Nicholoas de Monchaux’s Local Code project is an effort to find way to utilize the forgotten and neglected spaces in a city.
Cities are filled with parcels of land that belong to the city, but are neglected because they seem to have little practical value. These are the little bits and pieces that fall by the wayside when a neighborhood is re-zoned, or when an alley is closed off, turning it into a dead-end, or when a street is narrowed by new construction, making it useless to car traffic.
De Monchaux points out that thanks to the digitization of public records these interstitial spaces are much easier to locate. Now that they’re easier to locate shouldn’t we consider doing something with them?
De Monchaux was inspired by Gordon Matta-Clark’s Fake Estates project in NYC in the 1970s. Matta-Clark purchased 15 small slivers of land that the city considered unusable. Matta-Clark cataloged these spaces by collecting historical information about them and photographing them, but died before he could follow through on his vision of turning them into little zones for art and “anarchitecture.”
“Gordon Matta-Clark and Fake Estates
In the early 1970s, Matta-Clark discovered that the City of New York periodically auctioned off “gutterspace”—unusably small slivers of land sliced from the city grid through anomalies in surveying, zoning, and public-works expansion. He purchased fifteen of these lots, fourteen in Queens and one in Staten Island. Over the next years, he collected the maps, deeds, and other bureaucratic documentation attached to the slivers; photographed, spoke, and wrote about them; and considered using them as sites for his unique brand of “anarchitectural” intervention into urban space. Matta-Clark died in 1978 at the age of 35 without realizing his plans for Fake Estates, and ownership of the properties reverted to the city. The archival material that he had assembled went into storage and was not rediscovered until the early 1990s, when it was assembled into exhibitable collages. Thus,Fake Estates has emerged not only as a mordant commentary on issues surrounding property, materiality, and disappearance that marked the whole of Matta-Clark’s career, but as artifacts of his own estate, reminders of the powers of absence and presence that govern our relationship to the past.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, the parts of the city with the most neglected spaces are also the poorest parts of the city.
“If you look at the unaccepted streets, it is like heat map of all the areas with health problems, pollution issues, and neglected spaces.” – de Monchaux
Tampa should adopt its own Local Code project. The first step, I suppose, is to locate and map the forgotten slivers of space in the city.
“A gentrified neighborhood is a complex ecosystem becoming a monoculture,” he said. “Monocultures are fragile–they may be good in the short term, but not forever. When we have cities that are theme parks, they are not going to be able to accommodate change.”
“When there is change in living systems, to accommodate these circumstances, the things that were least valuable become the most valuable.”
Kyla Fullenwider has a new blog called Walking Distance over at Good. In this post she offers 10 ideas for enhancing the community spirit of your neighborhood. From most challenging to least, here they are. Be sure to click through for the entire post.
1.Turn your front yard into a farm.
2. Start a neighborhood time bank.
3. Make every Sunday a block party.
4. Start a bowling league.
5. Leverage social media for you library and other neighborhood resources.
6. Throw a potluck with your neighbors.
7. Bring back hide and go seek.
8. Build a community treehouse.
9. Install a bench in front of your house (and create other types of informal public spaces).
“5. Weak Body, Worried Mind. Clothes are a breeding ground for filthy fungi and bad bacterium, causing yeast infections, urinary tract infections, rotting toenails. Lyme Disease deer ticks can grab onto your sweater and sea lice can sneak into your bathing suit crotch. Testicular cancer is linked to tight briefs, breast cancer to tight bras. Cinched-up belts, ties, and clothes impede breathing. Men’s snug pants raise testicle temperature, lowering sperm count and fertility. Plus, sunlight that nudists receive produces vitamin D that creates strong bones and prevents osteoporosis and cancers.”
Hippy. If the good Lord meant for us to go naked we’d be born that way.
Over at Sticks of Fire Tommy and Clark are reporting from the State Fair. Here’s Clark’s first update. Coming soon are more images, video, interviews, and reports from behind the scenes.
