PJ001-1 : Evaluative Criterion

Creative types usually gather, but that doesn’t always ensure they get  along and play nicely with the others. Making music has been such a journey of spontaneously whippish eruptions. A rock band has been difficult to incubate as a business that shows progressive growth. Many factors can and have contributed to the downfall of nearly every band in which I have played. I am the constant, so I am the only culprit.

It seems that I should be not the only one to blame, but one member of a group that has failed to exhibit partnership. The truth is that I have set myself up for it all along. It’s not that I destructed each group, but that I wasn’t even in the right place to be destructive. It just wasn’t every meant to be. Until now, I think.

Well now it just feels right. I’m playing in two bands as a drummer and sound engineer. We have business meetings – albeit casually. We work constructively on songwriting and jam to ensure empathy to the music. We make certain that each of us is not stressed and communicate effectively. So what’s changed?

Previously I would have run away totally because of the fights we have had. There have been two really tense moments and several incredibly annoying interactions – more than several really. You see I have always made friends with musicians and only a handful of drinking pals. The drinking pals are gone and the musicians float around sporadically, at best. Why am I so limited in social behaviour? It’s a simple matter of just getting down to business.

For some reason, I have always aligned myself to attract messages of isolated focus on artistic production. This can be seen as “hermit” or “loon” to the outside perspective. And not that I’ve always been so focused either. This lack of focus is the culprit. A lack of focus has led me into a hybrative coma, where I am not exactly out in lala land, but dreaming, deeply. And this is usually submerged in alcohol and weed. That’s bad stuff – the alcohol.

So the friends I made on that alcohol really interrupted the social norms that I was achieving as a child. When I started drinking it was downhill. I was able to replace some of the drinking that started hard and heavy with a bit of weed. Then the weed took over and I went into a very introspective place, as most musicians seem to encounter. This was incredibly awkward, but [very long story short] I was able to make it out and achieve even greater things because of it. Yes, I attribute some of my success as a human to weed, mushrooms and the ensuing introspective utopian ideals I hold so dear.

Really, it was the meditative state that I was able to achieve. It was the realization of my own brand of Evaluative Criterion. This is what we look so deeply for as humans. It is our way of coping with the reality of our reality. It is our soul’s lashing out in vanity of escaping intact with the body. But like I said, coming to this place of realization was not easy. I made some bad choices on the way. Human choices, but they were bad, nonetheless.

The human must grow. We must adapt with our experiences guiding the way. Try this on for a minute. When working on a big project, immerse yourself in it totally. Lose control of other things. Go deep, but be sure to warn your closest allies beforehand. You will be surprised to find yourself in the same world when you make it out of that tunnel. It’s like you were gone but never went anywhere. Now think of going in there and not ever creating anything. Never doing anything, except walking through the tunnel. Maybe you sleep a little. Maybe you cry a little because you find yourself alone.

Well this is how drugs will ruin you. This is how making deeply distraught decisions can lead you to dark places that don’t allow experiential growth. It’s tough, but it can happen easily if you aren’t aware. Sometimes you may get something out of it. Sometimes you will just find yourself alive again and then you must restart. It’s ok. Plug back in.

So back to the story. I was making friends with musicians, not people. I wanted the instrument and didn’t care about who it was that sexed it up for me. I just wanted the love and no romance. Now, the change has been that I first am able to love myself. Second, I have found love – and this part is the most interesting. Coming closer and closer to my ultimate happiness I was able to find the band I always wanted. Then, shit got bad. We had a terrible fight and I exploded. The fight was even my fault…because I brought all of these guys together to play music and work constructively on a project bigger than ourselves and even our bands. But I was not communicating.

I was first not communicating with myself. The meditation had subsided once again to alcoholic dreaming – like a zombie. This was in part due to a difference in lifestyle and the whole submersion process of introspective creativity. The others guys hadn’t been to that same place that I had been. We hadn’ t shared the same growth process of meditative self discovery. We hadn’t seen supreme love. We hadn’t all seen God. I have been there, to my personal salvation. But I know some of the other guys hadn’t, because they told me. They don’t know their evaluative criterion is already with them.

