The latest UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) Poll has put California’s housing crisis in startling perspective: A majority of voters have considered moving “because of rising housing costs,” according to the survey.
One in four voters said they’ve recently considered leaving the state for good. And about half the state’s voters (48 percent) say the housing affordability issue is “extremely serious,” according to the survey.
“What we’re facing is hotel workers, bus drivers, teachers — the people who make L.A. run — are being run out of L.A. because of the high rents,” says Larry Gross, executive director of the nonprofit Coalition for Economic Survival. “This is a crisis situation.”
The survey found that the Bay Area had the most voters (65 percent) who believe we’re dealing with an “extremely serious” housing affordability problem. That compared with 42 percent of voters in L.A. County and 55 percent in San Diego and Orange counties.
Fifty-nine percent of Angelenos have considered moving as a result of housing costs, according to the IGS poll. For the Bay Area, the percentage was 51 percent; for San Diego and Orange counties, it was 57 percent.
“When you then ask them where they would you relocate, they’re often throwing up their hands,” poll director Mark DiCamillo says. “Millennials seem to be the most likely to say they’d consider leaving.” …
Story of cities #14: London’s Great Stink heralds a wonder of the industrial world
By the mid-1800s, the River Thames had been used as a dumping ground for human excrement for centuries. At last, fear of its ‘evil odour’ led to one of the greatest advancements in urban planning: Joseph Bazalgette’s sewage system.
• Read more articles in the series here.
Joseph Bazalgette (top right) at the northern outfall sewer being built below London’s Abbey Mills pumping station.
In the steaming hot summer of 1858, the hideous stench of human excrement rising from the River Thames and seeping through the hallowed halls of the Houses of Parliament finally got too much for Britain’s politicians – those who had not already fled in fear of their lives to the countryside.
Clutching hankies to their noses and ready to abandon their newly built House for fresher air upstream, the lawmakers agreed urgent action was needed to purify London of the “evil odour” that was commonly believed to be the cause of disease and death.
The outcome of the “Great Stink”, as that summer’s crisis was coined, was one of history’s most life-enhancing advancements in urban planning. It was a monumental construction project that, despite being driven by dodgy science and political self-interest, dramatically improved the public’s health and laid the foundation for modern London.
You’ll see no sign of it on most maps of the capital or from a tour of the streets, but hidden beneath the city’s surface stretches a wonder of the industrial world: the vast Victorian sewerage system that still flows (and overflows) today. …
‘Monster’ fatberg found blocking east London sewer
As highlighted by the BBC in their show Inside Out London, Fatberg’s are a growing problem in our cities as more and more fat and oils are put into out sewer systems. At Hydro Cleansing we are committed to using the most advanced equipment and techniques such as our Megatron unit combined with a confined space team to remove all grease and fat deposits from drains and sewer’s with minimal disruption.
A 250-metre long fatberg weighing 130 tonnes has been found blocking a sewer.
The solid mass of congealed fat, wet wipes, nappies, oil and condoms formed in the Victorian-era tunnel in Whitechapel, London.
Thames Water described it as one of the largest it had seen and said it would take three weeks to remove.
The company’s head of waste networks Matt Rimmer said: “It’s a total monster and taking a lot of manpower and machinery to remove as it’s set hard.”
The company says fatbergs form when people put things they shouldn’t down sinks and toilets.”It’s basically like trying to break up concrete,” Mr Rimmer said.
“It’s frustrating as these situations are totally avoidable and caused by fat, oil and grease being washed down sinks and wipes flushed down the loo.
“The sewers are not an abyss for household rubbish and our message to everyone is clear – please bin it – don’t block it.” …
The couple who celebrated their love with several tonnes of sewer fat
Most people wouldn’t want to mark their first anniversary with a trip down London’s sewers to come face to face with a ‘fatberg’. But then Dan MacIntyre and Dunya Kalantery do share a fascination with congealed oil.