“Reservations Gourmet- to-Go is often overlooked at as a Seminole Heights eatery but shouldn’t be. Reservation offers up a convenient service for those without the time to cook. The kicker is, that if you have been to Reservations you’ll crave it even when you have time to cook. Reservations serves quality home cooked meals to-go and their weekly specials are huge deal for those that are budget conscious.”
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UC Tampa magazine suspends print operations in order to emphasize web publication.
“After watching, we mingled. That’s when we met Dave and Cathy Hume, owners of Urban Oasis Hydroponic Farm, www.urbanoasisfarm.com, in Tampa. That evolved into a visit to their three-quarter-acre farm, where we sampled their produce and discussed how we might be able to use it at our new restaurant, The Refinery.”
At the time they were under a confidentiality agreement and could not reveal the location. The purchase was completed this week and now all can be revealed. Greg and Michelle Baker, proprietors of Cooks & Company, food writers for the Tampa Tribune, and all around great guys, have purchased the Bungalow Bistro in Seminole Heights, as reported on the Bistro website, and in the Official Unofficial Seminole Heights Blog.
The Bakers will continue to run the restaurant under the name Bungalow Bistro for the next few weeks and will continue to honor gift certificates. While there was a temporary interruption in opening this week as they made the transition, I understand regular business hours may resume as early as Friday afternoon (call in advance to make sure). However, they are in the process of re-vamping the menu, redesigning the interior, and will eventually open under the name The Refinery. Good luck, guys! I’ll be seeing you soon.
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Next week’s round-up will be exclusively focused on TEDx Tampa Bay.
If you live on the political right you may be grateful that they are doing everything they can to impede the President’s policies. But, are you happy that the Republican-controlled congresses of 2002-2006 oversaw record-breaking rises in the deficit, record-breaking increases in debt, the greatest expansion of the federal government since FDR, and more government intrusion into our daily lives?
If you live on the political left you’re probably frustrated with the Democratic majority in Congress right now. Why is it that when Democrats control both houses and the presidency no Democratic initiatives can gain traction? Why is it that the same Democratic Senators who oppose a public option are also the ones getting truckloads of money from health insurance companies?
Congress got a bump in confidence after the 9/11 attacks, but looking over the past 15 years the average is that 2/3s of the US population are dissatisfied with the work Congress is doing.
Is it possible to have a Congress we think is doing a good job?
Lawrence Lessig takes the current administration to task for failing to live up to its campaign rhetoric and provides a map for finding our way to a better Congress; a Congress that responds to the people who elect it rather than the corporations who fund it.
Lessig recapitulates much of the argument in the article linked to above in the video embedded below.
“On the right (the tea party) and the left (MoveOn and Bold Progressives), there is an unstoppable recognition that our government has failed. But both sides need to understand the source of its failure if either or, better, both together, are to respond.”
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“Yet the single attribute least attributed to Congress, at least in the minds of the vast majority of Americans, is just that: integrity. And this is because most believe our Congress is a simple pretense. That rather than being, as our framers promised, an institution “dependent on the People,” the institution has developed a pathological dependence on campaign cash. The US Congress has become the Fundraising Congress. And it answers–as Republican and Democratic presidents alike have discovered–not to the People, and not even to the president, but increasingly to the relatively small mix of interests that fund the key races that determine which party will be in power.”
“Following the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to allow unlimited corporate funding of federal campaigns, Murray Hill Inc. today announced it was filing to run for U.S. Congress.”
Activist judges suck when they find a right to privacy in the Constitution, but when good-hearted conservatives discover within the Constitution that corporations are people and that money is speech, why that’s just old-fashioned common sense, not legislating from the bench.
“Murray Hill Inc. plans on filing to run in the Republican primary in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District. Campaign Manager William Klein promises an aggressive, historic campaign that “puts people second” or even third.”
We’ve all seen it. Someone is leaving a store and they set off the alarm. Sometimes the weary clerks give a half-hearted wave to the customer to tell them to keep on going, and sometimes they ask for the customer to step back into the store. Almost every single time the culprit is a legitimately purchased item that wasn’t de-magnetized properly. Sometimes it’s a cell phone, a rental DVD, or an item from another store. For me, recently, it was a book I bought at a library sale that was not de-magnetized.
