I have to say that for my liking:
The liberal states of the north are quite burdensome in their taxation and tendency towards socialist practices. To any business person thinking of building himself in those places, keeping a hold of the money you make is becoming increasingly harder with each passing year.
On the other hand the conservative states of the south are becoming quite burdensome in their religious fervor and tendency towards fundamentalist ideals. To any atheist person thinking of living his life generally free of an oppressive regime of people who believe in a white bearded man in the sky, keeping a hold of ones sanity in those places is becoming increasingly harder with each passing year.
For me, an atheist business person, this is just a great chance to apply a bit of socio-economic theory. It seems that once I manage to answer the the question of where I want to live for the rest of my life, I will have inadvertently also answered the questions
How much of my money am I willing to pay to keep my sanity? And How much sanity am I willing to pay to keep my money?
Ejtower's Journal
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12/31/2006 04:11 #37473
Opportunity Costs and GodCategory: thoughts
12/29/2006 07:30 #22053
LinesCategory: nickelcitymanifesto
Lines
Human beings have a funny way of drawing lines in the sand. We do it all the time; all over the place in fact. It is so ubiquitous that we have come to accept some of these lines as metaphysical facts, because we never even think to question them, we do not realize the ways in which they imped our ability to envision places to draw newer, better lines.
Now, perhaps my view of lines is slightly skewed. I have lived my whole life being made very aware of the lines I lived near, on, and between. Take the basic boarder between Buffalo, and Cheektowaga for example. It is common practice for insurance agencies to keep track of information, and people locations by zip codes. I live in zip code 14211, if you run that on almost any insurance agency computer the answer you arrive at is that that is a City of Buffalo zip code. However, if you look on a map you will see that a portion of Cheektowaga is also included in that zip code. As such it has been very hard to get some insurance agencies to realize that we are not technically the city.
In this case when political lines are combined with zip code lines, it turns a small chunk of land from a suburb into a lost zone. I run into the same problem with the Department of Motor Vehicles and almost every other zip code based computer system a government or other such entity owns. Growing up on this odd piece of land starting me wondering about other lines we have around here that might not make any sense, and others that do.
Political boarders are very important, they determine what police and fire departments are assigned to your house, they determine who you pay your taxes to, they determine what public schools you can attend, and they determine where you vote and who you can vote for; but when you get right down to it thats about as far as it goes. The municipal and state political boarders do not determine where you shop, or where you can go to have a good time, or what friends you are allowed to make. International boarders do have restrictions on shopping, but not on where you can have a good time, or who you can be friends with.
The reason that I bring this up is that here in Buffalo we often don't think outside the municipal lines. Most of the town, village, city, and hamlet entities are very introspective in their views of our area. Each area concerned only about its personal well being instead of seeing how they fit into the whole economic ecology. This municipal level view translates to a county level view that ignores most surrounding counties.
Just a though experiment, but lets presume that major economic activity causes development. That development means buildings, roads, homes, and street lights. Then you might say that you could map major economic activity and common interests with satellite maps of our area at night. If you look below you see that we would have overlooked our very close neighbors to the north otherwise.
I assure you that they come here very often to shop in our malls, drink in our bars, enjoy our jazz and arts, and then go back home across the river. Remember most people in Buffalo live closer to a Canadian than they do to people in Rochester.
These lines that we create in the sand are only good so far as they are useful to us in defining and understanding our world better. However, when they begin to become arbitrary reasons to ignore each other, then they become a problem and a burden.
One such bothersome line that I have noticed in the Greater Buffalo area cannot be found on any map. It is rather a slight cultural line between the urban area and suburban areas. This divide is often exacerbated when partisan politics rages in our county. More conservative suburbanites look down at new urbanite liberals, and new urbanite liberals look down at conservative suburbanites. I have seen this spark all sorts of crazy exchanges, one such exchange was over which was a more aesthetically pleasing alternative, A strip plaza or the elmwood strip. Without going into it much, the new urbanite liberal had said that the development around the galleria mall was horrible looking, and the conservative suburbanite said that he didn't care so long as he could find a place to park his car.
It is my proposition that the above divides are of little use to our community at large. Be it, continued political fictionalization of our area, urbanite "greater than thou" elitism, or simply a failure to see that common economic interest is a good reason to talk to one another; We need to create greater social bonds between these areas.
How? I'll get back to you on that.
Human beings have a funny way of drawing lines in the sand. We do it all the time; all over the place in fact. It is so ubiquitous that we have come to accept some of these lines as metaphysical facts, because we never even think to question them, we do not realize the ways in which they imped our ability to envision places to draw newer, better lines.
