Warning: This link includes references to drunken revelers, frustrated neighbors, soiled panties, and 29 inches. When it comes to the struggles of managing our relationships with strangers in urban spaces, this story reveals a whole new level of ewwwww.
1010 WINS: Residents Hang Panties...
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Save the cities? Bring in the bulldozers!
Just after being asked to review a proposed journal article about new urbanism, I've come across a recent news piece in the London Telegraph about one response to the crises of old urbanism: bulldozing swaths of wrecked streets and abandoned homes to shrink the size of rust-belt cities to more sustainable sizes.
Flint, Michigan, which has been eviscerated by the collapse of the auto industry and the related rise of poverty, crime, and despair, illustrates this trend with plans to contract its borders by "as much as 40 percent."
According to the article's author, Tom Leonard, so many houses have already been pulled down that, "some streets peter out into woods or meadows, no trace remaining of the homes that once stood there." One vision of a New Flint is to fortify smaller, more compact parts of town with health and education services and allow green spaces to flow between them.
The article cites research by the Brookings Institution that identifies 50 rust belt cities that may require similar retrenchment.
Read the article: US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive
Flint, Michigan, which has been eviscerated by the collapse of the auto industry and the related rise of poverty, crime, and despair, illustrates this trend with plans to contract its borders by "as much as 40 percent."
According to the article's author, Tom Leonard, so many houses have already been pulled down that, "some streets peter out into woods or meadows, no trace remaining of the homes that once stood there." One vision of a New Flint is to fortify smaller, more compact parts of town with health and education services and allow green spaces to flow between them.
The article cites research by the Brookings Institution that identifies 50 rust belt cities that may require similar retrenchment.
Read the article: US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Wood Writing Guide - Use vs. Utilize
The desire to craft and read decent prose (or similarly utter and hear good words) confronts distressing trends of text-speak and over-writing. Text-speak, the abandonment of correctness in place of convenience, is a topic I'll address some other time. But over-writing deserves some attention now. One example of over-writing? Folks who use the word "utilize" when they mean "use."
Read enough corporate or academic memos (there's still a difference between the two, no matter how increasingly small) and you will encounter the words "use" and "utilize" employed interchangeably. And if the author is attempting to establish her or his credibility, you can guess what word will appear more often: "utilize."
Why? Perhaps "utilize," with its three syllables, sounds more impressive than "use" with its mere one syllable. And we all want our words to bolster our credibility, right? However, if your goal is precision rather than puffery, you might want to know the difference between "use" and "utilize."
• "Use" refers to the typical employment of something or someone.
• "Utilize" refers to a novel employment of something or someone.
Examples:
"I used my computer to write this blog."
"I utilized my computer as a paperweight."
See? The "use" is expected. The "utilization" is unexpected.
In reading other blog posts that tackle this topic, I encountered a rebuke to another author's call to distinguish between "use" and "utilize." The respondent said something like this: "Don't get so caught up with rules, dude! Writing is about sharing, not about regulation." Fair enough. No one wants to kill language with pointless rules. But I still advocate for precision in language. To that end, I invite you to consider the subtle variances between commonly conflated words. You might as well start with "use" and "utilize."
Know of any others? Please post a comment.
Read enough corporate or academic memos (there's still a difference between the two, no matter how increasingly small) and you will encounter the words "use" and "utilize" employed interchangeably. And if the author is attempting to establish her or his credibility, you can guess what word will appear more often: "utilize."
Why? Perhaps "utilize," with its three syllables, sounds more impressive than "use" with its mere one syllable. And we all want our words to bolster our credibility, right? However, if your goal is precision rather than puffery, you might want to know the difference between "use" and "utilize."
• "Use" refers to the typical employment of something or someone.
• "Utilize" refers to a novel employment of something or someone.
Examples:
"I used my computer to write this blog."
"I utilized my computer as a paperweight."
See? The "use" is expected. The "utilization" is unexpected.
In reading other blog posts that tackle this topic, I encountered a rebuke to another author's call to distinguish between "use" and "utilize." The respondent said something like this: "Don't get so caught up with rules, dude! Writing is about sharing, not about regulation." Fair enough. No one wants to kill language with pointless rules. But I still advocate for precision in language. To that end, I invite you to consider the subtle variances between commonly conflated words. You might as well start with "use" and "utilize."
