In the land of interstates, subdivisions and shopping centers; A romantic-traditionalist such as myself is always hoping to see a return of the American train. Not that passenger rail ever went away completely in the states. There is still the rolling tin can of clickety-clack Amtrack. But what is missed are the great mainline passenger trains that saw their peak sometime between the 1940s and the 60s. And then their retreat began. The equipment fell into disrepair. Vital right-o-ways were pulled up and frequently built on in the quest for short-term profits. The great terminal buildings were demolished, or simply let go to seed. Great depots of iron and stone became unofficial shelters for skid-row dwellers. The stations were often left in the no-man's land of massive demographic shifts in the American scene. Invariably, a small town's Railroad Street would display the pen-ink tattoos of boarded up pharmacies and abandoned bowling alleys, and the blood-crusted bandages of the employment center and the Salvation Army. They are the ruins of mid-century American civilization. I only came around in '69. It was all over by my time.

Every few years they start talking about restoring the great American rail network. We recently passed a ballot initiative in California to begin the study, of the application of a massive bond funding to be applied to some future high-speed train connecting Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. Everyone's crossing their fingers, but no one's holding their breath. 

In the meantime, rail enthusiasts can catch a ride on restored short-line, such as the Virginia & Truckee RR in Virginia City, NV. Local volunteers and rail buffs, aided by state and federal grants have put "the Queen of the shortlines" back into service for tourist runs. I rode it myself yesterday, from Virginia City three or so miles to Gold Hill. I have to say it's pretty cool. The train I was on was not drawn by one of the V&T's restored steam locomotives, but instead by a 1950s center-cab-diesel purchased from the U.S. Navy. The line passes through two marvelous old tunnels. A volunteer dressed in cowboy gear gives a lighthearted commentary on the history of the comstock lode and then the train is "robbed" by a gang of buffoons. The take is given over to the Shriner's Children's hospital. 

The hope is that the line will grow a little bit more every year. Eventually they may be able to restore service to Reno. A train doesn't have to go 300 mph to turn me on. If it's got steel wheels and an unusual view, and I can rest my head against a window and drift away in the train's steady, certain movement, then it's headed in the right direction.

June 19, 2009

Attorney General Edmund G. Brown

State of California DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Dear Mr. Dow,

Thank you for your correspondence to Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr.

We have reviewed your correspondence and determined that the following law enforcement agencies are in a much better position to render assistance to you in this matter. If you wish to pursue the matter further, we suggest you contact:

Los Angeles Police Department

150 N. Los Angeles Street

Los Angeles, CA 90012

877/275-5273

California Highway Patrol

2901 West Broadway

Los Angeles, CA 90041

323/259-2000

We hope that our effort to help you identify the correct government office to address your concern will be beneficial to you. 

Again, thank you for contacting the Office of Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr.

Sincerely,

C. Hallinan

Public Enquiry Unit For EDMUND G. BROWN JR. Attorney general

************************************************************************************

They say that when you write letters, you get responses. I have to admit that I'm really just figuring out the whole institutional-interaction thing. The above reply from the Attorney General's office is something of a milestone in my process.  I wrote a letter to several government agencies addressing the issue of unlicencsed vehicles on the streets of L.A. The attorney General's office replied and politely informed me that I was barking up the wrong tree. Or in their words...

We hope that our effort to help you identify the correct government office to address your concern will be beneficial to you. 

I had to laugh at that line. I'm like; Okay okay, clearly I don't shit. I write to the Attorney General to complain about psychotic maniacs in Los Angeles who remove their vehicle's liscence plates in order to get away with mischief. And those guys come back to me and say it's police business and I should go bother them. And it makes sense now. You have to work your way up the chain of command. As Attorney General, Edmund "Jerry" Brown is the top-cop in the state. I figured all the police chiefs answered to him, but that ain't the order of things. So I'm learning as I go along.

I'm also learning that there is a language accepted among gentle people, and I need to brush up on mine. The words need to be non-accusing, no matter how pissed off I am about something evil that's going on in my town (and there's a lot). But no matter. You still keep your voice down, address everyone as Mr. or Missus, and be a model of composure. Anything else is counter-productive, not to mention dangerous. Writing official letters is an interesting process. It makes me think of the notes that a solitary researcher or scientist would keep on an ongoing experiment. It's the document. It's in writing. You have to look at what you thought then versus what you think now. You can't hide from yourself. All the false and egotistical stuff will grow bolder, darker, smellier and harder to deny. I love it.

