Some of you I'm sure all ready read this in the news or maybe even on face book. But I thought I would post it here since on one else has yet . I think it is an interesting article about the Elmwood strip and how they want to make laws about building there. Oh yeah and (e:drew) is "ed .

02/11/09 06:51 AM
Proponents push design standards for projects in Elmwood Village
By Brian Meyer
NEWS STAFF REPORTER


A plan that would impose strict new design standards on projects in the Elmwood Village was presented to Common Council members Tuesday, capping off a decade long effort by neighborhood advocates.

Speakers at a public hearing in City Hall said the effort aimed to prevent the type of "suburban-style" development that has occurred in some other areas, including the Delaware- Hertel corridor. The distinctive Elmwood Strip should never take on the aura of a Union Road, they argued.

If approved by city officials, new projects along Elmwood would have to be built close to sidewalks. Buildings couldn't have parking lots in front of their facades. The design standards also would favor mixed-use projects that would include upper-floor residences over businesses.

Before structures could be demolished, property owners would have to submit reuse plans for the parcels. The plan also would impose strong community- notification requirements, including signs on properties to alert people to development plans.

The proposed design standards were crafted with suggestions from 300 residents and business owners, said Justin Azzarella, executive director of the Elmwood Village Association.

Daniel Sack, an Elmwood Village resident who sits on the association's design committee, denied that the new rules could hinder economic development. He also highlighted figures showing that carefully planned projects along a business strip like Elmwood have greater economic value per acre than big-box developments or buildings with sprawling parking lots.

"It's not simply about aesthetics," he said. "It's about the . . . economic value of the land."

The Rev. Drew Ludwig of Lafayette Presbyterian Church urged city officials to adopt the new regulations. "These design standards will keep the Elmwood Village as the fantastic neighborhood that it already is," he said.

Every speaker at Tuesday's hearing voiced support for the new regulations. Some noted that in 2007, the Elmwood Village was christened one of the "10 great neighborhoods in America" by the American Planning Association.

Others underscored the importance of making sure that development on Elmwood takes into account pedestrians and bicyclists.

"This is a community [that ] likes to walk and likes to enjoy the vitality of the street," said Karl Frizlen, an architect and a member of the association's design panel.

Mayor Byron W. Brown recently announced plans for a citywide update of what some have branded antiquated zoning codes. But advocates urged Council members to approve the new standards for Elmwood, saying that waiting one or two years for a citywide revamping of codes makes no sense.

North Council Member Joseph Golombek Jr., who represents part of the Elmwood Strip, predicted lawmakers will approve the plan, noting that the design standards have been thoroughly debated since the late 1990s.

"I'm embarrassed to say it has taken this long," he said.

Most of the commercial activity on what is considered the Elmwood Strip stretches from North Street to Forest Avenue.

bmeyer@buffnews.com

Well I gave the journal the category of repost because I wrote about Zack and Miri Make a Porno when I saw it at the show. I now own it on DVD and watched it over the weekend, I didn't get to watch all the deleted scenes yet though, but that being said I think it was a pretty good movie. When I bought it at target it is just called Zack and Miri but I guess you can get the full cover art and have it signed . If I would have known I would have done the whole preoreder thing but with gift cards I didn't have to pay for it so that is cool. I haven't done so yet but I'm thinking if I get some extra cash to buy some stuff from the movie like the hockey hooded sweet shirt but I also kinda want to get some steelers 6 rings shirts also, so not sure. So I would say if you like dirty or raunchy comedy with a little love story thrown in go out and buy it or rent it, I think it is pretty good.

So today I went to the movies and saw Push. Yes it was only PG-13 but it still had a lot of action in it. What I liked about it was that it had a good story and good acting and a lot of actors you would know by face. Dakota Fanning was really good in it, I don't want to say that she did the best Job acting cause maybe some of it was her character but she was pretty convincing. I admit the movie wasn't what I was expecting. I thought known actors they will be all about fighting in some big US city and it will be all Bang Bang shoot them up. Yes there was some of that but it was more complex then that and there was a story and you had different people with different kinds of abilites or some might think of them as powers. The other part that made it interesting is that it takes place in Hong Kong and in some parts there are subtitles I think the entire movie was filmed there. I don't like to rate things but maybe 3 out of 4 or two thumbs up if you like action suspense sci-fi kind of movies. Before hand one movie that I saw a preview for looks really good, Crank 2. Yes they made a second one with the same guy and it looks just as crazy as the 1st one, that is why I liked it so much. If you don't know the shooting style I mean you have to watch it, to see how frantic it is. That takes me back to one thing about Push I liked. They had this effect of when the girl would see the future that was cool. But the other effect thing is that some times a movie can be to bright and crisp this looked like people where on the street, and in one scene it looked like the two people just walked into a real place with real people who didn't care the camera was there. Or at least that is how I see it.

