Payton at Chicago-based Breaking the Gridlock takes on the notion that New Urbanism is somehow responsible for gentrification. “New Urbanism is ‘a forum, not a formula,’” he writes. “The ranks of New Urbanists include many voices, who (in my experience) collectively have done tremendously thoughtful (and often effective) work on understanding the root causes and ramifications of gentrification, and addressing those factors through New Urbanism.”
I somehow missed the exchange on Barbara Kruger typography rip-offs that took place over at Design Observer until the New York Times article today brought it up, but the post and followup comments are great. I’ve been bemused at how the MBTA’s Emergency public service ads have taken their design, somewhat self-consciously I suspect, from Kruger’s playbook. (Here’s a muted example - scroll to the bottom.) Also from that Times article, I’m pleased to discover that there’s a group out there called Ban Comic Sans. While we’re at it, can we add Jokerman to the list?
David Warsh discusses Boston’s newest confidence crisis following the loss of Gilette and the Atlantic, the state’s political marginalization, and the evisceration of our longstanding newspaper culture. However, he remains optimistic: “I don’t know exactly where it is coming from, but I have a hunch that new doctrines re-articulating old-fashioned New England ideas about the importance of community and commonwealth are on their way, wafting slowly out of political hotbeds and research centers around the country. Already you can sense a slight stirring of the breeze in the Massachusetts air. The political exporters may have lost their vitality for the moment. But if history is any guide, they will get it back.”
JP Confidential gripes about the Chicken Little mentality of gay marriage rights group MassEquality:
Every e-mail is urgent and every plea for cash the most important and utterly critical yet… Could it be that Mass Equality needs to raise money for salaries and their expensive office on Beacon Hill? We think that the battle is not won for equal marriage rights, but that crying wolf in desperate fundraising emails will not help the cause of decency and rationality in the long run. If Mass Equality really thinks that we are going to lose and that the “MSM” has it all wrong, they need to spell out very clearly how their version of the truth differs and they need to back it up with some facts.
Agreed — though I find their emails less of an annoyance than all those DNC/John Kerry/Nancy Pelosi/Henry Reid/Whoever emails that all are suspiciously formatted the same.
Fafblog vs. The Huffington Post. The latter, needless to say, is completely bizarre. Though I did get a chuckle out of the Larry David post on Bolton.
Chris Mooney has an American Prospect piece on the Kansas evolution debate, reflecting on the philosophy of science implications of Intelligent Design. ” In reality, though, while they may leave open the theoretical possibility of a supernatural occurrence, scientists don’t operate in this way — and for good reason. Science seeks to explain natural phenomena in a way that other scientists (including those of varying religious faiths) can understand and independently evaluate… Supernatural “explanations” can’t be tested, because scientific testing itself depends upon the constancy of natural laws.” It occurs to me that, while I clearly agree with Mooney and the biologists in faulting ID’s attack on “methodological naturalism,” no one has done a good job at explaining and popularizing science — and certainly not the philosophy of science — lately. I’m not sure where the reasons lie for that.
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