All the Saints

--Skye Rohde

I'm a producer here at NPR, but I also like to do some reporting from time to time. There's no shortage of interesting people in Los Angeles, but I knew the moment I first heard about J. Michael Walker's exhibit at the Autry National Center that I wanted to do a story about him.

Walker realized that there were a whole lot of streets in Los Angeles named for saints -- 103 to be exact -- when he was looking through what has long been a second bible to Angelenos, a spiral-bound book of maps called the Thomas Guide. He recognized the importance of these saints in L.A.'s cultural history. He began exploring the histories of the saints and the nooks and crannies of the streets. Then he created new saint portraits based on the people he met.

I've never seen anyone approach a city the way J. Michael Walker does. And the result -- now on the walls of the Autry and in book form too (title: All the Saints of the City of the Angels) -- is fascinating. I spent many hours with Walker over the last few months, talking with him about his art and our city and the "road trip through the cultural history of Los Angeles" that he created. My radio piece airs this afternoon on All Things Considered. I know this is the Day to Day blog, but hey: It's a great California story!

5:22 PM ET | 08-29-2008 | permalink

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A Heartbeat Away

--Madeleine Brand

There have been lots of questions about Sarah Palin's experience. She's been governor for less than two years. Would she be able to run the country if John McCain (aged 72 as of today) were to die or become incapacitated? That's a legitimate concern. But what I'm also wondering is: would she be able to run the country effectively as a mother of five children, two of whom are really young: seven years old and four months? (And, the four-month-old baby has Down Syndrome.)

I know I could not do my job if I didn't have help with my two small children. My husband gets them up, feeds them breakfast and takes them to school every morning because I'm here before dawn, preparing for the show. And still I wonder--would I be better at my job if I didn't have kids? (And the opposite, too: would I be a better mother if I didn't have a job?)

I'd like to know how Sarah Palin handles being Governor and a mom. Does her husband take care of the children? Does she have full-time help? Does she skip meetings, stint on reading a policy brief, or forgo traveling to spend time with her kids?

It's also interesting that these questions have never come up for Barack Obama, who has two young girls. No one wonders (at least I haven't) whether he'd be less effective as president because he's a father.

What do you think?

5:01 PM ET | 08-29-2008 | permalink

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McCain-Palin? ...Thomas?

--Gary Dauphin

John McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate is obviously the story of the day, after Shereen abandoning us. Any thoughts, reactions, first impressions?

The Atlantic's James Fallows has an interesting read:

The Palin pick is not like the choice of Dan Quayle

But it is exactly like the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. That is, an unbelievably obvious but potentially effective attempt to jiu-jitsu the standard identity politics of the moment in a way that flummoxes the Democrats. I would spell out the logic but I think it's obvious and am at a computer for only sixty seconds.

The image to have in mind is not Dan Quayle: a person with quite a bit of grounding in national issues who was added to the ticket in an attempt to jazz it up. Always and only the comparison should be with Clarence Thomas -- with this one interesting difference. Thomas was a shrewd choice not simply because his race made it more complicated for Democrats to oppose him but also because, once confirmed, all evidence suggested to conservatives that he'd be the kind of Justice they were looking for. In Palin's case, this seems to be a choice that looks forward to Election Day, and not one day beyond that.

Tags: Palin

2:08 PM ET | 08-29-2008 | permalink

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Bye-Bye To The Blah-Blah-Blah Girl

--Alex Chadwick

She was here five years ago when Day to Day began.

She'd been looking for a job--she had a couple of part-time things going up in the Bay Area, but she wanted to try working for NPR, and here was this new show starting up in L.A. She came down for a job interview, and got this question: "What DON'T you like about NPR?"

"That's easy," she said right away, "blah, blah, blah."

We might not have put it quite that way ourselves, but we knew exactly what she meant. That's what we were tired of, too. And someone with the ability to put it just like that, and the nerve to offer it up in a job interview? I think it was the next day we offered her a temp position--all we had at the time.

