Bryan Fischer will use any source, even students, if it promotes the hate.
Never mind the Iraq debacle or the governor’s slush fund, good bad ole Bryan Fischer is all atwitter over the latest misuse of tax dollars: transgendered bathrooms at Boise State University! Yep, right here on our hometown campus: state-funded sexual perversity! “Yes, BSU is planning to use public dollars to build restrooms reserved for the exclusive use of students with utterly confused sexual identities.” And where does he get this information? From a student who just happens to be president of the college republicans, Justin Sawmiller. Yes, the people who brought you the racist, classist anti-immigrant “lecture” and last night’s inflammatory talk on “Islam and Terrorism” is Bryan Fischer’s source for architectural information on future campus buildings.
Hey, Bryan! Every consider that you might want to call someone who, say actually knows what they’re talking about and doesn’t have an angry, hate-filled agenda like you? Call the campus Architectural and Engineering Services Department! Talk to the project manager for the building! I did. You know what he told me? In addition to to the usual men and women’s bathrooms, new campus buildings are going to include UNISEX bathroom, as required by that radical activist screed, the 2003 International Building Code. And you know who these bathrooms are intended for? Disabled people and parents with young kids…hmmm…what do they call these people - these groups who demand ’special rights?’ Oh yeah, we call them families. BSU is building additional bathrooms for disabled folks and families. Alert the media!
“Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don’t have brains enough to be honest.” - Benjamin Franklin
Idaho’s mixed housing blessing.
Mixed in what way? Idaho’s housing market is great if you managed to buy before prices got out of control. It’s not so good if you couldn’t afford to buy a home before 2005 and your income isn’t going up at, say, 20% a year. From the Statesman:
According to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, Idaho housing values jumped at an annualized rate of 20.79 percent and 20.89 percent in the first two quarters of 2006, respectively, before cooling to 17.57 percent and 13.99 percent in the final two quarters of the year.
BYU Dems more active than BSU’s.
Last week, 400 (by their count) BYU students protested the selection of Dick Cheney to be their commencement speaker. They have a very active website and organization, apparently. In comparison, where the heck are the BSU College Democrats? There were conspicuously absent when the College Republicans threw their insulting and infantile anti-immigration event.
The MLK you don’t see on TV
The San Francisco Bay Guardian has a great article on MLK’s activism in the years before his murder, and why you don’t hear about it. Dr. King was very vocal against the war, and was organizing a Poor People’s Campaign, creating “a multiracial army of the poor.” His words and actions are still very relevant today.
Thanks, CSI, for getting Idaho into the headlines again.
Thanks to Buddy Stone for pointing out this gem: the College of Southern Idaho has made it to Kieth Olbermann’s Worst Persons in the World. :
But our winners: The Sports Information Department at the College of Southern Idaho. Its media guide for its women’s softball team, presents answers to either/or questions from each of its players…
You know: Hamburger or Hot Dog… Mountains or Beaches… Vanilla or Chocolate…
“Shaven or Unshaven.” Women’s Softball team… Shaven or Unshaven… Must be referring to the bat barrels. Shaven or unshaven bat barrels. Shaven or unshaven…
The College of Southern Idaho, Sports Information Department is Wednesday’s Worst Persons in the World!
Snowpack is grim.
It just struck me that last year I was skiing April 15. It’s March 30, and I haven’t skiied in weeks. It’s not like we have a long whitewater season to look forward to, either - bad skiing makes for a quick, fast season. Some areas have less than 40% their normal snowpack for this time of year. Utah’s just as bad.
Legislature to Boise: Screw you, city dwellin’ Democrats.
Wow, so public transportation unfairly benefits the more urban areas, so we should shoot that down, and this section of I-84 is in a democratic district, so that’s a no-go, too. Forward thinkers, these republicans.
From Eye on Boise:
House GOP leaders pulled one of the six highway projects – the Orchard to Isaacs Canyon project on I-84 – out of the program at one point in negotiations on the bill because it benefits a district represented by Democrats, senators said in their debate against SB 1245, the GARVEE bonding bill that just was killed in the Senate on a 23-12 vote.
“There was one of those six projects that was removed altogether,†Senate Finance Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, told the Senate. “Why? Because the senator and the representatives from that district were from the wrong political party.†He added, “It’s time for us to step back.â€
…Cameron said he heard the project was removed “because it’s in Elliot’s backyard.†Sen. Elliot Werk, D-Boise, is one of two Democratic senators on the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, which approved the bill earlier on a split vote.
Can’t wait to hear what Sali and Swindell have to say about THIS!
There’s a renewed effort afoot to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, which would - gasp - enshrine gender equality in the constitution. First introduced in the 1920’s (!), it passed 35 states in the 1980’s before it was killed by schmucks like Phyllis Schlafley.
