Saturday, October 20, 2012
Gimleteye: The Future of Water
Published on Counterpunch
WEEKEND EDITION OCTOBER 19-21, 2012
On the 40th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act
The Future of Water
by ALAN FARAGO
When the Clean Water Act was passed by Congress forty years ago under a Republican administration, I was a clueless college undergraduate at Yale. Laws belonged to those serious looking law school students around the corner, perhaps including two I may have passed crossing the quad: Hilary Rodham and Bill Clinton. The environment? It seemed good to me. If I had been questioned, I could have testified, walking with school friends to the banks of the Providence River in Rhode Island to watch the river in flames like the Cuyahoga in Ohio, that triggered the calls for federal clean water standards.
The Clean Water Act in 1972 organized the array of economic and citizen interests in preventing contamination from overwhelming our rivers, streams, estuaries and bays. It provided the legal framework through which our democracy attempts to sort out growth and protection, development and mitigation, and the values of a society that often fall short of the aspirations of our Founding Fathers. It has been a part of my life in ways that my twenty-year old self would never have recognized. There, too, I might have had a premonition.
WEEKEND EDITION OCTOBER 19-21, 2012
On the 40th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act
The Future of Water
by ALAN FARAGO
When the Clean Water Act was passed by Congress forty years ago under a Republican administration, I was a clueless college undergraduate at Yale. Laws belonged to those serious looking law school students around the corner, perhaps including two I may have passed crossing the quad: Hilary Rodham and Bill Clinton. The environment? It seemed good to me. If I had been questioned, I could have testified, walking with school friends to the banks of the Providence River in Rhode Island to watch the river in flames like the Cuyahoga in Ohio, that triggered the calls for federal clean water standards.
The Clean Water Act in 1972 organized the array of economic and citizen interests in preventing contamination from overwhelming our rivers, streams, estuaries and bays. It provided the legal framework through which our democracy attempts to sort out growth and protection, development and mitigation, and the values of a society that often fall short of the aspirations of our Founding Fathers. It has been a part of my life in ways that my twenty-year old self would never have recognized. There, too, I might have had a premonition.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Lynda Bell says: Want Food? Bring a Picture ID. By Geniusofdespair
You want free food? Well you had better 1) Live in district 8, and 2) bring a picture ID???? What is that about?
This giveaway, is there any question who is giving away our tax dollars...oops I mean food, look at the size of Bell's name! Is that the biggest font on the computer? This is a blatant display of how commissioners get reelected. Why on earth does she need your picture ID? Heaven forbid she should give out food to someone outside the district, someone who can't vote for her. She is collecting your name at all these events people. Wise up! I think everyone should go early to this sham of an event and demand food. Tell me what happens when you say your forgot your picture ID. Mr. Mayor, can't you put a stop to this type of campaigning? Why doesn't Farm Share just do the giveaway themselves. Why have a Commissioner as a middle man?
This giveaway, is there any question who is giving away our tax dollars...oops I mean food, look at the size of Bell's name! Is that the biggest font on the computer? This is a blatant display of how commissioners get reelected. Why on earth does she need your picture ID? Heaven forbid she should give out food to someone outside the district, someone who can't vote for her. She is collecting your name at all these events people. Wise up! I think everyone should go early to this sham of an event and demand food. Tell me what happens when you say your forgot your picture ID. Mr. Mayor, can't you put a stop to this type of campaigning? Why doesn't Farm Share just do the giveaway themselves. Why have a Commissioner as a middle man?
Gimleteye: Five Florida governors meet, but not Jeb! Bush
Jeb! Bush was absent when five of Florida's former governors met at the University of Florida recently to talk about the most important issues facing future civic leaders in the state: growth, protection of the environment and jobs, the need for a non-partisan judiciary, and how to re-engage Florida's citizenry. Ruben Askew, Bob Graham, Buddy McKay, Bob Martinez, and Charlie Crist.
The entire one and a half hour presentation at the Allen L. Poucher Legal Education Series is available online, and I recommend that you listen if you care. (To pick up at the start of substantive discussion, begin at minute 28:46.) Here are some observations.
The entire one and a half hour presentation at the Allen L. Poucher Legal Education Series is available online, and I recommend that you listen if you care. (To pick up at the start of substantive discussion, begin at minute 28:46.) Here are some observations.
