One of those times when The Mustache is right

Living proof that you can fool some of the people all of the time. Image via Wikipedia

Thomas Friedman is a truly ugly, soul-dead person who will surely roast in eternity for having exulted over the prospect that innocent Iraqis would be slaughtered en masse by an invading US force determined to invade an Arab country -- and he didn't really care which one -- simply to say -- in his words -- "Suck. On. This." to Arabs. Not to mention his criminal writing.

But he's been quite good on energy in the last few years, leaving aside his weird "World is Flat" delusions and recognizing the urgent need for a stiff, rising price on carbon and investments in carbon-free energy. This is one of his better pieces.

How to have less crime and less punishment

A must-read for times of state budgetary crisis -- which is Oregon's permanent, structural condition. The link above is to a NYT magazine article on the ideas covered in the book (click cover image for more on the book itself).

Every one read this!

Image by tomswift46 via Flickr

What a great, humane act of kindness here, by William Zinnser, whose books on writing should be required reading for anyone who goes anywhere near the task of teaching kids anything:

I have four principles of writing good English. They are Clarity, Simplicity, Brevity, and Humanity.

First, Clarity. If it’s not clear you might as well not write it. You might as well stay in bed.

Two: Simplicity. Simple is good. Most students from other countries don’t know that. When I read them a sentence that I admire, a simple sentence with short words, they think I’m joking. “Oh, Mr. Zinsser, you’re so funny,” a bright young woman from Nigeria told me. “If I wrote sentences like that, people would think I’m stupid.” Stupid like Thoreau, I want to say. Or stupid like E. B. White. Or like the King James Bible. Listen to this passage from the book of Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all. [Look at all those wonderful plain nouns: race, battle, bread, riches, favor, time, chance.]

Or stupid like Abraham Lincoln, whom I consider our greatest American writer. Here’s Lincoln addressing the nation in his Second Inaugural Address as president, in 1865, at the end of the long, terrible, exhausting Civil War:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right [eleven straight one-syllable words], let us strive on [active verb] to finish the work we are in, to bind up [active verb] the nation’s wounds, to care [active verb] for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan [specific nouns],—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Here’s another American President, Barack Obama, also a wonderful writer, who modeled his own style on Lincoln’s. In his memoir, Dreams from My Father. a beautifully written book, Obama recalls how, as a boy,

At night, lying in bed, I would let the slogans drift away, to be replaced with a series of images, romantic images, of a past I had never known.

They were of the civil rights movement, mostly, the grainy black-and-white footage that appears every February during Black History Month. . . . A pair of college students . . . placing their orders at a lunch counter teetering on the edge of riot. . . . A county jail bursting with children, their hands clasped together, singing freedom songs.

Such images became a form of prayer for me [beautiful phrase], bolstering my spirits, channeling my emotions in a way that words never could. They told me [active verb] . . . that I wasn’t alone in my particular struggles, and that communities . . . had to be created, fought for, tended like gardens [specific detail]. They expanded or contracted [active verbs] with the dreams of men. . . . In the sit-ins, the marches, the jailhouse songs [specific detail], I saw [active verb] the African-American community becoming more than just the place where you’d been born or the house where you’d been raised [simple nouns: place, house]. . . . Because this community I imagined was still in the making, built on the promise that the larger American community, black, white, and brown, could somehow redefine itself—I believed [active verb] that it might, over time, admit the uniqueness of my own life.

So remember: Simple is good. Writing is not something you have to embroider with fancy stitches to make yourself look smart.

Principle number 3. Brevity. Short is always better than long. Short sentences are better than long sentences. Short words are better than long words. Don’t say currently if you can say now. Don’t say assistance if you can say help. Don’t say numerous if you can say many. Don’t say facilitate if you can say ease. Don’t call someone an individual [five syllables!]; that’s a person, or a man or a woman. Don’t implement or prioritize. Don’t say anything in writing that you wouldn’t comfortably say in conversation. Writing is talking to someone else on paper or on a screen.

Which brings me to my fourth principle: Humanity. Be yourself. Never try in your writing to be someone you’re not. Your product, finally, is you. Don’t lose that person by putting on airs, trying to sound superior. . . .

The large print giveth and the small print taketh away

Some arrogant outfit called "Clear" -- some sort of wireless internet scam -- sends junk mail to LOVESalem HQ, despite our energetic efforts to get on every "Do Not Call" and "Do Not Mail" list in existence and our total lack of interest in supporting any business that is converting forests to landfill material by sending junk mail to unwelcoming non-customers.

But to top it off, they reveal themselves to be deceptive liars to boot.

In clean, normal-size print in the body of the letter you see this:

CLEAR is simple
Just plug and surf. No appointment, no installation visit and no annual contract required.