Corporate media consolidation, free speech and internet radio.
Have you heard? The organization in charge of setting royalty rates for broadcasting music online raised them so high that a great many internet radio stations will be put out of business. Guess who will be left standing? Big, corporate stations who can afford the fees. Sound familiar? Bigass corporations are the ones who now own most broadcast radio stations - and are to blame for our bland, boring FM musical options.
Why is this relevant to Idaho? We have NO community radio, and next to no independant, locally-owned stations left. For many of us music fans, internet radio is our main conduit to good, new music, whether it comes from local indie bands or from Romania. What to do? WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMEN! Here’s some help from the groovy SOMA FM:
Over-the-air broadcasters are exempt from paying royalties on the sound recording copyright, but internet radio stations are not. These royalties were legislated by the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995 (aka the DPRA). The reason was that it was then thought “digital” broadcasts were “perfect copies” of an original work and should therefore be treated different from over-the-air radio broadcasts. The law was changed so that only over-the-air broadcasters were exempted from royalties on the performance of sound recordings. The DPRA is based on a fundamentally flawed assumption — that “digital transmission” allows unlimited perfect digital copies of the original work. On the contrary, internet radio stations do not distribute perfect digital copies of the original copyrighted performance; instead, they use MP3 and WMA formats. Such broadcasts are drastically “compressed” and nowhere near a perfect digital copy. They also segue songs together, and make announcements over the beginnings and ends of songs. It’s just like over-the-air radio, and in many cases, the audio quality of the internet broadcast is inferior to an analog FM broadcast!
Due to all the corporate consolidation in over-the-air broadcasting, it no longer provides a free flow of ideas and information. Internet radio has responded to fill that free flow of ideas, and there are thousands of internet radio stations with loyal audiences who look to them to discover new music. Many of these are advertising-free, and support themselves through listener donations. But if SoundExchange gets its way, advertising-free internet radio will come to an end, and only the largest corporations will be able to legally operate internet radio stations in the United States. US listeners seeking a diversity of viewpoints will be forced to turn to international broadcasters.
Achieving parity with over-the-air broadcasters seems to be the only fair solution for internet radio broadcasters and listeners. This can be done by amending 114(j)(3) of the Copyright Act to change the definition of “broadcast transmission” to include internet radio broadcasts, aka eligible nonsubscription transmission, as defined in Sec. 114(j)(6).
If amending the Copyright law is not feasible, then at a minimum, these royalty rates must be reduced to something reasonable; for example, 5% of revenues is in line with what broadcasters pay to composers (through ASCAP and BMI). It seems that the rates that the CRB has ruled for internet radio “sound recording” royalties is grossly out of line.
This is the only way that internet radio operators can achieve parity with their over-the-air peers, and the only way to insure a “marketplace of ideas” - an idea important to our democracy.
The truth about the dangers (or lack thereof of) certain (legal and illegal) drugs
Picked this up from Boing Boing: a new study published in the Lancet shows that alchohol and tobacco are more harmful than marijuhana and ecstacy.
The new ranking places alcohol and tobacco in the upper half of the league table. These socially accepted drugs were judged more harmful than cannabis, and substantially more dangerous than the Class A drugs LSD, 4-methylthioamphetamine and ecstasy.
The naughtiness at nightclubs in Nampa
Slate.com posted Attorney General Laurence Wasden’s complaint against naughty Nampa nightclubs Satin Dolls and Club Z. Find it here.
Treasure Valley finally noticing the lack of affordable housing options.
An article in today’s Statesman reports on a meeting held yesterday where developers of high-end housing talked about the lack of affordable housing in the valley.
If you are in the market for a high-end house, you’re in luck.
If you’re in the market for a low-priced house, take a number and stand in line.
Huh. This is new? The article goes on to suggest that the market is undergoing a ‘correction’ that started last year. I’ve never quite understood the concept of a market ‘correction;’ was it incorrect previously? This all implies that markets are some kind of creature that exists independently of people. Folks, houses (and anything else, for that matter) have value because we agree that they do. It something we agree to as a society, and in many ways, it works.
Sadly, housing markets don’t seem to work if you don’t have plenty of money. If you’re poor and need clothes, there’s Wal-Mart or thrift stores; if you’re broke and need food, you can eat out less, eat more rice and beans, or go to the food bank. If you want to buy a house, well, something’s preventing the housing market from creating a product targeted to you, and it’s not just greed. More on this later.
Toward the end of the article was this gem:
Thirteen planned communities covering 18,000 acres with 72,000 homes are in the works for Ada County; about 2,000 condominiums are in the pipeline for Downtown Boise alone.
Yike!
Swiss Accidentally Invade Liechtenstein
…a post from the Onion, no? No. It’s from the New York Times. Apparently it actually happened!
