Fuck YEAH!
Elysia chlorotica is a lurid green sea slug, with a gelatinous leaf-shaped body, that lives along the Atlantic seaboard of the US. What sets it apart from most other sea slugs is its ability to run on solar power.
Mary Rumpho of the University of Maine, is an expert on E. chlorotica and has now discovered how the sea slug gets this ability: it photosynthesises with genes "stolen" from the algae it eats. ¶ 12:52 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
sale whose advert included this admonition: "patrons are encouraged to
bring hand trucks or book carts to use as they find great bargains."
w00t!
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Dear neighbors,
I am a resident of Wake County, not Durham. Normally I don't like to butt in on the affairs of my neighbors, but in this case I feel involved enough to offer at least my advice. I'm writing to you about a situation with the West Point Park which I see as a danger to both you and to me.
Last weekend I drove sixty miles to volunteer at the gristmill at the park as I do a couple of times per month. I love the mill, with its smells of grease and grain and sun-warmed wood; with the sound of the wheel, belts, and machinery providing a pleasant background noise. I talk to visitors, sell them whole wheat flour and grits and cornmeal, and try my hardest to (quite literally) keep my nose to the grindstone without throwing any belts from the machinery. But while the mill itself is what first brought me to West Point, it is the park and its people which keeps me coming back.
I love your park, Durham. I love this perfect example of a community park - the river, the trees, the mill and the other buildings. But most particularly I love the people I see there, enjoying the park, the outdoors, and each other. People fishing. People interested in the mill or the museum. Young people and old people, taking their exercise together. Black people and white people and Hispanic people. Family people. Single people. People just having a good time picnicking. And of course the old gentleman who sits outside the mill and carves walking sticks (which he most often gives away) on fine days.
West Point Park is owned by you, the people of Durham, and operated by the city government. A nonprofit group of dedicated folks, the Friends of West Point (FoWP) supports the park. The FoWP wants to convince the city to consider giving control of the park to the state of North Carolina in the expectation or hope that this transfer will induce the state to buy an available parcel of land adjacent to the park. The FoWP express urgency on this matter, and have called for the City Council to approve an opening of negotiations with the state at the City Council meeting on Monday the 17th. I think these actions are well-intentioned, but are being deliberately rushed to discourage community-level participation in the decisions about the park's future. And while I have great respect for the FoWP folks I have met and discussed this matter with, and while I know that they have only the best interests of the river at heart, I cannot agree with them that this is a decision which must be rushed into, or one which is in the best interests of the people of Durham, or of the park itself.
There are several reasons that this is not a decision to be rushed. First and foremost, the state is facing serious budget shortfalls and we are rushing into a period of serious economic hardship. Is this really the time you want to ask your neighbors to take responsibility for your park, and to buy another expensive piece of land? Second, despite the urgency the FoWP ascribes to this decision, the land they want me to help you pay for is currently undeveloped and is apparently slated to be sold to a developer. I don't know if you've noticed, but there really aren't a lot of new housing developments going up these days, neighbors. It seems to me that waiting a few months will allow the price of the land to come down a lot. And if it doesn't, what's the tragedy? The worst-case scenario is that another group of people get lovely parkside homes. Third, by letting the state take over your park, the character and use of the park will change. State parks are different from community parks – different in use, different in management, and different in character. Despite any assurances that the park use won't change, it will. Frankly, it's my belief that this is one of the main reasons the FoWP desires this transfer, and explains their reluctance to consider other alternatives. Several of the FoWP board members have openly criticized the park's management and have called for changes. I don't think that bodes well for their assurances that the park will remain as it has been when 'under new management'.
Finally, this rush to action is happening without what I consider to be any real consideration of alternative options. Perhaps the developers – when and if they get around to building – can create a buffer 'private park' between their houses and the park proper – that will help increase the value of the homes they do build, and preserve the park's environment better. Perhaps the money can be solicited and raised privately; meaning that you won't incur the ill-will of your neighbors who would rather not have the responsibility of your park on their hands and in their wallets. There are of course dozens of other ideas for improving the park and/or acquiring the land without asking the state to take over the park. My point is that there ARE options and alternatives, and acting as if this course of action is the only one is just an attempt to stampede you – the folks of Durham – into agreeing to a course of action which will take your park away and make it my park.