I really, really hate these things, and have long, involved fantasies of refusing the search, suffering through arrest, court dates, and ultimately a Supreme Court ruling that agrees with me that this is an unconstitutional breach of our fourth amendment rights against unreasonable search.
Given the almost complete inadequacy of these devices, I don’t think any court or judge in the land would rule against me.
But, worst of all, they are completely de-humanizing. This machine accuses you (almost always falsely) in front of your community of being a thief. Even worse, your fellow human (the clerk) trusts the machine, even though it is almost invariably wrong, and searches you. The opinion of the machine trumps the opinion of the human.
The merchant may say that setting off the alarm is reasonable grounds to search you for suspected shoplifting. I say that those alarms are almost always in error, and taking the advice of a dumb machine is embarrassing, humiliating, and ultimately de-humanizing.
Wired’s Danger Roomis reporting that soldiers in Afghanistan will soon be equipped with a nifty little gadget that allows them to see through walls.
“TiaLinx, the company behind the Eagle sensors, told Defense News that the scanners can detect a person or animal 20 feet behind an 8-inch thick slab of concrete.”
I want one! This is really going to help my fledgling B&E business. (Though, seriously, don’t mention the B&E business to anyone. Ix-nay on the ime-cray alk-tay, OK?)
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UPDATE: Here’s another way to look through walls using augmented reality apps.
“The prototype uses two cameras: one that captures the driver’s view and a second that sees the scene behind a view-blocking wall,” continues New Scientist. “A computer takes the feed from the second camera and layers it on top of the images from the first so that the wall appears to be transparent. This makes it simple to glance ‘through’ a wall to see what’s going on behind it.”
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UPDATE II: And since the conceit of the joke in the first post is that criminals would probably find a see-through-walls-gadget pretty useful, here’s a post from someone considering the possible criminal applications of augment reality applications. The Case Against Augmented Reality.
“I really believe that building community around yourself and your business can be a big part of whether or not you are successful. Connecting with other like-minded artistic people, joining a local craft group, or making friends with local shop keepers who are a good match for what you make are all good places to start. Once you build up community, you’ll find that the more boring parts of running your crafts business can become more pleasurable. Having additional resources, support, and even just plain ole camaraderie when it comes to the tough stuff like bookkeeping or sourcing supplies can result in all sorts of good things for your bottom line.”
As far as I can tell CVS worked with community leaders to implement an architectural design that matched some big picture ideas about how to re-design the neighborhood. CVS then asked for some changes to the plan. Many neighborhood leaders were willing to accept those changes, but city staff argued that the changes were too much, and that the Council should nix the project.
The Official Unofficial Seminole Heights Blog opposes the denial and supports the CVS building. Commenters in this post present both the pro-CVS arguments and the arguments of those opposed to CVS.
“The OSHNA Board has scheduled a Special Board Meeting on Monday, February 1, 2010, starting at 6:30pm, at the Seminole Heights Branch Library, 4711 Central Avenue.”
If you’re into information and media history let me recommend the essay The iPad and Information’s Third Age by William Rankin, director of educational innovation, associate professor of medieval literature, and Apple Distinguished Educator, Abilene Christian University.
He provides a brief historical sketch of media and information to explain his take on the iPad.
“Yes, we have eBooks on a variety of digital devices, but they haven’t yet taken real advantage of their electronic status. Books that are static, don’t allow customization, don’t connect with other information on the device, and don’t leverage social connectivity aren’t the future, no matter how sophisticated the device that serves them. They’re simply the past repackaged.”
I’m a fan of neither Apple, nor the iPad, and don’t particularly agree with Rankin’s conclusion. That doesn’t mean I don’t see the importance of Apple and the iPad (and e-books in general). Rankin does a good job of explaining why this new development in our electronic information ecology is important.
Ars Technica has this chilling story of financial trading algorithms gone wild.
“On November 14, 2007 at 3:20pm one of Credit Suisse’s trading algorithms suddenly went haywire, and, in a few moments, sent hundreds of thousands of bogus requests to the exchange. This sudden surge of requests, which were cancellations for a large batch of orders that the machine had never actually sent out, acted like a denial-of-service attack on some parts of the New York Stock Exchange. The messages clogged the tubes and caused parts of the exchange to freeze up, affecting trading in 975 stocks.