A Thames Water worker removes sewer fat from the drains underneath Leicester Square in central London.
In one short email, Dan MacIntyre committed to history what could be the most romantic words ever: “Like wet wipes and congealed cooking oil, we are inseparable.” When MacIntyre and his girlfriend Dunya Kalantery got together last year, they discovered a mutual interest in the giant “fatberg” – the UK’s largest, formed of 15 tonnes of congealed cooking oil – that had just been found in the sewers beneath Kingston upon Thames. It took sewer workers three weeks to clear the huge lump, which was the size of a bus, with water jets.
“We were both fascinated by the story,” says MacIntyre, 27, a learning support worker. What did they like about it? (As if I have to ask.) “Just the mixture of the different substances – the fat, the sanitary towels, and that as an image. It is really gross and we were fascinated in a disgusted way.”
And so, to celebrate their first anniversary last week, MacIntyre decided he would like Kalantery to see a fatberg for herself – hence the email to Thames Water which, happily, was taking a BBC film crew down the sewer that night and allowed the couple to tag along (“We never take members of the public down our sewers, except for one week every May where we run a ‘sewer week’, so it was a rare opportunity,” says a Thames Water spokesperson).
Dan MacIntyre and Dunya Kalantery enjoy their sewer bliss.
Kalantery, a 27-year-old art curator, loved the surprise. “I was extremely struck by it, and excited. We got to put on white protective suits, and waders up to our hips.” They were each connected to a harness and disappeared down a manhole outside Selfridges shortly before midnight. “The sewers were impressive,” she says. “The current of the water was really strong.”
“It was also unexpectedly pleasant down there,” says MacIntyre. “It wasn’t that smelly and it was nice and warm.” …
Wipes Manufacturer Says In Lawsuit That D.C. Law On ‘Flushable’ Wipes Is Unconstitutional
A gripe with wipes: A new law D.C. cracks down on wet wipes marketed as “flushable,” saying manufacturers need to prove their products don’t clog pipes.
Kimberly-Clark Corporation, a Texas-based multi-billion-dollar producer of personal and health care products, is suing D.C. over a new law that regulates when wet wipes can be marketed as being flushable, saying the measure is “fatally flawed” and unconstitutional. The company produces three brands of flushable wipes which it calls a “state-of-the-art product.”
The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court for D.C., further extends the controversy over what may have seemed like an innocuous law passed by the D.C. Council last year. The law forbids companies from marketing their wet wipes — used for both babies and adults — as being flushable unless they meet a standard set by the city.
City officials, including those with D.C. Water, the water and sewer utility, say that so-called flushable wipes are anything but, and lead to significant clogs in the sewer system that can cost tens of thousands of dollars to remedy. That happened last week in London, where water officials said a 130-ton blockage — composed in part by wipes — was found in a sewer pipe.
But in the lawsuit, Kimberly-Clark argues the city’s ban on the sale of “flushable” wipes until flushability standards can be established violates portions of the U.S. Constitution, including the Commerce Clause and the First Amendment. …
Backlash throws last-ditch Obamacare repeal effort into doubt
Opponents of the proposal seized on its plan to overhaul Obamacare’s subsidized insurance and Medicaid expansion and replace those with block grants.
From left to right, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), John Thune (R-S.D.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) address the media as they push for a last-ditch effort to uproot former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law at the Capitol on Sept. 19.
Republicans hoping to jam a last-minute Obamacare repeal plan through the Senate are confronting a rising tide of opposition as health care groups, patient advocates and even some red-state governors join forces against a bill they worry would upend the nation’s health care system.
The wide-ranging backlash threw the GOP’s repeal push into fresh doubt on Tuesday, even as White House officials and Senate Republican leaders insist they are on the verge of winning the 50 votes needed to dismantle Obamacare under a reconciliation bill that expires in two weeks.
