Because the facts he’s referencing don’t exist. Even on the internet.
Thank god for thehim at Effin’ Unsound for this being the century where years begin with 20, not 19 and Rosanne Barr “singing” in San Diego, not a Democratic convention.
Author: Emmett O'Connell (Page 118 of 177)
Pete Jackson (man, they make Jacksons in Everett like they make Barclifts in Olympia, I guess) has some good talk about public space. Really good talk:
We know that gathering places aren’t fungible: High-end condos are no substitute for bowling alleys, for Elks lodges, or for good taverns. … So why not employ a soft-power strategy and carrot our way to more gathering places?
Everett already embraces the Growth Management Act as well as the smart-growth rules it learned from Seattle, our rich uncle to the south. In fact, we embrace the rules with a vengeance, extending 10-year property-tax breaks to condos in the downtown core, all aimed at promoting densification.
With the demise of the Elks, we have a chance to magoozle a planning tool that will distinguish Everett and serve as an example to even Seattle: Adopt the goal of “no net loss” of gathering places and figure it as a kind of “communitarian capitalism.”
We can meet a communitarian-capitalist mission by cribbing from our approach to — and stay with me here — wetlands. Just like wetlands, gathering places have a tangible impact, and the solution is to identify meaningful ways to address net loss.
To achieve a no-net-loss objective, cities could offer developers density bonuses if they create gathering places in the downtown core. Put in 3,000 square feet for the people and you can build an additional floor. Simple, direct, practical.
I like Jackson’s idea, it would be great if developers started seeing the good of building into their development public space that could be used by Elk Clubs, local neighborhood groups. It would be even better for local government to build in incentives.
My worry is that the insentive would go the way of the “community room” at the mall, right next door to the toilet. Rather than putting the public space front and center, or even in the central third of any design, it would be shoved off to the side.
And, when talking about encouraging public use of public space, I’m sure we all have something in mind. Its one thing if we build public space, its another thing to actually have it used the way we intended (diverse, vibrant rather than stagnant, unattractive to most or even dangerous). We should build public space with an idea towards how we want it to be used.
I know many of you have been wondering when I was going to write something about the promotion of the Mexican junkballer to the big team. So, here it is.
During spring training and into the regular season, I was tracking Jorge. He seemed to have a his ups and down: going from an explosion of an outing (couldn’t seem to find an out) to finally settling into a groove. Towards the end of the summer in Tacoma, he even dropped down below a 3.00 ERA.
And, now that the Mariners season is just about gone (not much a chance for a post season) they finally bring up Jorge. He missed most of the fight, and as a long reliever, he won’t have much of a chance to contribute. Maybe he can use this opportunity to fight for a starting spot next year.
And, they actually call themselves that.
Phan is fanning the flames for a Baird protest tomorrow, and he writes:
Baird is very dismissive of his anti-war constituency, whom he flippantly refers to as the ” ‘Out of Iraq’ caucus.”
I can’t say for sure how Baird referred to the caucus (whether spit flew from his mouth or not, for example), but they actually do call themselves the Out of Iraq Caucus. And, I’m pretty sure they’re serious about it.
Stephan Sharkansky got into a little blog post war with a waitress and a anonymous blogger up in Seattle this week.
Blatherwatch and Metroblogging Seattle both have pretty long posts on the… (oh God, I hesitate to call it this) debate. Sharkasnky attempts to cap the blogging about with this post: End of Story.
Well, not really, because even though the actual posts (the one that pissed him off and the one from Stephan that inspired the name of my post) were pulled from their respective blogs, they both live on in google cache (here and here).
So, while you can’t comment on this entire debacle either at soundpolitics.com or “Meet the Stress,” (the Shark’s “end of story” post has comments disabled), I’m sure the story is far from over. Hell, I mean, its Sunday, so lets see what we think about this on Wednesday.
Mark Gardener points out that there will soon be more people infiltrating public events by a Washington State congressman.
How does one infiltrate a public event? Shouldn’t public events be open to anyone, even folks who live outside a particular district?
Anyway, there was an interesting piece in Dear Abby last week that got me thinking about public spaces, and especially the recent dependence of groups on restaraunts and coffee shops as meeting space.
