Veritas et Venustas

Quote of the Day (Yes We Can)

"For too long, federal policy has actually encouraged sprawl and congestion and pollution, rather than quality public transportation and smart, sustainable development," President Obama.

Walking by the new Thom Mayne Cooper Union building @ night this thought comes to mind -

"LET'S BE PSYCHOTIC!"

Fair & Balanced, My A**

"We just paid $3 billion for these television stations. We'll tell you what the news is."

Happy Days Are Here Again!

Speaking at a Town Hall event in Ft. Meyers, Florida today, President Obama said,

"The days where we're just building sprawl forever — those days are over. I think that Republicans, Democrats — everybody recognizes that that’s not a smart way to design communities."

(On C-Span, around 55:15, answering a question from a City Councilwoman. Also on the White House blog, at 1:07 PM.)

Here's a transcript from Citykin:

We have to target billions of dollars at infrastructure spending. And states all across the country are going through what Florida is going through. There was a study done by the American Association of Engineers… that might not be the exact title, but engineers from all across the country …. we get a D in infrastructure all across the country. We saw what happened in Minneapolis, where a bridge collapsed and resulted in tragedy. And not only do we need to rebuild our roads, bridges, ports, levees… our damns. But we also have to plan for the future. This the same example of turning crisis into opportunity. This should be a wake-up call for us.

You go to Shanghai, China right now… and they’ve got high-speed rail that puts our railroads to shame. They’ve got ports that are state of the art. Their airports, are… compared to the airports that we…you go through Beijing airport and you compare that to Miami Airport?

Now… now…look.. this is America. We've always had the best infrastructure. We were always willing to invest in the future. You know somebody… Governor Christ mentioned Abraham Lincoln. In the middle of the Civil War, in the midst of all this danger and peril, what did he do? He helped move the Intercontinental Railroad. He helped to start land grant colleges. He understood that even when you are in the middle of crisis, you got to keep your eye on the future. So transportation, when it is not just fixing our old transportation systems, but it’s also imagining new transportation systems. That’s why I’d like to see high speed rail where it can be constructed. I would like for us to… to invest in mass transit, because potentially that’s energy efficient. And I think a lot more people are open now to thinking regionally in terms of how we plan our transportation infrastructure. The days where we’re just building sprawl forever… those days are over. I think that Republicans, Democrats… everybody recognizes that that’s not a smart way to design communities. So we should be using this money to help spur this kind of innovative thinking when it comes to transportation. That’ll make a big difference.

I've been critical, and still am critical, of the amount of money going to highway construction, which props up sprawl and a carbon-dependent way of life. But the Stimulus Bill has gotten better, and perhaps we're not giving Obama enough credit.

Hillary underestimated him and then got tough, but Obama won without much fuss or muss.

McCain underestimated him, then attacked, but Obama never took the bait and won going away.

With the stimulus bill, he's been smooth, and the bill get's better and will pass. He tells us the most important thing is to act quickly, so he's looking pretty good.

He's also looking good regarding Rush. Don't underestimate my man Obama.

NSFW: Jim Kunstler responds to the Southern Poverty Law Center responding to Jim criticizing their HQ

ON HIS BLOG, and also available at Kunstler.com, Jim wrote this about Montgomery, Alabama:

Here and there around the rest of the downtown, other weird experiments in American post-war anti-urbanism presented themselves, most notably a "building" designed to look like a small-scaled Death Star, all black reflective glass, canted concrete and steel walls – which turned out to belong to Morris Dees' renowned Southern Poverty Law Center -- deployed directly across the street from the modest white clapboard-with-green-shutters house once occupied by Jefferson Davis after Richmond fell and the Confederate leadership skeedaddled further south. There were a few recently-built government towers that looked like Nascar trophies. But the rest of the downtown – the parts not dedicated to surface parking – was the ubiquitous array of muffler shops, or restaurants and churches that looked like muffler shops.

He must have had a reply from the SPLC, because he also wrote this:

Dear Mr. Levin— I have your letter of Feb 3 concerning my criticism of the SPLC building in Montgomery.

You say: “While I’m used to a love-it-or-hate-it response regarding our design….”

That should be an immediate signal to you that you have made a mistake. How many people have that sort of reaction to your state Capitol? Or to the Dexter Avenue Church? Or to the Jefferson Davis house across the street from SPLC. Or to just about any traditional civic building in your town? It can be stated categorically: nobody.

You say, “…I was CEO when the building was designed and constructed and lived with that process for almost three years.”

Well, you got hosed. You bought the Emperor’s New Clothes.