But lo! Down at the bottom, in the middle of a dense paragraph SIX-POINT GREY-ON-WHITE-BACKGROUND type, you can, with a magnifying glass and strong lighting, barely make out

Requires $35 activation fee with a one-year agreement.

So just remember: CLEAR -- a firm you clearly don't want to support.

January Best Bet: The Salem talk not to miss

Greg Craven, an Oregon HS teacher in Corvallis, wrote the one book to read on climate change if you're reading only one -- a concise, well-written, often amusing, and compelling argument for getting off the dime on responding to climate change.

He's going to speak here in Salem at an Audubon Society meeting and YOU are invited to attend this free event.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Audubon Society, Salem Chapter Meeting

Greg Craven will focus on the central themes of his just published book, "What's The Worst That Could Happen? A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate." He offers a concise way of thinking and making decisions about climate change amidst all the claims and counterclaims.

Bill McKibben, long time environmental activist and author, has said, "The book trumps most of our accounts of the global warming crisis, partly for its good humor and straight forward logic and partly because the author has actually figured out what actions make sense."

Greg Craven graduated from the University of Puget Sound with majors in Asian Studies and Computer Science and from Willamette University with a Master of Arts in Teaching.

Audubon Society chapter meetings are held in the Anderson Room, in the basement at the Salem Public Library on Liberty at 6:30 PM and the program generally starts around 7 PM.

Salem's Third Auto Bridge Fantasy is Finished. Kaput.

Image by climatesafety via Flickr

Story here.

Community garden for McRae Park?

An example of a community garden. Image by Sbocaj via Flickr

Residents of Northeast Neighbors (NEN) should note the following alert and call for feedback:

NEN Board seeks neighborhood input on idea for community garden in McRae Park

This fall, the City of Salem asked for ideas for Salem Park Improvement Fund (SPIF) projects, as the first step towards awarding what is expected to be around $60,000 in matching funds for projects in Salem parks. In October, the NEN Board passed a proposal to submit for review the general idea of converting the north-most section of McRae Park (where the horseshoe pits are now, north of the paved path) into a community garden area.

The SPIF reviewers have evaluated the ideas that various neighborhood associations submitted (an estimated $150,000 worth) and are preparing to call for the actual
applications towards the end of January 2010. A big part of the scoring for SPIF grant applications will be the level of support in the neighborhood for the proposed projects. So that's what we'd like to hear from you -- what you would see as the pros and cons of the idea.

Community gardens are typically mechanically deep-tilled by machine once a year, in the spring when the ground is dry enough to be worked. Compost is normally applied to all the plots at once, either along with the spring tilling or during the fall garden cleanup.

Except for tilling and composting, each gardener works their own plot, deciding what to plant and taking care of all the tending (weeding, watering, harvesting), although it's common for gardeners to help each other too. The gardeners work together to decide on things like the kinds of sprays and fertilizers that can be used, how big plots should be, how plots should be assigned, requirements for work parties, etc.

What would you think if the northern-most part of McRae park was turned into a community garden area, where people could grow annual flowers and vegetables in small plots? Note that this would require either totally removing or relocating the horseshoe pits within the park. The initial project costs, which would be funded from the SPIF grant, matched with volunteer labor, would include running a water source to the garden area, building some kind of secure storage for garden tools (probably just a secure fenced enclosure), and creating a bin system for recycling and reusing composted plant waste that the garden would generate. [Ongoing costs for city water would be paid by the gardeners at the site.]

The NEN Board will discuss this idea further and plans to decide whether to move forward with the SPIF application at the January 19th evening meeting, which starts at 6:30 p.m. at Willson House on Center Street. If you want to offer encouragement or raise concerns about the idea, you are invited to attend that meeting. If you are unable to attend but want to offer your views, you can contact any of the NEN board members and they will ensure that your thoughts are part of the discussion.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts about this idea.

gallons per mile better than miles per gallon

Image via Wikipedia

Although many of our problems are not easily solved, we can still make progress on most by paying attention to how our human perceptions and ways of thinking --- evolved for a very different, non-technological environment --- deceive us.

HOW WE MISREAD CAR FUEL CONSUMPTION

Duke University - Posting a vehicle's fuel efficiency in "gallons per mile" rather than "miles per gallon" would help consumers make better decisions about car purchases and environmental impact, researchers from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business report in the June 20 issue of Science magazine.

Inspired by debates they had while carpooling in a hybrid car, management professors Richard Larrick and Jack Soll ran a series of experiments showing that the current standard, miles per gallon or mpg, leads consumers to believe that fuel consumption is reduced at an even rate as efficiency improves. People presented with a series of car choices in which fuel efficiency was defined in miles per gallon were not able to easily identify the choice that would result in the greatest gains in fuel efficiency.