Shereen Marisol Meraji got hired full-time very quickly. Then promoted. Then promoted again. Within a year she had one of the key positions on the show -- she was the director...she ran everything in the studio while we were on the air. It's a very stressful and important job...coordinating what the hosts are saying, what the engineers are doing to play the right interview, bringing in live feeds or phone calls from overseas, on a special talk-back constantly to the production unit down the hall to make sure everything is coming in on time. She was always the youngest person there -- by a lot in my case. But there was never any question who was in charge.

Even so, she began to bump her head, as people do in their first real jobs, no matter how good they are. She went off to report from Lebanon for several months. She came back and got restless again. She finally dragged us into the 21st Century by first insisting the show must have a blog, and then creating it -- DayDreaming, the blog you're reading here - around a project she ran called California Dreaming.

This summer was coming to an end, and we wondered what she'd do next...and now we learn that she is going to try a new media job in public television. It is wonderful news for a very smart and capable woman. And it's a dagger to the heart.

My friend Steve Proffitt, a senior producer here, wrote and produced and performed this song about Shereen:

If you listen to the show much, you should get most of it, and leave a comment if you want parts explained.

Here is Shereen:

And here is Steve--he may take over for some of her work on the blog.

Boy, I'm really going to miss her.

11:09 AM ET | 08-29-2008 | permalink

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What Simon Said

--Alex Chadwick

The Hillary people should read this.

I did, and I've been talking to everybody at NPR West about Relentless: How Barack Obama Outsmarted Hillary Clinton by Roger Stone. He's the chief political columnist at Politico.com, a long-time reporter with Chicago roots. (Click over to his bio and check out the last line on where he's going to be buried.)

For Relentless, Simon talked to two-dozen top people from both campaigns. It feels very thorough and revealing--the best summation coverage I've seen on how Barack won, and why she lost. I've been trying to get an interview with Roger on the show since I read Relentless on Monday, but we couldn't catch up with him in Denver until late yesterday. I'm really glad we got this on today; given news cycles, this is probably the last day we could run it. The interview I did with him is good; you can listen to a longer version of our conversation using the audio link above. But his full pieces are better.

What say you, though? What's your take on Simon's analysis--and the larger question of how Obama won?

Tags: Clinton | Obama | pundits

1:18 PM ET | 08-28-2008 | permalink

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They Want Ralph?

--Madeleine Brand

Is a 2000-style Gore/Nader split what the PUMA people want?

After last night's speech by Hillary Clinton, it seems inconceivable that any of her supporters would still vote for John McCain in the general election. Her message was clear: "no way, no how, no McCain."

And yet Mark Friedland--a Clinton delegate from North Carolina--told me that his wife remains unconvinced and will vote for McCain.

Before last night's speech, polls showed that some 20% of Clinton supporters do not plan to vote for Obama. I wonder if, outside the convention, her speech changed their minds.

Are you among that 20%? What do you think now?

Tags: Clinton | Nader | Obama

11:37 AM ET | 08-27-2008 | permalink

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Don't Try To One-Up A Mercedes In Africa

--Alex Chadwick

This morning, we aired an interview with Dutch journalist Jeroen van Bergeijk, author of My Mercedes Is Not for Sale. The interview didn't go quite as I'd planned. I began trying to one-up my guest -- always an error.

I've driven a section of Africa more hazardous than the one he describes in his account of trying to sell his car. Five years ago, on assignment for Radio Expeditions, I followed the route of the old camel caravans from Timbuktu, 500 miles north to an ancient salt mine called Taudenni in the middle of the Sahara desert. I don't think Jeroen believed me, but the caravans still go because it actually makes more sense than trying to get there and back with a big commercial truck. If they get stuck or break down, there is no way to get them out. We drove in pick-ups and heavy, primitive SUV's. There are no roads -- you take a guide who sits beside the driver in the lead vehicle and signals where to go. It takes three days ... and you cover about a thousand years.

Jeroen listened patiently for a couple of minutes and then changed the subject. The interview wasn't about my salt-mine trip -- it was about the adventure of trying to sell an old Mercedes. It was his story, and that's what we talked about.