Now, perhaps my view of lines is slightly skewed. I have lived my whole life being made very aware of the lines I lived near, on, and between. Take the basic boarder between Buffalo, and Cheektowaga for example. It is common practice for insurance agencies to keep track of information, and people locations by zip codes. I live in zip code 14211, if you run that on almost any insurance agency computer the answer you arrive at is that that is a City of Buffalo zip code. However, if you look on a map you will see that a portion of Cheektowaga is also included in that zip code. As such it has been very hard to get some insurance agencies to realize that we are not technically the city.
In this case when political lines are combined with zip code lines, it turns a small chunk of land from a suburb into a lost zone. I run into the same problem with the Department of Motor Vehicles and almost every other zip code based computer system a government or other such entity owns. Growing up on this odd piece of land starting me wondering about other lines we have around here that might not make any sense, and others that do.
Political boarders are very important, they determine what police and fire departments are assigned to your house, they determine who you pay your taxes to, they determine what public schools you can attend, and they determine where you vote and who you can vote for; but when you get right down to it thats about as far as it goes. The municipal and state political boarders do not determine where you shop, or where you can go to have a good time, or what friends you are allowed to make. International boarders do have restrictions on shopping, but not on where you can have a good time, or who you can be friends with.
The reason that I bring this up is that here in Buffalo we often don't think outside the municipal lines. Most of the town, village, city, and hamlet entities are very introspective in their views of our area. Each area concerned only about its personal well being instead of seeing how they fit into the whole economic ecology. This municipal level view translates to a county level view that ignores most surrounding counties.
Just a though experiment, but lets presume that major economic activity causes development. That development means buildings, roads, homes, and street lights. Then you might say that you could map major economic activity and common interests with satellite maps of our area at night. If you look below you see that we would have overlooked our very close neighbors to the north otherwise.
I assure you that they come here very often to shop in our malls, drink in our bars, enjoy our jazz and arts, and then go back home across the river. Remember most people in Buffalo live closer to a Canadian than they do to people in Rochester.
These lines that we create in the sand are only good so far as they are useful to us in defining and understanding our world better. However, when they begin to become arbitrary reasons to ignore each other, then they become a problem and a burden.
One such bothersome line that I have noticed in the Greater Buffalo area cannot be found on any map. It is rather a slight cultural line between the urban area and suburban areas. This divide is often exacerbated when partisan politics rages in our county. More conservative suburbanites look down at new urbanite liberals, and new urbanite liberals look down at conservative suburbanites. I have seen this spark all sorts of crazy exchanges, one such exchange was over which was a more aesthetically pleasing alternative, A strip plaza or the elmwood strip. Without going into it much, the new urbanite liberal had said that the development around the galleria mall was horrible looking, and the conservative suburbanite said that he didn't care so long as he could find a place to park his car.
It is my proposition that the above divides are of little use to our community at large. Be it, continued political fictionalization of our area, urbanite "greater than thou" elitism, or simply a failure to see that common economic interest is a good reason to talk to one another; We need to create greater social bonds between these areas.
How? I'll get back to you on that.
12/28/2006 00:02 #22052
EJTower Reading Don Quixote Is DeadCategory: poetry
Preface: Don Quixote Is Dead, Long Live Don Quixote is a poem that I wrote in response to a few weeks of listening to people tell me that that romance and love and happiness was impossible. Angry with the world I recalled Don Quixote the fictional story of Alanso Quijano a peasant who changes himself into a knight and gallivants after windmills.
12/27/2006 23:36 #22051
EJTower Reading The Hollow MenCategory: poetry
Preface before you watch the video.
T.S. Eliot is a poet from the world war one era whose poems sum up the general feelings of the people after the war, which was in fact the horrific birth of modern warfare practices (machine guns and everything we know today). The Hollow Men is one such poem, and here I am reading it to Patrick Cassidy's Lament.
T.S. Eliot is a poet from the world war one era whose poems sum up the general feelings of the people after the war, which was in fact the horrific birth of modern warfare practices (machine guns and everything we know today). The Hollow Men is one such poem, and here I am reading it to Patrick Cassidy's Lament.
12/18/2006 20:38 #22050
So get this...I can draw?Category: journal
December 18, 2006: So get this...I can draw?
I'm currently downtown at SPoT thinking about the various new options that have opened up to me since I realized that I seem to be capable of drawing. Many years ago (about ten) I stopped drawing, and started focusing on my writing abilities rather intently.
In the years in between I have not drawn much of anything at all. In fact I began to believe that it had almost left me entirely. About six months ago I started thinking about trying to write a graphic novel or a comic strip, as a thing to try. So I tried my hand at attempting to draw some cartoons, got discouraged by my complete failure and started trying to outsource the job of illustrating to other people.