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“The exchange’s filing, released a little over a week ago, has the details of precisely what drove the algorithm haywire—it was a trader who accidentally double-clicked an icon in a trading program’s interface, when he should’ve single-clicked.”
Financial trading algorithms for high frequency trading have become too complicated to follow, and so unregulated that a catastrophic financial bug could pop up at any moment, wrecking global financial markets.
“Since 2007, our markets have moved drastically further in the direction of complete automation. But it’s not clear that Wall Street’s programmers have made correspondingly large leaps in testing, UI design, and version control. Indeed, on message boards and blogs, day traders who follow the market tick-by-tick swap stories of huge swings in a stock price, where a stock plunges or spikes but then corrects in a few minutes, after the exchange realizes there was an error and cancels the trades.”
This article from Reuters explains what Obama’s team is doing to address the problem of algos gone wild.
“Obama’s plan is intended to limit the risk posed by massive financial institutions, but faces an uncertain political fate and would take years to come into effect.”
“Most people will never make anything. Because making something is work. Optional work, at that. Design, art, writing, whatever: it’s work, and work is hard. You have to organize your ideas and sweat on the page until something good shows up. I think what has happened is that these newer tools that promote sharing allow audiences to feel like they’re making something through curation. It’s participation, and that has them feel like they’re making something, much in the same way that chatting with someone online makes you feel like you’re talking to them. It’s not the same (that’s besides the point), but the lizard part of our brain says it is the same.”
I take Chimero’s point and I recommend reading his entire post, but I think there’s also a robust defense of curation to be made here.
Just like most poetry is dreck, most curation is dreck (think of a blog that just points to other blogs). But there is the occasional poet, or blogger, who combines images or URLs in such a novel, thought-provoking way that their work approaches art.
At its best curation is greater than the sum of its parts. A well curated blog, or museum, puts ideas in conversation with each other. Poor curation is boring and predictable, but curation done right creates a dialog that educates and informs, and maybe inspires.
“The age of cross-pollination. Curation Culture, for want of a better term, thrives on cross-pollination. Everything is interesting, and what’s more, we’ve developed the tools and the aesthetics with which to create the deep levels of analysis that would overwhelm a masters thesis from the 80s or 90s.”
“Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.”
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“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.”
Viggo Mortensen reads Howard Zinn’s essay “Empire or Humanity? What the Classroom Didn’t Teach Me about the American Empire,” explaining Zinn’s political awakening.
“Reporting from Mexico City — To say the topic of screenwriter Sabina Berman’s latest movie is bleak would be an understatement. So would labeling the decision to film in Mexico’s deadliest city a “challenge.”
“The film, “Backyard” (“El Traspatio”) is a fictionalized account of the unsolved rapes and murders of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez, the violent Mexican border town that faces El Paso.”
Juarez is just across the border from El Paso, Texas. The film addresses the hundreds of women murdered in the 1990s, but Juarez remains one of the most violent places on the planet. There were 2660 reported murders in 2009.
Drug cartels are engaged in an all-out war to control black market routes into and out of the country. The maquiladoras bring in thousands of young women from around the nation to work for poverty wages, and millions of dollars from US businesses pour in to bribe officials to look the other way. This brutal system is fueled by the USA’s addiction to cheap goods and an absurd war on drugs that costs tax-payers tens of billions of dollars every year.
Seriously, would it be so difficult change the name of Lois Avenue to Lois Lane? I know it would be a pain-in-the-ass to change all the addresses, but think of what a boon it would be to the local letterhead industry. It would give me a great deal of satisfaction to live in a city with a Lois Lane. Having a Lois Avenue just feels awkward somehow.
Local photographer Tom Palmer took a ton of photos at the recent grand opening of the Curtis Hixon park and posted them on his Flickr account. Check them out, they are terrific.
Copyright Tom Palmer. All rights reserved.
Here’s an artist’s rendering of the park created during the design process.