Dean Baker: The Wrecking Society
Reprinted from Counterpunch
October 18, 2012
Economics Today
The Wrecking Society
by DEAN BAKER
There is an old story from the heyday of the Soviet Union. As part of their May Day celebrations they were parading their latest weapon systems down the street in front of the Kremlin. There was a long column of their newest tanks, followed by a row of tractors pulling missiles. Behind these weapons were four pick-up trucks carrying older men in business suits waving to the crowds.
October 18, 2012
Economics Today
The Wrecking Society
by DEAN BAKER
There is an old story from the heyday of the Soviet Union. As part of their May Day celebrations they were parading their latest weapon systems down the street in front of the Kremlin. There was a long column of their newest tanks, followed by a row of tractors pulling missiles. Behind these weapons were four pick-up trucks carrying older men in business suits waving to the crowds.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Gimleteye: Global Warming and Sea Level Rise, finally sinking in ...
At the University of Miami lecture last night, where Dr. Harold Wanless spoke on global warming and sea level rise, what was shocking was the size of the audience. There were well over 150 people in attendance. You could have heard a pin drop, as Dr. Wanless outlined recent science and data showing that ice melt in Greenland, the Arctic and Antarctica are occurring at a far faster pace than climate scientists anticipated only a few years ago.
People are paying attention, finally, even if the threat of sea level rise has scarcely broken the surface of political discourse. Dr. Wanless wryly noted that the disappearance of arctic ice is being championed as as opportunity for drilling more oil. The main focus of public policy should be two-fold: transition as quickly as possible away from fossil fuels, and, begin to plan and invest for moving the key landmarks of civilization away from the coasts.
Scientists can't put a timeline on when sea level rise will manifest, although anyone with a bit of imagination can go to Alton Road and 10th Street on Miami Beach at a normal high tide and see for themselves: we are just getting the first taste.
At 11AM today, the CLEO Institute in Miami is organizing a rally right there, next to the Whole Foods Market, "to call on presidential candidates to address sea level rise that is impacting our communities right now".
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Gimleteye: Presidential Debate and American Exceptionalism
Among last night's Hofstra University audience of undecided voters -- and those are the voters that count -- the themes of American exceptionalism that rankled during the Republican primary were shuffled to the bottom of the deck. During the Republican primaries, the jarring cries, USA! USA!, reminded Americans that in tough economic times, nationalism and scapegoating is never far from view.
The subject lurked beneath the surface in one question to Mitt Romney: how are you and how will your administration be different from George W. Bush? Bush, you may recall, came to office with the same Harvard Business School credentials and applied exceptionalism to outsourcing military functions in Iraq, turning Bagdhad into profit centers for the US Chamber of Commerce and its big member like Halliburton.
That didn't work out, did it. Romney, for his part, pushed back by criticizing President Obama's foreign policies; continuing the Fox News meme linking the attack in Libya to the unravelling of US Middle East policies in general. I wouldn't buy that argument in a heart beat and don't think independent voters will either.
To me, the most discordant note of the Romney presentation last night was his repeated attack against China as a "currency manipulator". I thought President Obama handled the issue well; noting that Romney's wealth derived in part from investments in companies that shipped jobs to China, as well as his administration's continued tough positions in trade negotiations.
The problem is that our leverage against China is extraordinarily limited. Neither candidate wanted to dwell on this simple fact. China supports our debt-- and cheap interest rates-- through massive purchases of US treasury bonds. Our standard of living is dependent on cheap imported consumer goods, mostly from China. Romney is suggesting is that we start a trade war with China. That's an interesting way to stabilize the economy and would painless as having a root canal without novocaine.
I give President a lot of credit for showing up last night as a tough competitor. He was sharp and disciplined and measured in his responses. The shitstorm he inherited still casts its pall over the nation. He didn't need to say so. What he needed to do was to persuade enough independent voters that Romney's claims that in four years he can materialize numbers from thin air on jobs and economy are spurious; as spurious as Gov. Rick Scott's in Florida.
We will see soon enough if American voters discern the difference between the two candidates on very complex issues and outcomes that turned American exceptionalism into fodder for shrill demogogues.
The subject lurked beneath the surface in one question to Mitt Romney: how are you and how will your administration be different from George W. Bush? Bush, you may recall, came to office with the same Harvard Business School credentials and applied exceptionalism to outsourcing military functions in Iraq, turning Bagdhad into profit centers for the US Chamber of Commerce and its big member like Halliburton.