We grew apart. The thing that helped the most was that I met the love of my life. It was completely unexpected and incredibly magical. I saw her for the first time and I exploded with excitement. But I didn’t even feel it really. I mean, I felt it, but it was as though I had just been transformed, thoughts, memories and future, in an instant. And I didn’t even have time to flinch. I just showed up. But I was still gone from the band. I took four whole months, a whole summer to enjoy my new-found love. We immediately lived together and have not been apart since. It will last forever and longer. And so will I.

Now aware of life’s bounty, I was able to look at each situation clearly and with certainty that I knew the right path. My heart has been opened up and I am able to see what life is to me. I am able to see the truth of good and evil. I am able, although having been able my whole, to live. This is now allowing me to bring myself into focus, to make myself the subject of the painting and to create openly, with fierce love for the universe.

This ability generates a lust for communication now. I want to dive straight into conversations – although I have the ability to see when I am not needed – and start creating harmoniously with others. Teamwork is the goal, and the only ability to accomplish anything in this world. Independence simply means that you are a human within yourself whilst abiding outside of it. You are what you are and when you are able to realize this, you can see the world for what it is: YOURS.

The only way here is through love. Love conquers all and without it you are nothing. There is nothing without love. When you find love, the universe is yours. The ability is yours. It always has been. Finding that love and ability and making it yours is the journey. It cannot be forced. It will not be forced. It will right on time, but the key is, the necessity is that we open ourselves to the possibility of it. You must accept and believe fully that somewhere it exists, something bigger than ourselves, something more. When we accept this fate, the here and now will take care of itself.

2011
11/17
CATEGORY
Production Journal
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Engaging the Whole Brain

Here’s an article from the New York Times’ Andrew C. Revkin.

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/fostering-insights-by-engagin-the-whole-brain/

 

 

I’m gonna write more soon. Been busy with other things. Life is good…and I got a new computer, and a new camera. So yeah, I’ve been busy…

 

 

 

 

 

2011
11/02
CATEGORY
Mind
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the News Today 4.18.11

Here are some cool things from the Planetizen blogosphere. I promise more real writing soon.

 

Pursuing New Development Ideas
Posted by: Nate Berg

16 April 2011 – 7:00amAs funding falters in the private sector, some privately- or university-driven design centers are still pursuing new ideas is urban design and development. Places profiles one at the University of Arkansas.
Places’ Nancy Levinson talks with Stephen Luoni, director of the University of Arkansas Community Design Center about the sort of development his group is designing.

“NL: What would be a good example of creative development?

SL: For five years we’ve been designing proposals for light rail transit in Northwest Arkansas (NWA). It’s an unfunded initiative — a response not to a client’s proposition but instead to a real problem that wasn’t being addressed. From 1990 to 2000, NWA was the nation’s sixth fastest growing region; yet it lacked any strong planning traditions — other than highway development — that would have met the needs of this rapid development. And more growth is expected: the region is projected to double its population within the next 20 years, and to reach more than one million by 2040. So, in response to existing patterns — NWA is essentially a string of towns each founded along a rail corridor in the 1880s — we proposed a regional plan structured around resuscitation of this corridor with revitalization of the historic downtowns.”
Full Story: Venture Design Source: Places, April 14, 2011

A Little-Known Benchmark of Planning Law
Posted by: Tim Halbur

16 April 2011 – 5:00amThe case of Buchanan v. Warley, decided in 1916, set an important precedent: it forbade zoning restrictions based on race.

Leonardo Vasquez, a professor at Rutgers University, says he isn’t surprised if you’ve never heard of the case:
“The histories of urban planning we learn in school often tell an an untarnished story of early planners bringing order to the chaos of the early 20th century. Buchanan v. Warley reminds us that while land use regulations were doing good in some cities, they were also being used to deny African-Americans in the south (and Chinese-Americans in California) full and fair rights and opportunities.”

The case happened in Louisville, Kentucky. The city created an ordinance that prevented African-Americans from moving into neighborhoods that were majority White, and vice-versa. Legal action ensued, as Vasquez documents.
Full Story: Buchanan v. Warley reveals the double-edged sword of zoning Source: PDI Advisor, April 11, 2011

D.C. Tops in Green Building
Posted by: Nate Berg

16 April 2011 – 9:00amWashington D.C. has built the most “green” buildings within its greater region, according to a new survey.

The new report to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments shows how the District has exceeded in green building — largely in accordance with a 2006 bill known as the Green Building Act, which requires buildings to pollute less.

