City Comforts, the blog

Such a tempting allusion

2013-05-08T13:41:16-07:00

Seventh Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium Unveils New Technology.

The Symposium included not only technology, but seriously looked at how neighborhoods and society in general can integrate these new technologies in a more responsible way than the current helter-skelter world which pulls us away from family and community. What point is there in having magical things and messy lives?

I've got a message into the Symposium folks to find out more.

J Street Recommends...

2013-03-22T15:20:17-07:00

The Gatekeepers and I took its advice and watched it at a local J Street Seattle showing and discussion last weekend.

I thought that the movie shot itself in the foot -- it was more Hollywood than C-Span. That was very unfortunate. The movie got caught up in issues of morality and cinema-graphic honesty (I think the movie was dishonest to show re-enactments of past historical events and ineffective to boot.)

The big takeaway from the movie is that five (or six) experienced, top Israeli security officials — all of whom are Israeli patriots of the highest order, all past directors of Shin Bet — are saying that Israeli governmental policy is misguided and not going down the right path. Current policies are not working. Forget about any other issue; forget about morality, the Jewish way etc etc — whatever. Past top Israeli security officials say it is not working.

And that was the huge lesson I took away --- five Israeli patriots, who understand the facts better than almost anyone, are saying that Israel needs to change policies.

No American Jew who watches that can dismiss J Street and Peace Now opinions as anti-Israel propoganda. One can still disagree with the officials in the movie but the issue of criticism of Israeli policy as anti-Israel has to be dismissed.

Too bad the movie got diverted into Hollywood re-eneactments and kvetching about "morality."

I urge the movie-makers to re-edit the film to make it more C-Span and less Hollywood.

I have asked about Deaf Smith County Peanut Butter

2013-03-22T14:57:26-07:00

I have asked at perhaps tiresome length:here, here, here, here, here, and here. Maybe even more times.

And finally Jon Krampner has given us the fascinating and well-recounted story of Deaf Smith County PB (and much much more) here, in Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food. (Much congratulations, Jon!)

"marijuana tourism"

2013-02-21T07:49:19-08:00

I was serious when I asked "Is marijuana tourism far behind?"

If conservative farmers want to grow pot — and who knows, maybe even smoke it — then hoteliers will surely want to remind prospective visitors to Washington State, which indeed has mind-bending natural beauties, that smoking marijuana is/will be legal.

Perhaps marketing efforts for major conventions (OK maybe not certain groups) will include a reminder to convention organizers that convention-goers will be able to get high.

Or perhaps a cute little boutique B&B in the San Juan Islands will include "legal marijuana" in its ads?

What rational 50 year old corporate lawyer would like to get stoned legally — without the dim worry in the back of his/her mind that a marijuana bust could be a career-ender?

I think so. "Marijuana tourism" will have significant economic benefits

Of course Colorado has a jump with its "Rocky Mountain High" tag line.

Is marijuana tourism far behind?

2013-02-20T09:15:36-08:00

Skagit farmers would like to grow marijuana

Posted: Feb 20, 2013 8:47 AM PST Updated: Feb 20, 2013 8:47 AM PST MOUNT VERNON, Wash. (AP) - Many of the people at Tuesday night's marijuana forum in Mount Vernon had a small-farm mentality. The Skagit Valley Herald reports (http://bit.ly/XpjQB4 ) many of the comments to the state Liquor Control Board recommended using small farmers instead of corporations to produce the drug. Others suggested being allowed to "grow your own" or being able to sell marijuana from farm stands. One man who said cannabis shops would boost fast food sales lit up a joint at the end of his testimony. The forum was the fifth in a series the liquor board is holding as it drafts regulations for the production and sale of marijuana made legal by voters in November. Other forums are planned in Tacoma, Yakima and Bremerton. Liquor Control Board: http://liq.wa.gov/ Information from: Skagit Valley Herald, http://www.skagitvalleyherald.com Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Another city comfort: air when you are getting flat

2012-07-25T13:39:13-07:00

Air pump for bikes.

An urban Home Deput.
Vancouver, BC
Cambie and Broadway

Is the vandalism so enormous that it warrants complete destruction of memory?

2012-07-21T18:20:25-07:00

To:
Rob Mattson
Neighborhood District Coordinator
Seattle Department of Neighborhoods

Hi Rob.

You may have seen the email/link at EveryBlock on Murals to be painted out. Before I get into the substance I'd like show some photos I just took to show the condition of the murals, in case folks haven't had a chance to see them. (click to enlarge)

I shot these along N 63rd Street under Aurora:

These are on NW 57th under Greenwood, which is a charming entry to the Zoo, below:

I'd also like to preface my questions by pointing out that I have a soft-spot in my heart for murals in public. They can be idiosyncratic and add personality to a neighborhood. I wrote about murals on page 205 of City Comforts: How to Build an Urban Village.

