Ancient Italian towns pull ahead of the US in race to modernize

This is shameful and inspiring. While we putz around trying to make our citizens like GM enough to buy a new car, and promise thrilling 0-60s in electric roadsters, and encourage people to buy FEWER plastic bottles of water and use FEWER plastic bags, entire rural villages in Italy are simply taking the steps necessary to bring themselves online with the future . . . (more)

Water water everywhere

Christian man reminds us that Billy Lucas is in Hell. And he deserved it.

As you watch this video, remember that this guy is talking about a 15 year-old kid who took his own life.  This Christian man is doing this pontificating two weeks after Billy hung himself in his family's Indiana barn, after merciless homophobic bullying.  This Christian man has taken it upon himself to help us all understand Billy's plight in this Christian man's imagined afterlife ONE DAY after 13-year old gay student Seth Walsh, who hung himself nine days ago and was taken off of life support (yesterday), and less than a month after eighth grader Asher Brown put a bullet in his brain after enduring years of anti-gay taunting and bullying at his Texas middle school.   
The pressures of growing up gay are immense.  That's not to say these kids even were gay . . . but in each case it was the bullying and taunting of their peers about their perceived homosexuality that pushed them past rationality and into despair.  The bullies have to be taught to taunt, to hate, and to identify and LABEL a weakness.  Hi, horrible parents.  Hi, society at large allowing this.  How are you all feeling this afternoon?   
THESE ARE VICTIMS OF SHAME,  
and shame is imposed by the outside world.
The majority of the world's religion have decided to take formal stances that make the lives of these kids even harder.  If you're a person of faith, won't you please make your voice heard within your congregation, your diocese, your coven, your whatever the hell you go to?  Now, sorry you have to see this hateful man. . . who is wrong in his interpretation, and hard in his heart, but here it is:  UPDATE:  he's taken his screed down, because in addition to being a bigot, he is also a coward.

Power giants rule, or Why didn't I think of this?

Hobble to the cellar, fatty, she's coming for you!!

Detroit -- musings on metropolitan makeover

It's losing its symphony?  It's flirting with Hollywood.  It's burning, it's shrinking, it's artistic, it's stinking . . . what is to be expected from the next decade in Detroit?

the Spirit of Detroit

pizzicato on the heartstrings
I want so much to be that rotting giant's Jane Jacobs . . .
move myself, a garden, and the power of theater and music
out of the hall
and into the husk of fled industry,
sing folk songs on the twisted steel and
light the toppling bricks with amber-gelled hope for renaissance . . .
and teach the kids to love to listen
to move around and
cluster all the left-behinds to become
strong villages, and the in-betweens to become
fields of strong corn.
and the singing and the working meet the
hammers that forge huge windmills
sending the Spirit of Detroit back
to the Pantheon of Industry
but this time,
cloaked in green.


And now from some hastily jotted poetry, to a hastily assembled gallery after the JUMP:

Well, in THAT case . . .

Michigan's Attorney General's office letting it's bigot flag fly

Nobody likes to hear negative press about his home state, and as a proud Michigander, this story may hit me harder than most, but I think anyone can see the injustice herein.  Here's the skinny on this surprising story breaking this week: Andrew Shirvell, the Assistant Attorney General for the state of Michigan, has taken it upon himself to slander -- in the most heinous language -- the Student Assembly President of the University of Michigan, Chris Armstrong.

Shirvell, a supposed "professional adult" has created a blog dedicated to ruining the reputation of a bright and accomplished student.  

In his shrivelled little screed of a blog, Shirvell calls 21 year-old Armstrong a RADICAL HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVIST, RACIST, ELITIST, & LIAR.  Ahh love.  Okay, the homosexual part seems to be true, he is in fact the first student president at UofM to be openly gay.  Armstrong won (a decisive victory) on a platform of reducing tuition hikes, expanding gender-neutral housing and keeping cafeterias open later to make drinking less dangerous.  Shirvell hates this dude.  Here is a video of the small-minded bigot's interview:

What the Bible says about marriage. For real.

From America's Best Christian, Betty Bowers!

Healthy Transit, Healthy City

Good news from the American Public Transit Association:  Cities with well-planned, efficient, comprehensive public transit systems are home to healthier longer-lived citizens than those with car-based transportation networks.  This isn't surprising, I suppose, public transport encourages some walking, standing, even biking . . . but the study also finds that

"the 10  U.S. counties with the “smartest,” most transit-oriented growth have approximately one-fourth the traffic fatality rates as those counties with the most sprawling development. For example, the traffic fatality rate for the Bronx, NY was approximately four per 100,000 residents.  However, for Miami, KS, the rate was almost 40 per 100,000."

So, not only are you less likely to die of heart disease, stroke and other perils of sedentary living, less likely to be made sick by auto-generated smog, but you're also less likely to be hit by some fatty in an SUV trying to eat a Quizno's and put on lip balm at the same time.  The health benefits were seen across economic groups.