Thursday, January 31, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Southfield City Council Meeting January 28, 2013 (Walmart Public Hearing)
City Council Meeting held in Southfield Michigan on January 28, 2013,
The meeting mostly concerned a public hearing regarding rezoning that would allow for the building of a proposed Walmart store.
In the end the City Council voted against the rezoning 5-1 voting as follows
- Sylvia Jordon: Abstained because her husband a clergyman had shown prior interest in purchasing the property.
- Donald Fracassi: No
- Sidney Lantz: Yes
- Myron Frasier: No
- Kenson Siver: No
- Jeremy Moss: No
- Joan Seymour: No
In a written email statement after the vote, Daniel Morales, Director of Communications
We are disappointed in the Southfield City Council’s decision. Walmart listened to residents and elected officials and incorporated that feedback into a plan that was well within city zoning ordinances. What’s more, our proposed store would have been consistent with the City’s Master Plan for continued retail development along the Southfield Road corridor. It’s unfortunate that residents won’t be able to benefit from an additional 300 job opportunities and new, fresh food options along 12 Mile and Southfield Roads.
We thank our supporters and associates for their hard work and dedication through this process.
Prior to the meeting a protest rally was held in the pavilion outside of council chambers. Several members of the community were in attendance including, Stephanie English who spoke both at the meeting and at the rally in opposition to Walmart. Ms. English compared the situation at the St. Bede property to fitting a glass slipper on many feet to find Cinderella. She stated that she felt that the city shouldn't allow the rezoning just because Walmart was an immediate developer at the table, and and that the city should wait for something that was a more proper fit for the site.
An agenda and related documents can be found here.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
The Roots Phenomenon
I just got done watching Pillars of Earth (series not book) and am starting to move on to it's sequel World Without End. It's during a breast groping prior to a woman's execution that I realize a fundamental problem I have with the World Without End.
That said I'm still watching it and I am not a woman, I am black and the same problem can be found in Roots. I have some slavery baggage.
While in the past I've said I reserve the right to be pissed about slavery, I still have to function. I do this by putting it and every other fucked up thing that EVER happened into historical context. While I don't excuse all that stuff it's the way the world was. It happened and unless I had a DeLorean I can't change it. If I try to look at every event in history, and being a history nut I would try, through contemporary value and moral lenses I would drive myself insane. I have to live with it and move on.
Which brings me to the Roots phenomenon. Roots took my anger at racial injustice and manipulated me. When I first saw it was when I was a kid, and I was more or less told this is how it happened. This is how life was back then. I'm not denying that some fucked up shit happened, but Roots, which by the way Alex Haley plagerized, is a book that was written in the racially charged 1960's it's not exactly an unbiased account of history. I'm talking mostly about the miniseries but in rewatching it becomes clear that it is somewhat manipulative.
I hate this sort of thing for two reasons, one I feel that audience manipulation, especially blatant audience manipulation is a sure sign of bad writing. If you haven't written a character I care about enough about to get invested in without cutting off his foot, go back and try again.
But moreover I hate it because it uses real social injustices to manipulate and amplify indigence, not for the sake of history, or justice or equality, but for the sake of the narrative and book sales. It's cheap. There is a lot to be furious over slavery, and I am, make no mistake, but that anger shouldn't be for Kunta Kinte and his foot. It should be for the millions who were kidnapped, whipped, and mutilated. Now telling thier story through a fictional character is one thing, but a lot of these stories have an ulterior agenda.
I don't mind allegory.
But often times it's not. It's using people's emotions about not just historical, but also contemporary social injustice to get them invested in characters. I've said it about five times but, it's cheap and manipulative. And I hate writing like that, but moreover I think writing like that hurts society. It creates indigence not based on historical events but on a fiction. "Based on a true story" is not the same as "this is a true story". People get hung up on the contrivances used to manipulate their emotions, while at the same time diminishing the effects of the real thing. I feel this is the super trope of using rape as drama.
Don't use slavery as the Scrubs music. Don't use rape as a scare chord.