That said, while I like murals I acknowledge that not everything works everywhere . Sometimes the party is over. But before I personally offer an opinion on what to do with the murals, I'd like to ask you the following questions and hope you have time to answer.

1. Have neighbors complained? In significant numbers?
2. What is the perceived urgency of painting over them? Is it a matter of public health, safety and morals?
3. What is the cost of painting over the murals? I assume that it is not huge but every penny counts. What's the cost comparison between "painting over" and "cleaming up"?
4. Who, or which division, made the decision to paint over the murals?
5. What outreach and inquiries been made to clean up the murals? i.e. to known muralists, neighborhood or arts groups?
6. Why suggest, as you do above, painting a new mural (presumably at the same site) when the City or sponsoring groups obviously are not able to keep them tidy?

I want to make it clear that my questions are not in the form of gotchas. I am genuinely curious. Sure, am I a bit skeptical now? Yes. But after reflection I might well agree that there is no choice but to destroy the little bits of social memory in the tunnels.

Personally, I don't find the existing murals — even with the graffiti — particularly offensive. They certainly do not show any vulgar/objectionable (e.g. racist or unpatriotic) language. But perhaps others disagree or there are some other policy/practical matters that I have missed.

Are they pristine and tidy? Probably not. But so what? We live in a city and I suspect that if you paint over the existing mural and create a bright clean clank slate, the City will simply be inviting taggers and graffiti-ists to do their thing. So what have you gotten you.

Btw, as a commercial property-owner I know that when finding graffiti, the typical and correct response is to get rid of it. ASAP. Immediately. Today. I just wonder if such response is appropriate for these murals.

I hope to hear from you,
Dave

I just never thought of it that way.

2012-07-21T15:52:58-07:00

I am now 'mid-century.'

Could be a lot worse though I am not a big fan of avocado appliances and tail fins and racists at Little Rock High Schools, which only other "mid-centuries" will understand.

The magic of a city comfort — people know even without being told

2012-07-12T13:15:52-07:00

The Seattle Times: Photos of the Day | Thursday, July 5, 2012

In a Wednesday July 4, 2012 photo, Fair St. Louis air show enthusiasts huddle under the shadow of the Gateway Arch. With temperatures continuing in the triple digits, the moving shadow offered a respite to searing summer heat.

ROBERT COHEN / St. Louis Post-Dispatch

People knew that it was hot — and without having to be told — that it would be cooler in the shade.

"Little Free Library" — a new 'city comfort'

2012-07-12T10:28:12-07:00

Little Free Libraries pop up in Puget Sound area

photo MARK HARRISON / THE SEATTLE TIMES

More here: Little Free Library

Patagonia & me — once a month on average since September 2011

2012-07-09T08:33:04-07:00

Do you receive a Patagonia catalog once per month (on average)?

Or am I on a special customer list? Needing extra encouragement? (Which seems possible since I haven't bought anything from Patagonia for at least 3-4 years — I just simply don't need anything....oh not completely true: I could use a new pair of the Patagonia Stand Up Shorts.)

The catalogs are luscious eye candy, the models, the landscapes and even the clothes. And they get me going to check for airline tickets to exotic places, to the gym to try to look sleek and to wonder if I could throw out some old clothes so I could buy new ones. Yes, the Patagonia catalogs work.

But I do need one every moth? As I noted in "Claim less and deliver more" — is Patagonia doing that? I love Patagonia stuff — it's part of my own bucket-list-fantasy.

But a mailed, shipped-by-oil, remnant of a tree every month? I am no hard-line sustainability geek — but are there no limits? To Patagonia catalogs? Or, are we running into reality — Patagonia is a business and everyone likes money (ownership and staff) and that simple fishing trip to Patagonia (the land) is not free. The issue is not Patagonia but how do we live lightly and yet luxuriously. Part of it is to buy things which last. But do I need a Patagonia catalog once a month? Apparently the Patagonia marketing people think I do — and who am I to disagree?

Here's the real-life dissonance, as delivered to my door, and on the approximate dates, (which from a marketing perspective is intertesting):

(click to enlarge -- and they really are lovely photos.)

Temple Grandin foremost as traffic calming observer?

2012-07-08T19:50:59-07:00

I just wrote a post about Temple Grandin as urban designer? and I probably should modify my suggestion. Grandin might well be an urban designer but — with obvious reference to her work — perhaps her significance is as a transportation planner with particular emphasis on traffic-calming.

What did Grandin (most famously) do?

She calmed the cattle on its way into the slaughter house.