Know of any others? Please post a comment.
Monday, June 15, 2009
21st Anniversary at the Madonna Inn
Jenny and I celebrated our 21st anniversary at San Luis Obispo's Madonna Inn this past weekend (yep, pretty much like last year - we're suckers for consistency). This time we splurged on the Madonna Suite, one of those "rock rooms" that transcend any reasonable bounds of tackiness [here's a link to the Inn's room description]. Upon entering our suite, we found a complementary bottle of champagne and a balloon commemorating our special occasion.
Touring the suite, we marveled at the sensory overload: massive stone fireplace (lit by button, of course), sitting area with ornate furnishings, a king-sized bed, and a bathroom that has to be seen to be believed. Jenny loved watching the water spiral around the rocky sluice toward the sink, and I couldn't wait to jump into the waterfall shower. Yes, we took tasteful pix of me getting drenched in our own little rainforest grotto. No, you cannot see them.
Dinner was at the excessively ornate (and similarly priced) Gold Rush Steak House. Thereafter we took in a double-feature at the nearby Sunset Drive-In - again, just like last year (this time we saw Up and a forgettable sequel to Night at the Museum). That night also, Jenny thought it'd be cool to get a picture of me in the fireplace - with the fire on. She's quite the romantic spirit, yes?
The next day? We slept in until ten, grabbed a delightful breakfast at the Copper Cafe, hung out at the pool - one of those "infinity types" - and warmed up in the hot tub. Jenny thought it'd be swell to order a bottle of sparkling cider from the nearby bar, so we enjoyed that treat too. Taking the waterfall picture (first image above) capped our visit, a commemoration of 21 wonderful years together.
(Photographs by Jenny and Andrew Wood)
Friday, June 12, 2009
FFP: Missouri Christmas Card: Czech Advertisement
How many of you have ever posted family pix on blog? Who hasn't?
We make these images public in order to share our lives with the few folks who might be interested enough to drop by from time to time.
And we certainly don't presume that anyone else will use them for commercial purposes, right? Well, don't tell that to the Smith Family! Check out this snip from the AP:
Read the AP Story (yes with pix): http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31214408/
We make these images public in order to share our lives with the few folks who might be interested enough to drop by from time to time.
And we certainly don't presume that anyone else will use them for commercial purposes, right? Well, don't tell that to the Smith Family! Check out this snip from the AP:
"When Danielle Smith and her family posed for their Christmas card photo last year, they knew they'd share it with family and friends. But the Missouri family wasn't expecting it to show up in the Czech Republic, splashed across a huge storefront advertisement."This story was widely reported yesterday, but that's no reason not to feature it as today's Friday Fun Post.
Read the AP Story (yes with pix): http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31214408/
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Of sheep pens and revolution
Students taking my version of Rhetoric and Public Life tackle Thomas More's (1516) Utopia, a book that sometimes frustrates them before (usually) becoming one of their most vivid memories of class. In preparation for that adventure, I occasionally reread More's classic survey of a good-place/not-place where European customs, practices, and collective ideas about justice are turned upside down. Invariably I'm amazed that while More could not contemplate a United States of America, his words offer insight, and a little bit of critique, for our own experiment in utopian exceptionalism.
Many students encountering Utopia for the first time find More's description of an ideal community to be quaint, even if a little saucy from time to time ("Really? They view prospective spouses in the nude before marriage? Weird."). Further, those unaware of More's personal story and the life-or-death struggles he faced (and to which he ultimately succumbed) can be forgiven for dismissing his little book as mere fancy.
Revisiting Utopia, however, I find myself all the more ensnared by More's ability to render a verdict on class distinctions that are naturalized by church and state even as they clearly benefit the artificially wealthy over the materially poor.
In Book One (of Turner's translation) More's Raphael castigates the English aristocrats who have seized public lands, enclosing them to raise sheep for their personal finery. Before, commoners could raise marginal crops and maintain a dignified (if meager) standard of living. Now, those same people are cast into the cities and left to fend for themselves against a vicious cauldron of greed and corruption. Readers may think, "Hmm, sheep? That's the problem, really? I don't get it." But More makes it plain that the larger issue has little to do with wool. The debate is about values set by increasingly artificial measures.
