Happy birthday alfrecht!!!!

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/013944.html

I see that George Lucas has given up on his long-running battle to build more studio space on his Marin County property. His neighbors have blocked his plans to expand Skywalker Ranch for years, citing the area's residential character. So instead, he's proposing to use Grady Ranch for residential purposes...just not the kind that they are likely to approve of.

His new intent (pdf) for the land:

We plan to sell the Grady property expecting that the land will revert back to its original use for residential housing. We hope we will be able to find a developer who will be interested in low income housing since it is scarce in Marin. If everyone feels that housing is less impactful on the land, then we are hoping that people who need it the most will benefit.

Lucas claims that it's not revenge that motivates him.

"I've been surprised to see some people characterize this as vindictive," he said, adding that there was a "real need" for affordable housing here. "I wouldn't waste my time or money just to try and upset the neighbors."

Right.

The Twittersphere, also unconvinced, is abuzz with praise for Lucas for this shrewd move in the ancient game of Neighbor Go. And I was too, at first. Zing! With added social credit for helping people on low incomes! But the more I think about it, the less I like it.

Lucas is using the poor—or the specter of the poor—as a weapon. That's a bad thing twice over. It's harmful in the abstract: treating people as an inherent menace is never good, and doing so in a way that deepens the divisions between the classes is particularly pernicious in the Occupational Era. And it's worse in the particular. Imagine moving into that housing, just down the road from people who use phrases like "sheer terror" about you and draw analogies with Syria.

He should have listened to the little green guy. Knows a thing or two, that one does.

Yes, another post that started as a Parhelion, and grew and grew and grew until the ceiling hung with HTML tags and the walls became the back end and a comment thread tumbled by...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/05/22/ongoing-commitment-bright-future

Darla Armstrong is one 25 AmeriCorps members still serving in Joplin.

Darla Armstrong worked in the Joplin School District for 31 years, both as a teacher and administrator.  But all that experience could not prepare her for the events of May 22, 2011.

She was home at the time the EF-5 tornado was expected to hit her neighborhood in the north side of Joplin, but it veered and went straight through the middle of town. Although her home was spared, Armstrong heard that students in the very community she taught had perished from injuries resulting from the tornado that destroyed Joplin High School and more than 7,500 other buildings.

Darla stepped into action amid the total chaos and started volunteering with the Joplin School District. Helping organize logistics at the distribution center set up at the middle school, Armstrong went out to find victims affected by the storm and assess their needs. Eventually, that work led her to begin a new career working with AmeriCorps VISTA and to help the students of Joplin recover.

With 54% of Joplin students affected by the tornado and many living in transitional housing, Darla works feverishly to match the needs of the students and their families with donations available to make life a little bit easier for the victims. To date, Darla Armstrong and her fellow Bright Futures AmeriCorps VISTAs have coordinated and distributed tens of thousands of dollars in donations of supplies, clothing, and other essential for Joplin students.

“The kids are the priority and their families—they don’t have clothes or transportation,” says Armstrong. “Bright Futures picked up the gap between the gap that can’t be met in the middle. So far, I have helped to organize, plan, and attend 9 Sunshine Squads, impacting approximately 550 staff members. "

Since the storm hit, AmeriCorps has had an ongoing presence in Joplin and a long-term commitment to the recovery efforts. In the year since, more than 350 AmeriCorps members from across the nation have served in Joplin. They have removed tons of debris, provided homeowner assistance and casework, operated donation and distribution warehouses, coordinated donations, and managed a large-scale volunteer operation that has coordinated more than 75,000 volunteers to provide more than 520,000 hours of disaster assistance to more than 2,200 Joplin households.

One year after the tornado, more than 25 AmeriCorps members just like Darla are still serving in Joplin, assisting with home building and repair, offering legal services to low-income families, managing volunteers and donations and homeowner requests through the AmeriCorps Recovery Center led by the AmeriCorps St. Louis Emergency Response Team.

Wendy Spencer is the CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Learn more

• Read about the efforts to rebuild Joplin.
• Watch President Obama's commencement address to the 2012 graduates of Joplin High School.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/05/22/ask-entrepreneur-how-do-small-businesses-benefit-federal-research-grants

Ed note: In honor of Small Business Week, StartUp America is highlighting success stories and advice from American entrepreneurs

It is not always obvious what will come of a federal research grant. Would you expect that a federal research grant from the National Institutes of Health for “Image Slicing Spectrometer for High Resolution Sub-Cellular Microscopy” would eventually revolutionize oil rig and refinery safety?  The researchers themselves could not have guessed how far their invention would go.

Two years ago, Robert Kester and I founded Rebellion Photonics around technology he and his colleagues at Rice University created with support from a federal grant for basic bioengineering research. Since then, we have created seven jobs, raised $1.1 million in venture funding, become cash flow positive, and created products that truly make the world a safer place.

At Rebellion Photonics, we produce video cameras that can identify and quantify chemicals -- essentially our video cameras “see” chemicals, not just colors. While this type of technology, called hyperspectral imaging, has been around since the 1980s, researchers were forced to wait minutes, even hours to see results.  Our cameras take milliseconds, allowing the first true real-time chemical imaging video.

The technology was initially invented to see live chemical reactions within cells for medical research.  We do sell cameras for researchers, but with the help of additional grant funding for basic R&D we have been able to expand our product range.

Rebellion Photonics CTO Robert Kester at work on the company's the medical imaging device, which uses hyperspectral imaging to identify and quantify chemicals.

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http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/05/22/behind-scenes-burt-bacharach-and-hal-david-receive-gershwin-prize

Last night, PBS broadcast "In Performance at the White House: Burt Bacharach & Hal David: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song," a tribute to one of America's most successful songwriting teams. Before the event took place earlier this month in the East Room, we spoke to some of the performers about what it was like to be a part of this celebration in the White House.  

See more great performances at the White House

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/05/22/number-day-82-years

Of all the incredible stories to come out of the effort to rebuild Joplin, Missouri after the May 22, 2011 tornados, few are more powerful than that of the response from volunteers -- everyday people from all over the country and the world who poured into the community and returned again and again to help with the recovery.

In the year since the storm, more than 126,800 individuals put in some 755,300 hours of community service in the Joplin area. Their efforts in everything from clean-up and repairs to home construction represent more than 82 years of community service.

Learn more

• Read about the efforts to rebuild Joplin.
• Watch President Obama's commencement address to the 2012 graduates of Joplin High School.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/05/22/my-first-job-andy-katz

Summer Jobs+ is a call to action for businesses, non-profits, and government to work together to provide pathways to employment for young people in the summer of 2012. It's about helping people find their first jobs.

Andy Katz, a sports reporter and analyst, got his first job at a sporting goods store, where he once sold a pair of hand weights to then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. Katz said Gov. Dukakis used the weights as he walked to the state capitol in Boston.

So far, employers have listed more than 300,000 jobs, mentorships, and other employment opportunities this summer through Summer Jobs+.

You heard about Andy Katz’s first job. Now go find yours.

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