“Between 2003 and 2009, the Washington region added about 23 million square feet of LEED-certified green building space through new construction and conversion of existing space. The District led the way, with 72 projects that earned LEED certification, followed by Northern Virginia with 59 projects and Maryland with 40. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification rates buildings based on how well they meet certain green standards for construction and operation.

‘We have focused on making the region a national leader in green building,’ said Andrea Harrison, chairwoman of the COG board.”
Full Story: D.C. among ‘greenest’ for buildings Source: The Washington Post, April 15, 2011

What is New Urbanism Anyway?
Posted by: Tim Halbur

18 April 2011 – 6:00amAndres Duany, the most vocal of New Urbanist, says that the critiques of the “ism” he helped create brand it as a “rustic version of starchitect culture” when it is in actuality an “expanding web of ideas, techniques, projects, and people.”

Is New Urbanism defined by front porches and old moulding? Not if Duany can help it. By way of explanation, he tells the story of the formation of new urbanism:

“The New Urbanism coalesced through the 1980s around certain independent initiatives: the Pedestrian Pocket studies of Doug Kelbaugh and Peter Calthorpe, the antimodernist polemics of the Krier brothers and Colin Rowe, the typological rigor of Stefanos Polyzoides, the conservative housing of Urban Design Associates and Dan Solomon, the Americanism of Vincent Scully, and the emergence of Seaside as a physical artifact.”

What brought these people and ideas together was a rejection of suburban sprawl. Duany addresses the ways their approach has worked and where New Urbanism failed to coalesce.
Full Story: New Urbanism: The case for looking beyond style Source: Metropolis Magazine, April 17, 2011

The Original Green: New York’s Street Grid
Posted by: Tim Halbur

18 April 2011 – 9:00amThe original layout of New York’s street grid took advantage of the natural elements like light, wind and good soil to effectively encourage greenery in the city. Alec Applebaum says the city could do well to hearken back to the original plans.

Applebaum explains how the street grid takes advantage of the elements:

“The early 19th-century planners who created the grid knew how to make the most of these attributes. They laid out the grid so that the sun sets precisely in line with east-west streets several times a year. The short north-south blocks mean more streets lead to the rivers, allowing floodwaters to recede easily and drawing people to the waterfront. The plan guided raucous commerce along the route of an old canal and enticed future developers with the promise of sites on hills with enviable views north.”

Later generations of city engineers and planners failed to capitalize on the effectiveness of these early plans, and actively fought against them, says Appelbaum.
Full Story: New York’s Green Grid Source: The New York Times, April 16, 2011

The Impact of Humans on the Land
Posted by: Tim Halbur

18 April 2011 – 10:00amThe National Journal has created a large, zoomable map of the world showing the footprint of humanity on the Earth.

The map highlights “the combined impact of population density, land transformation, accessibility, and electric-power infrastructure, using nine data sets that researchers scored in terms of estimated contribution to human influence.”

The map also shows the world’s largest cities by population, with Tokyo at number one with 36.7 million people.
Full Story: The Human Footprint Source: National Journal, April 18, 2011

Greenfield Economics Explained
Posted by: Victor Negrete

18 April 2011 – 1:00pmAaron Renn of Urbanophile explains the allure of “greenfield economics” and that the process of urban and suburban decay is cyclical in nature.

From post on Urbanophile.com:

“What is greenfield economics? This is simply the set of conditions that flow from building on new territory or exploiting new markets vs. redevelopment of old places, organizations, etc. Being able to start with the proverbial blank slate enables a huge number of benefits.”

Among these benefits, according to Aaron Renn: everything is new and state of the art, no legacy costs, no legacy institutions and culture, scale economies are in your favor, few low-income residents, and ability to defer infrastructure costs.

