War with the newts

"The idea of the cyborgisation of mankind as presented by bourgeois futurologists is anti-human, being a reflection of the anti-human essence of capitalism which regards man as an object of exploitation and a source of superprofits, which of course reduces man to the status of a living machine. This idea is based on an insiduous illusion that mankind's social problems can be solved by technological means."

V. Kosolapov, Mankind and the Year 2000

I, for one, will be joining the Virginia Institute for the Cyborgisation of Mankind as soon as humanly possible. Unfortunately, I fear that Institute may not be instituted quite as soon as Kosolapov feared. Note, for instance, the following excerpt from his chart "Forecasts of Future Trends in Space Exploration up to the Year 2030":

"1995. Samples of substances beyond the solar system. Automatic probes land on all planets of the solar system. Use of ballistic missiles as a means of public transport.

2005. Compilation of detailed maps of all the planets of the solar system. Man lands on Jupiter's satellite. [which one? I've always preferred Saturn's satellites, so I'm pretty disappointed as it is. If its not Io, I'm boycotting the remainder of Kosolapov's predictions.] Equipment for probing interstellar space.

2010. Fly-by of Pluto. Controlled gravitation. Landing on Jupiter. A laser station on the Moon to transmit energy to spacecraft. Theory on the origin of the proto-planetary cloud and the solar system."

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Against Me, Stop

::My time on the internet will be limited for a bit here, as its getting close to what they call "substantial completion" time. In the meantime, enjoy some punk rock and roll. I know I am.

Against Me, Thrash Unreal

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Del tha Funkee Homosapien, If You Must

i promised myself i would stop talking about politics but

this is a very important message which I believe we should all take note of.

[And speaking of important messages, don't miss Reihan Salam's capsule review of the Democratic, uh, fight]

rem's death star

Rem Koolhaas's new plan for Dubai is definitely something (among other things, its a rectangular simulacrum of Manhattan floating on a manmade island and a place to site the Emperor's latest). The Times explains:

"Designed for one of the biggest developers in the United Arab Emirates, Nakheel, Mr. Koolhaas’s master plan for the proposed 1.5-billion-square-foot Waterfront City in Dubai would simulate the density of Manhattan on an artificial island just off the Persian Gulf. A mix of nondescript towers and occasional bold architectural statements, it would establish Dubai as a center of urban experimentation as well as one of the world’s fastest growing metropolises."

[rem's death star and congested dubai, via nytimes but surely produced by oma]

Lebbeus Woods (who is worth reading, whether one agrees with him or not) comments:

"Unlike Manhattan, which grew incrementally on its grid over two centuries and is laden with everything from history to conflicts and self-doubt, Dubai is a kind of frontier boom-town that has to import everything to be anything, from workers to investors, from ideas to architects, from high culture to low. Now, apparently, it is importing…congestion? Sitting between two deserts, one of water and one of sand, congestion does not come naturally to Dubai. The dynamic compression of space and activity that creates a critical mass of imploding human energy called a city has to be imposed there as an idea and somehow generated as a reality over the next few years, without genuinely urban conditions. The strategy seems unlikely to succeed, except as another attraction in the high-end theme park Dubai has become. But that is not the proposal’s most disturbing aspect. Given the tabula rasa the site offers, and the apparently unlimited finances its owners possess, we might ask: is this the best vision for the future that the architect could come up with?—a gratuitious look backward at the ultimate 20th century city, rather than an imaginative look forward to the possibilities of the 21st century city.

What, for example, are the space-organization possibilities of networks of information exchange, rather than streets? What are the architectural design possibilities of synthetics, rather than steel or concrete building frames typical of high-rise construction? What are the possibilities for increasing choices in non-hierarchically organized urban spaces, rather than classical, Cartesian systems? And so on—the list of new possibilities is long.

Maybe Koolhaas doesn’t believe that Dubai is the place for a forward-looking vision. Or maybe he believes, true to his post-Modernist roots, that the past offers the best model for the future, if it is leavened with irony, and garnished with a dash of the surreal. Or maybe he simply doesn’t have a vision for the future. Who knows? We should care, however, because the world’s attention is focused on Dubai, and on Koolhaas and other architecture stars, and because—like it or not—what they do is taken as a model for the future, even when it is, how shall I say, not nearly good enough."

