h is for hubris : urban farm to monogrammed warehouse
When designing a monument to oneself in a region that has repeatedly skewered (while also celebrated) the gauche palaces of the rich, from Citizen Kane to Citizen Spelling, one would think that our...
View Articlecontainerized
The most significant technological development of the past 50 or so years may be integrated circuits, or microchips, that power computers and other electronic devices. Another technology that’s almost...
View ArticleMcCain Palin - last gasp of the old west
As the Sarah Palin saga unfolds, it occurred to me that one angle on the Republican ticket is as a last gasp of the right wing vision of the west, that weird frontier of mythic individualism propped up...
View ArticleterMENUtor - nutrition info in CA chain restaurants
So governor Schwarzenegger of California, amid his vetoing of state legislation (including a badly needed fee on shipping containers that I hope to have the chance to write about) allowed a chain...
View ArticlePoisoned by Schwarzenneger's business buddies, walnuts, shoes, and hawaii
I. slash of his penLast week CA Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have placed a $20 per container fee on shipping containers at California ports, raising $300 million annually to...
View Articlea streetcar named REVENGE
I. how the wheel turns...We have long associated L.A. with the entertainment industry in mental space; and with cars and sprawl as a physical place. Reels and roads, one could say. The rotation of a...
View ArticleBolt's anti-urban bias (semi serious)
I watched the new Disney film Bolt over the weekend. It was pretty good. I thought Madagascar 2, which I also saw recently and which in ways was less ambitious, was a better kid’s movie.Both films...
View Articleland of sunshine: strategies for urban agriculture
With Thanksgiving approaching, I’m going to post some thoughts about about food politics and policies in Los Angeles. I’ll break it into three angles. First, for today, the Land of Sunshine, a short...
View Articletwo cities- food justice in urban america
This post is the second in a thanksgiving season series on food in Los Angeles and by application, urban areas. The first was Land of Sunshine, focusing on urban agriculture. The last will be City...
View Articlethe future of food in a city without borders
This is the final post in a series on food in Los Angeles that started with Land of Sunshine and continued with Two Cities.In this post I speculate how the demographic shifts changing the region-...
View Articleshow me the money- inequality in LA County
Like many, I’ve been struck by the juxtaposition of the financial collapse of the past several months and the waning days of the Bush administration - both symbolizing a kind of massive systems...
View ArticleNutriStim - subsidizing fruit and vegetable consumption
The Federal stimulus bill currently being considered by the senate contains approximately $21 billion for nutrition assistance programs. $20 billion for food stamps (now called supplemental nutrition...
View Articlefreedoms to walk
Rebecca Solnit’s purposely and gorgeously meandering wanderlust: a history of walking identifies ‘basic freedoms’ that allow us to walk in the world. Solnit describes three freedoms; I’ll break one...
View Articlegood trains and bad trains
Trains. The word summons up an image powered by some of America’s favorite mystiques: our childhood infatuation with the little engine that could and Thomas the tank engine; nostalgia for the age of...
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