“You might say that this is a transitory state and the problems of the city will eventually hit the suburbs as well. Very true. And indeed, that’s what we see.”
Full Story: Replay: The Power of Greenfield Economics Source: Urbanophile, April 15, 2011

2011
04/18
CATEGORY
News Today
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the News Today 11/15/2010

Eco-Toupees and Plastic Alleys, November, 2010, By Blair Kamin
Despite a major sustainability push, the city of Chicago still has a long way to go in transforming its image from a Rust Belt city to the greenest in the country.
Whether you’re coming to Greenbuild or not, you’re sure to get hit with hype about Mayor Richard Daley’s drive to make Chicago “the greenest city in America.” Chicago, understand, is great at this sort of thing. For years, the city could brag about having the world’s tallest building (Sears Tower) and the world’s busiest airport (O’Hare). Even now, the call letters of Chicago’s marquee TV and radio stations—WGN (for “World’s Greatest Newspaper”) and WLS (for “World’s Largest Store”)—reflect its penchant for hyperbole. That’s worth keeping in mind when you consider two of Daley’s most-ballyhooed green initiatives: roofs and alleys.
Evidence-Based Urban Planning
United States Data Land Use Research
1 November 2010 – 10:48am
Author: Martin Laplante
In a field such as planning that is rich with quantifiable data, why there so little focus on evidence rather than opinion?, wonders researcher Martin Laplante.
If you do a web search for the term “evidence-based medicine”, you will find 1.5 million hits. “Evidence-based religion” gives 10,000 hits, surprising for a field where faith is so important. “Evidence-based urban planning” gives only 4 hits.
Why, in a field where so many of the objectives are quantifiable, is there so little focus on evidence rather than opinion? It’s not that planning is lacking in quantification. Densities, square feet of floor space, number of parking spots, distance between certain uses, all of these get specified to three decimal points, but what seems to be lacking is evidence that changing these features of cities will achieve a measurable objective, while later evaluation to confirm whether they have achieved these objectives is typically not required.
Instead, the profession uses articles of faith based on data or analysis that is frankly insufficient to draw hard conclusions or that is extrapolated beyond what the original study might have established. For instance many studies have demonstrated that on average those who live in areas of higher population or unit density tend to drive less than those who live in lower density. What has less evidence to support it is to what degree increasing the density of an existing area will decrease driving and increase transit use. Even if density change has a predictable, measurable effect for marginal changes to low-density areas which take them from below to above the “transit-supporting” threshold, is there evidence that analogous changes will have an effect on medium and on high-density areas? Is there evidence that decreasing VMT in one area doesn’t cause an increase in VMT in other areas?
I’m not saying that popular conclusions regarding the relationship between density and vehicle use are correct or incorrect, merely that I have seen no methodology for diagnosing and treating deviations from vehicle use objectives that uses evidence which is sufficient to support one decision rather than another. Planetizen readers are familiar with the use of a carefully selected published figure, outside the context from which it was taken, in order to justify a previously-held opinion. Density is controversial, but it’s only one example among a great many articles of faith that are used to make planning decisions. LEED and LEED-ND are filled with numbers that are essentially an arbitrary consensus of a range of opinions with little solid scientific basis. Space precludes enumerating other numeric or point-based systems whose numbers are more opinion than evidence.
In my opinion, using assumptions and extrapolations to support large-scale planning policies and not using reliable predictions of scenarios nor evaluation of those predictions after the fact are common in part because urban systems are hugely complex and difficult to predict and in part because the planning process is largely political (not meant in a pejorative sense) and doesn’t expect accurate predictions.
Traffic planning is an exception, of course. When the road system is not performing precisely as expected, hundreds of thousands of people who experience the discrepancy firsthand every day will demand an immediate change. Other aspects of urban planning do not have this immediately visible cause and effect. Traffic planning also tends to be carried out by engineers. They will gladly collect and crunch truckloads of data, predicting outcomes to within seconds and land required within inches, and then monitoring afterwards.
Even traffic planning models only hold as long as we keep all external variables, like buildings, uses, and economic factors, constant. Land use planning is not only all about these external factors, but about decisions made by a million individuals, which can take years to be translated into action. Without a microsimulation model of the players encompassing all of these interconnected factors, like the University of Washington’s UrbanSim for instance, and trainloads of data and tuning, there is no hope of being sufficiently predictive to inform policy decisions.
The other problem is that urban planning consists of many disparate decisions years apart. The path through the cascading decisions from a comprehensive plan through to zoning and permits replace the issues of achieving specific objectives to ones of simple conformity with the letter of a document that was designed to be flexible and vague enough to avoid seeming arbitrary. None of the individual decisions are evaluated for achievement of overall objectives because no one knows in advance how many individual projects will be built and which of the many permitted choices will be selected. Overall objectives tend to be stated in the top level plans, the ones that have little ability to influence the individual decisions that will achieve those objectives.
When a cluster of road deaths or injuries is detected, transportation planners are notified and expected to fix the problem. But when the mental or physical health of individuals is affected by built form and distribution of uses, by pollution, the absence of safe places for children to play or the lack of jobs or affordable housing or good schools, no one thinks of holding urban planners to account, even if objectives were clearly spelled out in planning documents and not achieved. Expectations of predictability are so low and responsibility so diffuse that achieving objectives, if they are even measured, is an unexpected surprise. More often than not the planning documents were based on the fashionable beliefs of previous decades, about which current planners know little except that they were mistaken.
It’s time to build an evidence-based urban planning discipline. It’s a transformation of the profession whose time has come.
Martin Laplante, PhD, is Vice-President of RES Policy Research, an Ottawa-based consulting company. His consulting for municipal clients and business and community groups focuses on quantitative studies, models, and technology. He has been neglecting his blog, Reverse Zone, lately.
2010
11/15
CATEGORY
News Today
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the News Today 10/18/2010

