KungPowThinking

Around the corner from my office they decided to construct a bike lane and “pedestrian plazas” down the center of Broadway between Times Square and Herald Square. They cut Broadway into two lanes, which happens to be an interesting choice for a city that claims to have major congestion problems. Note: I’m originally from Southern California, and compared to traffic on the 405 or 10 at rush hour, Manhattan traffic is laughable. One of my friends has a theory that they want to make Manhattan traffic and parking so bad that people will quit driving into the city all together. I don’t have a car anymore, so I don’t really care. I’ll leave the traffic management conspiracy theories to the folks who suffer the most. My problem with the recent “construction” is that it’s stupid and pathetic.

So I googled the construction to see if I could find any details online. I found the plans (PDF) and some early concepts at Streetsblog.org, which seem kinda nice. I mean there’s no question this area of Midtown could use some significant beautification and bike lanes are always kinda nice. My problem is with how they went about constructing the so called “pedestrian plazas”. Here’s what they did as far as I can tell.

1. Painted new lane lines down Broadway cutting the car lanes in half
2. Painted a bike lane down the eastern side
3. Poured tar or something similar (I don’t think they actually use tar anymore) all over the space between the car lanes and the new bike lane
4. Dumped sand all over the “tar”
5. Put potted plants and outdoor furniture on the sand covered tar
6. Called it a “pedestrian plaza”

I’m no expert in this stuff, but it seems kinda odd. There are no raised medians around the sand covered “plazas”, the sand doesn’t stick very well so it constantly needs to be manicured, lawn chairs and potted plants do not a plaza make, and it cannot be safe. Besides all that, who in the world wants to sit in the middle of the street while cars are zooming by with exhaust blowing in your face? This half-assed effort reminds me of the so called “park” at Herald Square across from Macy’s. They call it a park, but really it’s a gated off concrete median/lane divider. I mean come on people. If you’re gonna call something a plaza make it a plaza, and if you’re gonna call something a park make a park. No wonder everyone in Manhattan seems so miserable.

So, last Thursday evening I was walking in SoHo to meet with a couple friends. It had started raining a bit earlier in the day and caught most people off guard. I was lucky because I was able to grab up one of the few extra umbrellas at the office before I left. So here’s the scenario – Me w/ umbrella walking in SoHo relatively dry. I’m about half a block from my destination when I see a girl waiting to cross the street. She’s stuck in the rain w/out an umbrella and trying her best to keep dry by hiding under the crosswalk sign. I turn to see what she’s doing, she turns to look at me with a slightly embarrassed smile on her face… That’s where it ends.

I kept walking, and now I feel bad. Been thinking about it for a couple days, and basically I should have given her my umbrella. Not because she was pretty or because I would have liked to have met her, but simply because she needed it a hell of a lot more than I did. I honestly don’t even like carrying an umbrella. So my resolution is to put an extra umbrella in my messenger bag (one of the cheap $5 ones that they sell on the street) and next time it rains like that I’m going to give it to a stranger in need. I know I could use the karmic boost.

One of the funniest blogs around (StuffWhitePeopleLike.com) actually raises a very interesting question about how folks move between online social networks and how that compares to how they move within their real world

Someone really really really needs to do some modeling that compares social network to real-world real estate markets. Take existing real estate models that show trends like suburbanization , “white flight”, immigration, and gentrification with data showing real estate price valuations and compare them to what happens on the interwebs. It might be an interesting way to predict who will be the next big social network or even a way to figure out what each network is really worth. I can see some potential trends already.

I just read this article from Voice of America about a press conference with the Dalai Lama. In the press conference the Dalai Lama  “urged the world community to  accept China into its  ranks  while staying firm on issues of human rights and  democracy.” Concerning the issue of Tibetian independence, the article goes on to say that the Dalai Lama “only wants autonomy and religious freedom for that region.”

Doing some googling, I’ve found that the Dalai Lama has consistently focused his energy on the issue of religious freedom in Tibet via peaceful means. I like it. Being an “American” I have to admit that freedom can come after violence, but I don’t think it always has to be that way. I think the Dalai Lama has it right. He wants everyone to take the high road, to erase the artificial boundaries of politics, so that we can see people as people and treat them accordingly. According to an article in the Guardian back in April, he called creating hatred among the Chinese by disrupting the Olympic games “futile”. Probably because creating hatred is futile period.

This gets to some points I’ve made about how protesting the Olympics really pisses me off. The games are supposed to be about human triumph, not about politics. I guess that makes me sound like an idealist, but really… the Olympics are fun. I don’t care which country or sports you watch, there are great stories throughout the games. From Michael Phelps becoming the most decorated Olympian to the fact that there are countries so small that most people in the world have never heard of them competing without a real chance to win. The Olympics are one of the very very few venues where people from around the world can come together to celebrate being people. Anything that diminishes that is a shame, especially when the people doing it are the ones who supposedly believe it the most.

Crazy story but maybe not THAT crazy. I found out this weekend that a friend, was deported from China after filming protests in Tianamen Square. Noneck Noel was deported after filming this video:

Apparently, Chinese officials didn’t take too kindly to a non-credentialed reporter filming a protest (not exactly a news flash). Now, I don’t have the whole story, just a series of tweets from Noneck and some quick googling, but this whole thing seems pretty silly of the Chinese. As far as I can tell, the video lasts for about 10 minutes, shows a small group of protesters, a tiny crowd of disinterested onlookers, and has gotten more than 35,000 views since it was first posted. Presumably most of the views were after the deportation was made public on the blogosphere.

I wonder what would have happened if the Chinese had done what the U.S. government does with stuff like this – ignore it. The whole thing about freedom of speech is that you’ve got to decide what to ignore and what to listen to (signal vs. noise and all that). IMHO this protest was something the Chinese could easily have ignored without consequence. It’s not like the world decision makers don’t already know that college students, Tibetians, and the Beastie Boys don’t like the occupation of Tibet. Instead they went and forcefully removed these folk from their country, and in doing so caused a commotion. With all the care the Chinese have put into putting their best face forward for the Olympics, I just wish they had paid more attention to the heart of the issue many folks have with China. I don’t think anyone cares whether or not some people spit in the street, serve the occasional dog, or even have political relationships with countries un-friendly to the U.S. What people do care about is freedom of speech, human rights, and visibility into government. Two out of three were shown to be less than stellar in the video and it’s aftermath.

I will say this for the Chinese and in opposition to many of the protesters. The Chinese really have come a long long way in a very short period of time. Consider that a friend of mine grew up in Beijing w/out running water, that only a few years ago those protesters would have been jailed w/out the obligatory phone call or trip home, and it’s plain ol’ amazing that that video even made it to the interwebs. In the grand scheme that actually is progress in my book.

Oh yea on the topic of Tibet – it’s damn complicated. A hell of a lot more complicated than most people realize with likely 1000 years of history behind it. It’s a little presumptuous of us to jump into the middle of it just because we happen to like this Dalai Lama. Last time anyone tried to leave the Union that is the United States of America, it was a helluva lot bloodier than anything the Chinese have done recently. We need to be very very careful about being hypocrites.