Here:
I work at one of the nicer, upscale restaurants in our small community. We have been having an issue with groups or committees of anywhere from four to 15 people coming into the establishment to hold their meetings. These groups frequently arrive at normal evening dinner times and therefore take up a table, but the attendees don’t order anything.
Abby responds that the manager should set a minimum order policy and then take care of things, but that avoids the question about available space in their “small community.” If groups and committees are taking to this restaurant for their meetings, I’m assuming their is a shortage of otherwise free or cheap meeting space in that town.
A lot of the meetups I’ve been attending the last few years have been at restaurants. One particular uncomfortable one happened when the manager and staff clearly felt like the above letter writer.
Abby referred to these meeting folks as “freeloaders,” which is a bit unfair. They aren’t trying to get food for free, their just trying to meet in some place outside their home.
In Olympia, at least, there is a dearth of free (or very cheap) meeting space for folks to come together. Outside of commercial establishments, there is a lack of informal “third spaces” as well. That there are folks that still want to get together in most communities, this lack of other space is being forced upon restaurants.
When residents butt heads with developers in Douglas County, local government may have a solution. Put everyone at the same table and get to work it out:
The building industry has been notorious for using “Private Property Rights” and
“A man should be able to do what ever he wants with his property” clichés. Usually these “Rights” pertain only to the building industry and they are very reluctant to give the same “Rights” to others. They are also Machiavellian in their development plans preferring to avoid any contact with or sharing of information with other property owners and concerned citizens. Apparently for fear that they may have to forfeit some of their precious private property rights while allowing others to assert theirs.To now expect the building industry to not only communicate with surrounding property owners but also to even ponder the private property rights of others seem like a big jump. Quite possibly if this “Neighborhood Meeting” plan is put into action developers might find that being candid with surrounding property owners and respecting their private property rights will make things a lot easier on everybody.
One of the reasons for the making official of neighborhood associations in Olympia was this kind of push and pull between the city and developers and current residents. The NAs gives the city a one stop shop for where to send information new developments. A cynical person would say that folks who get involved in NAs would most likely be the ones that complain the most to the city, so keeping them involved in an easy way of disarming them and keeping them engaged in a positive way.
Not since I moved cross country from Delaware to Olympia more than 10 years ago have I shed so many books. And, even then I toted what must have been a hundred pounds of paper in the trunk of my car.
This time I’m getting rid of nearly 80 percent of the books I own (the above shows probably 20 percent of the books I’m getting rid of and only some of the small paperbacks). The official reason for the letting go of so many books is a sudden lack of shelf space because of the growth of my son into a big-boy and the need for a big-boy room somewhere in our house.
The unofficial reason is that I really just don’t need that many books hanging around, especially so many fiction books. I still read fiction, but I’ve hardly ever found myself scouring my book shelves for some good fiction to read. Typically, its been down at the library where I do that kind of searching.
From now on I’ll do my book searching outside of my house, downtown at the library.
Pitch Invasion notes that media are beginning to wander into MLS stadiums, drawn by Beckham. But, they seem to be noticing, you guessed it, supporter clubs:
Meet the Empire Supporters Club. Though they appear to fill roughly 3 percent of the seats in Giants Stadium on any given game day, they are arguably responsible for the majority of the atmosphere and alcohol consumption. Members include students, construction workers and at least one manager at a Fortune 50 company. Drawing from a huge variety of ethnic soccer traditions, their fandom is a hybrid unlike any found in New York sports: the scarves, banners and cleverly insulting chants of Europe; the tireless dancing, chanting and smoke bombs of South America.
From the comments of the above story:
…the ESC makes a Red Bulls game the best sports ticket in town dollar for dollar.
The ESC is the heart and soul of the Red Bulls, without them, the games would be boring.
This Washington Post article that PI links to show the beautiful diversity that can happen between different supporter clubs like Barra Brava and Screaming Eagles. While Barra Brava is certainly the more raucous and free-wheeling, Screaming Eagles has a board of directors, assigned seating, ect. Honestly, I’d probably be more attracted to the SE model, but I greatly appreciate there being a BB around.
This is my attempt at a more concise explanation of what this brain dump tried to get across.
Important points from Applebee’s America:
- The most important Gut Values today are community and authenticity. People are desperate to connect with one another and be part of a cause greater than themselves. They’re tired of spin and sloganeering from political, business, and religious institutions that constantly fail them.