Without drawing too fine an analogy, what she was doing was "traffic calming." Yes it was animal behavior in general but very specifically she was observing and designing for calming cattle moving forward.

Now, as an aside, if there is one big thing wrong with the typical approach to "traffic calming" as an urban design practice, it is that there is too much emphasis on the "traffic" and too little on "the driver."

"Traffic" calming may be the goal but the means is really "driver" calming. That's a subtle but huge shift of perspective.

Temple Grandin as urban designer? Maybe so indeed.

2012-07-08T18:42:53-07:00

If Temple Grandin has design insights about cattle animals, she might very well have design insights about human animals.

------

Just recently, I watched the HBO movie Temple Grandin. The movie is well-worth watching. It was a surprise; I had no idea of her work beyond the name. But the moment I saw the movie, I said, "Hot damn! She's a designer! Wow! I'd like to ask her about cities!"

------

Her work, for example:

Photo and text in italics from Livestock Handling Systems, Cattle Corrals, Stockyards, and Races.

This section of Grandin.Com contains drawings of cattle corral designs with curved races. Curved cattle chutes are more efficient for handling cattle because they take advantage of the natural behavior of cattle. Cattle move through curved races more easily because they have a natural tendency to go back to where they came from. In the computer aided drawing section there are layout drawings of cattle yard designs for both large and small ranches and feedlots. There are also drawings of a cattle loading ramp for trucks, diagonal stockyard pens for cattle, and detail drawings of a single file race and cattle dip vat. If you are planning to build new corrals or other cattle handling facilites you can download blueprints of cattle pen layouts that will reduce stress on cattle and improve handling efficiency.

------

Temple Grandin is autistic. She has insights into animal behavior which makes the design of the slaughter process more humane. She changed the design (for example, closed sight lines and cleaning baths as one example) to lessen the terror of disturbed and confused the animals which create created fear and cost. As a woman, and autistic, she had to fight to get her ideas used.

Grandin was able to see a better and more humane (relatively-speaking) way to run a slaughter-house.

So might Temple Grandin have thoughts to offer about cities? At first glance, you'd think nothing. She's a country girl, spends her time on ranches...blah-blah-blah.

But wait a sec, what is urban design all about? It's about understanding human behavior to design more humane (comfortable in my terminology) cities. If Temple Grandin has design insights about cattle animals, she might very well have design insights about human animals.

Temple Grandin, by her own words as I understood, is not interested in individual people much less groups of people. That doesn't mean that she dislikes people but that because she is autistic she simply is uninterested in them. She doesn't relate to them — no life of the party! no hanging out in coffee shops! (Maybe I mis-understand, just my superficial take. And she sure seems like an amiable, open person so I'm a bit confused.)

Anyway, liking something and observing it are totally different things. You may study ants, or clouds or sub-atomic particles and gain great insights into them but not really like them. So it may be with Grandin.

So, I'd be very curious to hear what observations that Grandin might have about cities.

Or if she claims that she hasn't had any insights, I'd ask her to start taking a look at human settlements in her daily life and in her wider travels. Her insights may not bubble-up on their own but I wonder if in conversation with a skilled interlocutor, she might not say some very interesting things to say about cities.

So I just betcha that a woman who has insights into animal behavior and the design of spaces would have insights into human settlement.

I am obviously not the first to ask along such lines: see Temple Grandin Airport Interview - Airport Security and Animals - Popular Mechanics. Lots of common-sense there and I bet she has more to say about human settlements in general.

I bet that the Congress for the New Urbanism would have the smarts to invite her for its annual shindig. Involve her in some useful way. Broaden the circle yet further. Bring-in yet more perspectives.

"Claim less, deliver more" — is Patagonia doing so in the case of the NYT ad?

2012-07-08T10:24:30-07:00

What's wrong with this picture? Great ad but and you believe its sincerity? Might it it simply just a cleverer (and thus slimier way) to sell products? Create an institutional bond so the customer will think of Patagonia fondly? Or is life more complicated? Positive/negative, black/white. Yin/Yang, thesis/antithesis, all wrapped in one great jacket?

Read Patagonia's own explanation:

The Cleanest Line: Don't Buy This Jacket, Black Friday and the New York Times.

Ad, of course, copyright by Patagonia.

I love Patagonia products and have many of its items. (Though I haven't bought as many in the past few years because the colors are yucky.) Still, Patagonia is top-notch and I have never been sorry about buying anything.

BUT...I noticed something: a huge number of snail mail, paper catalogs. They are lovely and arousing for any materialist such as moi.

I've been keeping track of them for the past almost-a-year and steady as a rock, I get one every month, on average.

See next post.