That said I'm still watching it and I am not a woman, I am black and the same problem can be found in Roots. I have some slavery baggage.
While in the past I've said I reserve the right to be pissed about slavery, I still have to function. I do this by putting it and every other fucked up thing that EVER happened into historical context. While I don't excuse all that stuff it's the way the world was. It happened and unless I had a DeLorean I can't change it. If I try to look at every event in history, and being a history nut I would try, through contemporary value and moral lenses I would drive myself insane. I have to live with it and move on.
Which brings me to the Roots phenomenon. Roots took my anger at racial injustice and manipulated me. When I first saw it was when I was a kid, and I was more or less told this is how it happened. This is how life was back then. I'm not denying that some fucked up shit happened, but Roots, which by the way Alex Haley plagerized, is a book that was written in the racially charged 1960's it's not exactly an unbiased account of history. I'm talking mostly about the miniseries but in rewatching it becomes clear that it is somewhat manipulative.
I hate this sort of thing for two reasons, one I feel that audience manipulation, especially blatant audience manipulation is a sure sign of bad writing. If you haven't written a character I care about enough about to get invested in without cutting off his foot, go back and try again.
But moreover I hate it because it uses real social injustices to manipulate and amplify indigence, not for the sake of history, or justice or equality, but for the sake of the narrative and book sales. It's cheap. There is a lot to be furious over slavery, and I am, make no mistake, but that anger shouldn't be for Kunta Kinte and his foot. It should be for the millions who were kidnapped, whipped, and mutilated. Now telling thier story through a fictional character is one thing, but a lot of these stories have an ulterior agenda.
I don't mind allegory.
But often times it's not. It's using people's emotions about not just historical, but also contemporary social injustice to get them invested in characters. I've said it about five times but, it's cheap and manipulative. And I hate writing like that, but moreover I think writing like that hurts society. It creates indigence not based on historical events but on a fiction. "Based on a true story" is not the same as "this is a true story". People get hung up on the contrivances used to manipulate their emotions, while at the same time diminishing the effects of the real thing. I feel this is the super trope of using rape as drama.
Don't use slavery as the Scrubs music. Don't use rape as a scare chord.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Southfield City Council Meeting January 14, 2013 Regular Meeting
Regular City Council Meeting held in Southfield, Michigan at 7:00 pm on January 14, 2013
Topics Include
- A proposed Tim Horton's
- A brownfield credit amendment
- Parking for the Southfield Funeral Home
- Public Comments regarding the proposed Walmart development
Southfield Janaury 14, 2013 Southfield City Council Committee of the Whole Meeting
January 14, 2013 Southfield City Council Committee of the Whole Meeting held at 3:00 pm.
Topics Include
- New In car camera equipment for police officers
- A new police liaison officer for Southfield Regional Academy
- Discussion of the proposed Walmart Site Plan
- A grant to provide for new police training equipment
- The 2013 meeting schedule
Sunday, January 13, 2013
I Speak For the Trees
Not long after The Lorax came out I was going to post arguments for environmentalism. I thought I was being too preachy, but damn it to hell. But first an argument for progress.
Progress
We want. On our own we are weak, cold, and hungry, so we put to use our gift, our minds. We've harnessed, the spear, then the flame, then the wheel in an effort to reduce some of our pain. A desire for progress is nothing to shame. For fire is one of misery's best banes. Without a flame in winter to sleep I can't have lain.
For me you see problem is clear. The process of production no one cheers. Oh screw my scheme I'm through with it. I think that all the rhyming is making my writing shit. So excuse me if for now I just quit.
My point is that it's not wrong for people to want their lives to be better and stuff, or even more blatantly technology has the potential to make it better. If I hear another hippie sarcastically ask someone if their life is better because of a TV, car, or computer let's just say I'll devolve into a caveman.
