I saw the "Carbon Neutral" signs appear at Virginia-Highland recently, bragging about being a "carbon-neutral zone". This turned my stomach, quite frankly. Now I'm kicking myself for not posting about this earlier, as I missed a chance to scoop the AJC by a couple of weeks. :) Today's story on Virginia-Highland's trip into "Eco-friendliness" provides some extra background: supposedly, this is the first such designated carbon-neutral zone in the U.S. The fees are comparable to copyright fees paid by bars, and the landlord paid for the audit/survey work. In what may be a surprise: there are 18 businesses on that block. I never really counted.
I am bitterly cynical about this whole deal, however. Why? This has taken place in the wake of last year's streetscape project, which took down that huge tree (some kind of oak) on the corner of Virginia and Highland. That tree has been replaced with a utility pole and a sign proclaiming "carbon neutrality". While this corner of the world is by no means dead, it is diminished, and this carbon-market business is just insult to injury. As a side note: the yearly fee shared by the shops is apparently not important enough to be included in the article. |
| posted at: 21:33 | permanent link to this entry |
Children are Endangered because They Are.
In a case of honesty meets politics, it seems our state Attorneys General, in their ongoing War on the First Amendment led by Andrew "Don" Cuomo, tasked some folks to study online threats to children. That group has returned their report, and the 50 AGs are nonplussed about the dissonance the report brings: Minors are not equally at risk online. Those who are most at risk often engage in risky behaviors and have difficulties in other parts of their lives. The psychosocial makeup of and family dynamics surrounding particular minors are better predictors of risk than the use of specific media or technologies. [from the executive summary] It's rather intuitive, actually. The Internet makes public that which used to be private, so this concept of Internet as some threatening place in need of mitigation is completely invalid. This, of course, means Law "enforcement" officials have to get off their butts and do real law enforcement, instead of assaulting the First Amendment for good press. One of the linked commenters summed it up correctly: It's not that your data conflicts with their own actual perceptions of risks on the internet. It's that your data conflicts with the conclusions and fails to support the policies that your detractors have adopted a priori, and whose adoption was prompted neither by personal perception nor by data, but by the necessity of taking a "strong", condemnatory "moral" stance. Aside from political expediency, the AGs' reaction is rooted in a deeper truth, that western civilization is built upon exclusion. People not chosen are cast out with the trash, and are expected to languish out of view. The home is a castle, and what goes on inside them is expected to stay hidden. Town and county economies are controlled by loosely hereditary heirarchies. The Internet, of course, puts a tunnel in all of these separations, and that aspect presents a greater threat which law enforcement of all levels are attempting to address. Their attitude is a very similar mentality to the "My ball is my ball" dog I posted yesterday, but with very serious implications for our government. |
| posted at: 19:21 | permanent link to this entry |
Today's topic for discussion is:
| The sun is shining, folks: FDA has approved tests of stem-cell treatment for spinal injuries. |
| posted at: 19:18 | permanent link to this entry |