Trace One

they pay more because it is more expensive? what? the world does not work that way, sorry, David – check out the LA salaries in Hawaii..Reminds me of when I told my dad that I thought we made more money because we had more kids..
and no, we weren’t on welfare..
I think the pay difference is because of unions..

california never suffered from the ‘right to work ‘ plague that hit the eastern south – so my experience is that the salaries in Ca. are the highest in the country..But I am not specifically familiar with the eastern north states – north of New York, for example..
I personally have found Ca. to have exacting testing for LA’s and substantially…[Read more]

Ok, Thomas, that IS funny..

Mr. G, I was not laughing, it just was not funny..All I could feel from Thomas was condescension, frustration, and anger and the need to lash out – if it was irony he was after, he needed to be wittier about it, instead of so voluminously verbally diarrehtic….

I don’t like long posts in general, it seems so self-indulgent to me..

But it also…[Read more]

but you weren’t really funny, in your rant, just angry and condescending…And my government job is only three years old, and when I was in your position, 1990, I had been laid off from a $30,000 a year job as a designer for a nursery,and spent the next four years as a gardener in the summers and working for a florist and teaching landscape design…[Read more]

Long Island is some of the best agricultural land in the country!!!.I don’t see what is wrong with that idea..Agriculture should be local, end of story..That concept could only require re-zoning – all of Southampton Town was zoned for 3-5 acre subdivision lots – just with the stroke of the pen, it could be returned to farmland – it is actually…[Read more]

nice rant. good to have space to rant. dams are bad. dreaming is bad..? dream on!

nice! Love the thistles!

Cool, Rob, would love to see those pix, I didn’t know it was discovered at the good old BRONX ZOO, right down from my dad’s house!..
We can’t imagine what america looked like, when covered with the old growth forests..there’s a cool patch of 300 year old maples in Nova Scotia, preserved, but it is in a dip in the island, in the middle, so the…[Read more]

I saw something done with cut pieces of colored acetates, that I thought was really beautiful..

I think the idea is to choose an idiom, a language, for your model, and stick to it in as unified a way as one can..

good idea, twisted wire, but I love the yarrow – didn’t think it looked like yarrow! Maybe depends on scale..20 scale is good for yarrow..(Have to defend it – really loved the model-making..When does one ever get to do that in ‘real life.’…)
: ).

dried lichens and dried yarrow are great..available at any crafts store.. Little cubes of sponges sprayed green and stuck on matchsticks.. You can do anything..architects really get creative with the plant department..

killer article, Ben! thanks for posting that!

The clean air act was not signed at swordpoint, nor was Brown v. board signed under duress..I ho pe it is possible for us to act rather than react..Although the progress on climate change legislation seems to support your point, or even worse – we don’t even act when the waters are swirling around our heads, but just go under..slowly..The frog in…[Read more]

hm..you know, of course, that Obama just ordered some changes to the USA jobs stuff, to try to streamline the process.
Can’t really argue with you..The only thing about those TYPES of jobs, ie, site p lan reviewer, stormwater reviewer, is that east coast is WAY more local than west coast – that was a shock to me..I really can’t comment on…[Read more]

Rob, I have to say, I can think of hundreds of progressive acts that were done because they were the right thing to do – the bill of rights, the civil war against slavery, Brown vs. Board of Education, the code of hamurabi, the Magna Carta, the clean air act, the clean water act – these were decisions society made to move forward, instead of backwards..

Oil is subsidized artificially by our government in too many ways to count, Andrews – road building, construction loans, our whole society is built around oil subsidies – not to speak of drilling subsidies on public lands..
The real cost should mean no government subsidies, plus add in the destruction of the natural world, the air pollution, water…[Read more]

One of the guys in my office said Solar power is our generations Hoover Dam..

You are not at the forefront of thought, Thomas, but unfortunately occupying the broad boring middle – everyone in America goes to church, doubts global warming, believes in the absolute free market and that govenment should keep their hands off their medicare..Get over…[Read more]

@Thomas, Like I said, no common grounds, different universes, different mythologies.different facts..
..But do you realize how ‘party line’ you sound? Libertarians seem to think they are at the forefront of radicalism, when first off, their agenda serves big business perfectly..Secondly, it has all become codified, holy gospel, unquestioned..You…[Read more]

Wow! Baby boomers are equated with the ‘top one percent” ?? I don’t think so! Mark Zuckerberg is 26! I am 53, I was born in 1957, I am at the tail end of the baby boom, and there has been nothing easy at any step of the way, including the Reagan recession of 1987=1990, that basically killed the job market for us newly minted MLA’s in the late…[Read more]