Furthermore the wheels of industrialization are not wrong. For companies to want to make more, cheaper, and better is not patently wrong. I'm channeling my inner Gekko here, but greed is good. The incentive for production, for which the benefit of has been previously illustrated, is money,a piece of technology to make trade of other technologies which can directly benefit individuals easier. Money may be the root of all evil, but in and of itself money, the concept of money, the technology of money, is good.
The lack of money can cause great misery. Every year, every god damned year, I hear of some poor soul who dies from exposure. Your not going to convince me that we should all trade in our furnaces, our transportation, or our computers, but that's not what environmentalism and conservationism is about, and now this for the most part won't be about global warming.
Stewardship of the Earth
I am not an overly religious man, though am big on Pascal's Wager, the idea that there isn't much to lose by choosing to act as though God exists. I use religious texts mostly to explore interesting intellectual and philosophical ideas, and this is one of them.
Many religions have the notion that it is humanity's duty to, "tend to the garden." From a more secular point of view, humanity as the most intelligent of the beasts can understand long term consequences in a way animals can't. We can play the long game. A dog, not so much. If not us who?
We are the only beings I know of who can look out for the long term interests of the environment. Ahimsa / Primum non nocere i.e. Do no Harm To contrast with the previous argument, humanity has the capacity to impact the global environment far more dramatically than most other animals, yet even our best biologists are barely scratching the surface on our relationship to it. Science is not magic. They are not fortune tellers. We don't really know the consequences of all of our actions and so within reason we should be prudent, because not everything can be fixed, or at least fixed quickly. If you chop down a forest will it grow back probably, but not for a long time. We need to at the very least be careful how much harm we do.
Animal Rights
Wilderness As a Good
Look I'm not going to go wrestle a bear but I think ol' Teddy Roosevelt was right. Right outside my dorm for two years there was a nice patch of woods. I miss it. Not because it looked nice. I can't even really even put my hand on it but I liked being able to walk the foot path. (Okay it helped that that footpath through the woods was probably the quickest walking path to anywhere. Compared to where I know live where it's a nightmare walking anywhere.) It helped me think and grasp hold of my thoughts, and I think that that is something that everybody needs even if not that way, a place or time or activity that helps you grasp hold of your mind.
We still have relatively few wild places but we should cherish and protect them, because when they are gone it will be a long time before they return if they ever do. As cheesy as it may sound I don't want my kids to grow up without ever having seen a tree, or a river. I want both them and myself to be able to still be able to find and walk along wild places even if they may be in short spans. I guess when there is a lot on one's mind I want all of society to have the option of going for a nice walk in park.
Environmental Health
We are part of the environment. I'm not saying we affect it, although we do. I'm saying it affects us. Too much smog or toxins in the water and we start to get cancer. Do I have to explain how that's bad? Often when people say you're destroying the environment they don't mean it, you've blighted the earth. What they mean is that we're slowly but surely creating conditions that will make it difficult for humanity, not the fuzzy bunnies, not Lassie over there humanity, us to live here.
As such there should be some standards. Somebody to say you can't dump whatever you want into the river.
Or spout whatever you want in the air.
Furthermore those standards should be fair. Air and water travel. We have to own up to the fact that for a good part of our nation's history, we didn't give a hoot, we didn't do our part, and we didn't exercise the power that was ours. If we want to lead the rest of the world in solving environmental problems. If we want Russia, China and India to step up to the plate in that regard we have to be honest about the fact that we're a little late to the ballgame ourselves. Contaminants in the air we breath, and the water we drink are a health hazard, and yes there should be laws to protect John Smith from the giant factory two towns over, or even two countries over. And by the way if I were going to go on a rant about global warming this is where I would do it. Remember the progress speech. I always here people talking about how environmentalists want to hold back progress. The opposite is true we can and should be developing and investing in laws and technolgy that improve the public health and yes that includes the public environmental health.