That didn't work out, did it. Romney, for his part, pushed back by criticizing President Obama's foreign policies; continuing the Fox News meme linking the attack in Libya to the unravelling of US Middle East policies in general. I wouldn't buy that argument in a heart beat and don't think independent voters will either.
To me, the most discordant note of the Romney presentation last night was his repeated attack against China as a "currency manipulator". I thought President Obama handled the issue well; noting that Romney's wealth derived in part from investments in companies that shipped jobs to China, as well as his administration's continued tough positions in trade negotiations.
The problem is that our leverage against China is extraordinarily limited. Neither candidate wanted to dwell on this simple fact. China supports our debt-- and cheap interest rates-- through massive purchases of US treasury bonds. Our standard of living is dependent on cheap imported consumer goods, mostly from China. Romney is suggesting is that we start a trade war with China. That's an interesting way to stabilize the economy and would painless as having a root canal without novocaine.
I give President a lot of credit for showing up last night as a tough competitor. He was sharp and disciplined and measured in his responses. The shitstorm he inherited still casts its pall over the nation. He didn't need to say so. What he needed to do was to persuade enough independent voters that Romney's claims that in four years he can materialize numbers from thin air on jobs and economy are spurious; as spurious as Gov. Rick Scott's in Florida.
We will see soon enough if American voters discern the difference between the two candidates on very complex issues and outcomes that turned American exceptionalism into fodder for shrill demogogues.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
No accountability at Miami-Dade County Commission: when a promise isn't a promise ... by gimleteye
Well we won't have County Commission Chairman Joe Martinez to kick around any more. Martinez is "retiring" from public office. His walking papers were handed to him by voters in a delusional challenge to be elected county mayor.
In the Miami Today article (see article below) on the broken promise by the county commission-- allowing a developer to building more crappy housing where he had promised, in a binding covenant, not to -- , Martinez gives his backers from the sprawl industry a thank-you on his way out the door and shows voters why it is a losing battle to protect quality of life in Miami-Dade.
In 2005 I was one of the organizers of the Hold The Line effort to protect the Urban Development Boundary. The UDB was never a fortification; the fortification for citizens was growth management law that provided for state authority to backstop local government. That's all history, now, thanks to the GOP.
Miami Today notes that the county commission is allowing one developer -- whose idea for profit is based on more suburban sprawl -- to build housing where he had promised not to.
Martinez told his fellow commissioners, "We have a little higher approval rating than Congress," without noting how accommodating sprawl developers at the expense of taxpayers is a chief reason. In 2005, I provided Martinez with a poll from thousands of his mostly Hispanic constituents showing that public opinion was strongly against moving the Urban Development Boundary. (Martinez' constitutents also agreed, by nearly 70 percent, that political corruption was at the root of environmental degradation.) It made Martinez angry to be confronted with views that contradicted his backers.
"A covenant has to flow with the times," Martinez now says -- blowing off county government's failures that contributed of the worst economic crash since the Great Depression: excesses in the housing development and financing markets through which the County Commission provides a small cog in a great machine of wealth destruction.
"If we're so inflexible that we can't flow with the times, we'll be as bad as Washington," Martinez said.
It is a curious choice of words, "flow" with the times. Martinez knows in his heart that promises can be broken at will because there is no accountability on growth issues. "Flowing around promises": isn't there a word for that?
The culprits are not just the county commission, but also the Florida legislature and Gov. Rick Scott who blessed the destruction of thirty years of growth management law in the last session of the legislature. The failure to protect the public also bears the fingerprints of Jeb! Bush, whose antipathy to government regulations provides the dark background for Miami-Dade's successful race to the bottom.
Busted state authority for growth, the GOP jihad against regulations, the weakness of the Democratic minority -- in its half-hearted attempts to be Republican-lite -- and the theory that the best government is the government where industry's self-interest provides for the public good: these are all the lifeless rationales the county commission now "flows" with.
In Miami Today, Barbara Jordan is quoted, "We need to keep our promise to the community". What a crock. When there is no accountability, anyone can say anything. That is how it has been and that is how it is going to be in this brave new world, arising from the cinders of the housing crash. These are going to be good times for the unreformable majority.
One way of looking at it: voters are shell-shocked. Another way of looking at: voters have been so conditioned by lies and broken promises, when the next crash hits they will believe anything that anyone tells them who looks good, is telegenic, and delivers a good sound bite on television.