My conclusion is this. The old-fashioned letter is the primary tool for interacting with government. It's quiet and it's slow - almost imperceptible in its advance of progress. But street protests and demonstrations unsettle me. They offer little in the way of reflection or self-examination. Instead, the crowd with its banners and drums elicits a kind of mob catharsis, full of sex and romance and power. Not so good for me. I think it's better I write letters, so at least if I'm wrong I'll have a left a paper-trail from which to embarrass myself down the road. From embarrassment springs the desire for change!

NEXT STEP will be letters to LAPD and California Highway Patrol about the glaring problem (in my opinion) of unliscenced vehicles on the highways and by-ways of Southern California. I'll work on my wording a bit; Try to be less accusing and antagonistic. Maybe I'll learn something new about why the way things are the way they are. But we have to do something in L.A.

8^th June 2009

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, State Capitol Building, Sacramento, Calif. 95814

California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown, P.O. box 944025, Sacramento 94244-2550

Director of DWV George Valverde, Department of Motor Vehicles, 2415 1^st Avenue mail station F 101 Sacramento, CA 95818

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor@lacity.org

 

Dear Sirs,

            I’m writing to express concern over what I think is a dangerous situation on the streets of Los Angeles. There is an astonishing number of vehicles being operated without license plates. And by that I mean they have no visible temporary plate or piece of paper in the window. I’ve seen many cars with Oakland Raiders plates, as well as DUB Motorsports plates, and often plates with the name of a car club. At night, driving in Hollywood I’ve witnessed groups of four or five black SUVs, driving fast together, none of which have any visible markings.  

            This reminded me of a story a friend recounted. While he was fueling up his vehicle in Long Beach, a black SUV with tinted glass pulled up next to him, and out jumped two men, one with a semi-automatic handgun and the other with what appeared to be a detective’s badge hanging from a chain around his neck. The two men yelled POLICE! Show me your hands! They shoved him face down against the hood of his car, as he tried to protest that they were making a mistake. The two men removed his wallet from his pocket, ran back into the SUV and drove off. The vehicle had no license plate, so the fellow who got robbed never knew who or what hit him.

It’s always been my understanding that any vehicle operating on the streets or highways of California had to have an identifying, clearly visible license plate. And yet I see numerous vehicles operating without plates. It is disturbingly common. Today I was waiting at a traffic light on Riverside and Figueroa. The car next to me in the turn lane had no license plate. I saw a police car in my rearview mirror, and I wondered if the cop would notice the absence of a plate on the car next to me. The officers drove right by. A visitor to Los Angeles from Canada was sitting next to me in the car, and she was completely astonished that a car with no plate would get a pass like that. And she’s seen it everywhere in L.A.

Driving in Los Angeles can be very stressful. I avoid taking my car on the road as much as I can. But this proliferation of unlicensed vehicles gives me the sense that anyone could crash into my car, and just split. Or worst still, hit me when I’m on my bicycle, and just leave the scene rather than face an infraction. And there’s nothing anyone can do. I cannot afford to carry an uninsured driver policy on my insurance. I don’t think this state of affairs should be continued for one day longer. Police should pull over any car that doesn’t have a license plate, and of those vehicles, any one without insurance or registration should be impounded.  If someone’s plate has ostensibly been stolen, then the vehicle owner must report it to police on the day, and acquire a temporary, visible document which identifies the vehicle to others. It’s the same rules we all have to follow. To allow unlicensed vehicles to continue operating in a city like Los Angeles would constitute a complete failure of government to carry out the basic functions of public order and security.

I hope I have expressed my concern in an intelligible way, and the individuals and agencies which deal with vehicle registration and enforcement can work together and get all the undocumented vehicles off the road. We stand to gain from the increase in transit ridership and carpools, as well as from the improvement to air quality and urban congestion.

 

From a concerned Californian,

Ian Vincent Dow                                                                                                          

I learned recently with sadness of the passing of a friend and one-time colleague whom I'd not seen since auld lang syne. Claire Morrisette, the co-founder of Monde a Bicyclette, was a champion of cyclists on the local level. And she carried that message as a sister to the call for global justice and an urgent intervention to save the planetary environment. As far as advancing cyclist's Rights, she taught me everything I know.