Merkel says German multi-cultural society has failed, by Audrey Kauffmann, Sun Oct 17, 11:50 am ET
BERLIN (AFP) – Germany’s attempt to create a multi-cultural society has failed completely, Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the weekend, calling on the country’s immigrants to learn German and adopt Christian values.
Merkel weighed in for the first time in a blistering debate sparked by a central bank board member saying the country was being made “more stupid” by poorly educated and unproductive Muslim migrants.
“Multikulti”, the concept that “we are now living side by side and are happy about it,” does not work, Merkel told a meeting of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party at Potsdam near Berlin.
“This approach has failed, totally,” she said, adding that immigrants should integrate and adopt Germany’s culture and values.
“We feel tied to Christian values. Those who don’t accept them don’t have a place here,” said the chancellor.
“Subsidising immigrants” isn’t sufficient, Germany has the right to “make demands” on them, she added, such as mastering the language of Goethe and abandoning practices such as forced marriages.
Merkel spoke a week after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which they pledged to do more to improve the often poor integration record of Germany’s 2.5-million-strong Turkish community.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul, in a weekend interview, also urged the Turkish community living in Germany to master the language of their adopted country.
“When one doesn’t speak the language of the country in which one lives that doesn’t serve anyone, neither the person concerned, the country, nor the society,” the Turkish president told the Suedeutsche Zeitung.
“That is why I tell them at every opportunity that they should learn German, and speak it fluently and without an accent. That should start at nurseries.”
German President Christian Wulff was due for a five-day visit to Turkey and talks with the country’s leaders on Monday.
The immigration debate has at times threatened to split Merkel’s conservative party, and she made noises to both wings of the debate.
While saying that the government needed to encourage the training of Muslim clerics in Germany, Merkel said “Islam is part of Germany”, echoeing the recent comments of Wulff, a liberal voice in the party.
Horst Seehofer, the leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, CSU, who represents the right-wing, recently said Germany did not “need more immigrants from different cultures like the Turks and Arabs” who are “more difficult” to integrate.
While warning against “immigration that weighs down on our social system”, Merkel said Germany needed specialists from overseas to keep the pace of its economic development.
According to the head of the German chamber of commerce and industry, Hans Heinrich Driftmann, Germany is in urgent need of about 400,000 engineers and qualified workers, whose lack is knocking about one percent off the country’s growth rate.
The integration of Muslims has been a hot button issue since August when a member of Germany’s central bank sparked outrage by saying the country was being made “more stupid” by poorly educated and unproductive Muslim migrants with headscarves.
The banker, Thilo Sarrazin, has since resigned but his book on the subject — “Germany Does Itself In” — has flown off the shelves, and polls showed considerable sympathy for some of his views.
A recent study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation think tank showed around one-third of Germans feel the country is being “over-run by foreigners” and the same percentage feel foreigners should be sent home when jobs are scarce.
Nearly 60 percent of the 2,411 people polled thought the around four million Muslims in Germany should have their religious practices “significantly curbed.”
Far-right attitudes are found not only at the extremes of German society, but “to a worrying degree at the centre of society,” the think tank said in its report.
“Hardly eight weeks have passed since publication of Sarrazin’s theory of decline, and the longer the debate continues to a lower level it falls,” the weekly Der Spiegel commented Sunday.
2010
10/18
CATEGORY
News Today
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the News Today 10/14/2010