In the Miami Today article (see article below) on the broken promise by the county commission-- allowing a developer to building more crappy housing where he had promised, in a binding covenant, not to -- , Martinez gives his backers from the sprawl industry a thank-you on his way out the door and shows voters why it is a losing battle to protect quality of life in Miami-Dade.
In 2005 I was one of the organizers of the Hold The Line effort to protect the Urban Development Boundary. The UDB was never a fortification; the fortification for citizens was growth management law that provided for state authority to backstop local government. That's all history, now, thanks to the GOP.
Miami Today notes that the county commission is allowing one developer -- whose idea for profit is based on more suburban sprawl -- to build housing where he had promised not to.
Martinez told his fellow commissioners, "We have a little higher approval rating than Congress," without noting how accommodating sprawl developers at the expense of taxpayers is a chief reason. In 2005, I provided Martinez with a poll from thousands of his mostly Hispanic constituents showing that public opinion was strongly against moving the Urban Development Boundary. (Martinez' constitutents also agreed, by nearly 70 percent, that political corruption was at the root of environmental degradation.) It made Martinez angry to be confronted with views that contradicted his backers.
"A covenant has to flow with the times," Martinez now says -- blowing off county government's failures that contributed of the worst economic crash since the Great Depression: excesses in the housing development and financing markets through which the County Commission provides a small cog in a great machine of wealth destruction.
"If we're so inflexible that we can't flow with the times, we'll be as bad as Washington," Martinez said.
It is a curious choice of words, "flow" with the times. Martinez knows in his heart that promises can be broken at will because there is no accountability on growth issues. "Flowing around promises": isn't there a word for that?
The culprits are not just the county commission, but also the Florida legislature and Gov. Rick Scott who blessed the destruction of thirty years of growth management law in the last session of the legislature. The failure to protect the public also bears the fingerprints of Jeb! Bush, whose antipathy to government regulations provides the dark background for Miami-Dade's successful race to the bottom.
Busted state authority for growth, the GOP jihad against regulations, the weakness of the Democratic minority -- in its half-hearted attempts to be Republican-lite -- and the theory that the best government is the government where industry's self-interest provides for the public good: these are all the lifeless rationales the county commission now "flows" with.
In Miami Today, Barbara Jordan is quoted, "We need to keep our promise to the community". What a crock. When there is no accountability, anyone can say anything. That is how it has been and that is how it is going to be in this brave new world, arising from the cinders of the housing crash. These are going to be good times for the unreformable majority.
One way of looking at it: voters are shell-shocked. Another way of looking at: voters have been so conditioned by lies and broken promises, when the next crash hits they will believe anything that anyone tells them who looks good, is telegenic, and delivers a good sound bite on television.
Commissioner Lynda Bell is One of The Unreformable Majority.
 |
| From Miami Today |
I wrote about this issue May 23rd. I also wrote about it January 12th: It is BACK!! Like a bad case of the runs.
This issue is about land OUTSIDE the UDB line. The developer promised NO RESIDENTIAL imposing a 30 year Covenant on the land in 2007. He got the UDB line moved based on the covenant. Now the vote is in. Just 5 years later, the 30 year covenant is gone. 9 Commissioners voted in favor of this. Commissioners Jean Monestime, Rebeca Sosa, Audrey Edmonson and Xavier Suarez: What were you thinking? A 30 year covenant is a solemn promise in my book. It is good to see Lynda Bell doesn't give a hoot about a 30 year covenant. If her daughter can't find a house in this market, she either doesn't have enough money, has bad credit or is incompetent. Anyway, why is a commissioner making a decision for over 2 million people based on a family member? To hell with the good of the community. Lynda Bell is no Katy Sorenson and never will be. I hereby induct Lynda Bell in the 'unreformable majority' on the county commission.
 |
| Kendall Commons is undeveloped residential. The property that had the 30 year covenant is to the North of Kendall Commons (on the curve). Why do we need more residential if they never developed Kendall Commons? |
Monday, October 15, 2012
Gimleteye: Wynwood and Second Saturday
I wrote about the Second Saturday phenomenon in Wynwood two years ago: "... it is where the energy of the city manifests one night a month. And that is a very good thing."
Having been away from the city, I returned to Wynwood last Saturday night. What a scene.
Having been away from the city, I returned to Wynwood last Saturday night. What a scene.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)