- In this age of skepticism and media diversification, people are abandoning traditional opinion leaders for “Navigators.” These otherwise average Americans help their family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers negotiate the swift currents of change in twenty-first-century America.
- Once you squander a Gut Values Connection, you may never get it back…
Much of Applebees America is about people finding community, connections and authenticity in places like Applebees restaurants, churches and political campaigns. How these organizations make themselves a conduit of people’s lives and by being community minded and authentic, they gain the loyalty of customers. By community minded, I don’t mean these organizations donate to the local United Way and issue a press release, they allow communities to form and to be conduits of meaning.
In American sports, there is very little of this. The two places this kind of community thrives is college sports and professional soccer.
College sports has community ingrained in it. Life long fans and alumni make up the most hard core supporters of any team. They send donations, they join booster clubs, they buy season tickets. They do more for a team than any average NFL or MLB fan would do. They develop deeper connections to a team that goes beyond buying a t-shirt or a ticket.
Major League Soccer could develop this same kind of community and loyalty. Imagine if the league promoted the dozens of active supporter clubs as the backbone of the league.
Simply on the surface, supporter clubs like the Red Patch Boys in Toronto provide a much better fan experience than other sports. Coordinated chants and the passion in the stands is simply attractive to the new fan or to any fan.
But, there is a deeper social aspect to supporter clubs that the league can take advantage of.
Supporter clubs in leagues world wide are the social glue that hold leagues together. Its not uncommon for team management to meet regularly with supporter clubs. It is also not uncommon for supporter clubs to evolve into supporter trusts, charities that donate money to the club to help keep the team going.
Fans have connections to deep to a club that they would hand over money to the management with no other expectation that the team would continue to exist. That isn’t the kind of connection that exist in any other American sport (outside of college and high school). I’ve never heard of any Red Sox fan, or especially a group of Red Sox fans, simply donating money. Not, that I expect that to happen with any MLS club, I’m just using it as an example.
That said, like the Red Patch Boys in Toronto, there are things (like interfering with scalping) that supporter clubs can do to the direct financial benefit of clubs. Not that just simply providing a social structure surrounding a club and their brand doesn’t have a direct financial benefit to a club.
If people feel directly apart of something larger than themselves, they will (to put it frankly) be more loyal customers. They will buy more shirts (even after the rush on Beckham jersies falls off), they will watch more games on t.v. and they will buy more tickets.
So, what can MLS clubs do encourage fans building social bonds through supporter clubs?
2. Learn the lessons of political campaigns. Since 2002 or there-abouts, politics has been infested with bloggers, meetups and other social stuff. Learn to love this quote:
Joe Trippi: The people are coming to this thing. And whatever we do, they take it and make it better. It’s their campaign now. We’re at the point where, if this is going to work, it’s going to be because of them. All we have to do now is have faith in them.
We’ve all been talking about it, and it’s like this. It’s like we’re standing on top of this fifteen-story building. All these people have gathered. Now… what we have to do is jump. And trust them to catch us.
Howard Dean: You’re absolutely right. I can see it. But do we have to be crazy about it?
So, read The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, especially the last chapter.
Read this and…
Here’s an example. I’m at a Chivas/Galaxy derby stood next to a dude wearing a Dodgers T-shirt when the Chivas hardcore burst into the stadium like a red-and-white tornado. Dodgers dude nearly has a heart attack.
“What the fuck!” he yells, taking a step back. “Who the hell are they!” I explain they’re soccer fans and this shouting, jumping, yelling, screaming carnival is how soccer fans trend to behave.
It’s baseball dude’s first soccer match. You can bet it won’t be his last. There’s no doubt that David Beckham will put meat in the seats, but it’s the noisy, life-affirming, autonomous, independent, witty, irreverent punk-culture of the fans that’ll hook them.
Yeah, I know. I’m being ridiculously optimistic. I’m ignoring the fact there are vast deserts of inert fan-zombiedom in the MLS. And even at the noisy-fan infected grounds, the pogoing mobs of flag-waving fanatics are flanked on either side by dumbstruck armies of gawking, spoon-fed sports consumers. (Hey, English footie snobs, remind you of anything?)
But what if the disease spreads?
…help spread the disease.
Emmett O'Connell
@emmettoconnell@olympiatime.com
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