City Comforts, the blog

Consumer Reports: Contact Us — Not

I have an old car and was wondering how to get at the question of when to buy a new one — how to take into account the myriad factors to determine not which car (Consumer Reports is great on that) but when to get rid of it. Pretty obvious question but not so easy, I think. That's where I bet Consumer Reports could help.

I was looking through the Consumer Reports website and saw nothing which I thought to be on point and wanted to write a polite little suggestion letter on that issue.

Wow! I have never ever seen a web site which is so difficult to access....to write to staff at CU to offer suggestion, comments etc etc Consumer Reports really ought to take a look at the process. It is absurdly difficult to offer feedback. 

And I think that does not reflect well on an institution -- of all places! -- which harps (correctly) on the need for large institutions to be transparent.

Take a look at the Consumer Reports Consumer Reports Feedback Page

I am curious to hear your reaction but I bet it will take you links to at least a half-dozen pages from the top — www.consumerreports.org .Just to write a simple "Letter to the Edior." Try it. 

Or did I miss the easy route?

Is a picture worth a thousand words?

And I don't mean my own prosaic banal snapshots but the luscious color, sexy, large-format even-a-tire-dump-looks-good-seductive photos by Edward Burtynsky. Via Treehugger, Burtynsky has a new book on quarries. Is it gorgeous? Yes. Do I agree with his philosophy? as set forth by him at Treehugger:

We are surrounded by all kinds of consumer goods, yet we are profoundly detached from the sources of those things. Our lifestyles are make possible by industries all around the world, but we take them for granted, as background to our experience. I feel that by showing those places that are normally out side our experience, but very much a part of our everyday lives, I can add to our understanding fo who we are and what we are doing.

Well said indeed! The vast majority of us are unaware of how processes in our industrial world actually happen.

But does his book actually increase our understanding? And increase our isolation from the physical processes of the world? Do Burtynsky's assemblages show the process and not just an ambiguous slice? I don't know. I haven't read the book. But based on the absolutely beautiful photos shown on Burtynsky's site, I wonder. For example, it's stunning:

Rock of Ages # 1,
Active Section, E.L. Smith Quarry, Barre, Vermont, 1991

But what does it mean? What's the backstory? the current situation? and the future curve? How many people work there? All men? How long have they worked there (average age?) The black disscoloration -- what's that? Is that blue box a porta-potty? What's happening at the inactive section? How long does it take to remove blocks? And what kind of rock is tht anyway? The questions go on and on. I don't think you can say much by the image alone. Unless Burtynsky's photos are amplified by words, by captions, by explanation and interpretation, his work is just pretty pictures which does not, by his own standard, increase "understanding."

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but even just a few hundred words in addition can amplify that photo into ten thousand.

So I will take a look at his book the library and get a sense of what he has done. The pictures are stunning but without words, text. explanation. interpretation. and even opinion, the punch line is missing.

Neat way to use 'City Comforts'

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Replace Zoning with a Business Improvement District?

Tea Partying at Planning Meetings | Market Urbanism

UPDATE:

Besides equity and the central issue of environmental quality,  I left this comment at Market Urbanism: 

...my major concern about the idea of "...likewise provide a regulated built environment through voluntary private contracts." is NOT that I don't like the idea. In fact it's fine. The "least intrusive means" should be always kept in mind. The only issue for me is the huge transaction costs which, I believe, make private agreements for land use quite impossible. Thed very reason we have government is because "voluntary private contracts" are too complex. We got rid of tort law (as to land use) because it was much easier to have uniform area-wide regulations.

 In short, I simply don't think it can be dome. Too complex. Too much transaction cost.

 

 

Fallows Follows the Filibuster — and worse, Nullification

James Fallows in The Atlantic has been writing about the filibuster and I urge him to keep it up. For example he wrote today

The Congress is finally moving ahead on a budget bill and a temporary extension of the payroll tax cut. End of obstructionism and modern "nullification"? Unfortunately not.

Read what Fallows has to say. But his post made me think of my own major regret (and so far I fear) about Obama: that Obama does not use his communication skills. He is enormously articulate but does not use it to raise consciousness.

The only thing I can personally remember  (and certainly I haven't heard some great things or forgot them) was his riff on "American exceptionalism." Though a quick response in a press conference (?) it was exceptional in its brilliance and could have been expanded (and explained so that no one could think that he doesn't love America) into a full-bore explanation about America's role in the world.

Other than that, I am not sure I can recall anything that Obama has said which enlightened me. I have heard his policies etc etc but with that one exception I can't recall that he has said anything worthy of his intellectual and rhetorical ability.

My point is illustrated by the tawdry Cordray affair.

Obama's correct response -- and he can still do it -- should be to speak above his political opponents by explaining, in a fair-handed and very polite manner, insulting no one and burning no bridges, the way politics is now conducted in the US Senate. 

Obama has the chance to speak to and educate American voters about how things work. Explain the various pressures on an elected official, how one gets elected, the mechanics of Washington DC and so forth. He'd focus on the change in the Constitution from 51% (the childhood notion of Majority Rule) to 60% and he'd condemn. Like Glenn Beck, he could use the medium of chalkboard or graphics to illustrate the change in filibustering over theist 15 (?) years. Etc etc. There would be no hectoring but mere explanation of how things work --or don't. Get above and outside the DC discourse by raise consciousness among the whole people about the mechanics of governing.

Of course there is a necessary realm of private discussion and disretion and I don't expect a President to get into "He said..." or "He promised..." But with his skill I am sure he could start saying things which actually interest me and educate me (rather than simply setting forth policies with which I agree or disagree.)

Ask yourself. What have you learned from Obama? Tell me, I am curious.

 

Nervous About PubliCola

Nervous About Rumors — PubliCola.

It would help Publicola separate itself from the rest of the lame-stream media (I'm afraid that Palin did call it correctly) by using TIME as an element of rumor-spreading.

For example, you state above "Democrats in Olympia are working on a potential $1.5 billion bond proposal for construction projects to send to voters this year. The current package—being discussed on both the senate and house side—would end up bringing in about $100 million through sales tax revenues from construction and would create about 30,000 construction jobs."

Don't you think your rumor might be a little more useful if you could add some thing like "...and would create about 30,000 construction jobs FOR X PERIOD OF TIME?"   Or maybe acknowledge that "...would create about 30,000 construction jobs BUT NO ONE IN OLYMPIA WANTS TO DISCUSS HOW LONG THE JOBS WILL LAST."

The number of jobs created really shouldn't be much consideration of any political calculus -- it's absurd to borrow money to create jobs UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT THE WORK DONE. But much of the justification for any project always involves "job creation." That is natural politics but bad public policy.

So it's even more absurd for Publicola to fail to ask whether those construction jobs are for the NEXT THIRTY YEARS (the presumed lifetime of the bonds) or the NEXT SIX MONTHS (a plausible duration for a project.)