Opponents of the proposal co-authored by Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina seized on its plan to overhaul Obamacare’s subsidized insurance and Medicaid expansion and replace those with block grants to the states — a mass restructuring they warned would sow chaos in insurance markets. They panned its new regulatory flexibilities as a backdoor route to undermining key patient protections — including safeguards for those with pre-existing conditions.
And in the biggest blow, several Republican governors urged the GOP to abandon a plan that would force states to swallow potentially billions in funding cuts — and instead to focus on stabilizing Obamacare. …
Rob Reiner and Morgan Freeman Declare ‘War’ on Russia
With the newly formed Committee to Investigate Russia, filmmaker Rob Reiner tells The Daily Beast he plans to do what President Trump won’t.
“People always joke that he’s the voice of God,” Rob Reiner says of Morgan Freeman. And while that is a role Freeman has portrayed in multiple films, he also has some experience playing the president of the United States.
The first time the Oscar-winning actor took on the role of president, in 1998’s Deep Impact, he was charged with protecting the human race from a giant comet. In a video released Tuesday for Reiner’s newly formed Committee to Investigate Russia, Freeman addresses a different type of existential threat.
“We have been attacked,” Freeman says into the camera. “We are at war.”
The actor is talking about the coordinated cyber attacks that intelligence agencies believe Russia executed against the U.S. in an effort to elect Donald Trump. “We need our president to speak directly to us and tell us the truth,” Freeman says, as he sits behind a desk and delivers the message he and Reiner want to hear from Trump.
“My fellow Americans, during this past election, we came under attack by the Russian government,” Freeman says in his most presidential voice. “I’ve called on Congress and our intelligence community to use every resource available to conduct a thorough investigation to determine exactly how this happened.”
…
6 World-Famous Landmarks (You Can Secretly Live Inside)
Whether it was a theme park, a museum, or even that place that did the amazing barbecue ribs, we’ve all visited somewhere we wished we could stay in forever. Good news! You (or at least the richest person you’ve ever smelled) can totally live in some of the most famous buildings in the entire world. Hidden inside many iconic locations are secret apartments formerly used by tireless custodians, overworked managers, or just rich guys who needed a quiet place to cheat on their wives. And for the right price, you could call these eccentric dwellings home. Like …
#6. Walt Disney And His Family Lived In A Secret Disneyland Apartment
You might think one of the coolest places to sleep in Disneyland must be in the castle, or on the ship in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, or inside one of those oversized Goofy costumes. But there’s a little-known dwelling right inside the entrance to the park in California that wasn’t just fit for a princess, but for the king himself.
Why he didn’t live in the actual castle is anyone’s guess.
During the construction of Disneyland, Walt Disney figured that all that commuting between the studio, the park, and his mansion was too much of a hassle. So in order to remain onsite for as long as he wanted, he had a small apartment built atop one of the first Disneyland buildings: the firehouse at the entrance. It’s hard to imagine rich and famous Disney living like a college kid in that small studio apartment, but unlike most college kids, Disney had the best interior decorators in the world working for him. He asked Academy-Award-winning set designer Emile Kuri to create his and his wife’s ideal home … which looks like Santa’s parlor:
The columns are peppermint bark.
Built in the Victorian style of their youth, this little apartment was a way for the Disneys to go back to simpler times, before all that silly castle-building started. But there was at least one cool thing in the apartment: a fireman’s pole which Walt and the kids could slide down into the firehouse. But the fun was ruined when one fan climbed up Walt’s pole while his family was there to see it. His hole was covered up and never spoken of again. …
To defeat neo-Nazis, Americans need to revisit their own history of political protest
Means TO Ends
Americans overlook the uses of violence, and how it can defeat extremism.
Nary a day goes by in the American news cycle without coverage of some sort of Donald Trump-related protest. From the Women’s March to his Muslim ban, from the March for Science to the ongoing protests over the ending of the DACA program, there are a lot of angry people in the streets.