4:37 PM ET | 08-26-2008 | permalink

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Education Dreams and Nightmares

--Shereen Meraji

Once upon a time, California's public schools were highly regarded, but now they're ranking at the bottom of the list of public schools in the United States.

On today's "California Dreamin'" radio segment, NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates profiles a public school in Los Angeles trying to tackle these difficult issues. West Adams Preparatory High School is one of Los Angeles' newest schools, the first class will graduate in 2009. The 2,600 students are divided into smaller schools that reflect their career interests. The "school within a school" structure is intended to keep students from getting lost in the shuffle.

But what do YOU think California needs to do to improve the public school system? Are you a graduate of the California public schools? Share your thoughts, and, if you have a public school dream or nightmare, tell us about it below. We want to hear from you matter where you live.

1:09 PM ET | 08-25-2008 | permalink

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Virgule???

-- Steve Proffitt

The other day, on our listener letters segment, I noted that NPR management doesn't like us directing users to specific URL's at NPR.org. There is a feeling, which I share, that it's not pleasant to hear something on the radio like this:

"Just go to NPR dot org SLASH blogs SLASH daydreaming."

An alternative is saying something like this:

"Just go to NPR dot org. Click on the blogs link -- it's in the left-hand column. Then click Daydreaming."

That's slightly more conversational, but not so great. The fact is, the radio is not a very good medium for delivering complex Web addresses. Plus, we have the sense that after a while, hearing all these dots and orgs and SLASHES just becomes wallpaper that listeners no longer even hear.

What do you think? Does it grate on your ears to hear these Web addresses? Got any ideas for other ways we can direct you to specific areas of NPR.org?

One listener had an interesting suggestion. Thomas Murray wrote us from Louisville. He thinks, "too many slashes sounds like the one-sheet for a slasher movie." His suggestion: use another more elegant word for a forward-slanting typographical slash: virgule.

It does sound nice. VUR-gyool. It's from the latin, virgula, meaning "little rod", or referring to a part of the male anatomy that is particularly diminutive.

The later meaning is probably one good reason to thank Mr. Murray but seek an alternate solution. That and the fact that almost no one knows what a virgule is.

But we could try it.

"Just go to NPR dot org VIRGULE blogs VIRGULE daydreaming."

3:53 PM ET | 08-24-2008 | permalink

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D2D HEARTS CARRIE B

Musician Carrie Brownstein did a little piece for us today about the various musical acts booked at the Republican and Democratic conventions. Which one would you guess is featuring The Charlie Daniels band?

Anyway, Carrie has her own NPR blog, Monitor Mix. Not only is she a great writer with a unique perspective, her readers - or at least the people who leave comments on her blog - are funny and literate and really interesting. So, read her blog, and don't skip the comments.

4:58 PM ET | 08-22-2008 | permalink

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Interviews 50 Cents

-- Steve Proffitt

My friend and colleague Alex Chadwick is a talented guy. He might be the best writer at NPR. He's an excellent still photographer. And occasionally he has a really, really good idea.

Interviews 50 Cents is one of them. It's so simple. Set up a card table, with a cigar box on it, and put up a sign that says, "Interviews 50 Cents." Then see what happens.

Over the years, Alex has created a body of work around this concept. And he's stepped outside his normal comfort zone - radio - to present these as little video vignettes. Some were shown on ABC-TV, and most recently, they've been seen at Slate's video site, SlateV.

They're really good, and worth watching. People reveal the most amazing things. Plus, you get to actually SEE that guy you've been hearing on the radio for so long.

You can find more Interviews 50 Cents here.

9:20 AM ET | 08-22-2008 | permalink

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DOCP: Driving On Cell Phone

--Steve Proffitt

Last month, California joined the handful of states (Connecticut, DC, New Jersey, New York and Washington) that ban driving while holding a cell phone.

But everyday, on the drive home from work, I see at least a couple of people gabbing away on their handsets behind the wheel.

Earlier this month, the California Highway Patrol released preliminary figures that showed CHPs officers had already written some 7,000 citations for drivers who were caught with cells in hand. And the Orange County Register recently reported that officers in the OC have written more than 400 tickets.