For example, most people ranked an improvement from 34 to 50 mpg as saving more gas over 10,000 miles than an improvement from 18 to 28 mpg, even though the latter saves twice as much gas. (Going from 34 to 50 mpg saves 94 gallons; but from 18 to 28 mpg saves 198 gallons).

These mistaken impressions were corrected, however, when participants were presented with fuel efficiency expressed in gallons used per 100 miles rather than mpg. Viewed this way, 18 mpg becomes 5.5 gallons per 100 miles, and 28 mpg is 3.6 gallons per 100 miles â€" saving 2 gallons, which, in today's gas prices, saves $8 over 100 miles and $800 over 10,000 miles. The improvement from 34 to 50 mpg reduces gas consumption from 3 to 2 gallons over 100 miles and saves only half as much gas and money.

"The reality that few people appreciate is that improving fuel efficiency from 10 to 20 mpg is actually a more significant savings than improving from 25 to 50 mpg for the same distance of driving," Larrick said.

Soll noted that replacing a large vehicle that gets 10 mpg with one that gets 20 mpg reduces gas use per 100 miles from 10 gallons to five, a 5-gallon savings. Replacing a small vehicle that gets 25 mpg with one that gets 50 mpg reduces gas use per 100 miles from 4 gallons to 2, a saving of only 2 gallons.

"Miles per gallon is misleading and can play tricks on our intuitions," Soll said.

"For families and other owners of more than one type of vehicle, the greatest fuel savings often comes from improving the efficiency of the less efficient car," Soll added. "When fuel efficiency is expressed as gallons per 100 miles, similar to what is done in other countries, it becomes clear which combination of cars will save a family the most gas.

"We believe that everyone should try to be as fuel efficient as possible. For some people, that may mean driving the most efficient car available, such as a small hybrid car, but for others it may mean finding the most efficient option possible within their chosen class of car," Soll said. "There are significant savings to be had by improving efficiency by even two or three miles per gallon on inefficient cars, but because we communicate in miles per gallon, that savings is not immediately evident to consumers."

The authors recommend that consumer publications and car manufacturers list efficiency in terms of gallons per 10,000 miles driven. "This measure makes it easy to see how much gas one might use in a given year of driving and how much gas, and money, can be saved by opting for a car with greater efficiency," Larrick said.

A most telling graphic

Planning to Fail While Not Failing to Plan

The guiding image of Salem's transportation planning. Image by sameold2008 via Flickr

There's a saying popular in the self-help press that "Failure to plan is planning to fail." Of course, sometimes planning is used to chart a course towards failure anyway --- as with Salem's fetishistic attachment to the bizarre notion of a third auto bridge across the Willamette, a fantastically expensive and wasteful idea that completely ignores the reality of our energy future and the need to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Someone in Seattle puts it best, speaking of their latest carhead boondoggle, a huge tunnel right next to the soupy soils abutting Puget Sound. The point is that the technocratic planning bureaucracy is fundamentally unable to respond to an existential challenge like the climate crisis because the technocrats working in the trenches use the analysis tools designed for business as usual to estimate the effects of all the proposals. And none of those tools are programmed to offer a "survival of civilization despite ourselves" pathway.

Seattle's viaduct replacement debate has generated an untold volume of analysis, opinion, and argument. It's also generated at least one PhD dissertation.

Kevin Ramsey, a geography student at the University of Washington, takes a look at the way that concerns about climate change have been deployed in the debate over the replacement. (Abstract; summary; full text.) I'll confess that I haven't made my way through the entire 250 pages, but it strikes me as providing some fascinating analysis of the politics:

. . . agency planners incorporated concerns about climate change through an extension of their own established logics of transportation planning rather than through a fundamental reconsideration of Seattle’s automobile-centric transportation system.

More surprisingly, I found that stakeholders themselves helped make this happen. They did so by supporting (and even advocating) the use of travel demand models to predict the quantity of future greenhouse gas emissions from alternative viaduct replacement scenarios. Isolating the consideration of climate change to this single evaluation measure essentially enabled the issue to be treated as an afterthought in the planning process, rather than a motivator for reformulating the planning process altogether. It also ensured that the calculation of future greenhouse gas emissions was subject to the same kinds of assumptions regarding demand for automobile travel that activists had already contested for years. These assumptions were reflected in the agencies’ findings: all proposed viaduct replacement scenarios (including three that do not include a highway) were predicted to increase greenhouse gas emissions in the Seattle region to 14-15% above current levels by the year 2015.

The upshot, according to Ramsey, is that highway planners were able to essentially co-opt concerns about climate emissions into a business-as-usual approach to road building. The antidote, he says, is for advocates to level more fundamental challenges to the large systems that provide for automobile-dominated infrastructure.