RSPB blasted for ‘outdated prejudice’ against pesticides
AN RSPB proposal to tax pesticides and other farm inputs to raise money to protect the environment has been rubbished by the crop protection industry.
A tax on pesticide and fertilizer use would reduce farmers’ negative behaviour and ‘unlock private finance’ according an RSPB paper, Financing Nature in an Age of Austerity, which contains a number of other less controversial suggestions including a conservation credit system.
the Article
Legislative Support for a Local Food System
The act of buying locally grown food rebuilds local economies while reconnecting us with our food supply. Supporting a local food infrastructure in Kentucky would create jobs and support our rural communities, which have seen job upon job milked away by industrialized farming techniques killing communities and draining us of our farming culture. It would make sense then that municipalities would support this sort of development, especially in tough economic times as these. Well, wait no more – well, at least if you live in Illinois.
the Article
2010
10/14
CATEGORY
News Today
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the News Today

back from a rather long hiatus, the news about urban agriculture is back! Here’s what’s happening…

‘Cabbagegate’: Man Fined $5K for Home Garden
His neighbors call it “Cabbagegate.” And it cost Steve Miller a lot of green. The Clarkston, Ga., man was fined $5,200 for growing too many vegetables in his backyard.
Warehouses to Urban Farms
Yesterday’s infrastructure can become tomorrow’s agriculture, says Ed Harwood, by converting underused industrial warehouses and factories to hydroponic and aeroponic growing.
The New York City School of Urban Agriculture opens
Just Food and an alliance of local horticultural and food justice organizations are pleased to announce the official launch of Farm School NYC: The New York City School of Urban Agriculture. The school will offer a unique, community-based certificate program with enrollment beginning in January 2011. The mission of the school is to provide comprehensive professional training in urban agriculture, while spurring positive local action on issues of food access and social, economic and racial justice.
11 Unbuilt Visions for Stalled Urban Architecture Projects
The economy has brought development to a grinding halt in cities around the world, leaving partially completed skyscrapers and other buildings as open wounds in the urban landscape. But not everyone is content to keep them that way, and architects and designers are envisioning some incredible eco-friendly ways to rehab and re-purpose the space, which includes several dormant sites in Boston, a tower in Athens, the Chicago Spire site and empty lots in Seattle.
Adam Werbach’s book ‘Extinction/Adaptation’
Adam Werbach is thinking about the plight of the axolotl, an impossibly cute salamander that is going extinct in the wild. There are fewer than 1,000 of the small blue-eyed creatures living in a lake in Mexico. Yet it can be ordered online for home fish tanks.
Living in a City Tree
Tami Zori is scrubbing jars in her kitchen sink with a clay-colored goop made from used lemon halves left to ferment. “Then I mix them with vinegar and I get this not-very-nice paste – but it works, especially in a kitchen that has no meat and very little oil.”
Early stagecoach route is a favorite with bicyclists
Extending from the east edge of Solvang north to Los Olivos, the 4-mile-long artery follows Alamo Pintado Creek (the name means Painted Cottonwood) between a series of low hills.
A century and a half ago, this was one of the county’s earliest stagecoach routes. Today, one is more likely to encounter bicyclists pedaling on the road, designated the Dan Henry Bike Route. Seeing a horseback rider isn’t out of the question.
Urban Gardeners Beware: There May Be Lead In Your Soil And Food
Not since victory gardens helped World War II era Americans on the home front survive food shortages have urban gardens been as necessary and popular as they are today. With more food production in cities, the safety of the produce grown there becomes increasingly important.
Transition as a Pattern Language: Local Food Initiatives
In Transition initiatives, often it is local food projects which are the first PRACTICAL MANIFESTATIONS to get established. They can be one of the first opportunities to practice SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP meaningfully, and offer a good place to start creating STRATEGIC LOCAL INFRASTRUCTURE.
THE PLANT – Chicago’s 1st Vertical Farm Re-Use Project
The Plant is Chicago’s first vertical farm, and the first to be built within an existing structure. John Edel is heading a team to convert the Peer Food Products building (formerly Buehler Brothers), a 93,500sqf former pig processing plant into a farm for aquaponics production and testing. Critically important to the project is the re-use aspect of the operation.
More Big Government with the Farm Bill
The truth is most farmers simply want honest pay for honest work. However, if the government is providing competing farms with advantages, and one wants to remain a farmer, one must seek a proportional advantage from government. It is a difficult position for the farmer.
Maps of Entropia
Julie Mehretu’s work is a cartography of building and dissolution. In her watercolors, etchings and paintings, she begins with tracings of architectural diagrams, urban planning grids or weather charts. She layers watercolor strokes, colored forms and gestural scribblings over the maps as her own challenge to the structure with which she began. According to the artist, the resulting pieces stand as challenges to the contemporary economic and political powers that be.
Posts Tagged ‘bad urban planning’
The New York Times Opinionator blog has a fascinating slideshow of the work of Christoph Gielen, a German-born photographer who has been shooting various landscapes — particularly, sprawl — from a helicopter for the past five years. His subjects include prison exercise yards, Sun Belt suburbs, and other geometric locations. To discover the most photogenic locations from an overhead view(which often corresponded to horrific locations from a direct view) Gielen searched regions by satellite, and then returned to his mapped locations in a chopper.
2010
10/13
CATEGORY
News Today
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Funding Opportunities for Individuals and Groups