Conservationism
I'm not just talking oil, but yeah it's the main one. We have non-renewable resources. It's not a matter of if, but when their going to become scarce. You can make the argument that we're already at that point. We have to manage what we have left, to get the fairest and most efficient use of it. I don't want to put my kids in Road Warrior world. The said truth is that we are headed towards resource wars. Again you could argue that we're already there. You want to know why the U.S. supported Gaddafi so long? Oil. You want to know why the U.S. sided with Libyan rebels? Oil. Scarcity of a vital resource causes conflict, potentially international conflict. Potentially international conflict that can lead to war. Potentially intentional conflict that can lead to major war. I'll flatout say it, WWIII is going to be a resource war. It will start small, then the major players will worry about the flow of gas, or oil, or copper, and get involved to protect their supply. That's how wars start in this day and age. No one is out for conquest. No one gives a damn about farmland. It's, "what do we have to do to keep the tap flowing?"
The more pressed we are for resources the more our hands our diplomatically tied. You know what we can't get off foreign oil. We can't. The best we can hope for is to reduce our dependency on it, by making cleaner more efficient tech. We can't afford to waste energy.
Progress
We want. On our own we are weak, cold, and hungry, so we put to use our gift, our minds. We've harnessed, the spear, then the flame, then the wheel in an effort to reduce some of our pain. A desire for progress is nothing to shame. For fire is one of misery's best banes. Without a flame in winter to sleep I can't have lain.
For me you see problem is clear. The process of production no one cheers. Oh screw my scheme I'm through with it. I think that all the rhyming is making my writing shit. So excuse me if for now I just quit.
My point is that it's not wrong for people to want their lives to be better and stuff, or even more blatantly technology has the potential to make it better. If I hear another hippie sarcastically ask someone if their life is better because of a TV, car, or computer let's just say I'll devolve into a caveman.
Furthermore the wheels of industrialization are not wrong. For companies to want to make more, cheaper, and better is not patently wrong. I'm channeling my inner Gekko here, but greed is good. The incentive for production, for which the benefit of has been previously illustrated, is money,a piece of technology to make trade of other technologies which can directly benefit individuals easier. Money may be the root of all evil, but in and of itself money, the concept of money, the technology of money, is good.
The lack of money can cause great misery. Every year, every god damned year, I hear of some poor soul who dies from exposure. Your not going to convince me that we should all trade in our furnaces, our transportation, or our computers, but that's not what environmentalism and conservationism is about, and now this for the most part won't be about global warming.
Stewardship of the Earth
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
The Bible (NIV) Genisis 2:15
I am not an overly religious man, though am big on Pascal's Wager, the idea that there isn't much to lose by choosing to act as though God exists. I use religious texts mostly to explore interesting intellectual and philosophical ideas, and this is one of them.
Many religions have the notion that it is humanity's duty to, "tend to the garden." From a more secular point of view, humanity as the most intelligent of the beasts can understand long term consequences in a way animals can't. We can play the long game. A dog, not so much. If not us who?
We are the only beings I know of who can look out for the long term interests of the environment. Ahimsa / Primum non nocere i.e. Do no Harm To contrast with the previous argument, humanity has the capacity to impact the global environment far more dramatically than most other animals, yet even our best biologists are barely scratching the surface on our relationship to it. Science is not magic. They are not fortune tellers. We don't really know the consequences of all of our actions and so within reason we should be prudent, because not everything can be fixed, or at least fixed quickly. If you chop down a forest will it grow back probably, but not for a long time. We need to at the very least be careful how much harm we do.
Animal Rights
The question is not, Can they(animals) reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?Let me preface by saying I don't think we should treat animals like people, but I also believe that without cause, and yes eating and wearing them is a cause, we should try not to put them through cruel treatment or death. I'm not saying an animal should be living better than me. But I've heard of some pretty messed up stuff like birds choking on plastic, animals with missing limbs because of traps, and a lot of it wasn't necessarily not because someone was a sociopathic asshole, but just because we sometimes don't think of the later consequences of our actions.
Jeremy BenthamAn Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
Wilderness As a Good
There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm."
Theodore Roosevelt
We still have relatively few wild places but we should cherish and protect them, because when they are gone it will be a long time before they return if they ever do. As cheesy as it may sound I don't want my kids to grow up without ever having seen a tree, or a river. I want both them and myself to be able to still be able to find and walk along wild places even if they may be in short spans. I guess when there is a lot on one's mind I want all of society to have the option of going for a nice walk in park.
