they like to watch.

Glenn Greenwald continues to write about the most important issues impacting our country. Read this post about the NSA and see if you’re not troubled. I’ve been around long enough to remember Frank Church as an effective and respected politician. You don’t get many of those during your lifetime. What Church feared and what Obama has enabled — building on Bush’s legacy — is nothing short of mind-blowing. There’s also this. Keep in mind that these intrusions are being approved and vastly expanded by a guy who taught constitutional law in college.

 

war and peace.

-+- $500,000: Amount the Iraq war costs per minute, according to a joint analysis by a Nobel-prizewinning economist and a Harvard scholar, who noted that the amount spent on the war each day could pay for health care for 423,529 children.

From the October 8, 2007 issue of TIME

from demokratia to dermokratia.

The New Yorker reports that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago) recently told Der Spiegel, “If you take an unbiased look at the situation, there was a rapid decline of living standards in the nineteen-nineties, which affected three-quarters of Russian families, and all under the ‘democratic banner.’ Small wonder, then, that the population does not rally to this banner anymore.”

In that same article, titled The Tsar’s Opponent: Garry Kasparov takes aim at the power of Vladimir Putin, David Remnick writes, “Who can prove to (Putin) that stability and prosperity demand democratic politics? Without the trappings of democracy, China is hoping it will become the world’s biggest economy. Oil-rich and liberty-poor Iran and Venezuela are ascendant. And Russia itself is growing richer; with the foreign debt gone, a multibillion-dollar stabilization fund has been established as a hedge against lower oil prices. For the first few years of Putin’s reign, there were several liberal advisers in his retinue, but once oil prices began to rise, from around twenty-five dollars a barrel to more than three times that, and analysts determined that such prices were sustainable, a more assertive statist policy took hold. Liberal advisers were fired or marginalized, kept on only as decoration for Western eyes. And few complain.”

Finally, there’s this ignominy: “In today’s Russia, demokratia as it emerged in the nineties has been derisively called dermokratia: ‘shit-ocracy.’ The notion of liberalism, too — a belief in the necessity of civil society, civil liberties, an open economy — has been degraded.”

Clearly, much has changed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nor do recent developments — the Iraq War and the US’s go-it-alone approach in the world, as symbolized by John Bolton’s combative UN tenure, our failure to ratify or improve the Kyoto treaty on climate, and our renouncement of the World Court — bode well for the spontaneous blooming of democracy.

Democracy is in need of a make-over, and Americans can lead in this by practicing what we preach. This means conducting elections in which the results are undisputed (a paper trail is required). Ridding ourselves of the outdated and anti-democratic electoral college (popular vote = president). Less corruption and more accountability in our government (jail-time usually gets people’s attention). And true campaign finance reform (either public financing of elections, or anonymous donations to eliminate any quid pro quo).

We’d also do well to address the growing divide between rich and poor in this country. One percent of Americans now hold 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. If Americans truly believe in democracy, we’ll find ways to rebuild our middle class. We’ll either lead by example or watch democracy continue to become marginalized both here and abroad.

living in a box.

Cardboard “housing,” Tokyo, late 1990s

I lived in Japan during the boom times and left before the bust. And bust it did. The photos here paint a depressing picture of just how bad times became for some Japanese in the 1990s. Recession brought with it a seismic realignment in the relationship between workers and employers. College recruitment slowed to a trickle, women were discouraged from entering the workforce, and lifetime employment began to be phased out. Suddenly millions of Japanese became “arubaito” — part-timers.

Tokyo is not a city in which one wants to be without a steady income. At the recession’s inception, the city remained the most expensive in the world, and before long blue- and white-collar workers alike found themselves struggling to pay their bills. The most unfortunate of these, primarily day laborers, a.k.a. construction workers, lost their jobs and then their homes. Increasingly, Japanese commuters began encountering these unfortunate souls in their subway stations. One of the largest of these stations, Shinjuku, became home to several hundred of the newly dispossessed living in cardboard boxes. These elaborately painted boxes and the suspicious fire that eventually destroyed them — killing four — are documented at the links below.

I read about the Shinjuku box-dwellers from time to time throughout the 1990s, but I remained unaware of their fate until stumbling across the story on Pink Tentacle recently. Coincidentally, I now live close to a city that’s engaged in its own initiative to roust the homeless from public spaces. Housing costs in northern California are on a par with those of Tokyo ten years ago, and safety nets are no more adequate.