This urban space has been a contentious topic in Tampa for years. Creative Loafing published a nice write-up of the debate and history of this space last year.
A manifesto! I love manifestos. Sometimes I think they’re the only form of literature that can really affect society (think Marx’s Communist Manifesto, or Paine’s Common Sense).
“Our markets, our democracy, our science, our traditions of free speech, and our art all depend more heavily on a Public Domain of freely available material than they do on the informational material that is covered by property rights. The Public Domain is not some gummy residue left behind when all the good stuff has been covered by property law. The Public Domain is the place we quarry the building blocks of our culture. It is, in fact, the majority of our culture.” (James Boyle, The Public Domain, p.40f, 2008)
Local Motors takes the knowledge and history of kit cars and applies open source design techniques, and Web 2.0 networking to create small batch designs for car aficionados. At $50,000 a pop, this isn’t something everyone is going to want to purchase, but if the idea catches on, it could create a whole new industry of custom car design and independent automobile manufacturing plants.
Perhaps some local entrepreneur should jump on this model and start up a Tampa Open Source Car Design shop.
The first car to roll off the Local Motors assembly line will be the Rally Fighter.
If we had politicians with any sense they’d be supporting independent, entrepreneurial projects like this instead of propping up the rotting corpse of the auto industry.
The last half of the article address how these low-cost tools are having a widespread affect on manufacturing.
“The tools of factory production, from electronics assembly to 3-D printing, are now available to individuals, in batches as small as a single unit. Anybody with an idea and a little expertise can set assembly lines in China into motion with nothing more than some keystrokes on their laptop. A few days later, a prototype will be at their door, and once it all checks out, they can push a few more buttons and be in full production, making hundreds, thousands, or more. They can become a virtual micro-factory, able to design and sell goods without any infrastructure or even inventory; products can be assembled and drop-shipped by contractors who serve hundreds of such customers simultaneously.”
WIRED offers some tips on how to be a part of the Maker Culture.
How to Build Your Dream
In the age of democratized industry, every garage is a potential micro-factory, every citizen a potential micro-entrepreneur. Here’s how to transform a great idea into a great product.
1) INVENT Stop whining about the dearth of cool products in the world — dream up your own. Pro tip: Check the US Patent and Trademark Office Web site to ensure no one else had the idea first.
2) DESIGN Use free tools like Blender or Google’s SketchUp to create a 3-D digital model of your invention. Or download someone else’s design and incorporate your groundbreaking tweaks.
3) PROTOTYPE You don’t need to be Geppetto to crank out a prototype; desktop 3-D printers like MakerBot are available for under $1,000. Just upload a file and watch the machine render your vision in layered ABS plastic.
4) MANUFACTURE The garage is fine for limited production, but if you want to go big, go global — outsource. Factories in China are standing by; sites like Alibaba.com can help you find the right partner.
5) SELL Market your product directly to customers via an online store like SparkFun — or set up your own ecommerce outfit through a company like Yahoo or Web Studio. Then haul your golden goose to Maker Faire and become the poster child for the DIY industrial revolution.
The day before the Citizens United ruling, Lawrence Lessig gave a talk on Institutional Corruption at Stanford.
The talk runs about 50 minutes, but is well worth your time if you’re interested in ideas on how to fight government and corporate corruption. More Lessig talks can be found here.
“Cornucopia is a concept design for a personal food factory that brings the versatility of the digital world to the realm of cooking. In essence, it is a three dimensional printer for food, which works by storing, precisely mixing, depositing and cooking layers of ingredients.
“Cornucopia’s cooking process starts with an array of food canisters, which refrigerate and store a user’s favorite ingredients. These are piped into a mixer and extruder head that can accurately deposit elaborate combinations of food. While the deposition takes place, the food is heated or cooled by Cornucopia’s chamber or the heating and cooling tubes located on the printing head. This fabrication process not only allows for the creation of flavors and textures that would be completely unimaginable through other cooking techniques, but it also allows the user to have ultimate control over the origin, quality, nutritional value and taste of every meal.”
For those of you who live in Florida District 58 (like me) don’t forget that there is a special election Tuesday, January 26 to replace Representative Michael Scionti. Here’s a .pdf map of the district. This is the primary election.