I'll admit that I do occasionally answer the phone when it rings and I am driving, and I'll admit that I've yet to purchase a hands-free device. But I've really tried to stay off the thing while motoring.

What about you? If you live in a place where a cell phone ban has gone into effect, are you complying? Are you seeing other scofflaws?

Just do me a favor. Don't text in your comment while you're on the road. OK?

11:44 AM ET | 08-20-2008 | permalink

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Kids and Planes

--Steve Proffitt

On Tuesday's program we spoke with George Hobica of airfarewatchdog.com about a bold idea: create a special section on airplanes for people traveling with children, and another for adults only. It wouldn't be all that different from the old days, he opined, when there was a smoking section in every plane.

You can listen to it here.

Our listeners were pretty quick to respond:

"Mr. Hobica stated that smoking sections on airplanes were banned because they were "obnoxious." Far from it: they were banned because second-hand smoke is a **health hazard.** While screaming kids may be unpleasant, they are not a health hazard the analogy to smoking is not only in-apt, but offensive."
-- David S. Lefkowitz of Los Angeles

"I think we need special sections for rigid, rude people."
-- EdrieAnne Broughton of Vacaville, CA

"I'd ask my fellow travelers to remember these two points: one, all adults were children once too (and will all become the elderly as well with luck), and two, for some lone businessmen, one cry out of a baby can cause a headache...but for others, mindless chatter out of the same businessmen can cause one as well. It's all in your perspective."
-- Adrienne Meyer of Ypsilanti, MI

So, any counterpoint here? Or is that kid's section just not going to get off the ground? Chime in at will, please.

3:01 PM ET | 08-19-2008 | permalink

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Not Quite Mindless Speculation

This is a slow news day... we're struggling to figure out what to do with the show. Which led to the following, not-quite-mindless speculation with a source who is not me and who shall go nameless.

Barack Obama has decided on his VP candidate, who is going to be a big surprise.

"You're crazy," I told my confidant.

"Who does he lose?" came the reply. "The 'we-won't-vote-for-a-black-man' element is already gone. He gets vets and great national security creds. And gravitas."

"Okay," I said, "but what about the anti-Iraq Democrats? Aren't they going to hold a little grudge?"

"All you need is one speech: 'I was misled by the neo-cons.' And don't forget, he was basically fired by the Bushies. I hear he likes Obama, and might have said so more publicly already, except that he is also old friends with McCain. This could be it."

Well, this could be it. Or this could be the weekend ravings of a man just back from the swamps of Louisiana. I think there's something in the water.

I'm talking with my anonymous source on the show today. Anyone got any better ideas?

--Alex Chadwick

1:19 PM ET | 08-18-2008 | permalink

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The Land of Weed

--Gary Dauphin

In addition to learning how to wait for the light, newcomers to California often marvel at the fact that it is (kinda sorta) legal to buy doctor-prescribed pot under the 12-year-old medical marijuana statute described in today's California Dreamin' segment. (Also check out a this report of trip taken to pot business school Oaksterdam University by NPR Digital's own Heather Murphy.)

Disbelief was certainly my reaction. One of the first people I met after moving to Los Angeles' historic core was a "clinic supervisor" who worked out of my favorite coffee shop brokering appointments between potential patients and a band of doctors stashed in a nearby loft. Dude was the picture of the gentleman pot dealer -- relaxed, congenial, informed, non-threatening -- and on more than one occasion he expounded on California's pot laws to me, this as a prelude to pressing a club-style flyer into my hand and assuring me a quick and easy diagnosis for "anxiety." It seemed too good to be true, and, given the way he abruptly disappeared one day, I think it actually was.

Continue reading "The Land of Weed" »

12:17 PM ET | 08-18-2008 | permalink

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Delicious Connectivity

My new friend Gary sent me a link to a jam-making event being planned by urban art and community collective Fallen Fruit. It just so happened I had a tree full of Persian mulberries and another full of white kadota figs. It was meant to be. I decided to pick most of the fruit on Saturday, so that I could just ease on in to Sunday and enjoy the unknown afternoon.

