Archive for February, 2006
60 items.
In the summer we helped host a couple of benefits for the tree that’s the subject of the below article, the first benefit rained out by hurricane Dennis.
I’d like to note first that the AJC reports that Atlanta is still the city of trees with a canopy that spreads “forever”. What they don’t state is that there has been such profound deforestation of Atlanta in the past thirty years that it is down to about 27 percent tree cover, which is not near the 40% it needs to maintain air quality. An image comparing canopy cover in 1993, 13 years ago, with that of 1972 is here..
Quattrochi found that Atlanta’s dramatic growth and extensive land cover change over the past few decades exacerbated the heat island effect. Landsat images of metropolitan Atlanta between 1973 and 1992 revealed that developers had cleared almost 380,000 acres of trees, replacing them with retail centers, roads, and about 270,000 acres of tract housing. Landsat data also revealed that an additional 180,000 acres of trees were cleared between 1993 and 1999.
560,000 acres of trees cleared in the Atlanta area between 1973 and 1999. That’s a lot of trees. One wonders how many more acres have been cleared since then.
City of trees?
Atlanta has an average tree cover of 27%, Boston has tree cover of 21.2, Austin 34%, Baltimore 31%, Milwaukee 18%, Chicago 11 percent, and New York City has 16.6 percent.
The battle for this oak tree has been a nasty one due to Cohen’s bullying, but with ultimately two unanimous votes ffrom the Tree Conservation Commission ruling against Cohen’s building plans.
Neighbors at odds over tree-cutting rules
Atlanta City Council considers relaxing rules, raising fears of tree loversBy TY TAGAMI
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/27/06
Come spring, the first thing most people will notice when flying into Atlanta is the canopy of green that seems to spread forever.This city of trees has long enforced a strict law designed to protect the dense growth from chain saws.
Now the City Council is considering pruning the law. Eleven of the 15 council members have signed onto legislation that would allow homeowners to chop down one tree of any kind and size each year.
The proposed change, expected to be taken up Tuesday at a council committee meeting, is creating fear among some property owners who say the city’s urban forest eventually will be leveled.
“The one-tree-a-year thing is nuts,” said Julian Bene, a neighborhood activist in Morningside who opposes changes to the ordinance. Since many parcels don’t have many trees, it wouldn’t take long to denude the city, Bene said. “I think it’s fairly obvious it will have a significantly negative effect.”
The trees are so beloved that one east Atlanta neighbor monitors a red oak via security camera to make sure it isn’t harmed by a developer who wants to build a house on the lot next door.
Others, however, say changes to what they call a draconian tree-cutting law are long overdue.
Earlier this month, the council limited civil penalties for chopping trees without permission and allowed landowners to cut down a variety of “exotic” species, such as Mimosas, Bradford Pears and Leyland cypresses.
Supporters say more changes are needed because of the difficulty and high cost of getting permits to remove diseased and other potentially harmful trees.
To cut down a tree, the city requires a $100 permit plus $30 per inch in diameter of the tree’s trunk. Until the law was amended earlier this month, the civil penalty was double for those who cut trees without permission, and quadruple for those who knowingly do so. Violators still face criminal penalties of up to $1,000 for each illegal cutting.
The permit fee goes into a fund for replanting trees on public property. Atlanta collected $1.9 million in fees last year.
Mayor Shirley Franklin said she’s not necessarily opposed to the one-tree-a-year proposal, but she said she is concerned about the burden of enforcing it to make sure people are sticking to the limit.
The legislation was introduced by Councilman Howard Shook of Buckhead. It eliminates the permit fee and allows cutting when permits would otherwise be impossible to obtain. Generally, only sick trees or those in the path of construction can be removed.
Shook said he believes people are capable of managing their own property yet are forced to beg city arborists for permission to chop down a tree. The arborists can be overruled, but Shook called the appellate panel — the citizen-staffed Tree Conservation Commission — a “kangaroo court” that runs roughshod over individual property rights.
“The naysayers say, ‘My God! This is going to lead to clear-cutting,’ ” Shook said. But tree-removal companies charge thousands of dollars, he said, and that cost “is going to be a natural brake on abuse.”
When views over tree-cutting clash, police sometimes have to intercede. That happened between developer Steve Cohen and neighbors when he confronted the old Southern red oak next door to property he owns.
Cohen has already built several homes in an up-and-coming neighborhood between Inman Park and Freedom Parkway. He said he wants to build one more home there to live in himself. But the city won’t approve Cohen’s building permit because an arborist claims construction would kill the 5-foot diameter red oak by tearing up too many of its roots.
“It’s a beautiful tree,” Cohen said. “I know that I can build there and save it.”
Cohen said he has spent at least $20,000 on consultant fees, permit application fees and interest payments during the yearlong battle to build on his land. He accused his neighbors of exploiting the law and their connections to get him arrested when he was trimming branches that overhang his parcel.