From that perspective, one cause of our current economic woes - the gathering of cheap and worthless mortgages into bundles, which were then packaged and split into commodities to be bought and sold by people with no sense of the land or its tenants, of the material outcomes of their maneuverings - seems hardly surprising. Thomas More (speaking as Raphael, a traveling philosopher who visited Utopia) saw the same thing in his day:
It's easy, says More, if everybody (with a handful of exceptions) works toward the common good rather than for personal gain. Imagine if all of today's professions that produce nothing materially useful to the common good were abolished, More wonders, if people farmed together, constructed handicrafts together, and concentrated their energies on only basic needs.
More imagines that the artificial pleasures of a society - gambling in his day, anesthesizing ourselves with television today - would become odd and mildly pathetic to a community in which all people attend to each others' functional needs. Returning to material labors and material pleasures would inspire us to cultivate our mental gardens with much finer stuff than that which passes for inspiration to the contemporary mind.
More's Utopia is wildly and unabashedly communistic, of course. There is no property, no money, no sense of personal initiative that competes with the public good. It is therefore impractical, laughable, improbable, so say its knee-jerk critics. As for myself, benefiting as I do from a contemporary system that makes room for such musings (remember, there would be far fewer teachers in Utopia, and none who study something as abstract as "rhetoric and public life"), I sympathize with the reasoning of those who mock More's excesses.
Still, I cannot help but understand his fury at an economic system that deprives its prime movers - those who work with their hands more than those who manipulate spreadsheets - of the dignity of a living wage and then calls for us to define such artificial misery as natural, inevitable, necessary. I leave this note once more with More's Raphael who reminds us how similar the rage of 1516 looks today if we merely consider our contemporary world as but one of many choices that have been made, one that may be unmade if we have the will to peer past the horizon of common sense.
Many students encountering Utopia for the first time find More's description of an ideal community to be quaint, even if a little saucy from time to time ("Really? They view prospective spouses in the nude before marriage? Weird."). Further, those unaware of More's personal story and the life-or-death struggles he faced (and to which he ultimately succumbed) can be forgiven for dismissing his little book as mere fancy.
Revisiting Utopia, however, I find myself all the more ensnared by More's ability to render a verdict on class distinctions that are naturalized by church and state even as they clearly benefit the artificially wealthy over the materially poor.
In Book One (of Turner's translation) More's Raphael castigates the English aristocrats who have seized public lands, enclosing them to raise sheep for their personal finery. Before, commoners could raise marginal crops and maintain a dignified (if meager) standard of living. Now, those same people are cast into the cities and left to fend for themselves against a vicious cauldron of greed and corruption. Readers may think, "Hmm, sheep? That's the problem, really? I don't get it." But More makes it plain that the larger issue has little to do with wool. The debate is about values set by increasingly artificial measures.
From that perspective, one cause of our current economic woes - the gathering of cheap and worthless mortgages into bundles, which were then packaged and split into commodities to be bought and sold by people with no sense of the land or its tenants, of the material outcomes of their maneuverings - seems hardly surprising. Thomas More (speaking as Raphael, a traveling philosopher who visited Utopia) saw the same thing in his day:
[I]t's almost entirely under the control of a few rich men, who don't need to sell unless they feel like it, and never do feel like it until they can get the price they want. This also accounts for the equally high prices of other types of livestock, especially in view of the shortage of breeders caused by the demolition of farms, and the general decline of agriculture. For the rich men I'm talking about never bother to breed either sheep or cattle themselves. They merely buy scraggy specimens cheap from someone else, fatten them up on their own pastures, and resell them at a large profit. I imagine that's why the full effects of the situation have not yet been felt. So far they've only inflated prices in the areas where they sell, but if they keep transferring animals from other districts faster than they can be replaced, stocks in the buying areas too will gradually be depleted, until eventually there'll be an acute shortage everywhere. (p. 48)More's Utopia (in Book Two) proceeds to tour the island that reveals an alternative to this economic structure, proposing instead a place where people work six hours a day and otherwise enjoy lives of leisure, conversation, education, and - more often that contemporary readers may imagine - volunteerism. How can it be so? How can a society endure if its workers toil only six hours a day?