There’s no one solution to homelessness. Good people inside and out of government continue to look for answers. Our media tell us that Americans don’t want or can’t afford a safety net on the scale of what northern Europeans offer. Some still revel in the image of Americans pulling themselves up by the bootstraps, assuming that everyone has boots to begin with, and no demons or addictions to overcome.

You can find more photos of Shinjuku Station’s cardboard house paintings here and here.

An explanation of the effort to paint and photograph the structures is available on artist Take Junichiro’s website. Excerpt: “A group of painters painted them. Leading the group was Take Junichiro, who is also the person who made this website. Once during the painting process Take was arrested and forced to spend 22 days in jail. The painting continued even after his arrest, but finally came to an end when the underground kingdom was destroyed in a huge fire. After the fire, the authorities started reconstruction on the tunnels so that the homeless could never occupy them again. They succeeded in kicking the homeless out of the west exit underground. This website was made to call attention to the paintings on the cardboard houses… The photographs here are the work of photographer Sakokawa Naoko and others who sympathized with what we were doing.”

More on the homeless in Tokyo is available here, in an article from the period of the cardboard house paintings. The fire and its aftermath were the subjects of this article in The Japan Times.

transbay terminal conclusion.

I can’t work up much enthusiasm for the Transbay Joint Powers Authority’s decision Thursday, so this could be my last post on the subject. As expected, the TJPA went with the jury recommendation and selected the Pelli Clarke Pelli obelisk design. They also heard the developers speak of a fast-track effort to construct the 1200-foot tower. Not surprisingly, a number of interested observers weighed in with comments on the TJPA’s decision.

My previous posts listed several perceived flaws in the selection process and the Pelli design, all of them raised by SF Chronicle readers. That paper’s urban design writer John King touched on these same points in yesterday’s fast-track article, specifically the impact of money on the decision, the accessibility of a park 70 feet above ground level, and the lack of any housing in the proposed tower.

Regarding the tower’s proposed 80-stories, King points out that any reduction in height will likely cause the developers to reduce the amount of money they’re willing to offer. So while there may be revisions to the design and even its proposed inhabitants (from offices-only to mixed use), don’t expect the tower to be brought down to the Transamerica Pyramid’s 853-foot height. This design, or something quite like it, will become the new focal point of San Francisco’s skyline.

Chronicle readers looking for a silver lining in Thursday’s TJPA decision found it in the realization that at least a new public transit hub will be constructed. As reader rs1009 said in the Chronicle’s reader comments, “… the proposal to improve the terminal I am all for. A major public transit hub and improved transportation options (see: high-speed rail) will do more to move this city forward than any number of giant skyscrapers.”

High-speed rail: now there’s a subject a lot of folks could get excited about. Would that we had the political will to make high-speed rail happen.

eat your vegetables.

Something that escaped my notice recently didn’t slip past the editors of Harper’s Magazine. As reported in their August 2007 Findings, “A federal judge ruled that a small meatpacker must be allowed to test all of its cattle for mad cow disease; the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which insists on testing less than 1 percent of slaughtered cattle for the disease, said that it will appeal the decision because of the high likelihood of false positives, which would harm the meat industry.”

My curiosity piqued, I looked into this further and learned the following. In justifying the desire for comprehensive mad cow testing, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef CEO John Stewart said 18 months ago, “Our customers, particularly our Asian customers, have requested it over and over again. We feel strongly that if customers are asking for tested beef, we should be allowed to provide that.”

Stewart can point to Japan, the most lucrative foreign market for American beef until the first U.S. case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow) prompted a ban in 2003. Stewart says the ban cost Creekstone Farms nearly a third of its sales and led the company to lay off about 150 people.

Tadashi Sato, agricultural attaché at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, said after the 2003 scare, ”We want to see the U.S. government introduce the same system for beef safety, or at least an equivalent system, that we have in Japan. We test all slaughtered cattle, regardless of age.”

Instead, the USDA appears to be heading in the opposite direction. After testing just 1 percent of the 35 million head of cattle slaughtered annually through 2005, last year the USDA announced plans to scale back mad cow testing even further, from 1,000 tests a day to 100.

The USDA says that in opposing Creekstone Farms, it is sticking up for larger companies, who worry that a suspect result might scare consumers away from eating beef. They claim that testing rarely detects the disease in younger animals, the source of most meat.

when moo means moola.

-+- Head of cattle that Fidelity Investments keeps on a portion of its corporate campus near Fort Worth: 25

-+- Amount in taxes it thereby saves each year through a Texas agricultural exemption: $328,000

From the Harper’s Index™, October 2007

transbay terminal revisited.