These websites offer funding opportunities for projects that might not otherwise have access to funding. While philanthropists usually tend to give support for 501 (c) 3 organizations, the following sites do not require such tax status to receive support. Each site has its own requirements, rules and regulations so check them all out before deciding which one to go with.

Finding funding for individuals without a tax status to back them up is sometimes a challenge. However, these website have a proven record of getting money to people who are, well, just people, not organizations. See for yourself!

Kickstarter

Kickstarter is a new way to fund creative ideas and ambitious endeavors. We believe that…

  • A good idea, communicated well, can spread fast and wide
  • A large group of people can be a tremendous source of money and encouragement

Kickstarter is powered by a unique all-or-nothing funding method where project must be fully-funded or no money changes hands.

http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq#WhatIsKick

Global Giving

GlobalGiving connects you to the causes and countries you care about. You select projects you want to support, make a tax-deductible contribution, and get regular progress updates – so you can see how your gift is making a difference.

http://www.globalgiving.org/

IndieGoGo

IndieGoGo is a collaborative way to fund ideas.

IndieGoGo provides an easy online platform for anyone to promote projects, engage a fan base, and get ideas funded. We provide all the tools you need to build a campaign and share it with the world.

http://www.indiegogo.com/about/faqs

Kickstarter


2010
10/13
CATEGORY
Capacity Building
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Sin Creates Distance from God

At Park Community Church, the pastors have been studying the life of David for about two years now. I’ve been attending the church for a couple months. I like it. They have three campuses and I’ve been attending the campus at South of the Loop – which is now to be called University Village. The church is doing some really great things for the community and for the city of Chicago. One of my desires for this blog has been to update every week with my sermon notes from each Sunday. I’ve been a little sporadic, but this week I plan to commit to weekly posts from here on out.

Sin creates distance from God. What is sin? Well, sin is anything that is not beneficial to the Church. That is, sin is anything that disrupts the community of Godly people – the body of Christ. We are the church. The people are the church. Our actions directly affect the people that we commune with = everybody. As we are strong, our families are strong. As our families are strong, the community is strong. As the communities are strong, the city is strong, and the world.

The simple advice is “be nice to people.” But the deep truth is that we must be vigilant Christians. We must be vigilant within our own lives and within our close relationships to honor the Kingdom of God in His righteousness. We must make Heaven on Earth by allowing it to flow through our daily actions.

When we sin, when we align ourselves with thoughts, feelings and actions that promote uncleanliness, unholiness and things that are not inspired by the Gospel, we are limiting God’s power. God has ultimate authority and we cannot avoid Him. Well, we can, that’s our choice. However, we cannot avoid the consequences of our sin, our choosed distancing from God. Whenever we choose to authorize a power other than God’s supreme love (sinning), we are choosing to remove ourselves from the calling that God has intended for us and thus we remove ourselves from His Holy Affection.