The Special General Election will be held February 23, 2010. Learn more here.
Thank you David Frum for pointing out the obvious.
“Republicans rage against the Democrats’ bailouts, takeovers, deficits—yet all three commenced under George W. Bush, not Barack Obama. Almost every concept in Obama’s intensely controversial health plan has at one point or another been advanced by a senior Republican, from Bob Dole to Mitt Romney. I type these words having just watched Fox News’s Glenn Beck liken President Obama’s call for voluntary national service to something out of Maoist China. Obama’s service program barely differs in form, content, and rhetoric from Bush’s program, which in turn was almost identical to the program created by the elder President Bush in 1989.”
As I pointed out last year, Obama is to the right of Richard Nixon.
“Under Nixon, government benefits like food aid, public assistance, and social security increased, defense spending decreased, he approved the creation of the the Environmental Protection Agency, authorized the Clean Air Act, and established OSHA. Nixon supported the Equal Rights Amendment, signed Title IX into law, and was pro-choice. Nixon ended the war in Viet Nam, was an advocate for universal health care, and direct cash payments to the working poor.”
David Frum was a speech-writer for George W. Bush and advocated John Roberts for the Supreme Court bench. His article “Bring Back the Mugwumps” in the Atlantic ponders the rise of the Mugwumps in the late 19th century, and wonders if there may be some lessons there for today’s Republicans.
“The causes that animated the Mugwumps are tinged with sepia. But the demand those reformers articulated should resonate as loudly today as ever it did: it is the demand for a politics based on realities, not phantoms.”
Writing about corporate free speech in his dissenting opinion in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti Justice Rehnquist noted that “[a] State grants to a business corporation the blessings of potentially perpetual life and limited liability to enhance its efficiency as an economic entity. It might reasonably be concluded that those properties, so beneficial in the economic sphere, pose special dangers in the political sphere.”
Recognizing that the constitution did not address these issues, strict constructionist Rehnquist also wrote “[h]owever, the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Congress of the United States, and the legislatures of 30 other States of this Republic have considered the matter, and have concluded that restrictions upon the political activity of business corporations are both politically desirable and constitutionally permissible. The judgment of such a broad consensus of governmental bodies expressed over a period of many decades is entitled to considerable deference from this Court.”
This court’s overturning of portions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) in their Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee ruling rejects previous conservative thinking about this issue, rejects precedent, and embraces the supposedly anathema-to-conservatives judicial activism of legislating from the bench. Judicial activism is often described as finding ideas implicit in the Constitution which cannot be found explicitly. Nowhere in the Constitution can we find that money is speech or that corporations are people. There is no reading of the debates of the founders that suggests corporate personhood was the original intent of the Constitution.
In fact, in 1819 Justice Marshall wrote:
“A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence. These are such as are supposed best calculated to effect the object for which it was created.” Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 636 (1819).
In other words, according to a member of the founding generation, a corporation has no natural rights, only the rights conferred upon it by law. Marshall, who was privy to the Constitutional debates as they happened, understood that there was no Constitutional protection for corporations, either implicit or explicit.
There’s no question that this is a difficult case. The term corporation encompasses a lot more than GE or Exxon. At its most fundamental a corporation is a voluntary association of people. Shouldn’t neighborhood associations and the NAACP be able to use money to amplify their speech when they oppose legislation? Concerns about wealthy corporations distorting public debate are valid, but there are a non-trivial number of times when poor corporations are facing wealthy individuals. Shouldn’t this also be a concern?
The conservative punditry crowing about this “victory” have neglected the fact that this ruling counters most conservative principles. Instead it adheres to the guiding star of contemporary conservatism, pissing off liberals.
The conceit of the founding documents is that people are born with inalienable rights, natural rights endowed by their creator. Corporate rights, however, are created by laws and can be enhanced or constrained by laws. For example, shareholders in corporations generally have limited liability. The corporation must pay creditors, but the shareholders are generally not expected to empty their own bank accounts. This is a benefit given to them by law. To think that law can also restrict corporate speech is not an extraordinary claim.