Unable to find a single person who was interested in illustrating a comic strip with me, I eventually gave up entirely on the project idea, and sent it over to "The Pile" to ferment until another day.
About a week ago though, someone I know challenged me to attempt to draw a portrait of someone from a picture. Always open to random creative challenges, I jumped on it. Swept away the ten years of dust from my drawing pencils, now found buried deep in a closet, and set about the task. As I went along, I was surprised as it all began to come back. A little bit at a time, shading, lines, illusions to create lines. I churned out a halfway decent looking portrait, the sort of piece that impresses most people but you keep thinking is slightly off in the nose or eyebrow.
Happy with this realization, that I have a new resource to tap, I set about thinking of ways to implement it. Oh yeah, I realized, I have that thing on "The Pile". So here is yet another project idea on the queue. ha ha.
~EJTower
I'm currently downtown at SPoT thinking about the various new options that have opened up to me since I realized that I seem to be capable of drawing. Many years ago (about ten) I stopped drawing, and started focusing on my writing abilities rather intently.
In the years in between I have not drawn much of anything at all. In fact I began to believe that it had almost left me entirely. About six months ago I started thinking about trying to write a graphic novel or a comic strip, as a thing to try. So I tried my hand at attempting to draw some cartoons, got discouraged by my complete failure and started trying to outsource the job of illustrating to other people.
Unable to find a single person who was interested in illustrating a comic strip with me, I eventually gave up entirely on the project idea, and sent it over to "The Pile" to ferment until another day.
About a week ago though, someone I know challenged me to attempt to draw a portrait of someone from a picture. Always open to random creative challenges, I jumped on it. Swept away the ten years of dust from my drawing pencils, now found buried deep in a closet, and set about the task. As I went along, I was surprised as it all began to come back. A little bit at a time, shading, lines, illusions to create lines. I churned out a halfway decent looking portrait, the sort of piece that impresses most people but you keep thinking is slightly off in the nose or eyebrow.
Happy with this realization, that I have a new resource to tap, I set about thinking of ways to implement it. Oh yeah, I realized, I have that thing on "The Pile". So here is yet another project idea on the queue. ha ha.
~EJTower
imk2 - 12/28/06 10:24
you should post some of your drawings.
you should post some of your drawings.
Hey great post. Where I work is behind French Rd. and that area is really strange. I work in chektowaga but when you go up to Burger king at transit you are in depew on my way to work I leave Buffalo and then am in South some place can't remember name of the place. Someone I know who lives in apartments on french is listed as living in buffalo mail wise so it is kinda crazy.
I don't like the Suberbinites for one reason. They have this idea of how bad the city is (yes sometimes they are right) and so they don't want to be here. But what they don't get is the reason Buffalo has no money and the valu of houses is going down and there are murders in school and all ethnic kids have 5 kids by 18 (yeah over doing it but you know what i mean) is cause they left.) When black, spanish, Asian, and poor people started moving into where they lived they said this is a bad place I'll go move out there. Well when home owners move that is less of a tax base. When so called "Good People" move out then bad people move in. I used to work with a west side Italian guy who remembers watching buildings burning on Connetict st. By the way that is a block from my house.
Well one way to help fix the problem is to combine Buffalo and the suburbs. That would be politicaly verry hard to do. The richer areas don't want there tax money to go support a poorer area. But in all honesty it should be done. I'm sure there is a way to do it that would work out good for everyone where not to many resources would be lost. You might keep something regional like police. The reason I say that is police who police an area that they don't live in don't care about that area and won't do as good of a job. For example some white upper class cop won't care about policing Moessell st. unless he sees his kid buying his drugs there.
LA County has nearly all things centralized - the school system, the police force, public utilities - thats right, Hollywood High is technically in the same district as Compton High. I think its probably the way to go, Kenmorons be damned!
I don't know how we can really rectify this problem with so many small municipalities paying taxes into ther own isolated areas. I had read recently that is not a country wide phenomena but something rather unique as other metropolitan areas have far fewer mini govs like kenmore which has its own police dept, mayer and utilities for a one square mile area.
I think some kenmorons would rather die than give that up and I can't totally blame them when they have a less thab five minute police response time and I would be lucky if the police even showed up.
Fascinating insight, very thoughtful stuff.
I find myself often in the position of the anti-Suburbanite you describe. It's true that nothing useful could come of it. I guess it's a reaction to the way Suburbanites look at the city, or, sometimes the way they don't look at the city. They couldn't give a fuck if it sunk into Lake Erie, so long as the HSBC Arena and Chippewa went unscathed.
However, in the end I still think that our number one mission on this planet is to find commonality with one another, to not look at each other as enemies. It's a struggle for everyone, because deep down we are all cynical bastards. It's encouraging to know I'm not the only one who thinks this way.