Transbay Terminal Tower, San Francisco (proposed)

Two International Finance Centre, Hong Kong (existing)

The seven-member jury overseeing selection of San Francisco’s Transbay Terminal project made its recommendation Monday, and the early reaction is trending negative. Criticism of the recommended proposal includes the following:

» The tower is too conservative for San Francisco.
» It contains only office space, no housing.
» The five-acre park offers limited access.
» The building has been done before, in Hong Kong.
» Money, not design, dictated the selection.

It is the final point that discourages this from being a true design competition. As the SF Chronicle’s urban design writer John King points out, the developer behind the Pelli Clarke Pelli design offered $350 million for the land, more than $200 million above the price offered by the other two design-development teams. Only if the design were impractical or an eyesore might we expect the jury not to select Pelli’s obelisk, and it is neither. On the contrary, it is prudent (for an 80-story building) and reasonably attractive. It will also do little to enhance the skyline of San Francisco and is unlikely to elicit more than a shrug from most viewers. Think of it as One Rincon Hill West.

While I like the idea of a five-acre park, I think the detractors are correct in saying that it is too remote to receive significant numbers of visitors. At seven stories above street level, who can argue? Aside from the jury, who claim that “the park would add much-needed green space to the neighborhood for a growing number of residents and would be an exciting and unique new destination within the city.”

I’ve said before that I favor the Skidmore Owings Merrill design. The tower has character, and I’m intrigued by the dramatic entranceway and community spaces (here and here) depicted in the renderings. SOM isn’t infallible — see the world’s biggest peace sign — but has acquitted itself well.

Tuesday’s press coverage stresses that the jury’s recommendation isn’t the same as a final decision, but acknowledges that getting the Transbay Authority’s board of directors to choose one of the other designs will be an uphill battle. Already one of the board members, SF supervisor Chris Daly, has said he’ll support the jury’s recommendation.

The public is invited to comment on the designs through September 17 by emailing D&DComment@transbaycenter.org. Comments will be forwarded to the TJPA board with the jury’s recommendation at the September 20 board meeting.

More about the Transbay Joint Powers Authority and funding of the project is reported by Robert Selna.

Tranbaycenter.org has additional information, including more on the environmental and civic impact of all three proposals.

reading, writing, and arithmetic.

-+- Number of the five directors of a No Child Left Behind reading program who had financial ties to curricula they developed: 4

-+- Average amount each of these directors has received from the publishers of reading materials sold to schools: $727,000

From the Harper’s Index™, August 2007

(no longer) blinded by numbers.

Cans Seurat, 2007 – 60×92″
Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds.

Detail (click to expand)

From Chris Jordan’s Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait

You can choose to either say something or show it. In an exhibit opening next week in Los Angeles, photographer Chris Jordan clues us in to which approach he favors. The Seattle-based Jordan uses photographs to offer viewers an arresting take on contemporary American culture.

“Each image,” Jordan explains on his website, “portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on.

“Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs.”

A few thumbnails of Jordan’s prints are available here. However, Jordan cautions that the prints must be seen in person to appreciate their full impact.

The exhibit opens September 8 at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery. For more on Chris Jordan and Running the Numbers, visit chrisjordan.com.

-+-

Ben Franklin, 2007 — 8.5 feet wide by 10.5 feet tall in three horizontal panels
Depicts 125,000 one-hundred dollar bills ($12.5 million), the amount our government spends every hour on the war in Iraq.

Detail (click to expand)

-+-

Prison Uniforms, 2007 — 10×23 feet in six vertical panels
Depicts 2.3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005.
Installed at the Von Lintel Gallery, NY, June 2007

Detail (click to expand)

is that you, rob riggle?

I try to refrain from political entries because I know how polarizing they can be, and it’s not as if it’s an under-served market. However, yesterday I stumbled upon a website that related Christiane Amanpour’s displeasure with the job that CNN did in the run-up to the Iraq war. The website quotes her as saying, “My station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News.”

Shortly after reading this I came across an anecdote about the Iraq war in September’s Mother Jones magazine. It would be amusing if the subject matter weren’t so serious and the transgression so at odds with what is expected from a major news organization. Immediately it called to mind both Amanpour’s comment and my own qualms about our traditional media. The Mother Jones article is written by Ted Genoways. The reporter relating the anecdote is Iraq war reporter Ashley Gilbertson in his forthcoming book Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. (Why’d he choose that title? The acronym may be a clue.)