[Empahsis mine]

A world made by hand

Reihan Salam's review of James Howard Kunstler's new book, A World Made by Hand, is, um, brilliant:

"James Howard Kunstler is very much a man of his time — a crankish autodidact with a deep and abiding distaste for all things newfangled, who also happens to be a blogger, and a very entertaining one at that. If you've ever felt plagued by the profound stupidity of others, you'll find a kindred spirit in Mr. Kunstler, who is one of the most gifted "haters" you'll ever have the good fortune to read. Mr. Kunstler's ur-subject is what he considers the essential despicableness of a civilization built on the promise of abundant cheap energy, and the soullessness and vulgarity of the chintzy pseudo-affluence that comes with it. You get the sense Mr. Kunstler would feel this way regardless of the long-term viability of an oil-driven economy, but conveniently enough he at some point fell under the sway of a cultish fringe of the Peak Oil movement, a group that claims the world's oil is running out fast and that, as a result, the modern world is going to come crashing down around our heads."

And that's just the first paragraph. Maybe the best part, though, is that Mr. Kunstler appears to have responded in the comments section:

"That's the meanest positive review I've ever gotten. Thank you very much and go give yourself a hot beef injection, Mr. Salem Jim Kunstler Saratoga Springs NY"

If that's not Mr. Kunstler, its a reasonable approximation. I'm not sure I want to know what a "hot beef injection" is. [If you've never read through Kunstler's "Eyesores of the Month", you might enjoy doing so. Kunstler takes aims at America like Dick Cheney, and hits just about everything in sight.]

Tall buildings will cut you

Interesting stuff on the relationship between urban design and safety, from the Washington Post, via Where:

"Two new-wave economists, Edward Glaeser of Harvard and Bruce Sacerdote of Dartmouth, matched crime figures with data on building height and discovered that the residents of high-rise apartments are much more likely to be victims of crime -- specifically street crime. The effect remains similar after statistically adjusting for poverty, demographics and public housing: It's the height of the building itself that matters."

So maybe that's not quite as fascinating as the notion that inhaling architecture can alter your mental state, but its still a pretty interesting observation. Certainly agrees with my intuitive preference for low-rise urban environments (which, contrary to what the Ground Floor suggests, are quite capable of supporting vibrant, walkable commercial life -- souk, anyone?).

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Yo La Tengo, I Feel Like Going Home

forbidden fruits and vegetables

[illustration via nytimes]

Interesting op-ed from the New York Times today; a Minnesota farmer explains how Federal farm aid makes it more difficult for him to grow, well, food:

"The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans, rice, wheat and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables. Because my watermelons and tomatoes had been planted on “corn base” acres, the Farm Service said, my landlords were out of compliance with the commodity program.

I’ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.)"

He pins the blame for this on the influence corporate farmers have on the representatives from large farming states (Florida, California, etc.). Whether that's accurate or not, I can't say, but it certainly seems plausible. Reminds me of the rather hilariously titled "Everything I Want to Do is Illegal", by farmer/writer Joel Salatin (a (much) shorter version of which is available in PDF here):

"I want to dress my beef and pork on the farm where I’ve coddled and raised it. But zoning laws prohibit slaughterhouses on agricultural land. For crying out loud, what makes more holistic sense than to put abattoirs where the animals are? But no, in the wisdom of Western disconnected thinking, abattoirs are massive centralized facilities visited daily by a steady stream of tractor trailers and illegal alien workers.

But what about dressing a couple of animals a year in the backyard? How can that be compared to a ConAgra or Tyson facility? In the eyes of the government, the two are one and the same. Every T-bone steak has to be wrapped in a half-million dollar facility so that it can be sold to your neighbor. The fact that I can do it on my own farm more cleanly, more responsibly, more humanely, more efficiently, and in a more environmentally friendly manner doesn’t matter to the government agents who walk around with big badges on their jackets and wheelbarrow-sized regulations tucked under their arms."

[Incidentally, the illustration from the Times is by a fellow named Jacob Magraw-Mickelson, who makes some very nice drawings, paintings, and prints, as you can see here.]