Environmental Health
We are part of the environment. I'm not saying we affect it, although we do. I'm saying it affects us. Too much smog or toxins in the water and we start to get cancer. Do I have to explain how that's bad? Often when people say you're destroying the environment they don't mean it, you've blighted the earth. What they mean is that we're slowly but surely creating conditions that will make it difficult for humanity, not the fuzzy bunnies, not Lassie over there humanity, us to live here.
As such there should be some standards. Somebody to say you can't dump whatever you want into the river.
Or spout whatever you want in the air.
Furthermore those standards should be fair. Air and water travel. We have to own up to the fact that for a good part of our nation's history, we didn't give a hoot, we didn't do our part, and we didn't exercise the power that was ours. If we want to lead the rest of the world in solving environmental problems. If we want Russia, China and India to step up to the plate in that regard we have to be honest about the fact that we're a little late to the ballgame ourselves. Contaminants in the air we breath, and the water we drink are a health hazard, and yes there should be laws to protect John Smith from the giant factory two towns over, or even two countries over. And by the way if I were going to go on a rant about global warming this is where I would do it. Remember the progress speech. I always here people talking about how environmentalists want to hold back progress. The opposite is true we can and should be developing and investing in laws and technolgy that improve the public health and yes that includes the public environmental health.
Conservationism
I'm not just talking oil, but yeah it's the main one. We have non-renewable resources. It's not a matter of if, but when their going to become scarce. You can make the argument that we're already at that point. We have to manage what we have left, to get the fairest and most efficient use of it. I don't want to put my kids in Road Warrior world. The said truth is that we are headed towards resource wars. Again you could argue that we're already there. You want to know why the U.S. supported Gaddafi so long? Oil. You want to know why the U.S. sided with Libyan rebels? Oil. Scarcity of a vital resource causes conflict, potentially international conflict. Potentially international conflict that can lead to war. Potentially intentional conflict that can lead to major war. I'll flatout say it, WWIII is going to be a resource war. It will start small, then the major players will worry about the flow of gas, or oil, or copper, and get involved to protect their supply. That's how wars start in this day and age. No one is out for conquest. No one gives a damn about farmland. It's, "what do we have to do to keep the tap flowing?"
The more pressed we are for resources the more our hands our diplomatically tied. You know what we can't get off foreign oil. We can't. The best we can hope for is to reduce our dependency on it, by making cleaner more efficient tech. We can't afford to waste energy.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
The Voice of My Demon
Damn them all to hell
Let me have my wall
I can be a man in a shell
I'm not hearing angels call
We are all petty and small
Why stand we've long since fell
I will be no one's toy ball
I won't be driven on the rail.
I am but myself no more and no less
I shall not bend knee
Or anyone's feet kiss
I and I alone decide what I will be
Let me have my wall
I can be a man in a shell
I'm not hearing angels call
We are all petty and small
Why stand we've long since fell
I will be no one's toy ball
I won't be driven on the rail.
I am but myself no more and no less
I shall not bend knee
Or anyone's feet kiss
I and I alone decide what I will be
Friday, January 11, 2013
Voice Of My Angel
God save the dreamers
We lost the garden
But through all upheavals
Let not our hearts harden
Life is our test
Through the muck
Let us not rest
Let us not give up our pluck
We can be better
For all our demons for get not
spirit is our treasure
Regardless of our lot
That is our measure
We lost the garden
But through all upheavals
Let not our hearts harden
Life is our test
Through the muck
Let us not rest
Let us not give up our pluck
We can be better
For all our demons for get not
spirit is our treasure
Regardless of our lot
That is our measure
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Jack Beras Has Passed
On January 7, 2013 Southfield City Attorney Jack Beras passed. A funeral mass will be held on January 12, 2013 at 1 pm at The Church of The Transfiguration.
More information can be found here.
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