And, indeed, some of these angry people have turned to violence. We saw it in Charlottesville, when a neo-Nazi, part of the “Unite the Right” rally, ran over counter protesters in his car, killing one. We saw it in Berkeley, when several Antifa protesters beat and pepper sprayed members of a far-right rally.
But while Trump is correct about violence “on many sides,” the similarities between neo-Nazis and members of Antifa should start and end there. Any further attempt to equate the sides is the byproduct of a series of popular misconceptions about American history. Most of us learned the wrong lessons when it comes to violent protest.
Specifically: an oversimplification of American history has papered over the fact that violence has played an integral, if ugly, part in many of the civic progress victories we celebrate as a country. It is that oversimplification–that progress is always made without violence, and that non-violence is both morally and tactically superior–that has managed to reach the absurd conclusion that Nazis and a subset of those protesting them, Antifa, are somehow of equal moral standing. …
The team-building rituals that companies love can actually tear workers apart
The Silo Effect
May want to rethink your team’s weekly happy hour.
If you’ve ever lost a glove somewhere on the streets of New York City, there’s a chance it’s found an unusual second life at the New York headquarters of OXO—the global housewares manufacturer. Enter the company’s open loft-style dining hall, and you’ll see a large white wall featuring hundreds of gloves, neatly organized in rows. Pinned beneath each glove (or pair) is a tag that tells the story of when and where the glove was found, and who did the finding.
As part of a unique company ritual, OXO employees are encouraged to collect the misplaced and forgotten gloves of New Yorkers and add them to the wall. OXO says that focusing on the “meaning of gloves” serves as a symbolic reminder of the company’s most important value principle: The universal design of their products fitting comfortably in the hands of all their customers.
Research suggests that these sorts of quirky company traditions really can help affirm a company’s core values and promote a sense of collective workplace culture. But they can also come with a downside—which means that companies need to be very careful about how they implement their rituals.
Anthropological research, which typically looks at religious and cultural practices, shows that rituals lead to a host of positive social outcomes for groups. They help to rally people around a shared value, unify their experience, and forge stronger individual relationships. We’re now beginning to understand that the power of ritual also helps bond sports fans, college students, and coworkers. …
When it comes to sex, dating, and drinking, 18 is the new 15 for American teens
Rebels Without A Cause
he Ferris Bueller of today may have never ventured out.
Being a teen isn’t what it used to be. According to a huge new study, adolescents in the 2010s were less likely date, drink alcohol, go out without their parents, and have sex than teens in every generation since the 1970s. Fewer of them have paying jobs or drive.
The research, published in Child Development, says the cause is not kids having more homework, or more extracurricular activities. (They are actually doing less homework and about the same in terms of extracurriculars.)
What’s changed is the context in which teens are growing up. Parents are more invested in teens’ lives. They have smaller families, which means more attention and money to spend on each kid. Coupled with longer life expectancies and lower teen birth rates, teens now have the freedom to be younger longer and are choosing to do so, the authors argue.
“The developmental trajectory of adolescence has slowed, with teens growing up more slowly than they used to,” said Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University and the lead author on the study. “In terms of adult activities, 18-year-olds now look like 15-year-olds once did.” …
Dinosaurs Laid Blue Eggs—And That’s a Big Deal
In a twist for paleontologists, a fossil nest found in China shows that colored eggshells were not just for the birds.
A fossil nest found in China belonged to the oviraptor Heyuannia huangi, a parrot-beaked, feathered species that lived in the Late Cretaceous.
Robins may be famous for their beautiful blue eggs, but ancient feathered dinosaurs beat them to the punch.
Looking at fossil eggshells from China, researchers have found evidence that an omnivorous, ostrich-like dinosaur laid clutches of blue-green eggs, potentially helping to camouflage them in open nests dug into the ground.
The discovery overturns a common assumption: “Everyone thought dinosaur eggs were white,” says study coauthor Jasmina Wiemann at Yale University.
