Public Hearings at TARC

Today from 11-1 and 5-7, TARC is holding public meetings to discuss the proposed service reductions, scheduled to be put to a vote by the company next Monday. I went to the first meeting and asked some questions, and found out it is an emergency response to the discovery that they will be receiving much less ($200 million, to be exact) than they had projected. They attributed this shortfall primarily to rising unemployment in Louisville-- TARC gets about 60% of its budget from local occupational taxes (it only gets about 12% of its income from rider fares). Another factor is that Louisville does not automatically increase its transportation budget to keep up with inflation each year, as do most cities.

A lesser known fact is that TARC has a long, and ongoing history of spending funds needlessly. In the early 1990s, TARC had a trust fund worth $38 million, $20 million of which was squandered in 5 years due to mismanagement, overspending, and fringe benifits for administrators.

Sound familiar?

Incidentally, "the planner," as he/she was consistently referred to, called in sick today, so no one could really go into much detail about anything at the meeting.


The chart above is a list of all routes currently in service in Louisville. About 2/3 of the routes will be affected. 10 routes will be completely eliminated, and 22 others will see service reductions and route changes. Meetings will also be held on Wednesday, Dec 9 in New Albanay from 11am-1pm and in Fern Creek from 5pm-7pm, and on Thurday, Dec 10 at Iroquois High from 5pm-7pm and St. Matthew's City Hall from 11am-1pm. You can also visit their website at www.ridetarc.com to contact them with comments via e-mail.

Christmas Trees

I stopped by a gardening store on my way home from work, and it was full of nothing but Pine Products. This dangling tree reminded me of a hanged man, so I sketched it (quickly- again, it was cold). I asked the guy where he gets his trees, he said North Carolina. What better way to celebrate the holidays than to pay for farmers to grow live trees, chop them down, ship them to your house, use them for two weeks, dump them on your sidewalk, and wait for the city to haul them off?

Artful Trash Management

ATM: The Group collects trash from riverbanks and makes cubes. In their manifesto, they declare their intention to make art out of junk, instead of hiding it.

This is a piece by Christy Rupp, whose work touches themes of economics and globalization. She deliberately made her glasses "objectlike" to point to consumers' obsession with pretty things.

These are both possible routes I may go with my piece. It includes a lot of cigarette holders. I may either collect a lot of cigarette butts, or scratch the surface of the containers.

Robots? Yes Please.

Dwight Martinek
Wild Willie (Last of the Red-Hot Lovers)
1994
Wimberly, Texas
Model T for converter body, stove pipe legs, muffler pipe, shovels, auger chain, charcoal starter can

Recycled Art Hunt 1

This is a recent piece by Shan Wells...Seems oddly similar to this 1968 piece by Giovanni Anselmo...

Louisville Water Company

I finished this sketch as quickly as I could- it was freezing outside, and the sun was going down. The tower is part of the Louisville Water Company's operations. Louisville water has a very good reputation for its taste and integrity. It draws water from the Ohio River, a body of water whose highest contamination risk is from spills of hazardous materials, according to the Company's 2009 annual water report. The company also earns points for working on a "greener" underground filtration system, incorporating Louisville's old subway tunnels, which should be completed in 2010 (I didn't know civil service projects actually got completed in this town!).

Underwater Museam to Divert Tourists From Reef

Mexico are submerging the first of many sculptures today for its planned underwater museum, designed to lure tourists away from delicate coral reefs, which were damaged by hurricanes and human activity.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8326593.stm

Butchertown Renovations Projects Receive Government Aid

A few businesses in Butchertown and Downtown have been given low interest loans by the government to help renovate old buildings. One new restaurant to open in Butchertown will be called "The Blind Pig." Appetizing, considering that Butchertown is the home of a controversial meat packing plant. With its odorous air pollution, the JBS plant offends not just residents of the neighborhood, but people (like me) who have to ride their bikes through the brown cloud everyday to get from one side of the city to the other.

An article about the loans:
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20091118/BUSINESS/911180404/1008/NEWS01/Butchertown+restaurant+gets+city+loan
An article about the Butchertown controversy:
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20091118/OPINION01/911180372/Butchertown+battle

“I can't comment on anything I don't know anything about,”

said the owner of Tosh Farms. This article is about a ruling that calls for a reevaluation of hogfarm permits in W. Kentucky. New criteria will take water and air pollution and pathogens into account. Why they didn't before...

Daily Trash: The Kitchen Sink

Fun Litter of the Day

I took some photos of the building with the "Hope " tower, photographed earlier. A classmate told me about the studio spaces they're building there, and I decided to check the place out up close. The whole building is actually up for sale. Though it houses a few different businesses, this space caught my eye. It looks like it will be interesting if it's successful , and I hope it is.

Archeology

Someone used old advertising boards to build a wall for this shed. I think it's really cool-looking. An object's sinister past can be absolved through creative re-use. Unfortunately, it may also make 7-up look cool.

Daily Rubbish

They're almost... sweet.

...

Remains of Louisville's buried light rail system

I don't know if these rails belong to the old light rail system, but it's probable. I also found a nice photo of the rails as they used to appear on Broken Sidewalk, an awesome website. Urbanophile has a nice entry about it, and R. David Schooling is working on a book on the subject. We are the 5th largest city with no passenger rail service, by the way.

Creative Problem Solving: Taming the Lionfish

The Lionfish is a native of the Pacific Coast, but has recently worried biologists concerned with the coral reef in the Caribbean. It was recently introduced to the ecosystem there, and could potentially devastate it. Sean Dimin has a plan to encourage people to catch fish by offering capitalist incentives: chefs in nice restaurants can offer a Lionfish dish. According to this article, consumers are eating it up; it tastes good, and benefits a worthy cause.