First of all last night I learned one needs to be careful when they search for things On the internet. I found this page with video and yes it was very dirty and lets just say I saw someone fuck themselves. I kid you not it was very weird and I wonder what it felt like to him. I may never tell anyone to do that ever again since now I know it is possible, ha. Later last night on myspace I saw that some people I know are on facebook so I decided to Join. So far I do like it. I will admit I think it will take me some time to get used to how to navegate the pages but hopefully that will come with time.

For those of you who have read a couple posts back I wrote about how TV stations will change from an analog signal to digital. I do have some issues with the change my self. I also included and article about how it looks like the date of when TV stations will go digital is going to change. Well today I read an interesting article on yahoo about how that change might make things confusing for people. Even after reading that I think pushing the date to June might be a good idea. Here is the article

Some TV stations to end analog signal on Feb. 17 (AP)

* Posted on Fri Feb 6, 2009 7:38AM EST



NEW YORK - Television viewers who use antennas and were expecting a few more months to prepare for digital TV may not have much time left before their sets go dark: Many stations still plan to drop analog broadcasts in less than two weeks.

When Congress postponed the mandatory transition to digital TV until June, it also gave stations the option to stick to the originally scheduled date of Feb. 17.

That means the shutdown of analog signals, which broadcasters had hoped would happen at nearly the same time nationwide, could now unfold in a confusing patchwork of different schedules.

Lawmakers wanted to address concerns that many households that receive TV signals through an antenna are not prepared for the switch. They were also mindful that a government fund has run out of money to subsidize digital converter boxes for older TVs.

Dozens of stations around the country now say they are going to take advantage of the option to drop analog broadcasts this month.

Many others are on the fence. The total number is likely to be in the hundreds, a substantial chunk and maybe even a majority of the country's 1,796 full-power TV stations.

The House voted Wednesday to delay the mandatory shutdown until June 12. The Senate passed the measure unanimously last week, and the bill now heads to President Barack Obama for his signature.

The legislation means analog signals could vanish entirely in some areas but persist in neighboring regions. In rural areas, low-power stations will continue to broadcast in analog even beyond June 12.

On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission ordered stations that still plan to turn off analog signals on Feb. 17 to notify the FCC by Monday.

Acting Chairman Michael Copps said the commission could prohibit stations from making the switch if doing so is not in the public interest. For instance, if all stations in a market want to turn off early, that would draw FCC scrutiny, he said at a commission meeting.

For many broadcasters, delaying the shutdown is inconvenient and expensive. Many of them have scheduled engineering work on their equipment to make the transition on Feb. 17.

The Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, the public broadcasting network in the state, said Thursday that it planned to cease analog transmission from its full-power antennas at 1 p.m. on Feb. 17.

"We have four full-power stations all with 30-year-old-plus analog transmitters that are costly to maintain, putting out less than a quality signal," said Mark Norman, deputy director of technology at OETA.

"Sitting right alongside them are brand-new digital transmitters that have been running now for a few years. We just think it's counterproductive to continue to put money into the old ones."

Keeping the analog equipment in operation until June would cost the station about $200,000 at a time when the state is considering cutting its contribution to the budget, Norman said.

PBS spokeswoman Lea Sloan said about half of the 356 public broadcasting stations across the country will make the switch on Feb. 17. Many will do it for financial reasons. PBS said last month that if all its stations had to delay the switch, it would cost an estimated $22 million.

The Utah Broadcasters Association said the commercial stations in the state still plan to shut down analog on Feb. 17, while the public ones will wait until June.

In Wisconsin, at least two stations in Madison and five in the La Cross-Eau Claire plan to flip the switch on Feb. 17. In Minnesota, at least four stations plan to keep that date, along with five in Iowa.

Copps, the acting FCC chairman, said CBS, Fox, ABC and NBC and Telemundo had committed to keeping the stations they own broadcasting analog until June 12.

Together, they own 85 full-power stations, mainly in large cities. The rest of the stations that carry these networks are affiliates not owned by the network. ABC spokeswoman Julie Hoover said some of its stations may still go early if all other stations in their market do so.

Gannett Co. and Hearst-Argyle Television Inc. also pledged to maintain the vast majority of their stations on analog, Copps said. They own or operate 52 stations.

"These broadcasters deserve our gratitude. I encourage other broadcasters to join them," Copps said.

The transition to digital TV is being mandated because digital signals are more efficient than analog ones. Ending analog broadcasts will free up valuable space in the nation's airwaves for commercial wireless services and emergency-response networks.

In a few areas, including Hawaii, stations have already abandoned analog broadcasting.

