Friday Five
Five political links to start the weekend:
- 25 Harshest Reactions to the Wallstreet Bailout
- Religion in America: Why Many Democrats and Europeans Don't Get it
- Japan's new prime minister, Taro Aso, is some kind of superhero
- The Subprime Primer
- The Onion: Point/Counterpoint
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Time to Revisit the Graffiti Problem
On my way to work this morning, crossing South on the Rock Island Trail, I glanced west and happened to see a large gang-related tag covering the side of a building on the south side of the street.
The new incident was covering an area that, as late as last week, bore the mark of a different gang, but was recently painted over by the building owner. The new markings, I learned as I rode over to check it out, covered not only the painted-over section of the building originally hit, but several other buildings in the area as well, including the strip mall housing Caffe Italia on the other side of Winthrop Road.
As I travel around the city, I've been trying to document incidents of graffiti as I see them. I've seen them in all parts of town, and despite the recently enacted ordinance, they don't seem to be slowing.
Before this problem gets more out of control, I think it's time for the city to take a more aggressive stance. This is essentially a public safety issue, if we can agree that gang activity in town is a matter of public safety. Some cities, like San Francisco, have designated graffiti abatement offices to manage cases of graffiti, taking direct action in cases affecting public property and informing property owners and appropriate agencies in cases on private property. In Lincoln currently, this is handled by the city ombudsman, Lin Quenzer, who has other duties as well. As it stands property owners have 15 days to abate graffiti on their property, but experts suggest retagging is far less likely if the graffiti is removed within 24 hours.
Of course, funding is a problem along with compliance. As a community, we will need to be creative and tough-minded to be able to find the money necessary to clean-up after these attacks of vandalism in an effective and comprehensive way. I have some ideas, but I don't have all the answers. It's time for another round of (emergency) brainstorming with Public Works, the police department, lawmakers, and property owners around the table.
We need to make these human roaches take their territorial pissings somewhere else.
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Entries for the Newspeak/English Dictionary
- Absolute means
-
(n.) Homicide. Nebraska Senator Tony Fulton of Lincoln used this to avoid saying
killing
while arguing against repeal of the death penalty. - Available for interview
-
(adj.) Publicly dishonest with blessings of the President. The Bush administration has offered to make officials key to the politically movitated firings of federal prosecutors
available for interview
by Congress, but only under the conditions thatThey not be under oath; that is, they may lie freely and without fear of prosecution.
There must be no transcript; that is, all evidence of lying will be hearsay.
- Not politically motivated
-
(adj.) Totally politically motivated. Tom DeLay suggests that the Republican campaign against Bill Clinton was
not politically motivated
, while the criminal accusations against him are driven soley by base political intent, and have nothing at all to do with illegal laundering of campaign funds. - Enemies
-
(n.) Fellow citizens; members of the other political party. Tom DeLay again; he's a piece of work.
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No More Whinging
Because of a fire, 27th Street was closed this morning just south of South Street. All traffic was rerouted through the neighborhoods. Instead of following the herd, I bailed west on South, to take 13th/14th the rest of the way to work.
The roads were treacherous, polished ice like an expanse of black mirror. Traffic didn't flow; it crawled. Or it skated. Just south of Highway 2 on 14th, an accident backed southbound traffic up nearly to Calvert. I was again able to get in the turn lane, and head back toward 27th to finish my twisty morning commute.
Now I'd just like to say—all that, and I got across town in less than 20 minutes. Reports of Lincoln's traffic problems have been greatly exaggerated. There are some not-so-pretty reasons why 27th Street is such a big deal, few of them having anything to do with traffic volume. There's the sense, for instance, that the south side receives favorable treatment compared to the north. There's a sense of entitlement; that one has the right to go from point A to point B by the most direct route at the greatest possible speed.
Throw asphalt at it!
is an answer that comes too easily when
talking about growth and traffic. Ramming larger and larger roads through
existing residential areas is truly a solution for the fringe at the
expense of the core: it facilitates moving volumes of traffic from edge
to edge while creating a no-man's land in the middle. Lincoln as a
community needs to consider more innovative ways to approach these
issues, such as improving the public transportation system (including
rehabilitating the image of public transportation and its users),
reorient from thinking about traffic
to thinking about
transportation
, increasing integration of land use and transportation
planning, developing a multinodal community concept requiring fewer
cross-town trips, and revitalizing some of the older existing areas, so
they aren't perceived as expendable.
As many have said, there are other ways to go north and south. Try 48th. Try 9th and 10th. Try 77. South 27th Street does not impede traffic as much as some would have you believe, and widening that relatively short stretch between South and Highway 2 is not going to dramatically improve Lincoln's economy. It will (guaranteed) induce decay and decline in a well-functioning neighborhood.
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Pre-election Thoughts
The Political Compass is a system which tries to make a more comprehensive mapping of socio-ethical attitudes than the traditional left vs. right, red vs. blue descriptions.
I'd love to see Political Compass results for candidates running for office before voting, and get a picture that's not based on party affiliation, wedge issues, and attack ads. It's too late for the current races, but it might be fun to run the idea up the flagpole for the next election, and see who salutes.
CNET compiled a list showing how federal
legislators voted on technology issues. The Nebraska delegation
comes in well below the middle of the pack at with a tech-friendly
ranking of 37. Of course, because CNET is about computers and the
internet, what they really mean by technology issues
is
information technology issues
. Nebraska has a less than stellar
history on this stuff, going back to the late James Exon and his
ill-fated Communications
Decency Act, an early attempt to censor internet speech.
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