The Mayor Bloomberg Health-and-Capitalism Award

2012-06-25T11:13:24-07:00

As to banning supersized sodas, my fellow capitalist Mayor Bloomberg may not make everyone happy. (e.g. Bloomberg Soda Ban Wins Few Fans, But Fat Tax May Fare Better).

And judging from a convenience store I found in Cle Elum, Washington, a lot of people don't care either about diabetes or a capitalist pricing system:

Being a market-oriented shopper of course I bought the 32 oz which went along well with the gourmet, spicy "WOWsabi Trail Mix."

Why the same price for twice as much product? I have no idea. The merchant saw me take photos — I was laughing aloud — and we chatted a moment. He said that "It makes everyone happy: kids, parents, me." I didn't say anything about Mayor Bloomberg and public health officials.

The only thing I can figure about the pricing is either:
• the cost of the materials for either size (soda syrup, soda water, cup, general overhead etc) is so close as to make it not worthy of consideration; (but why not at 44 oz?);
• the price is a loss leader to get people in the door to buy other stuff;
• or some mixture of both.

In any case I gained by a huge, genuine laugh at living in gluttony nation, which was only reinforced by a traffic jam as I entered I-90, 85 miles from Seattle in the middle of cow country — beautiful but with no one there.

Off the record at the White House? Then why announce it?

2012-05-22T09:27:30-07:00

Email received yesterday from SustainableCommunities@HUD.GOV:

Friends:

On Wednesday, May 23rd at 4:00 p.m. EDT, please join us for a budget update call with Robert Gordon, Executive Associate Director at the Office of Management and Budget.

We ask that you share this invitation with your networks and affiliates.

Please RSVP here to join us, and please be sure to dial in 10 minutes early so that we are able to start the call on time.

Thank you,

The White House Office of Public Engagement

WHAT: White House Update Call

WHEN: Wednesday, May 23^rd

Start Time: 4:00 p.m. EDT

Dial In: (800) 230-1951
Passcode Title: White House Update Call

This call is off the record and not for press purposes. (emphasis added - DS)

Link found here as well:
White House Update Call - May 23 | The White House.

---------------

I fail to understand why "off the record", if Robert Gordon is offering any remarks at all.

Sounds dumb to me. I may have subscribed to this "SustainableCommunities" but I may very well have placed on it because I have a blog. In any case, my reason for even being on the list is to -- in my own small way -- to act as "press," though in a very opinionated format.

Can someone (and I know it's not you but the White House) explain why they want to tell what I assujme is a large group of people but then not tell people? About sustainable communities? Is asking for "off the record" a way to generated more interest?

I can understand why privacy in government is reasonable, in different degrees, from pending military action and announcement of crop reports to policy-under-discussion but not approved. But in such cases one simply keeps it secret.

Any suggestions?

Philippe Starck Fitness Equipment -- Is it functional?

2012-05-19T19:01:26-07:00

When he's not finding ways to get you drunk in mere seconds, Philippe Starck spends his time designing some of the most beautiful everyday objects we've ever seen. From juicers, to hard drives, to now a set of stunning fitness gear including free weights and jump ropes.

Created for Italian brand Alias, the HGO collection—which stands for 'home', 'office', and 'gym'—also includes a tall rack designed to store the hollow sets of one and two kilogram free weights. And a luxurious folding mat with a leather finish that most users would probably be worried about sweating on.

via gizmodo.com

Who worked with Starcke on the design?
There are a host of functional requirements and it would be interesting to know the experience behind his design.
For example, his free weights look extremely smooth.
Is that what you really want when you are sweating and holding a heavy weight above your head or doing a chest press? You want non-skid. (The ones they appear to show are very light but I assume they will have more)


So it remains to be seen whether Starcke's designs are of any significance.

I left a comment

2012-05-08T21:03:07-07:00

Read the post, Generations of Environmentalism, and the post to which it linked Don't call me an environmentalist and then here's my comment:

I am confused by this discussion — both Curtis’ post at Grist and then this one here at Lawyers, Guns & Money— and it’s not because I can’t read or know environmental history, having been part of it. (FWIW, I organized one of the very first "environmental fairs" anywhere, at the University of Washington in 1969.)

Honestly, I am not sure what Curtis is claiming but it sounds as if she is saying that environmentalists of the sixties didn’t care about transformation of the economy. Didn’t get sustainability? Right? Is that it?

Well if that is it, then she is misinformed. I can go on chapter and verse but I want to make sure I spend the time making sure I understand what she is saying. Specifically. Not just broad generalizations without any examples.

So what is she saying? And what is Loomis saying? Call me old and decrepit if you like. But I know my history and I was there and sustainability has been part of the story from the 1950s onward. Environmentalism (David Brower for example) was not just about saving charismatic species and landscapes.