Continue reading "Delicious Connectivity" »

6:18 PM ET | 08-15-2008 | permalink

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Friday Pot Blogging

Monday's California Dreaming segment will be all about California's curious pot culture, where those in need have been able to legally procure marijuana from state licensed dispensaries for over a decade. To get you in the mood, we did a search of Youtube for "weed pot ganja white widow california thai stick" and this is what we found.

Continue reading "Friday Pot Blogging" »

5:24 PM ET | 08-15-2008 | permalink

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You Listen, You Read

As part of our ongoing look at the California Dream, we aired a segment today on two books with roots in Santa Cruz, James D. Houston's Where Light Takes its Color from the Sea and Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club.

We've also been publishing lists of books about California, with Day to Day staffers Jason DeRose and Skye Rohde providing lists of the favorite Cali reads. We'd like to keep adding to our list, so tell us about your favorite CA-themed books.

--Gary Dauphin

12:52 PM ET | 08-13-2008 | permalink

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What's Real And What Isn't?

I love watching the Olympics. I love being awed by the super-human feats (while very un-super-humanly splayed out on a couch in front of the TV).

So it was disappointing, to say the least, to discover that some of what we've been watching is indeed super-human, as in -- fake.

Those Chinese footprints at the opening ceremony? CGI.

And now this -- that adorable little Chinese girl who sang? Let's just say she's the Chinese version of Milli Vanilli.

--Madeleine Brand

Continue reading "What's Real And What Isn't?" »

12:27 PM ET | 08-12-2008 | permalink

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California Beautiful

You can't write about the California Dream (as we did in today's California Dreamin' segment) without mentioning beauty. And in Southern California, it's imperative that you look HOT. The gyms here are filled with hard-bodied men and sinewy women. A full pout, dewy skin, and very little body hair are requirements for being on the celebrity A-list. (And protruding cheekbones don't hurt, either. Check out this New York Magazine feature on the new, new face of Hollywood.)

Elham Jazab (below) is a wax technician trying to take advantage of that quest for a "new face" in order to fulfill her own California Dream of becoming a successful actor and comedian. Her comedy is influenced by her Iranian background, her work as a wax technician and her experiences living in beauty obsessed Los Angeles.

Video by Shereen Meraji/NPR

Continue reading "California Beautiful" »

8:09 AM ET | 08-11-2008 | permalink

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More Reading the California Dream

You can't see them in this picture of Jason, but there's a pool and a book outside the frame.

Jason DeRose, NPR

--Jason DeRose: Why does someone like myself--with an abiding love for the Midwest--like to read about the Golden State? I avoided California for the first 25 years of my life. But a much-needed post-grad school vacation here in Los Angeles made me fall in love with the place. Drinking margaritas on the patio. Lolling by the pool. And, of course, reading. I read books about or set in the places I vacation. So, over the last decade, I've been reading about Southern California. Then, earlier this year, I moved here from Chicago to work on Day to Day. I think the reading had something to do with the move. Oddly, not all of these books are flattering. California is a place of contradictions. But they're all true--even the fictions.

Here's my list:

Continue reading "More Reading the California Dream" »

1:09 PM ET | 08- 8-2008 | permalink

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Sugar, Spice, Pronouncers, and Everything Nice

95%... that's my male rating on this deeply, deeply flawed measure. For those of you who know my co-host only from the radio, I can assure you that Madeleine is way more than 23% female. High 50's, easily.

We check so many of the same sites, I'm not sure why our scores aren't more similar. I think I check Drudge more often than Maddy--I go there almost every day. Apparently it's testosterone-drenched.

Also Macrumors. I'm thinking of a new laptop in the next few months.

But why does a Mac fan site run the same manliness factor as a right-wing rant box? Well - they're both full of items that aren't necessarily true. At least the Mac site acknowledges it.

We're getting ready for the show as I type up this entry. Madeleine is running me through a pronunciation exercise: The President of Georgia is named Mikhail Saakashvili (sah-kahsh-VEE'-lee). And it's not just Ossetia, the break-away Georgia province that may be triggering war between Russia and Georgia. It's SOUTH Ossetia, she insists. Telling your co-host what to do, is that manly or womanly? Or is it just a particular journalist?