This does not mean we should seek the REWARD of God’s bounty just because it is more plentiful and will gain our stance amongst fellow humans. Seeking God’s love is an act of charity. It is an act of compassion for life and ultimately and act of God. We are conduits for the Love of God and must identify with this, our true nature. God has created us within His image, leading us to salvation by the mere installment of our being on this earth. We are here for a purpose, yet when sin is our existence, the result is identity crisis.

Sin creates a crisis of identity because it aligns our energies to a devotion of things unholy. True pleasure, bounty and well-being are existent only because God allows this to happen. Quite reassuringly, we have a built in mechanism for recognizing our sin – Guilt. This beautiful thing will allow us to recognize our wrong choices. It is a signal of wrong doing and should be heeding with upmost regard for the Love of God. It should not be used for the purpose of gaining ground. In other words, Guilt is a sign for the need of repentance, the need to reform our actions to a more worthy lifestyle.

Repentance is not for seeking blessings. Telling God that you will never do this again is not repentance. It is using God. Repentance is getting right with God. It’s about aligning our lifestyles with God’s will. It’s about allowing God to flow through us. It’s about ACTION.

God’s will is in your heart. It is alive in you. Accepting this is allowing God to make your choices. Choosing them is your free will. And honestly, when God has control, life is flowing like a river and will not stop. Like a river that flows to the sea, it’s water are carried up into the heavens, falling down again like rain and growing prosperous life throughout the lands.

2010
09/07
CATEGORY
God
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of God and Man

i just want to sit here for a while and type. i don’t even want my eyes open. now. it’s like i’m sleeping and my dreams are interpreted  through my fingers. could this be possible?, could i train myself to stay awake while sleeping for the purpose of being able to channel my dreams through my body and out through my fingers into the keyboard for recording? if i could type as fast as i think…but then i could always train myself to slow down the dreams, but then that would be way too much. too much so that i could have already become my dreams before i was able to ever record them down.

time then is a fickle thing. how can we the interpreters of time limit ourselves by it. it is our own creation. it is our beast that we have emulated. do we make things in our image as god has made us in his…or theirs? I certainly hope so. because then, we already understand everything and have the power to learn it. if there was only creation of man, and we could create nothing as much better than ourselves, could we not then already understand everything?

i believe it is so. i believe that we can. i believe that we already have and that we must go ahead and remember that we already understand it. yes, we can.

what then would there be any need for humanity to suffer unto its own devices? should then man realize his subbordination to nature? or, as the bible claims, man had dominion over nature. yet as we see in the world, man has created gods to assemble the benevolence of natural phenomena in the purgation of homosapians from its face. entire populations have been depleted because nature took its course. god is the ultimate in creating natural causes? welll, nature is gods creation so we have determined. god, being nature, haveing dominion over his creation, has the will of nature upon his hand. thus, god and nature are one. more precise, nature is gods outlet; a force to be used much like a tool. however, it is perhaps more paintbrush than it is a wrench or hammer. nature is the breath of god; moaning out cries of terror and frustration. lack and laziness the apparent sins. while greed and manipulation, or forgery, nigh plagiarism are reserved for more evolved/escalated sinner behavioral environments.

therefore, when one sees nature in raw form, god is at his most creative. the ultimate force of creativity, god as the unlimited ration of medium, canvas and instrument in funneling expressive energies. man is but part of this schism. it is man who was enrolled. man did not enroll. as such, man is at his best when he escapes the reality of self inflammation and personal worship for an existence in the realm of true creativity.

true creativity is the expression of god in oneself. letting go the life of inner persuit, one will realize there is a stream of life, a river flowing through the entire sphere of existence that emulates all things. when god’s use of energetic creative growth, man is apt to allow these creative energies to be funneled through him, that he may become part of the new religion.

this new religion escapes man in the form of inflamed ego. he discards the notion of any force greater than him, disjoining the reign of truth from his personal reality. thus, man becomes inspired by that which is in opposition to god. the adversary.

the adversary is satan. the dark as opposed to the light is man’s inner sanctuary. it is a place where only he knows where to find things. man is himself satan. he is the beholder of knowledge, carnal and pure in intention but without confidence in the light of omnipotence. satan has the ability to be more raw, emotional and courageous in appearance to other men whom have forsaken the light for his inner darkness. filtering the truth through his learned behavior, satan of man has limited himself by default.

2010
09/07
CATEGORY
God
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