Many birds lay white, unpigmented eggs—as do all lizards, turtles, crocodiles, and the only known egg-laying mammals, the platypus and the echidna. For this reason, ornithologists had long assumed that colored eggshells evolved solely in some groups of birds after nonavian dinosaurs had died out. (Also find out the surprising link between eggs shape and flight in birds.)
“Once the idea that colored eggs evolved in birds and were a trait of modern birds had been suggested, no one thought about it again or dared to ask if dinosaur eggs had been colored,” Wiemann says. …
Chinese sex doll rental service suspended amid controversy
A Wonder Woman doll (centre) was one of those offered by Touch.
A Chinese company offering sex dolls for rent has withdrawn its services just days after launching.
Touch had begun offering five different sex doll types for daily or longer-term rent on Thursday in Beijing but quickly drew complaints and criticism.
The company said in a statement on Weibo it “sincerely apologised for the negative impact” of the concept.
But the firm stressed sex was “not vulgar” and said it would keep working towards more people enjoying it.
Touch told the BBC the rental service had operated for two days and had garnered a lot of interest and requests.
“We prepared ten dolls for the trial operation,” a company spokesperson said via email, adding that they received very positive feedback from users.
“But it’s really hard in China,” the firm wrote, saying there had been a lot of controversy with the police over the issue. …
Video Goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
This man is a walking, talking double standard.
In his first speech in front of the United Nations General Assembly, President Trump reinforces his “America first” stance and threatens to wipe out North Korea.
THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.
Stephen’s wish that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe would move at the same accelerate pace as a ‘Law & Order’ episode comes true.
The winner of 2016’s popular vote and ‘What Happened’ author Hillary Rodham Clinton tells Stephen about her strangest experiences with Russia’s President during her time as Secretary of State.
Stephen had to toss out a lot of unused ‘Clinton victory’ material during his election night special. Tonight he gave those jokes, and one very cheeky photo, to the former candidate herself.
North Korea’s despotic leader counters Trump’s ‘Rocket Man’ nickname with a disproportionate amount of Elton John insults.
THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.
Seth takes a closer look at how the GOP is trying to ram through a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare while waiting for what could be the Russia investigation’s first indictment.
THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.
There are a lot of things we don’t expect Hollywood to understand: technology, relationships, how the common person lives … but you’d think they’d at least know how represent smart people, right? (Spoiler alert: wrong.)
Max and his messes. Along with his many voices.
FINALLY . . .
Faiyaz Jafri on the Evolution of Digital Animation
Pioneering digital animator Faiyaz Jafri hits Denver for Supernova.
Digital animator Faiyaz Jafri has been on top of his game for as long as the medium has been around, beginning thirty years ago on an Apple computer with the most basic programming tools available. It was a painstakingly different on-screen world back then, but Jafri, now an internationally known animation pioneer who produces his own cutting-edge, award-winning work while also co-directing Hong Kong’s Third Culture Film Festival, still represents the gold standard in his trade.
Stick-to-itiveness led Jafri, who’s in town this week for a September 21 program at the Sie FilmCenter and Denver Digerati’s annual Supernova Outdoor Animation Festival on September 23 in the Denver Theatre District, to where he is now, but it’s been a long and arduous path paced by the path of technological growth.
“When I was at university, there was hardly anything digital out there — everything was done by hand. There was no e-mail at the time, nothing,” says Jafri, a self-taught artist of Dutch and Pakistani descent. “I remember doing simple computer modeling. It was very cumbersome, and it took the whole day to render one mini-image. But that sparked in me the notion that this would become faster. With more access to better programs, this would become easier.”
And it did: A couple of years later, Faiyaz could render line-art illustrations on the computer. “I liked the control of a straight line,” he notes. “To me, it made total sense; I wanted to make hard-line, pictogram-style imagery. I guess we found each other at the right time.” …
Ed. More tomorrow? Probably. Possibly. Maybe. Not?