The neighbors, Tab Bottoms and his wife, Leigh Bielenberg, said they believe Cohen wants to kill the tree and build the largest house he can, then sell it and move on. They’ve documented their run-ins with him in a three-ring binder and with photos on poster boards. A security camera on the wall of their house is trained on the red oak so they can monitor it when they’re not around.
They said Cohen has bulldozed roots and cut off limbs. The red oak’s roots bulge through the fence that separates the two properties, and its branches overhang Cohen’s land.
They have a picture of a crew — dispatched by Cohen — with tree spikes and chain saws.
“If it gets sick and dies, we’ll have to pay to have it removed, and the lowest quote I’m getting to have it removed is $12,000,” Bottoms said. Bielenberg said she called police when she caught Cohen pouring something on the tree late one night. She told police he cursed at her and said the tree was “over.”
The city has sided with Bottoms and Bielenberg at nearly every turn. They credit the tree protection law with saving their 180-year-old oak.
“If it wasn’t for the ordinance, that tree would be history,” Bottoms said.
Shook, the councilman, said he began thinking about amending the law two years ago after a woman from southwest Atlanta was unable to get permission to cut a vine-covered oak that loomed over her house.
Gloria Cooper complained the tree dropped branches on her roof and its roots cracked her sidewalk and invaded her basement. “It was a huge tree that was damaging my basement,” said Cooper, now 76. She said she feared a storm would bring the tree crashing onto her house and eventually got help from Councilman C.T. Martin to get the tree taken down.
“When you’re paying your taxes, you should be able to do what you want to your yard,” said Cooper.
Shook’s legislation is expected to be discussed Tuesday at a meeting of the council’s development committee. The legislation could come up for a final vote before the full council on March 6.
The councilman said that with so many colleagues supporting his legislation, he’s confident it will pass. The only significant opposition has come from the city’s planning department, which would have to track every tree cut to make sure homeowners don’t take more than one a year.
The City Council asked planners to consider alternatives, which could be presented Tuesday.
Link to Memorial post for Leigh.
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I went to Raw Story to get some news and the way things have been around here I ended up instead reading about Katie McKy’s book, It All Began with a Bean, a story for children about what would happen if everyone farted at once. I visited her website and read Fart Facts hoping for something H.o.p. might not know, but being the son of a musician he knows all about farts. And is aware already that jelly fish and coral don’t fart, something which many musicians wouldn’t know, but H.o.p. does. Because I make sure to make avaliable to him resources with such vital information as jelly fish and coral and sponges not farting.
Musicians fart a lot. At least they do when they’re on the road and when you’re stuck all day in a van together and sharing living quarters you become very aware of this.
And that’s my tidibt of knowledge for the day.
Rexroth’s Daughter of Dharma Bums posted yesterday Memory Lane #17710 on the summer she worked for the parents of a now former sister-in-law, those parents caterers and survivors of Auschwitz. A poignant post.
She mentioned in the post the Tassajara bread book. Back when I didn’t mind cooking, I used the Tassajara bread book quite a lot. It was a nicely written book that imparted a gentle, caring philosophy of food, and had wonderful recipies for millet bread and corn bread and carrot cake. On a scale of 1 to 4 where 4 is bad, I score a 4 in my allergies to wheat, citrus and tomatoes. For several years I would occasionally attempt to stop eating them. I get very ill now with citrus, but still eat wheat and tomatoes. But when I would try to stop I would use the Tassajara bread book as my base for making wheatless, alternative breads, replacing the wheat flour. My mother still talks about the carrot cake I used to make.
I never blog about food so you know the Tassajara bread book is good. We actually used to eat a variety of good food but then H.o.p. was born and his genes are geared for junk and beef and hot. He abhors almost all starches and carbohydrates. He’s a protein person. Beef and beans. Won’t touch bread except for (shudder) american cheese tortillas he likes me to make for him. He loves hot chili and hot gumbo and hot red beans and rice and hot szechuan food and vanilla yogurt. Oh, and bananas. He likes bananas. And really good chocolate. He eats the beef patty but has never eaten a hamburger bun.
It looks different around here, doesn’t it? But I’ve got some tweaking to do. A fair bit of it. Am not settled on the shades of white to gray thing. I’m doing the web equivalent of This Old House while I am trailing tissue paper all over the place. And so has been H.o.p. When I got up today, it looked like some suburban prepubescent boys had happened by and rolled the place. A veritable joy of tissue streamers spiderwebbing wall to wall, which is appropriate as the last thing I did on the computer last night was scream bloody murder when I finished writing some mailing labels (yes, practicing my actual lack of penmanship skills) and turned back to the computer to see a big old spider hopping across the keyboard. Of course I screamed and Marty leaped from the bedroom (ten feet away, and no, come to think of it, I had to yell five times for him) and H.o.p. jumped up and down in crowing delight. I used to be able to deal with things like this but have turned into a wimp over spiders and bees and things as I get such toxic reactions to their even looking at me. The last time I was bitten by a spider, the first day we started our trip out West back in September, I had a nasty systemic reaction that lasted a couple of months. So I see spiders and run and scream for someone else to deal with the situation. Yes, I know I’m a sniveling coward and others would have me take the spiders to a garden and release them. But when that very innocuous looking spider landed on my hand in September and I gently brushed it away, look what I got for my tenderness. It bit me anyway, my hand swelled up and then I was covered in hives for weeks. Because that’s what spiders do. They bite when threatened. Just like lots of people do.