It's easy, says More, if everybody (with a handful of exceptions) works toward the common good rather than for personal gain. Imagine if all of today's professions that produce nothing materially useful to the common good were abolished, More wonders, if people farmed together, constructed handicrafts together, and concentrated their energies on only basic needs.
More imagines that the artificial pleasures of a society - gambling in his day, anesthesizing ourselves with television today - would become odd and mildly pathetic to a community in which all people attend to each others' functional needs. Returning to material labors and material pleasures would inspire us to cultivate our mental gardens with much finer stuff than that which passes for inspiration to the contemporary mind.
More's Utopia is wildly and unabashedly communistic, of course. There is no property, no money, no sense of personal initiative that competes with the public good. It is therefore impractical, laughable, improbable, so say its knee-jerk critics. As for myself, benefiting as I do from a contemporary system that makes room for such musings (remember, there would be far fewer teachers in Utopia, and none who study something as abstract as "rhetoric and public life"), I sympathize with the reasoning of those who mock More's excesses.
Still, I cannot help but understand his fury at an economic system that deprives its prime movers - those who work with their hands more than those who manipulate spreadsheets - of the dignity of a living wage and then calls for us to define such artificial misery as natural, inevitable, necessary. I leave this note once more with More's Raphael who reminds us how similar the rage of 1516 looks today if we merely consider our contemporary world as but one of many choices that have been made, one that may be unmade if we have the will to peer past the horizon of common sense.
People like aristocrats, goldsmiths, or money-lenders, who either do no work at all, or do work that's really not essential, are rewarded for their laziness or their unnecessary activities by a splendid life of luxury. But labourers [sic], coachmen, carpenters, and farmhands, who never stop working like cart-horses, at jobs so essential that, if they did stop working, they'd bring any country to a standstill within twelve months - what happens to them? They get so little to eat, and they have such a wrenched time, that they'd be almost better off if they were cart-horses. Then at least, they wouldn't work quite such long hours, their food wouldn't be very much worse, they'd enjoy it more, and they'd have no fears for the future. . . What's more, the wretched earnings of the poor are daily whittled away by the rich, not only through private dishonesty, but through public legislation. As if it weren't unjust enough already that the man who contributes most to society should get the least in return, they make it even worse, and then arrange for injustice to be legally described as justice. (pp. 129-130)Read the book: More, T. (1516/1997). Utopia. New York, NY: Dover Thrift Edition. Another translation online: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Utopia
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
No fun for you, Mr. President. Not yours.
For no particular reason, The Obamas recently went on a date in NYC, grabbing a meal, seeing a show, that sort of thing. Predictably, a chorus of howls followed. How can this guy have a date with his wife amid all the crisis of our current days?
Give me a break.
Responding to the "No fun, Mr. President" tuts, Maureen Dowd offers a reply that I thought I'd repost:
Yes, we expect our president to devote extraordinary hours to fixing the mess he inherited. And yes, it'd be unseemly if the only image we had of Obama was him flitting about from date night to date night when so many Americans are suffering the ravages of our broken economy.
But I agree with Dowd: It's nice to have a president who seems to be interested in the world outside of the White House. Let him take a break now and again; our problems will be there for him when he returns.
Read the entire essay: Can The One Have Fun?
Give me a break.
Responding to the "No fun, Mr. President" tuts, Maureen Dowd offers a reply that I thought I'd repost:
"What a relief to have an urbane, cultivated, curious president who’s out and about, engaged in the world. Not dangerously detached, as W. was, or darkly stewing like Cheney. Not hanging with the Rat Pack like J.F.K. or getting bored and up to mischief like Bill Clinton."Well said.
Yes, we expect our president to devote extraordinary hours to fixing the mess he inherited. And yes, it'd be unseemly if the only image we had of Obama was him flitting about from date night to date night when so many Americans are suffering the ravages of our broken economy.
But I agree with Dowd: It's nice to have a president who seems to be interested in the world outside of the White House. Let him take a break now and again; our problems will be there for him when he returns.
Read the entire essay: Can The One Have Fun?
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