And don't be fooled, neighbors, by the assertion of those supporting this move that it is just 'preliminary negotiations'. What they want is a deal to be made in private which can be presented as a 'plan' to be rubberstamped by your City Council. Don't let your trust of these good-hearted folks and your distraction with larger issues (such as the failing economy) keep you from ensuring that your City Council does the proper due diligence before rushing into commitments which may surprise you unpleasantly one day in the not-too-distant future.
It's your park, people of Durham – not mine, much as I love it. Please do with it as you see best. But as a citizen of that large area of North Carolina which does NOT include the City of Durham, I beg this of you: please don't ask your neighbors to buy it, pay for its upkeep, and expand it – especially in such difficult economic times. And, if you want my advice, I'd warn you away from letting the state get its hands on your property, anyway.
I look forward to seeing many of you in the coming weeks at the gristmill, or on the riverbanks. I hope we can continue meeting there, on your land, in your park, under your care. Thanks, neighbors!
If you agree with me , please email the Durham City Council:
People to email:
- Mike.woodard@durhamnc.gov
- Diane.catotti@durhamnc.gov
- bill.bell@durhamnc.gov (Mayor)
- Eugene.brown@durhamnc.gov
- Cora.Cole-mcfadden@durhamnc.gov
- farad.ali@durhamnc.gov
- Howard.Clement@durhamnc.gov
- tom.bonfield@durhamnc.gov (City Manager)
Susan Hogarth
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reverse-snobbery thing where it has to be a shelter or rescue dog is
plain silly. ¶ 7:29 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
http://knappster.blogspot.com/2008/11/everybodys-got-one-and-they-all-stink.html
Pure Holtz:
"The penultimate paragraph of your main article is demolished by the
last sentence of my wiki article."
and - bonus! - some vintage Blanton:
"I wish Holtz would set forth, in 60 volumes or more, a complete
Manifesto For Pretentious Anal-Retentive Control Freaks that would
codify the solutions to all problems under every possible situation so
that us idiots could run our lives properly according to Holtz. Surely
it is just folly that simpletons like myself can believe that, in the
absence of government planners and the enforcers of their rules,
spontaneous solutions relevant to the situation can be applied to
solve problems on a decentralized basis. It might not be the utopia
Holtz promises to deliver under his little bit of coercion by control
freaks theory, but it could lead to a lot more assholes minding their
own fucking business."
best (and possibly only*) novel, _Andromeda Strain_.
I boldly say 'best, although I haven't read all of his books. I may be
wrong, and I hope someday to suffer through another long enough to
find out that I am. There was something really compelling about _AS_
that wasn't present in his other novels - though perhaps it's a
generational thing, since his novels seem to be fear-based SF and
maybe I just was of the 'germ generation' more than I was the 'DNA
generation'.
Not really fear-based, though, now that I think of it. His novels seem
at first like made-for-film horror-SF-movie stuff, but on reflection
they seem to end with everything just working itself out somehow.
Realistic, I suspect, though perhaps a bit dull. Maybe he has a genre
of his own: the averted apocalypse novel.
*Calling _AS_ his 'only' novel is a bit harsh, but he does seem to
have developed a formula and stuck with it (which is fine). Put a
bunch of academics in a crisis situation, shake 'em up a bit, and see
what happens.
http://www.quepasamedia.com/web/images/stories/frontpage/pied.pdf
From the 'election of a generation' header to the Hollywood-squares placement of Mike's image, it's a classic. I'm going to have to grab one off a newsstand in Raleigh. It's great that they recognized Mike as the only serious pro-immigrant candidate for governor.
Here's google's lame-assed Spanglish translation, which beats my even lamer attempt to understand Spanish (a defect I mean to correct soon):
"For the elections for governor of the state, What Happens supports Mike Munger, who proved to be a candidate ready. Professor at Duke, Munger is an economist and knows that the Hispanic labor tilling the soil, laid the first foundations of buildings and even today continues to manipulate the basic food that more than one leads to the mouth. Pat McCrory and Beverly Perdue, the other candidates, know this reality, but they do not care.
Of the two, McCrory is the most dangerous, a threat to the people immigrant who on more than one occasion has said it will do the impossible by deportation. Perdue had a good relationship with the community but erased, at a stroke, those relations when he said that young undocumented why did not study at the Universities."
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