Veritas et Venustas

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BTW: Magnolia Bakery cupcakes taste more like sugar than anything else. You'll find much better cupcakes at Two Little Red Hens, or greatly marked up at Dean & Deluca.

Click here to see the video — found via the New York Times

Mississippi Progress

THE MISSISSIPPI GOVERNOR'S COMMISSION on Recovery, Renewal and Rebuilding is working with the Gulf Coast towns and cities as they make their rebuilding plans. Each week, residents meet in all eleven towns and in the surrounding counties. Some cities are holding seminars to educate their personnel and elected officials on SmartCode and other aspects of zoning, coding and permitting. Some towns are already moving ahead with implementing the plans produced at the Mississippi Renewal Forum. They have scheduled follow-up sessions with local leaders and officials to figure out which parts of the plans work best for them, and how they can begin implementing the ideas. On Friday, the Governor gets his first look af the Commission's final report, which includes,

• A strong intro by Jim Barksdale challenging the individual communities to take the hand-off and move toward implementation, with lots of help from the state.
• A comparison with the Camille commission's report that advocated many of the same ideas -- including the moving of the railroad and turning Hwy. 90 into a scenic highway. Will Mississippi get it right this time?
• A spread sheet of accountability ordered up by Barksdale that names every recommendation in the report, along with resources and responsibility for implementation.
• A powerful Land Use subcommittee report that will be the centerpiece of Commission recommendations, echoes many of the charrette concepts, and uses renderings produced by the charrette teams.

“For Unto Us A Child Is Born”

MS Measures of Success

The Governor's Commission's latest newsletter reported on the Mississippi Renewal Forum Summary Report and Gulf Coast Pattern Book:

Two publications are available at city halls and other places around the Coast, and they are flying off the shelves. Demand for these publications has been so great, we've had to order a second printing. The Summary Report provides an overview of the eleven town proposals. A Pattern Book for Gulf Coast Neighborhoods is a one-volume resource that gives a homebuilder or home-rebuilder information to build or rebuild in keeping with the Gulf Coast's rich vernacular architecture. They are the product of the Mississippi Renewal Forum held in Biloxi, and they offer tools and plans for rebuilding communities and homes.

MS Measures of Success II

From the Pass Christian Visionary Committee:

Dear Laura -

Good morning.  I am happy to tell you that the City of Pass Christian received an early Christmas present last night when the Board of Aldermen unanimously approved acceptance of the Proposal for Pass Christian SmartCode from Fisher and Hall dated December 15, 2005.  I am sure you will be hearing formally from the City, but I wanted to give you this informal notice.

This was an important decision by our Board who have been engaged and supportive of the discussions we have had over the last several months and this bodes well for our City's work with your team as we go forward through the process you outlined.  It also speaks very highly of the work you and your team have already done through the Governor's Commission.

And it is also a direct result of the strong commitment to the future of Pass Christian evidenced by our sponsors:

- the Oak Hill Fund,
- the Home Depot Foundation, and
- John and Renee Grisham through their Rebuild the Coast Fund

for underwriting the cost of the Fisher and Hall work, and finally, but no less importantly,

- the Governor's Commission

for underwriting the other direct costs of the design team in this project.

I can tell you that the Visionary Committee, the Planning Commission, many others in our City, and, I believe, our City's elected leaders, are very excited about working with you and the team you are bringing back to the table on our behalf.  All of us are looking forward to working with you.

Please don't let our schedule slip.  What you have proposed is perhaps a little ambitious.  We will do our best to keep up the schedule from our end and, in fact, we'd like to see this project moving ahead sooner rather than later.  As you can imagine, along with the excitement also comes some anxiety about a new approach to land use planning and control.  The sooner we have some concrete results for our citizens to see, the sooner thay can relax and begin to visualize the powerful results that will unfold as we rebuild our City, together.

On behalf of all our citizens, once again, thank you very much to all who are making this great project possible.

Happy Holidays to all of you!

Best regards,

Pass Christian Visionary Committee

Good Gray Times Redux

Click here for story.

“He's Dead To Me”

What a difference a day makes. One day Soxaholix says there's nothing going on, and the next day Johnny Damon's a Yankee. And 27,111 Sox fans say, "He's dead to me."

Yankees	Red Sox	Edge
Damon	Loretta	NY
Jeter	Graffanino	NY
A-Rod	Ortiz	?
Giambi	Manny	?
Sheffield	Nixon	NY
Matsui	Varitek	NY
Posada	Lowell	NY
Bernie	Youkilis	NY
Cano	?	NY
Big Unit	Schilling	NY
Pavano	Beckett	?
Moose	Boomer	NY
Chacon	Clement	NY
Wang	Wakefield	?
Middle Relief	Middle Relief	NY
Mo	Foulke	NY

Maybe Theo quite because the Evil Emperor said to him that one World Series ring per century is enough for the Red Sox. For four years, the Sox and Yankees have been very evenly matched, but next year's a whole new ballgame. The Sox will no longer lead the league in runs, and no one knows what their pitching will be like.

(continued)

Boomer may be gone and Clement may be gone -- and if Clement stays, will he be the pitcher we saw in the first-half, or the Clement who faded in the second half to pitch much as he had the rest of his career. Wakefield will miss Mirabelli: Wakefield's era was much higher when anyone else caught him.

The Big Unit may never be a consistently great pitcher again, but Schilling may never be a good pitcher again. Foulke is an unkown quantity, who almost wore out his welcome last year. And when they were Marlins, Pavano rather than Beckett was the pitcher everyone wanted.

Bern, Baby, Bern: The Yankees signed another centerfielder today, old number 51.