Bluefin Tuna to be listed as endangered species?

The UN announced yesterday that the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) will be considering listing the Bluefin Tuna as endangered. They say that ICCAT, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, has not enforced its own policies, routinely setting quotas for the fish at double its recommended numbers, which are often exceeded anyway by its member states. The classification could potentially have a devastating impact on Japan's economy; a single bluefin today "can easily fetch more than $100,000 in Tokyo's largest fish market," according to this article.

Global Warming Effects on Wind Speeds Debated

This article reports on a study that warns that global warming may effect wind speeds. However, the study is disputed, in that other methods indicate the paths of wind (and storms) will change, rather than the speeds of wind. Either way, we'll have to deal with the changes.

What I did during classtime on Tuesday...

My lovely assistant.


I dismantled my frankentree and built a compost bin. :D

The live skink and the dead one apparently were trapped in this plastic thing I found under some old junk in our yard. I flipped it over (from a distance, with a stick) and then threw it in the recycling bin.

Wow...

"Mr Kamkwamba, who is now 22 years old, knocked together a turbine from spare bicycle parts, a tractor fan blade and an old shock absorber, and fashioned blades from plastic pipes, flattened by being held over a fire."

This is awesome.

Can't See the Forest For the Concrete

This is a freeway by Broadway that I walked under on my way home one day. It is a place that has very little foot traffic, is somewhat closed off from the vehicular traffic outside, and has bits of waste that are leftover from other humans who have visited the place, parked, or slept there. The fact that it was designed and built by humans did not have the effect of creating a presence of civilization. It feels like a wilderness; relatively untouched by humans (after its creation), unseen by most people, and slightly dangerous. The plants around and coming up from beneath the concrete are almost untamed.

Lottery

Sorry about the quality of the picture- I guess my camera can't handle close-ups. I found this by the corner store near my house.

Shadow Art

Tim Noble and Sue Webster "Kiss of Death"
Fred Ederkins "Holy Spirits Come Home"

Recycling in the form of meticulously crafted sculptures; they create profound juxtapositions of images with piles of trash, (or in the case of "Kiss of Death," animal corpses). The first work says something about the dark side of humanity, both in terms of the physical harm it imposes on the environment through its waste, and the willful violence that is sometimes necessary for human survival. "Holy Spirits Come Home" positions immaterial light in the form of a spiritual message against identifiable packages for commodities (the rest of the message is on the other side), which comes off as a comment on consumerism.

Stick Sculptures

Andy Goldsworthy
Deborah Butterfield
Paul Schick
"Second Sight," an installation by Patrick Dougherty

Nature's Way
Bergfichte
Urs-P. Twellmann

Nele Azevedo. These awesome ice-sculptures eloquently address global warming. I'm pretty sure they can't be topped.

Atul Bhalla

<--Chabeel, Atul Bhalla, 2008

This is a current exhibition in New Delhi. It addresses such issues as water conservation, recycling, and changing values and social/structural landscapes. Plus it's neat.

Solar Powered, Portable Medical Outfits

This story points to how effective university competitions for Humanitarian funding can be. Dr. Laura Statchel created and funded the $1000 kits that will help reduce the extremely high rate of maternal mortality in Nigeria, using its location and high solar potential to alleviate some of the electrical infrastructure problems that contribute to some of the failings of the medical system.

Before-After Bathtub

This old tub was in the house when we moved in. We cleaned it up and painted it with no-voc paint, and now we have a beautiful, functional bathtub of sustainability!

Litter of the Day

I don't think dropping a paper towel on the problem is going to clean it up...

Scale of gorilla poaching exposed- BBC

According to this article, in the Kouilou region of the Republic of Congo, up to two gorillas (an endangered species) are killed each week. The population totals about 200 in the area, though up to 50% may be killed in a year. A study gives the entire area population about a decade before extinction.

The study has shown "the horrific scale of the endangered species market in the Republic of Congo, especially endangered gorillas sold as meat."

Mr Pierre Fidenci, president of Endangered Species International, was quoted as saying:

"We intend to stop the killing in the area by providing alternative income to locals and working with hunters not against them. We hope to conduct conservation awareness with educational programs with other NGOs and to create a gorilla nature reserve."

One Way => Venus Vodka Hope

A couple of photos of a water tower and a second tower with the word "HOPE" across the top, with abandoned trucks in the foreground, in the Smoketown neighborhood.

Silly String

http://www.google.com/patents?id=E50rAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=3705669#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Silly string is probably not one of the most immediate threats to the environment (though it is sprayed from an aerosol can), but there is something visceral and gross-out to coming across it in public places.  I'm all for silliness, but this is a blog about litter.

Campus Canvas

This was my response to a classroom assignment in which we had to create an artwork with something outside of the building.  I used acorns, a hollowed piece of wood, and placed it against a background of concrete and a surprisingly well-composed, "found" pile of yellow seed husks.

Engineering Earth 'is feasible'

This article from the BBC lists some methods for carbon reduction currently being considered by governments and scientists.  Not to sound like a Luddite, but the implications of some of these technologies sound dangerous and shortsighted.  Injecting saltwater into clouds? Storing carbon underground?  Carbon-capturing devices that simply remove carbon from the ecosystem, rather than recycle it back into oxygen via plants?

Really, sometimes the most simple solutions are the easiest.  The article states that inaction now is caused not by limitations in our ability to cope with environmental problems, but by an inability to effectively legislate and cooperate with cross-border initiatives.  It warns that if we don't get our act together now, these harsh engineering solutions may be our only options in the future.

I love these scenes.