TVs connected to cable or satellite services are not affected by the analog shutdown. But that still leaves a lot of people who could see channels go dark on Feb. 17. According to research firm MRI, 17.7 percent of Americans live in households with only over-the-air TV.

Most of them are ready for the analog shutdown, according to the National Association of Broadcasters and analysts at the Nielsen Co. Nielsen said Thursday that more than 5.8 million U.S. households, or 5.1 percent of all homes, are not ready.

At the Oklahoma public broadcasting association, Norman believes viewers are ready for the switch. The network has invited viewers to call in with transition questions on several nights. Each time, the number of callers has been smaller, Norman said.

"We really don't think it's going be as major of an issue as people anticipated," he said.

___

AP Television Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.

So here is an interesting article About AP wanting rights or money or something over that famous Obama picture. The thing that is weird is someone from AP helped write the article. Go to yahoo and check out the story or if you don't want to here it is. That assumes that they don't sue me for passing the story along.

NEW YORK - On buttons, posters and Web sites, the image was everywhere during last year's presidential campaign: A pensive Barack Obama looking upward, as if to the future, splashed in a Warholesque red, white and blue and underlined with the caption HOPE.

Designed by Shepard Fairey, a Los-Angeles based street artist, the image has led to sales of hundreds of thousands of posters and stickers, has become so much in demand that copies signed by Fairey have been purchased for thousands of dollars on eBay.

The image, Fairey has acknowledged, is based on an Associated Press photograph, taken in April 2006 by Manny Garcia on assignment for the AP at the National Press Club in Washington.

The AP says it owns the copyright, and wants credit and compensation. Fairey disagrees.

"The Associated Press has determined that the photograph used in the poster is an AP photo and that its use required permission," the AP's director of media relations, Paul Colford, said in a statement.

"AP safeguards its assets and looks at these events on a case-by-case basis. We have reached out to Mr. Fairey's attorney and are in discussions. We hope for an amicable solution."

"We believe fair use protects Shepard's right to do what he did here," says Fairey's attorney, Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford University and a lecturer at the Stanford Law School. "It wouldn't be appropriate to comment beyond that at this time because we are in discussions about this with the AP."

Fair use is a legal concept that allows exceptions to copyright law, based on, among other factors, how much of the original is used, what the new work is used for and how the original is affected by the new work.

A longtime rebel with a history of breaking rules, Fairey has said he found the photograph using Google Images. He released the image on his Web site shortly after he created it, in early 2008, and made thousands of posters for the street.

As it caught on, supporters began downloading the image and distributing it at campaign events, while blogs and other Internet sites picked it up. Fairey has said that he did not receive any of the money raised.

A former Obama campaign official said they were well aware of the image based on the picture taken by Garcia, a temporary hire no longer with the AP, but never licensed it or used it officially. The Obama official asked not to be identified because no one was authorized anymore to speak on behalf of the campaign.

The image's fame did not end with the election.

It will be included this month at a Fairey exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and a mixed-media stenciled collage version has been added to the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

"The continued use of the poster, regardless of whether it is for galleries or other distribution, is part of the discussion AP is having with Mr. Fairey's representative," Colford said.

A New York Times book on the election, just published by Penguin Group (USA), includes the image. A Vermont-based publisher, Chelsea Green, also used it - credited solely to Fairey_ as the cover for Robert Kuttner's "Obama's Challenge," an economic manifesto released in September. Chelsea Green president Margo Baldwin said that Fairey did not ask for money, only that the publisher make a donation to the National Endowment for the Arts.

"It's a wonderful piece of art, but I wish he had been more careful about the licensing of it," said Baldwin, who added that Chelsea Green gave $2,500 to the NEA.

Fairey also used the AP photograph for an image designed specially for the Obama inaugural committee, which charged anywhere from $100 for a poster to $500 for a poster signed by the artist.

Fairey has said that he first designed the image a year ago after he was encouraged by the Obama campaign to come up with some kind of artwork. Last spring, he showed a letter to The Washington Post that came from the candidate.

"Dear Shepard," the letter reads. "I would like to thank you for using your talent in support of my campaign. The political messages involved in your work have encouraged Americans to believe they can help change the status quo. Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign."

At first, Obama's team just encouraged him to make an image, Fairey has said. But soon after he created it, a worker involved in the campaign asked if Fairey could make an image from a photo to which the campaign had rights.

"I donated an image to them, which they used. It was the one that said "Change" underneath it. And then later on I did another one that said "Vote" underneath it, that had Obama smiling," he said in a December 2008 interview with an underground photography Web site.

___

Associated Press writer Philip Elliott in Washington contributed to this report.

I wonder how this will effect that site that has the Obama stuff you can get on T-shirts and stuff.