So in the meanwhile, dusting my little spot on the internet, I listened to this video at Bradblog on how NSA USES PRIVATE FIRMS FOR MASSIVE UNCHECKED DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE. I expect spiders to bite just like I expect a certain kind of behavior out of NSA, but I will yell and jump around about spiders, whereas the NSA and bold headlines about it just has me shrugging my shoulders as in, “And you’re surprised?”
But if I looked down at my keyboard and saw a wee spider-sized NSA human running across it…what do you think I’d do?
Back to dusting and rearranging the web furniture as soon as I pull a little more of my brain together today. H.o.p. too is lying low.
Am posting this here because it’s something I want to remember. Which is Gethuman.com, a website that gives cheats for how to get ahold of a breathing body at a company instead of being stuck in the limbo land of dealing with recordings. Also being gathered are individuals’ experiences so that companies can be rated on customer service.
Ratboy’s Anvil asks “Where are we?”
We are living on the military-industrial complex planet Ike warned us about when he left office…
He’s been practicing drawing dinosaurs. It’s the main interest right now, dinosaurs and dragons and robots.
I thought he did a great job with the below airplane. Love how it’s scowling.
Slowly, I’m putting together galleries for 2005 on back. It’s interesting to look at them and watch his skills evolve. I have also now a number of animations from 2006 to put up.
How to buy modern furniture
February 27th, 2006 |Posted In: General, I Shop (Or Shopped) Probably at Ikea
If you don’t know how to buy modern furniture, this 1952 Dupont ad will tell you how. I’m curious, but not curious enough to purchase it. Our source for modern furniture is now Ikea, which finally arrived in Atlanta. All our old lamps, collected from various attics, basements and closets of places we’d lived in over the years, had given out. So for the first time ever, I think, we bought some new, but kept the marble base of our last old one just in case one of us ever learns how to do anything useful around the house. So we once again have light. We’ve also, in this small apartment, a crying need for bookshelves. We need like 5 of them to replace old bookshelves dissolving into particle board dust, their shelves propped up by the books they’re holding. We satisfied ourselves with one for now. A nice white one that replaced a hideous fake-wood case that we’d been using in our computer-dining-homeschool-wrriting and art room. Like you need to know this? You don’t. But I’m feeling particularly gregarious tonight, despite my having the flu this week and now a roaring head cold. Which is odd because I’m also feeling very grumpy. It’s a gregarious sort of grumpy that’s striving for the best in spite of itself.
“Hi! Look! We got a new bookshelf! You like it? We do! It’s great!”
I managed to fit the hideous wood case into H.o.p.’s miniature single-futon-sized room, which helps with all his books and toys. He’s pleased with it and doesn’t care that it is hideous. It cleared up enough floor space to make room for a ridiculously cheap monster bug toy storage thing, also from Ikea.
Ikea’s slogan is “Low Prices, but Not at Any Price” and Buyblue.org, at least, seems to give a green light to shopping at Ikea.
I just wish they had better textiles.
If you have a crying need for a Godzilla toy, we highly recommend Gojji Girl. We ordered from Goji Girl last year and were more than pleased with the service. It was fast and came with some fun little perks. I was just thinking of it because H.o.p. frequents the Goji Girl site on a regular basis, like this evening, always hoping for more Godzilla and friends toys.
These are Goji Girls, but not the Goji Girl of Chibigojitoys. But I think they merit notice for their white go-go style boots and Godzilla hats.
So much for my going on about consumer culture, right? Except I feel pretty well penance free as we manage to fit three people and all our belongings into an 800 square foot apartment out of which I work and where we also homeschool. And since we buy so freakin’ little.
I never post studio news and I ought to.
Marty’s going to be recording jazz pianist Takana Miyamoto and koto legend Junko Takeo. And that’s exciting.
From elsewhere on the web:
Junko Takeo is one of the most appreciated and talented Koto (Japanese traditional instrument) players in the world. She has been playing this magnificent Japanese instrument for a remarkable 49 years and her concerts in Japan are frequently attended by the Japanese royal family. Ms. Takeo is a certified master of Ikuta School of Koto, a certified Japanese Traditional Music Performer by the NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) and President of Wakatake-Kai (Wakatake school, a branch of Ikuta School. Born in Yamaguchi, Japan in 1939, she has performed in New Zealand, China, Monaco, France and the United States, including Lincoln Center.
Takana just finished a tour in Japan with jazz singer Rene Marie.
Maybe we can get H.o.p. down to hear just a little of a rehearsal. He loves koto. Has listened to it since he was three.
Keith Sweat dropped by the studio for a while this evening and was listening to some of the new Heston mixes Marty was working on. Said to pass on to Heston he really liked what he was hearing. (Heston needs to get himself a website.)
