Incandescent
Remember the days when nighttime flashers had to use candles or simple incandescent flashlights to illuminate what the News so delicately calls their “mid-section[s]”? Not anymore, in this soulless age of cell phones with lighted displays. It’s just not the same in that cold LCD glow.
Among our hardy pioneer forefathers, during Michigan’s timberin’ era, kerosene lanterns were the thing, as documented in Days of Logs and Roses: A Lumberman Branches Out.
posted by Laura on September 24th, 2004 at 6:52 pmThe end of my youth may have been resolutely confirmed last Wednesday (?) as I sat and watched a Board of Education meeting on cable access. The topic was the New High School, more specifically the proposed site.
posted by mike on September 25th, 2004 at 10:06 amPublic comments and presentations ranged from inciteful (the gentleman who argued for putting the school in the part of town, S.E., where there is the biggest achievement gap) to the inane (the goofball who used his time to give the board members dollar-store gifts, for some reason). Most grating was the eco-spaz crowd that laments the loss of habitat.
Yes, the loss of habitat is regretful, but guess what? There ain’t no other place to put the damn school. Anybody have 80 acres they can give to AAPS for cheap? A 1/4 acre building site in Pittsfield goes for $70,000. Let’s see… that makes $5.6 million just for land, just in case there is such a site that can be annexed into Ann Arbor.
We should compliment the AAPS for having the foresight to purchase the land 30 years ago. The district has held 100+ public meetings to talk it over. The schools hired good people to design the place… they’ll do their professional best to minimize destruction. But really… you don’t want new schools? Then you shoulda thought of that back in the family planning days. You want to stop future school construction? Go get the Big V at your friendly neighborhood urologist.
They want their cake and the ability to eat it too.
posted by Kozzie on September 26th, 2004 at 9:56 amSurely Ann Arbor’s residents can come up with a creative solution to problems with the proposed school sites. To this end we have created an ad-hoc brain-storming committee. In our report we have outlined a plan that we believe the citizenry can really get behind: A set of yurts on the UM diag that will function as an eco-friendly learning community. These yurts will be made of 100% recycled material and will be low-impact, unbleached, and zero-emissions. The exclusive use of candlelight will not contribute to light polution. This learning-ecosystem will be a shining example for the entire Ann Arbor community.
Children and teens will learn skills such as fire-building, lard-rendering, and transcendental meditation. We believe that the compact yurt environment will allow our children to interact in socially-optimal groupings and will teach them appreciation for modern technology (running water, heat, etc.).
Our children, and our environment, deserve nothing less. We very much hope that you will attend the next meeting and will vote “YES” on proposition diag-yurt.
posted by Eco Ann Arbor, Unite on September 26th, 2004 at 10:20 pmI liked the proposal of not building an all-out high school (with full sports facilities, huge parking lot, etc.) and instead building a downtown school (perhaps on the site of the old Y, which the city now owns?).
posted by Scott T. on September 27th, 2004 at 10:33 amIt’s always weird to see the school board voting to put in more huge developments, while trying to sabotage the open schools here in town. Commie High always has a waiting list years longer than who they can admit, but the last “New School” was systematically destroyed by a lack of funding, commitment, and vision.
posted by js on September 29th, 2004 at 11:57 amSmaller schools work better, but hell, let’s build another monster…
Oh, and on the item at hand…
posted by js on September 29th, 2004 at 11:58 amThe flasher has obviously learned what product photogs already knew- blue lighting makes food more appetizing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have worked for him.