I was told recently by someone who sat on BP’s Citizen’s Advisory Board and lost their $30,000/year government job that:
You can tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans, Republicans go back into the private sector while Democrats become unemployed.
Ahahahah - He now has a six figure job in the oil industry.
“If its not worth doing, it is not worth doing well.”
I am reminded of how professionals, technologists, academics, and artist follow politics in doing worthless things well.
Matt Yglesias points me to the green design on the PvdA (Labor Party - Netherlands) website.
My Daughter’s second grade class was on WGN news last night. Marta is in the middle-ground toward the end of the segment.
“These are moments of teaching that do not happen in a book, and I think your wonderful kids will be life long stewards of our world in their own way forever. Seeing a project through to the end is unique in itself, but having the kids be a part from start to finish was awesome for them and their very proud teachers!! The Friends of fisher house Illinois were amazed.”
- Ms. Power (Marta’’s Teacher)
via [ neatorama ]
In this video, Douglas Wolk explains the ideas expressed in 18th Century German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgment using superhero comics. Wolk, a comic critic, is the author of the book Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. Run time: 5 minutes.
Levi-Strauss contributed to how I move through this world.
via [ AP ] French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss dies
PARIS — Claude Levi-Strauss, widely considered the father of modern anthropology for work that included theories about commonalities between tribal and industrial societies, has died. He was 100.
The French intellectual was regarded as having reshaped the field of anthropology, introducing structuralism — concepts about common patterns of behavior and thought, especially myths, in a wide range of human societies. Defined as the search for the underlying patterns of thought in all forms of human activity, structuralism compared the formal relationships among elements in any given system.
Displaying information as arrays.
Anyone who has done any sort of programing or data management is familiar with working with data sets and filters to produce a result. This is what occurs behind the screen, but what if you allow the data-sets and filters to hang out on the screen? And what if are not looking for a single fact or a single person result or a date, but rather want to know about influences or patterns?
Freebase Parallax: A new way to browse and explore data from David Huynh on Vimeo.
“Beyond Burnham - An Illustrated History of Planning for the Chicago Region” By Joseph P. Schwieterman and Alan P. Mammoser
“The Chicago River - An Illustrated history and Guide to the River and Its Waterways” By David M. Solzman
Oh Lord, I know I’ve been forever changed by the conflict between these two lives. Being immersed in the mill, I’ve become like the steel I work: cold, hard, sharp, heavy, dirty, bent, flawed, and rusting, Yet through other’s eyes, I am useful, durable, and to an extent even valuable.
- By Greg Gvotny “Going to the Mill,” the Heat
via [ infraNet lab ]
The 20th century was witness to both an infrastructure boom and bust. It is the 21st century that will need to project not only how to address crumbling and insufficient infrastructure, but also how to position new infrastructures that confront urgent issues of climate change, sustenance inequality, and our increasingly urbanized world. 21st century infrastructure should create a new public realm, enrich political policy, and embed productive processes.
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Ronald “Ron” Hayes takes the Lord’s message to the streets paving the way for hope.
A streetminister for more than 20 years, his mission is saving people, saving children and putting them on the right path. “Kids today, especially teenagers are going through a struggle of life. Some of their peers do drugs or get involved with gangs. I want to direct children in a positive direction and to show them there’s more to life than going along with peers.”
Hayes remembers his ministry starting with 12 kids that he would pick up and take to church and then buy them lunch at McDonalds. “These kids were involved with gangs and drugs and I informed them there is a better way to go,” he said.
Six months later he was still picking them up, ministering to them and even playing basketball with them. They eventually joined a church and so did their parents.
That success story has fueled the street ministry that has grown beyond East Chicago to include 25 to 30 other communities, and Cabrini Green where he ministers with Rev. Pat Brown of Gary. Hayes is known to many for the cross he physically bears to remind people of the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for all of us.
One way he’s found to reach at-risk youth is bicycles. Hayes has distributed approximately 7,000 bicycles through his ministry. “Bikes are an important part of young kid’s lives,” he said. “You’ll notice the ones that have working parents they buy a bike. When you buy a child a bike you give them leadership, direction, something they say is theirs.”
While some bikes are donated or reworked, some are brand new purchased by those who believe and support Hayes’ work.
“Right now we’re up against a war. It’s a war to save our children, our teens especially,” he said. “Peer pressure is taking over and the ‘baggy pants’ attitude of children is a bad message. We need them to get education and to make up their minds and that no matter what happens they will stay in school.
“That is my message to children. Stay in school. Get an education and go to college. You need an education, especially today.”
By Sue Bero, Times Correspondent
Another video about the Tar Sands.
Canada’s Dirty Oil: breaking our addiction from Dirty Oil Sands on Vimeo.
Jorge Garcia “Streader”: 1958 - 2009
Streader and Sherry @ Club Ki Yowga for a Copeland Bingo 3-23-2007
I just heard the news of Streader’s passing. My heart goes out to Sherry and his kids.
Rarely have I photographed the moment of meeting someone whom I will befriend. This was the moment I met Streader. Politics brought us together. He was standing in the entry way just out side the hall at Club Ki Yowga. A story had just broke in the NWI times of Streader resigning his position with the City and blowing the whistle on unscrupulous activities at City Hall. This ignited a shock wave through the City - one of George Pabey’s inner circle was talking. He had worked along side George Pabey to overthrow the Pasterick regime, who had been in power for more than 30 years. Now Streader was putting everything he had into replacing Pabey. In so doing he showed himself to be larger than politicians. He always enjoyed himself.
As those in East Chicago know, the outcome of 2007 Mayoral race was a disaster, Pabey won big. Streader was very upset with the outcome. Since then we met occasionally to talk political strategy and future elections. I even learned he hung with the Rakoczy family when he was young. He threw himself deeply into his brothers race for County Engineer. Jorge never tired from it all. Your friends in East Chicago are going to miss you.
Betsy Dent of Calumet Project with one of the Buckets
The Bucket Brigade is the brain child of Denny Larson of the Community Global Monitor.
“The “Bucket Brigade” is a simple, but effective, tool that dozens of communities are using to find out for themselves what chemicals are in the air. Armed with their own data and information about the health effects of chemicals, these communities are winning impressive reductions of pollution, safety improvements and increasing enforcement of environmental laws.
The “Bucket Brigade” is named for a easy to use air sampling device housed inside a 5 gallon plastic bucket. The “Bucket” was developed in Northern California in 1995 by an environmental engineering firm in order to simplify and reduce the costs of widely accepted methods used for testing toxic gases in the air”
The Bucket Brigade was brought to East Chicago by the Calumet Project to help monitor the discharges from the construction of a confined deposal facility (CDF), the dredging of the Indiana Harbor Shipping Canal (arguably the most polluted waterway in the country), and the long term management of the site. They have also looked at BP discharges.
[ Post-Tribune ]
A group of East Chicago residents hope to convince the government to do better air quality monitoring in their neighborhood and will lobby for better pollution control.
The so-called Calumet Project Bucket Brigade took an air sample on July 10 near the intersection of 129th Street and Indianapolis Boulevard in East Chicago. The result was 14 chemicals. Five of them — acrolein, acrylonitrile, carbon disulfide, styrene and 1,4-dichlorobenzene — registered well above what other states list as “levels of concern.”