Wait...she just rewrote the intro to our live interview with our correspondent in Tiblisi, Lawrence Sheets, so I don't have to say the name anymore.

--Alex Chadwick

12:15 PM ET | 08- 8-2008 | permalink

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No Politics, Thank You; We're Girls

Is there anything the web doesn't know?

Well, yes. Apparently, it can't get the most basic fact about me right.... or about most of the other women here at Day to Day.

I'm talking about this irresistible gimmick Andrew Sullivan linked to recently. The site trolled through Andrew's websurfing history and it correctly predicted that the likelihood of him being a guy was 92%.

I took the test, and here's what it said about me:

Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 23%.
Likelihood of you being MALE is 77%.

It then listed the male/female ratio of my latest websites:

myspace.com 0.74
huffingtonpost.com 1.35
slate.com 1.11
npr.org 0.98
politico.com 1.7
realclearpolitics.com 1.82

So, the newsier the website, the more male? NPR - not so manly; Slate - go skin me a lion!

Tell us what you think after you take the test.

--Madeleine Brand

10:54 AM ET | 08- 7-2008 | permalink

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Fear the Devastating Power of My Freeze Ray

-- Gary Dauphin

It, of course, goes without saying that only mad scientists hope to control the weather. Celeste Headlee's segment on the cloud seeding, painting as it does a pacific image of benign eggheads merely trying to fight fires, or insure good weather for the Olympic opening ceremonies, (as if!) failed to warn the public about the dire, diabolical threat we face from freeze rays and other weather-related weapons. As a public service, Daydreaming has compiled some of the rigorously vetted (and often suppressed) materials on weather control available on Youtube in order to set the record straight.*

Continue reading "Fear the Devastating Power of My Freeze Ray" »

2:01 PM ET | 08- 6-2008 | permalink

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Black on Brown

--Gary Dauphin

Today's segment on California moving forward with a 2005 consent decree calling for prisons to be desegregated, touches distantly on the ever-sticky issue of black and brown relations in the country's biggest state. Away from the balkanized warfare in the state's cell blocks, where blacks, whites, Asians and Latinos from northern and southern Cali fight over precious square feet of concrete (and associated drug profits), shifting demographics have transformed the political relationship between so-called minority groups. Whether we're talking about the myth of Obama's "Latino Problem," or fears of a black v. brown homicide spike in LA over the last few years, the mental image of ethnic conflict now revolves around brown-on-black conflict, rather than the traditional specter of white-on-brown/black racism.

Continue reading "Black on Brown" »

1:19 PM ET | 08- 6-2008 | permalink

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Coming Soon: Scrambled Pedestrian

--Gary Dauphin

Actually, make that a pedestrian scramble crosswalk. As reported in UCLA's staff and student newspaper, UCLA Today, the Westwood Los Angeles university is going to get a new style of crosswalk where pedestrians will be able to cross in any direction, including diagonally.

Continue reading "Coming Soon: Scrambled Pedestrian" »

9:06 AM ET | 08- 6-2008 | permalink

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Sajedur Rahman's California Dream

Over the last several weeks, we've asked Day to Day listeners to share their vision of the California Dream. Fame, health, satisfaction, blue sky or innovation--what defines your California Dream? Is the economy forcing that dream to change?

We'll be sharing your responses both on-air and here on Daydreaming. In this installment, Sajedur Rahman says: thank god for Cali!

Continue reading "Sajedur Rahman's California Dream" »

2:17 PM ET | 08- 5-2008 | permalink

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Reading the California Dream

Image by Flickr.com user striatic

--Skye Rohde

As luck would have it, I designed my college major to focus on what the academic in me likes to call "the intersection between person and place." That led me to a whole lot of history, geology and literature about the American West, and California plays a central role in all those stories.

I make no claims about being an expert on "California Lit;" this is just a sampling of what's out there about California. In fact, it's technically just what's on my bookshelf at home. But I'd be curious to know what folks think of these books - and to hear what people would include on their own lists about life in California.

