SLUTS, Sexy Immigration, Newsom’s Playhouse, MORE…
Hayley Richardson | Fri, Jan 18th, 2008 | Category: Commentary | Tags: commentary, hayley richardson, mayor nutter, gavin newsom, slut, politics of american apparel
“Steve Scher of KUOW-FM and I recently walked from Seattle’s University District to Hooter’s and jumped the SLUT. It was a nice little ride, my first. Now that the hoopla’s died down, it was a chance to get a sense of how Seattle’s streetcar of dreams is doing trundling along the streets of Allentown.”
As an aside, just look at the lengths to which the green movement has gone in Seattle.
Nutter’s and Bolts
Of the many pledges Mayor Nutter made during his campaign, one of the most frequently repeated was his promise to overhaul the city’s approach to zoning and planning.
He got started on that job yesterday, sweeping away the remaining Street administration appointees to the Zoning Board of Adjustment and replacing them with five of his own representatives.
The board’s new chair will be Susan O.W. Jaffe, who returns to the board she served on for 12 years - including a long stint as vice chair - mostly in the administrations of W. Wilson Goode and Ed Rendell.”
Showdown Looms In Baltimore
“Baltimore officials are paving the way for an extensive mixed-use project along the eastern shore of the Middle Branch with a plan to acquire the mostly industrial property and offer it for private development.
But industrial businesses that would be displaced are fighting the plan, saying they already provide the jobs and economic development urban renewal is designed to bring.
“After eliminating jobs and ordering departments to make drastic cuts to brace for a $229 million budget deficit, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom went on a spending spree to create an office at City Hall for his newly recruited team of aides. The so-called bullpen - complete with $78,000 in new furniture and flat screen TVs - opened across the hallway from the mayor’s office just in time for his second-term inauguration Jan. 8. It was modeled after a configuration used by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and cost more than $139,700, records show.”
The Politics of American Apparel
“In a new series of ads, American Apparel is moving in a political direction. The cause is immigration reform, and the ads say in part that the status quo “amounts to an apartheid system” and should be overhauled to create a legal path for undocumented workers to gain citizenship in the United States.
“Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, looking at once to close a multibillion-dollar deficit and burnish his national profile as an innovator, unveiled a mix of tough education and anticrime measures while embracing the virtues of immigration on Thursday at his annual State of the City address....
“Take a look behind me,” Mr. Bloomberg said, referring to the collection of largely immigrant families he had invited to sit onstage. “This is what makes America great,” he added, holding his arms aloft, his voice rising. “This is New York City. This is freedom. This is compassion and democracy and opportunity.”
Catastrophic Times For Black America
“At the recent Wall Street Project Economic Summit, leaders discussed the “structural inequality” that has persisted in American society long after the end of legal segregation. The main item on the opening day’s agenda was the subprime mortgage implosion, its impact on black communities and its larger ramifications for a national economy barreling toward recession. Black homeowners have been hit particularly hard by the mortgage crisis, largely because predatory lenders have been steering them toward subprime loans for years, even when they could afford prime rates. Home equity accounts for nearly 90 percent of black homeowners’ total net worth. So as the housing market collapses, much of the trumpeted new wealth that has accumulated in black communities in recent decades will go with it.”