Money distorts political speech. Money acts as an amplifier. Conservatives have railed against the “liberal media” for decades. Why? Because they see ability of well-funded media outlets to amplify certain ideas as unfairly distorting the public debate. The right sought a legislative cure (overturning the Fairness Doctrine) to this perceived injustice. However, the Citizens United ruling contradicts conservative efforts to level the playing field in mainstream media.
To “correct” legislation on ideas or reasoning that is not found in the Constitution is the core of legislating from the bench. And what this ruling does is say that it is not enough for Congress to pass a law constraining or enhancing the rights and restrictions of corporations, they must now pass a Constitutional amendment, an almost insurmountable task. In 220 years the Constitution has only been amended 27 times, the first 10 coming immediately after its passage. Given the conservative capriciousness on this issue, supporting or opposing corporate speech as the winds of ideology shift, it is unlikely we will soon see a time when corporations have their corporate personhood revoked. By contradicting precedent and previous conservative argument we are reminded that we live in a time when conservatives have no hesitation in putting political power ahead of principle.
Regardless of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling the distorting influence of big money in campaign finance is a critical issue for democracy in the United States. Upon hearing the ruling my first thought is that this is great news for Governor Crist, not so much for Marco Rubio. It’s not easy for a populist to beat a corporate-sponsored candidate.
So, what’s next? How do we allow the PTA to use money to amplify their message while restraining Hugo Chavez’s Citgo from slandering politicians he opposes?
The most popular solution among the left is the Fair Elections Now Act. This bill provides federal funding to less-rich candidates, but does nothing to constrain the distorting influence of big wallet special interests creating mayhem in our public discourse. While I’m a fan of many people who support this bill, I have a hard time generating any enthusiasm for it.
One solution I favor addresses part of the problem and can be accomplished without legislation. The FCC needs to remember that the broadcast spectrum belongs to the people of the United States of America. Advocacy spots on broadcast radio and broadcast television should be aired for free, as part of their public service mandate that is part of their licensing requirement. Rather than allowing the person or corporation with the biggest bank account drive the debate in the days leading up to the election, advocacy spots can be shared equally among all concerned citizens; rich corporations, and poor individuals; rich individuals and poor corporations.
This won’t affect the free speech rights of corporations when it comes to other commercial media like cable television or newspapers, but it will help balance the playing field and help make our public discourse more equitable and robust.
News & Rumors (below) are continually updated; so check back often! And if you have a scoop to share with our readers, just send it to newsandrumors@UCTampa.com. New Batter: Adding to the controversy of whether St. Petersburg shou… […]
Old location of Big John's Alabama BBQ. Its new location is set to open February 2. URBAN CORRIDOR – The new year appears to have brought with it a flurry of restaurants for downtown Tampa and its nearby, Urban Corridor neighborhoods. S… […]
Historic Hyde Park Home Tour taking place March 6. See article's entire photo gallery here. HYDE PARK – Many residents of historic Hyde Park will open their… […]
Chalk Walk set to return in 2010. See article's entire photo gallery here. HYDE PARK - The Chalk Walk Festival is a family-friendly, three-day public art display of eye-ca… […]
City of TampaThe City of Tampa will hold its Fourth Annual Clean City Day on Saturday, March 20, 2010. The event will be at Raymond James Stadium, located at 4201 North Dale Mabry Highway. […]
There is a tip cup that sits near the debit keypad. When I was being trained, I asked why a clerk would need a tip cup. The girl training me said that she thought it was crazy too. When she took it away, people asked where the tip cup was. I usually end up spending my tip on soda and food during my shift anyways. lsd2-p1.jpg read more […]
Some of you motherfuckers out there think you are witty, clever, suave and other awesome things when you are drunk. You are not. The server is not impressed by the pick up line you just yelled at her, the bar backs are not impressed by your ability to bump into things and not feel pain until tomorrow, and the liquor store clerk is annoyed that you can't […]