Genoways writes, “Gilbertson describes how he and another reporter were nearly blown to pieces by an errant Air Force bomb in northern Iraq in the late days of the American invasion. They finally withdrew from the front because, as Gilbertson himself concedes, ‘The risk was too high, the payoff too low.’ And yet when he returned to his hotel in Erbil, he switched on the television and found Fox’s correspondent ‘crouching in front of sandbags, wearing a flak jacket and a helmet. He was supposedly on the front lines, reporting via a scratchy video phone. He had to whisper, he said.’ But as Gilbertson studied the screen, he could discern, over the correspondent’s shoulder and above the sandbags, the ‘distinctive architecture of our hotel.’ Fox’s man in the field was reporting live from a foxhole he had built in his hotel room. The outraged Gilbertson dialed the correspondent’s in-house phone and then hung up, allowing just enough time to send a single ring over the airwaves.” (Emphasis mine.)

Elsewhere in the article, Genoways tells how he was in Kennedy Airport this June at the same moment the networks were blanketing the airwaves with coverage of the JFK bomb plot, showing a frenzy of security activity presumably occurring at JFK at that very moment.

“The problem,” writes Genoways, “was that none of what the TV showed was actually happening. The terminal was quiet, calm, overtaken by the usual lassitude of travel, but nothing more.”

After seeing similar reports on CNN’s website, Genoways noticed a tiny credit reading “File photo.” This led Genoways to conclude that what he was witnessing in the media reports may have been the reaction to an earlier terror scare but could just as easily have been footage taken when the terminal was packed with people riding out a snowstorm. When the media plug in old file images with little or no notice to viewers, the breathless reporting they engage in can create a heightened and even false sense of alarm.

Which leads us back to 2002-03 and the run-up to the Iraq war and the need to demand more from our media. That website I mentioned back in paragraph one? It includes a petition to the major networks insisting that they not be browbeaten into banging the drum for war with Iran. It’s only a petition. But for what it’s worth, I signed it yesterday.

going up.

Design of Rogers Stirk Harbour.
More here.

Design of Pelli Clarke Pelli.
More here.

Design of Skidmore Owings Merrill.
More here.

San Francisco’s skyline is destined for a major facelift by the year 2014. The Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) sponsored a competition to develop a large tract of land in downtown SF not far from the Giants’ ballpark, and the three proposals unveiled last week all include plans for the west coast’s tallest building.

I’ve not seen the scale models that were displayed in City Hall last week but have linked to coverage that appeared in the SF Chronicle. It includes reactions from SF residents and the Chronicle’s urban design writer, John King. He’s on record as liking the Rogers Stirk Harbours proposal but acknowledges that changes will almost certainly be requested in whichever proposal is chosen. Below are links to more pics along with the Chronicle’s coverage.

My take? I love modern architecture done well and believe that today’s cities benefit from building up, not out. Soaring structures belong at the center of our downtowns, especially when those structures complement their surroundings. Too many highrises do not complement their surroundings, however. I first stood at the base of the World Trade Center’s twin towers in 1985 and was suitably awed by their height and footprint. Yet, when viewed from afar, their height struck me as too much out of proportion to the buildings around them, particularly in the years before the World Financial Center was completed. This could have been overlooked if the towers hadn’t been so plain and even homely. Which isn’t to say they aren’t sorely missed.

The Transbay towers are also guilty of overwhelming their surroundings, yet each has its own appeal. Like King, I like the daring of the Rogers design, while questioning the erector-set aspect to it (especially apparent in some of the renderings I’ve linked to). The Pelli tower is glossy and magnificent, but could be noticed more for its sheer height than for the excitement of its design (like the WTC, perhaps). The Skidmore design may be my favorite, with its grand entranceway and twisting frame that is supposed to provide greater structural integrity. No small matter in earthquake country.

Look not just at the towers but at the large transit terminal planned for the base of each tower before deciding which design (if any) works best for you.

Read John King’s article.

View more images of all three designs.

pipe down over there.

-+- Number of words spoken by Clarence Thomas during Supreme Court oral arguments since February 2006: 132
-+- Number by Samuel Alito, the Justice who spoke the second-fewest words: 14,404

From the Harper’s Index™, August 2007

the democratic deficit.

“White House policy is completely at odds with what public opinion wants. But the media rarely publish the polls that highlight this persistent public opposition. Not only are citizens excluded from political power, they are also kept in a state of ignorance as to the true state of public opinion. There is growing international concern about the massive US double deficit affecting trade and the budget. But both are closely linked to a third deficit, the democratic deficit that is constantly growing, not only in the US but all over the western world.”

Noam Chomsky, in Le Monde diplomatique, August 2007