth Avenue, NY, New York

SEA and The End of Oil conceived by Papo Colo.
The End of Oil curated by Herb Tam and Lauren Rosati.

FEATURING PROJECTS BY:

Khalil Chishtee; Louisa Conrad; Robert Ladislas Derr; Dominic Gagnon; Ed Kashi; Matt Kenyon; Michael Mandiberg; Andrei Molodkin; Jo Syz

Schedule of Events:

JUNE 20 and 27 

The Great Squeeze (2008)
Director/Producer: Christophe Fauchere

This film explores our current ecological and economic crisis, stemming from our dependence on cheap and abundant energy to the point that our demands for natural resources far exceed the earth’s capacity to sustain us.The Great Squeeze examines the way in which the extraction and consumption of such resources has impacted our climate, ecosystem and civilization itself.

JULY 11 and 18

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (2006)
Director/Producer: Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack

By illustrating that our civilization’s addiction to oil puts it on a collision course with geology, this film comes to the startling but logical conclusion that our industrial society, built on cheap and readily available oil, must be completely re-imagined. Featuring interviews with field experts and on-location shots at oil fields, the film asks questions and offers solutions regarding the most important economic and environmental issue of our time: the looming peak of the world’s oil supply.

JULY 25

The Power of Communtiy: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (2006)

Director: Faith Morgan
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s economy suffered, with oil imports cut by 50% and food by 80%. This film shows how the Cuban people consequently transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to using organic farming methods, local, urban gardens, and principles of permaculture. As the only country to have lived through Peak Oil, the film offers alternative options to a reliance on fossil fuels.

Thomas What I am Looking at

Every summer my wife and I migrate out to the backyard. During the warm season the backyard becomes the most used room in the house. On our city lot we’ve learned about the bio-diversity of this highly industrialized community. This region is extraordinarily rich in biodiversity and rare ecosystems, fragmented between mostly industrial areas. 80% of East Chicago is zoned heavy industrial, with less than 14% for residential, and 6% for light industrial and commercial. 

No region in the Midwest has been as greatly impacted by human activity as Northwest Indiana. Pre-European settlement, a series of white pine and jack pine-covered dunes, and swales rich in wetland species, paralleled Lake Michigan. Inland, the dune and swale topography met the Calumet marshes. 

Although it is undoubtedly still the richest region in Indiana and in the Great Lakes basin in terms of biodiversity, Northwest Indiana ecosystems are fragmented and under constant, diverse stress from multiple sources. Without restoration of ecosystem functions and structures, their long term viability is severely threatened

[ EPA ]

But what amazes most is how quickly life takes hold and grows here. By having our own little paradise in such an environment that is hostile toward nature we attract all sorts of creatures. However, we are discovering that we are not the only ones. As we get out in the community we are seeing many residents creating their own special spaces in their backyards. I hope someday to document some of these spaces.

This year Kristin has begun taking these incredible close-ups of the garden.

Thomas The Biodiversity I Live, What I am Looking at

via [ NY Times -- "The Danger of Digging Deeper" ]

The Times’s James Glanz explains the earthquake risk posed by a geothermal dig through this nice  interactive presentation. 

Thomas Information Graphics

[ www.jeannieweissglass.com ]

Thomas What I am Looking at

via [ NY Times -- "Ruins of the Second Gilded Age" ]

CHATEAUX ON CENTRAL 

This project in downtown Phoenix was supposed to include nearly two dozen luxury homes, priced from $2.8 million to $4.5 million. But by early 2007, the city’s high-end condominium market — which was among the country’s hottest — had become oversaturated. Prices started to fall, and Chateaux on Central’s developer, Central PHX Partners, declared bankruptcy. 

A local commercial lender, Mortgages Ltd., stepped in that year with an offer to provide nearly $50 million in loans to help Central PHX complete construction. But the deal turned sour, and in March 2008, the developer sued Mortgages Ltd., claiming the lender had not made promised payments. On June 2, 2008, the C.E.O. of Mortgages Ltd., Scott Coles, committed suicide. At the time, one-third of his company’s loans were in default. More than a year later, Chateaux on Central remains unoccupied and unfinished.

Thomas Planning Mishaps

[ Pierogi Fest ] Whiting Indiana, July 24 - July 26

Parade: Friday July 24th at 7pm (ought not to be missed)

One of the Greatest American Festivals - The Pierogi Fest draws Thousands from around the world for some of the craziest self-deprecating polish fun. Make your travel plans now and lock in the date - I can not recommend it more highly.

Thomas Urbanism

via [ Washington Post ] “Walking on Air” by Peter Slevin

The natural instinct is to inch out onto the glass very, very slowly, said sheet metal worker Leo Thier, who took a break from another job to venture into the box. Still in his hard hat and construction boots, he delivered his verdict: “It’s fantastic. It’s insane.

We are quite familiar with the use of the “Wish Instinct” in advertising but in architecture?  - yes

Thomas Architecture

via [ Triplecanopy ] by Joseph Clarke

Tracing the parallel histories of the American megachurch and the corporate-organizational complex.

THE 1980S AND ’90S SAW THE RISE of so-called seeker megachurches, which targeted those disillusioned with religion. Rather than enforcing traditional worship styles, they embraced counterculture and youth rebellion. Chief among them is Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, in Orange County, California. Built in the ’90s, Saddleback plays down crosses and other conventional Christian signifiers and avoids mention of its Southern Baptist denominational affiliation. Instead of a massive auditorium, the church occupies multiple midsize structures scattered across a lush 120-acre campus. Visitors customize their worship experience by choosing from a range of services: “Saddleback Classic” in the main Worship Center, “OverDrive” for youth, and “Praise!” for gospel-music lovers. 

As Warren’s model gained traction, the ideology of the democratic office was taken to new levels by management theorists associated with the Quality of Work Life movement. They recommended radically open office environments that would give workers control over their environment and dissimulate corporate hierarchy. “Office facility planning should be a systematic process that encourages employee participation, promotes innovation, and champions mobility,” advised a 1985 article in National Productivity Review…

It’s no coincidence that Saddleback mirrors the top office environments of its day. Warren was a good friend of Drucker’s (the consultant died in 2005), and the books he has written for pastors quote Drucker liberally. Drucker, in turn, was so impressed with the business acumen of evangelical leaders that in 1998 he declared the megachurch “surely the most important social phenomenon in American society in the last 30 years.”

Thomas Case Studies, Misc, Visual Culture

On the lighter side of the Nisly farm.

Thomas Misc