George Clinton at the Big Easy, 2/28
Yep, he’s old - in fact, I’m certain the man took at least five naps during the course of the show. He would disappear for long periods of time while the rest of the band either funked out or snuck in some awful 50’s covers or hair metal tunes.
We’ve been sick.
Sorry El Vez and I (Galumphix) have been incommunicado lately - we’ve been sick. Quite sick. Okay, not Malaria-sick, but I’m pretty sure Vez hacked up a lung over the last week and a half, piece by peice. Anyhoo, I hope we’ll be better at posting - and breathing - in the next few weeks.
30th Street Extension proposal caters to the yuppies and promotes gentrification of one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Boise
The City of Boise and ACHD are holding public meetings on the 30th Street extension this week. The clock is clicking as there are only two days left to participate. Thursday from 9-5pm at 2201 Woodlawn and Friday from 5:30-7:30pm at Madison Elementary School located at 2215 Madison.
What exactly is the 30th Street Extension? It’s an attempt to divert heavy traffic on State and 27th Street onto a wider better-engineered (30th) street that can dump traffic onto Fairview heading into downtown Boise.
However it’s not all about traffic rather it’s about changing a neighborhood. As you know Boise will soon have a whitewater park and the Ester Simplot Park right off 30th Street. These are two great amenities for Valley residents however; market pressure will cause some inevitable changes to the neighborhood. The biggest will be gentrification of the area. Currently, this neighborhood is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Boise. There are also a fair number of affordable housing units in the area that provide much needed housing for the working class. After an hour at the Charrette this afternoon it became apparent that we could expect the demolition of older homes with replacement of larger homes and tall skinny homes. This will have an effect on the overall character of the neighborhood. Currently 30 percent of those living south of State and west of 27th to 30th Street are homeowners, 70 percent are renters. We can expect this to change. The question is do want it to change and does the City of Boise have the responsibility to address gentrification of our neighborhoods? The housing situation for the working class in Boise continues to worsen and it’s time the City Council and Mayor tackle this serious problem. They need to hear from their constituents… YOU!
On a good note, there are some items that have been identified by the neighborhood that they would like to see which include a village center and/or a Hyde Park type area as part of the extension proposal. The creation of neighborhood businesses like a coffee shop or a local restaurant does create a sense of community. We also need to make sure that roads and proposed developments provide walkable areas, promote and encourage alternative transit like biking and bus/trolley sites.
For information on the 30th Street Extension check out the City’s website at http://www.cityofboise.org/pds/
Conservative students go whining to Legislature over “Liberal” speakers
The poor, opressed conservatives of BSU have their tighty whities in such a bunch that there’s only one institution that can pick that wedgie: the Idaho Legislature. Thursday Bob Kustra will have to answer for BSU’s hosting of the likes of Al Gore when he speaks before the Senate Education Committee, according to an article in today’s Statesman.
(Maybe I’m way out there in left field, but I don’t consider Al Gore, part of the Clinton administration (the one that brought you welfare reform and NAFTA), much of a liberal.)
In Boise, who cares about affordable housing?
In Boise, you’ve got your advocates for the rivers, for human rights, for immigrants, for health care, against nukes. But who advocates for affordable housing and the housing needs of the poor - or even moderate-income Idahoans?
Today’s article on condo conversions in the Statesman makes this plain. Apparently, in the 12 month period ending September 2006, 375 apartments were lost to condo conversion in Boise, sparking concerns for lower-income people. Who did they interview about the trend? The Boise City planning director, the director of the Housing Authority, and someone from AARP…in other words, they interviewed two government officials and a representative for elderly folks.
I’m very grateful that the City and Housing Authority (basically a local arm of HUD) care about affordable housing. But where are the advocates? Nobody from the City or HA is lobbying the legislature for tenant rights (heck, both are landlords) or for more funding for affordable housing. And who’s watch-dogging them as they spend public dollars? Boise Neighborhood Housing Services is certainly not in the business of helping low-income people - affordable housing isn’t even mentioned in their mission statement (apparently they’re about “strong neighborhoods”). Heck, prices in their next Boise development are between $197,500 and $362,500.
Meanwhile, in older neighborhoods developers are tearing down modest $130,000 homes (suitable for first-time home buyers like me) and replacing them with twice as many tall, skinny homes that cost twice as much. Infill is fine, but why does it have to come on the backs of low- or even average-income people?
Clearly, we need an organization that cares. Montana has one. Utah does, too. It’s 2007. Let’s get organized, too, before it’s too late.
Christian Parenti @ BSU on March 1
Nation correspondent and author Christian Parenti will talk about what is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq - and more importantly - why.
7 pm in the Jordan Ballroom A/B in the Student Union at BSU. Free.
