flynn050

“When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?”  ―  Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters  ― Seeing major cities and communities being battered by two hurricanes in as many months with a third in the offing, two earthquakes shake one of the world's largest metro areas in the same time frame and Los Angeles battle a major wildfire can make the future look like a threat, for sure. This article argues for defining future as a promise, instead. People don't like to imagine terrible possibilities and usually avoid it until calamity stares from every TV screen. Then humans tend to take refuge in actionism and after that avoid thinking much about the future altogether. Pragmatic humanitarian action, collecting clothes, bottled water and teddy bears or even volunteering in person. Taking individual responsibility and action instead of solely relying on institutions or government is a laudable very American instinct of coming together in the face of adversity. H...

In the eyes of some urban planners the automobile was a deadly force on the urban environment for a long time. Figuratively in terms of shaping cities but also literally in terms of high urban pedestrian and bicycle fatality rates. While the premeditated destruction of urban spaces for freeways and parking has never risen to the level of criminal offense, vehicular manslaughter is a law on the books of most States and countries when it comes to gross driver negligence. Another and newer threat is the vehicle as an instrument of terror. For some time vehicles have been used to break through safety perimeters and hide bombs to destroy targeted buildings. But the vehicle as a bomb in itself,  as an apparatus that does the killing has opened an unexpected specter and elevated the deadly aspect of the automobile to new heights, not only for the people in cities but also for the design of cities. A car crashes at Baltimore's city hall after a police chase killing a pedestrian (Baltimore ...

When the US President asked where the monument removal would end and if George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would be next, he certainly spoke for many Americans who ask the same question, possibly the majority of Americans. For them the Confederate monuments in many cities are just decoration which one passes daily like so many flowerpots. And the matter is by no means limited to southern states. There are over 700 Confederate monuments in the US with many placed in border states or states far removed from the Civil War. With the monuments so frequent, it is easy to get used to them. White Americans are still the majority in most States and they are quite comfortable without poking around in what seems a distant history. But this view lacks the deeper understanding of history needed to explain why so many of these statues are still around. More importantly, ignorance also lacks empathy, i.e. the ability to put oneself in somebody else shoes. It lacks the basic insight that for Afric...

First glimpses The morning after a late arrival in darkness and a fantastic thunderstorm presented a view that was astonishing for its blue sky. The morning sun bathed a dense pack of houses clustered on the mountainside like a flow of lava. Sunrise Petion Ville (all images Philipsen) The scale of the hillside or its homes is hard to comprehend at first. The hotel is the only structure with 9 floors, the mountainside is so densely packed and so steep that no streets seem to be possible there. Only commercial buildings in the foreground provide a sense that the hillside buildings a bit further back are not villas, but rather tiny boxes the size of a shipping container.  The giant billboard advertising an Audi Q5 in French for "seulement" $45,900 coming into view in the foreground seems quite incongruous, as does another in English showing a BMW and the words "taller, bigger, stronger". Are these advertisements for the hotel guests? But who comes here to sleep and the...