Sometimes people come in to the liquor store and want to buy something they don't have money for. "Hey bro, I'm short ten cents for that blunt. Can you spot me?" "No." "Oh ok." lsd2-p_1.jpg read more […]
I'm glad the owners of Soul of Korea finally decided it was time for their restaurant to have a website. Although the website's design is far from 2010's standards, it has a menu link and that's all I really care about. Soul of Korea is our favorite place for Korean food, no wonder we filmed our very first episode there too: http://gnatv. […]
Last night I met one of the worst people alive. Her face was battered with acne scars and craters.Framing her head was hair fried, bleached and teased into a stringy mess. Her figure bubbled into lumps which were quite visible beneath her see through halter top. Her skin was pale and dry. The ugliness was not just a physical feature, it seethed and churned f […]
For some odd reason, customers introduce themselves to me and shake my hand. The introductions are mostly in vain because I forget who they are instantly. Liquor Store Diary read more […]
Shopping is a precarious adventure that has many perils and rewards. At the end of every shopping trip is the checkout line where a clerk being paid minimum wage silently judges you based on your purchases. What a person buys at a store is very telling of who they are, what they do for a living, their family life, personality traits, etc. liquorthumb.jpg rea […]
I took well over 1,000 pictures in total but I figure 10% can pretty much sum up the entire trip. These pictures are taken with my ancient Nikon D50 stock lens. 99 Pictures from El Salvador read more […]
It's the end of our trip and we're ready to come back home. El Salvador has been very interesting for Grayson and me. Grayson now knows first hand what it's like to be a minority. I discovered that my childish prejedous against certain rural areas was totally wrong and it's what I find most attractive now. This is the final update but I h […]
Northeast weather cancels flights today to, from Tampa airportTampa TribuneTAMPA - Three outbound and six inbound flights serving Tampa International Airport were canceled this morning, ...and more » […]
TECO: Signs of stability, if not much growth, in number of Tampa Electric ...Tampabay.com (blog)Wake up and good morning. Tampa's TECO Energy reported a doubling of its earnings in the fourth quarter of 2009 but it is the power company's reference to a ... […]
Tampa Bay Business JournalDigital radiology growth fuels acquisitionTampa Bay Business JournalSDI radiologists have been putting in night — and day — hours for 10 years, reading digital imaging scans taken at remote locations throughout Florida and ... […]
Layoff motivates salesman to invent a new necktieSarasota Herald-TribuneTAMPA - Slouched on a sofa in his near-empty condominium, Joe Sale picks up the remote control and plays his favorite scene from his ... […]
Niittymaki powering surgeTampa TribuneTAMPA - As the Lightning have climbed the NHL standings the past two weeks, moving into the seventh spot in the Eastern Conference with ... […]
Tampa artist puts finishing touches on Super trip10 ConnectsMIAMI - Aside from Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints, few people had more successful Super Bowl weeks than Tampa-based painter Justyn Farano. ... […]
Globe and MailBay area Saints fans celebrate Super Bowl XLIV win10 ConnectsTampa, Florida - There's no place in Tampa Bay more similar to the French Quarter than Ybor City so, as you can imagine, it was the place to be for Saints ...Weekend Sports In BriefSarasota Herald-TribuneBrees brings home MVP to the Big EasyMiamiHerald.comMy Ten Sense: Super Bowl […]
Medical Wonder: Shark receives MRIABC Action NewsTAMPA, FL -- The Shark is simply known as # 3, but for Jenny Dumonceaux the white tipped coral shark is far from a number. "We were able to revive him so he ... […]
Jesuit: 10th title in a rowTampa TribuneTAMPA - Jesuit 171-pounder Vince Lombardo has never known a season when his Tigers team didn't take home a district ...Jesuit gets the edge over rival Tampa CatholicTampabay.com (blog)all 5 news articles » […]
Boston GlobeTampa Bay Lightning seeking peace with change of ownershipTampabay.comTAMPA — Lightning captain Vinny Lecavalier said the uncertainty swirling around the owners was not a distraction but ...Sport has been Vinik's passionTampa TribuneJeff Vinik to purchase LightningMyFox Tampa BayIn sale of Lightning, unknown beats knownTampa TribuneTampa Tri […]
For those of you who live in Florida 