UPDATE: Here's a street-level view of the building, courtesy of Nathan Norris:

(continued)

“Morris and I made the decision to maintain the Center in its downtown urban environment, despite the significant savings that could have been achieved by relocating to a flat, suburban Greenfield site.”

I assume you are a lawyer. I suppose there is a technical term for the kind of false, diversionary argument you make. Are you saying that you could have put a crappy building out-of-town somewhere where it might not bother people – among the muffler shops and the donut huts? That is hardly the issue.

The issue is what you did on the site you chose. (And by the way, in case you wonder, I am a registered Democrat and a New York Jew, not a conservative.) You put up a building that looks like the Fuhrer Bunker. It dishonors the site and it even dishonors your mission of social justice. The design of the building makes social justice appear despotic.

No doubt you will defend your decisions to your dying breath, but I venture to say that you got hosed, you fucked up, you put up a building that is a horror, and I’m glad that I said so in public. Now I am only sorry that I did not know you were responsible for the building, or that you were in the audience, because I would have singled you out for opprobrium.

Sincerely,

James Howard Kunstler

1.20.09

PRESIDENT OBAMA tells us America is changing. We believe him because he has articulated a message we've already felt but haven't expressed as well as he does.

We want change. We are the change he tells us about.

MLK Day

I'VE WRITTEN SEVERAL POSTS ABOUT MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY the last few years. This year, I expect President-Elect Obama will say something more eloquent. He understands this quote from King:

If you want to move people it has to be toward a vision that’s positive for them. One that taps important values, that gets them something they desire. And it has to be presented in a compelling way that people feel inspired to follow.

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

V&V: Martin Luther King
V&V: James Taylor on Martin Luther King Day
V&V: "I have a dream ... "

Name of the Day

IF-JESUS-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Wouldst-Be-Damned Barbon was a son of PraiseGod Barbon, a leathermonger and Baptist preacher in 17th century London.

While studying in Amsterdam, Barbon changed his name to "Nicholas" and later became a London developer, builder and MP.

From London Rising, The Men Who Made London Modern (New York, Walker & Co., 2008): 67.

No wonder I don't like Manohla Dargis's movie reviews in the New York Times

Optimism, I should add, perhaps needlessly, does not come naturally to me. Hope is for suckers ... I tend to embrace my inner Caden Cotard, the theater director played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York, a grievously underloved film about life and death and every agonized and beautiful thing in between, including art and the scratch-scratch of those who are trying to leave their marks on the world.

Like Caden, I generally don’t see the proverbial glass half empty; I tend to see it drained to the last drop, chewed up and swallowed, jagged shard by shard.

Manohla Dargis, In the Big Picture, Big-Screen Hopes

PS, from Wikipedia: "Following her negative review of the first Garfield movie, the second movie, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, names the main villain, played by Billy Connolly, Lord Dargis."

PPS, from the movie blog pullquote:

Here's further Dargis buzz, courtesy of Jeffrey Wells' recent "Hollywood Elsewhere" column on what he calls film critic nutters: "I'm speaking of critics whose rave about a certain film makes you think right away, 'Well, I guess I won't see that one' or, at the least, has you saying 'Uh-oh.' Or, conversely, hearing one of them talk about how much they despise this or that film leads you to think, 'Hmmm, this could be interesting or even good. If Blankety-blank hates it, it can't be all bad.'" Dargis swept top honors among the ladies. [Pyrrhic victory, mayhap? After all, how many did/could they consider?]

"I think Manohla Dargis is out of her mind. The 'Ask the Critic' column just irritates the hell out of me. Even when I agree with her, I wish I didn't have to -- she's so in love with her own quirks. I never get the feeling that she just loves movies; she loves writing about them." -- Post-Production Polly "I would put Manohla right up there with Rosenbaum or Wilmington or Armond White. What they all are are intellectuals who by definition have a strong and particular point of view, and who sometimes go off the board. Except there's really no such thing as off the board...except maybe to say FREDDIE GOT FINGERED or FEMME FATALE are the greatest films of their respective years." -- Los Angeles based Hollywood columnist

"Manohla Dargis, though obviously smart and impassioned, comes pretty close [to nutter status]." -- Oakland-based internet editor/film critic --

"This is completely ridiculous, since Manohla is one of the only interesting daily critics in the country right now. It's so ridiculous that I have to wonder who you're asking for their takes, and I have to really wonder what their reasoning is." -- Los Angeles-based film critic

Wells comment: Dargis is the best thing to happen to the LOS ANGELES TIMES in a long while, and my kind of fruitcake.

Now we know how to pronounce his name

“Made off," [one of his victims at the Palm Beach Country Club] said. "You know, like he Madoff with all our money."

A Palm Beach Enclave, Stunned by an Inside Job