Continue reading "Reading the California Dream" »

12:52 PM ET | 08- 5-2008 | permalink

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Fernando Barrios' California Dream

Over the last several weeks, we've asked Day to Day listeners to share their vision of the California Dream. Fame, health, satisfaction, blue sky or innovation--what defines your California Dream? Is the economy forcing that dream to change?

We'll be sharing your responses both on-air and here on Daydreaming. In this installment, Fernando Barrios tells of how a nightmare became a fondly remembered dream.

Continue reading "Fernando Barrios' California Dream" »

12:06 PM ET | 08- 5-2008 | permalink

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Auto Erotic

--Gary Dauphin

Newton's Third Law of Motion states that "For every action, there is an equal and opposite re-action," so one way to understand the emerging phenomena of "car shame" that Madeleine Brand details in today's California Dreamin' segment is as an equal and opposite reaction to America's "car love."

Continue reading "Auto Erotic" »

12:14 PM ET | 08- 4-2008 | permalink

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Friday Mars Blogging

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University Arizona/Texas A&M University

--Gary Dauphin

As far as I'm concerned, there's never a reason not to run a picture from Mars, but Daydreaming's thin journalistic cover is that the Mars Phoenix Lander, which recently discovered water on Mars (!) is a joint project of the University of Arizona, Texas A&M and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which lives on Caltech's Pasadena campus.

Continue reading "Friday Mars Blogging" »

4:39 PM ET | 08- 1-2008 | permalink

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Link Think: Still Number 1

Another day, another study detailing the twice-daily hell that passes for a commute in many California cities. As the LA Times' traffic blog Bottleneck reports:

Study finds California urban congestion still tops the nation
The Reason Foundation, the group that promotes libertarian values, just released its annual highway report. California, predictably, had the worst urban freeway congestion -- along with Minnesota and North Carolina -- but the 9th fewest deficient bridges. The state's urban freeways also ranked 48th in terms of their condition. Only New Jersey and Hawaii were worse in that category.

(A tip of the hat to LAist for that Bottleneck link.)

Bottleneck goes on to point out that 2-hour commutes and essentially unsusable roads can make for strange political bedfellows, the small-government libertarians at Reason apparently having been, well, driven to embrace the relatively bigger government implied by traffic solutions like congrestion pricing. "Although the Reason Foundation certainly has a distinct political viewpoint," Bottleneck notes, "there really isn't much politics in their report. The group is also a big proponent of congestion pricing, as are many other organizations across the political spectrum."

Some conservative activists (Grover Norquist, in particular) have long dreamt of a government so small it can be safely drowned in a bathtub, but California's unique mix of urban congestion and yearly confrontations with Mother Nature (earthquakes, mudslides, fires, marauding bears) make us a state where government will always need to be robust enough to enforce building codes and pick up debris. As one diarist at the Daily-Kos-style state political blog Calitics argues:

It really is remarkable what serious attention to building codes has done. Not too long ago yesterday's earthquake would have been a disaster - today it's a blip. California has recognized the problem, taken steps to constantly improve and innovate, and made sure that the regulations stayed stringent, so that developers would just have to find other means to reduce costs. The fact that the epicenter was around Chino Hills and Diamond Bar, relatively new areas with new buildings that were constructed according to the strictest building codes, was only a further testament to that. The after-action reports from the 1989 San Francisco quake and the 1994 Northridge quake were taken seriously and applied in this case. [full diary]

According to the Reason study, our earthquake-ready bridges are high on the nations list of "fewest deficient," and although that sounds (to my ear, at least) like praising someone for being the "least ugly," it's good news and proof that preparedness efforts are producing results. Now we only need to figure out how to keep paying for all of it:

Thousands of state workers were told to stay home Friday under an order by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger aimed at cutting expenses for California's cash-strapped government, but a lawsuit filed by a union claims the governor is overstepping his authority. [Full story]

California's projected budget deficit will hit $22 billion this year, another #1 for us. Figures.

--Gary Dauphin

2:13 PM ET | 08- 1-2008 | permalink

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