Showing posts with label Boston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boston. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

24: Boston

As Boston’s New Mayor Seeks Big Changes, Old Power Brokers Push Back Mayor Michelle Wu is striving to keep her campaign promises, but powerful lobbies are throwing up roadblocks. ....... For decades, the city’s mayors were Boston natives, men of Italian or Irish descent who were tight with local business owners and powerful unions. ......... Ms. Wu, 38, is different: a daughter of Taiwanese immigrants who campaigned as a catalyst for change and became the first woman and person of color ever elected to lead the city. She made a few minor concessions to the restaurants and moved on — but not before threatening to end outdoor dining altogether if they found her compromise unacceptable. ....... her campaign agenda, focused on “racial, economic and climate justice.” ......... A coalition of property owners and brokers, the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, is prepared to spend $400,000 to squash Ms. Wu’s rent control plan, recently approved by the City Council. And the city’s primary police union, the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, has so far deflected her proposals, which include making it easier to fire officers for misconduct. ............ some longtime political observers say the deepening resistance to her plans simply indicates that she is making headway. ........... Ms. Wu, who grew up in Chicago and moved to Boston in 2009 to attend Harvard Law School, has promised innovative approaches to climate change, a greener city, real advances on affordable housing, and long-sought checks and balances for the Police Department. ......... the city of 650,000, where fewer than half the residents are white. ....... the emergence of more diverse leadership has spurred ugliness, as well as more discussion of race and racism. .......... During her first weeks in office, Ms. Wu was the target of racist and sexist vitriol from across the country after she adopted aggressive measures to fight a resurgence of Covid-19, including a vaccine mandate for city workers. ....... Local critics of the mandate descended on the mayor’s home, staging noisy, early-morning protests that went on for months in 2022. .......... “The demonstration under the white mayors was professional, it was respectful,” Mr. Flynn said at a meeting last year where a divided Council voted to prohibit residential demonstrations before 9 a.m. .......... Ms. Wu quipped at the event that she was getting used to dealing with “problems that are expensive, disruptive and white. I’m talking about snowflakes — I mean snowstorms.” ............. Ms. Wu said her decision to curtail outdoor dining in the densely populated North End had been guided by pleas from residents, who had begged the city for relief. .......... said she liked what Ms. Wu had done to improve access to public transportation, eliminating fares on three city bus lines in low-income areas for a two-year trial. ......... 65 percent of Boston voters supported rent control, as the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city hovered around $3,000 per month. ........ Frequently typecast as a “big ideas” mayor, less interested in daily grit, Ms. Wu has recently announced a series of smaller, quicker innovations that could be seen as the millennial version of pothole repair: new bike lanes; a curbside composting program; a beer garden in Boston Common; and more dog-friendly restaurant options. ........... “We want her to know that there are other people in the city besides poor people and people of color,” he said. “You still have the base, the Italian people. You have conservatives, which she doesn’t realize.” ........ “With an institution as entrenched as this Police Department, as set in its ways, you need a dragon slayer,” said Jamarhl Crawford, a community activist who served on the city’s Police Reform Task Force in 2020. ........... The mayor “has a heart of gold,” Ms. Berninger said. “But she’s surrounded herself with people who can’t recognize that there is an established community in Boston that needs to be heard.”



What Has Trump Cost American Christianity? .

मधेस प्रदेशमा दलहरूको ध्रुवीकरण, बन्ला नयाँ समीकरण ?
पाकिस्तानको रक्षा मन्त्रालयले भन्यो, ‘इमरान खानको पार्टीमा प्रतिबन्ध लाग्न सक्छ’
विराट कोहलीले तोडे मौनता, लेखे भावुक पोस्ट

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Saturday, February 21, 2015

Global Warming With A Twist

This image shows the Arctic as observed by the...
This image shows the Arctic as observed by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite on September 16, 2007. The image shows a record sea ice minimum in the Arctic. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The phrase global warming draws this image where everything is the same except the temperature keeps going up and up, gradually but relentlessly. And that was never to be. The weather is a complex phenomenon. That is why predicting the weather is such a hard science.

So the earth warms up due to green house gases. That melts ice. One place that happens is the Arctic. Used to be land and ice were connected all through the year. Now in summer there is enough melt that you can navigate around the Arctic. Well, that has implications. Now the super cold winds in the North have more room to play. And they come way South.

And so you get more turbulent summers (like Sandy hitting NYC) and colder winters. Global warming actually means more cold. Go figure.

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Wednesday, December 03, 2014

The Mediterranean Diet


 
Eating the Mediterranean diet may lead to a longer life
a menu that is rich in vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans and peas, unrefined grains, olive oil and fish. It keeps dairy, meat and saturated fats to a minimum. And you can have a glass of red wine with dinner without cheating. ........ Fruits, vegetables, olive oils and nuts -- the key components of a Mediterranean diet -- have well-known antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.
Could a 'Mediterranean' Diet Extend Your Life?
rich in whole grains, vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, fish and olive oil


Mediterranean diet 'slows ageing' - and could even help you live longer


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Tuesday, November 04, 2014

Two Megacities On Two Coasts


Bullet trains running at 300 miles per hour between Boston and DC, and between San Francisco and LA are amazing ideas. People could live anywhere along the corridor and go to work anywhere else along the corridor. That is an amazing concept. There is not a better affordable housing idea than this in NYC. This affordable housing idea is fully scalable. This is affordable housing at market rates. Go figure.

There is an even better idea: gigabit broadband. Taking gigabit broadband to all homes and offices in NYC and the tri-state area will turn many commuters into telecommuters. That will lessen the traffic. And gigabit broadband is much, much cheaper than bullet trains.

Floating train could whisk you from D.C. to N.Y. in an hour
"You could live in Baltimore and commute to New York City faster than you could from Connecticut" ...... "It changes real estate prices, how people live, where they work. It really changes the world." ..... The magnets both lift the train and propel it forward, with the reduced friction being responsible for the train's super speed. .... While it sounds like the stuff of sci-fi, the technology itself has actually been around for over a century. ..... But it's expensive. Northeast Maglev estimates the New York to D.C. route could cost over $100 billion. Much of the money would be spent on tunnels and elevated track necessary in such a densely populated area -- possibly tunneling under cities and then running over or adjacent to Interstate 95 in more rural areas. ...... A second high speed proposal from the private sector may soon break ground in Texas....... This plan calls for a more traditional bullet train (think wheels and rail, but with speeds over 200 mph) running from Dallas to Houston. The trip could be made in 90 minutes as opposed to the three-and-a-half hours it currently takes by car or one hour by plane. The group promoting it -- Texas Central Railway -- says fares would be similar to those of a flight, but minus the hassle of getting to the airport and checking in....... What makes this project more likely is that it's using a technology that's been in commercial operation for over 50 years, is connecting two heavily populated areas over an empty, flat middle ground, and has a relatively modest price tag of $10 billion.


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Saturday, December 10, 2011

Mobile Occupy, Dawn To Dusk Occupy

Occupied JournalImage by Saint Huck via FlickrEvent: December 12th: Occupy Strikes Back (RSVP for NYC only HERE)

Occupy Wall Street Could Legitimately Go Indoors

24/7 camping out in a public place of a few hundred people has been the heart and soul of the Occupy movement. And it will have to return to that. But skipping the winter months would be a good idea. April, anyone?

24/7 can mutate to dawn to dusk, no tents required. 24/7 can mutate to daylong events away from public parks. Flash events, planned events.

This movement went national a long time ago. This movement went global a long time ago. This movement will shake Russia, this movement will shake China.
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Location: New York, NY, USA
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