I landed a job at Monde a Bicyclette in the summer of 1992, the year I returned from South America. There was scarcely any work in Montreal then (I'm not sure there is now) so I was thrilled to make $200/week for an organization that advocated cycling in the city. This is where I met Bicycle Bob Silverman, the legendary old-school bicycle advocate, and of course Claire who had co-founded the organization with him. The two were more or less permanent members of it.
Le Monde a Bicyclette was a perfect organization in that it welcomed the ideas of everyone who attended the 9 am Monday meetings. All were welcome to come and pitch ideas which may improve the conditions for cyclists in Montreal. Lack of access to commuter rail was hot then, as were dangerous underpasses on which bikes had no space and risked being dragged to hell by an oblivious cube-van driver. The commuter rail agency capitulated to us, after theatrical protests at their stations with our bikes. It was really cute. And what a great cause. I believed in it then and I believe in it now.

Claire and Bob approached their work in Montreal transportation issues with a message of global evangelism. They were the first people I ever heard speak about global-warming. They loved volleyball above all other games becasue it had no star positions. The team rotates and everybody gets to serve. No quaterbacks thank you. They were into Cuba, and the idea of its rebirth as a velo-centric society such as the low countries are. These guys were velo-rutionairies.

There were twelve or so of us working at Monde a Bicyclette that summer. I was 22 at the time, just returned from a year in South America, and full of desire to do something meaningful. Claire taught us how to identify a social ill, or a problem in the municipal system (such as unfair conditions imposed on cyclists) and then it was about working out a way to get the government to do what we wanted. With twelve people working in concert on a particular problem, it was hard not to succeed. And if there was a set-back in one of our projects it would be carried forward to the next week's Monday coordination meeting. The individual who had brought the issue to the group would be carrier of it from week to week, responsible to update the group on progress or solicit new ideas and takes on how to solve the problem. It could be slow as the I.R.S. but just as irresistible. There's no way to stop a truly good idea.

Our cell at Mondo Bicyclette interacted and kept relationships with sister organizations in other towns. There was BIKES NOT BOMBS out of Boston. They were deep into velo-rution, doing bike outreach in Central America and poor communities around Boston. TRANSPORTATION ALTERRNATIVES carried the message in their cool New York City way, and we were down with them. We inter-related in the manner of homegrown resistance groups. So each team had auspcious traits unique to their town. And we were damn proud to be from Montreal. In a world of hot activists, we were as mellow as a ride through Parc Lafontaine in august. That was Claire Morrissette's influence as I see it now. She was a memorably gracious person, having something in her way of being that I see now as characteristically French. Among a lot of cycling activists who don't always have the greatest sense of style, Claire always looked good. She was a stylishly attractive lady. Hers was the manner of a humble virtuosa, detached and yet highly attentive to those around her. I remember clearly now the way in which she received people and heard them. I see now that she thought much more than she spoke.

Returning to Montreal this summer after so many years in the states, I am floored by the degree to which the city has embraced everything that Claire and Bicycle Bob advocated. Beyond bike racks and painted pathways, the government has gone a long way to figuring out the order of priority for ways of getting around the city. Montreal (arguably) is years ahead of New York, Boston and San Francisco, just by the numbers of riders, and the diversity of their ages and stations in life. It's decades ahead of Los Angeles and the cities of the south west. The day I picked up an old Globe And Mail and found Claire's obituary, it set off a kaleidoscopic shift in my seeing and a curing of the cement that is comprehension. We were so right. Claire was so right. Figure out your message and then stay on it, just like the bad guys do. Life is dream in which you're whacking baseballs over the fence.

Claire Morrisette was born on April 6, 1950, in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Que. She died of breast cancer on July 20, 2007. She was 57. She is survived by her partner, Pierre Giasson, and by her siblings, Jean, Andree, Claude and Pierre. She also leaves five nieces. (Globe And Mail).

I wonder if there is a new architecture just waiting for city-dwellers to discover it. In every town I visit it seems the locals feel that they have the best urban environment possible. That could be true in the cottages of the Hollywood Hills, or the tenements of Chinatown, N.Y. Everyone seems to see the world around them as naturally occurring.

Take the example of Montreal. I'm here for the Summer, and I very much enjoy walking the alleys of the city to see the backs of the buildings and all the unregulated stuff people do there. There are motorcycle garages, and illegally renovated back sheds with flower boxes on their second story windows. This is the part of the city which has yet to be completely regulated as far as building appearance goes. Whereas on the building fronts you cannot make a significant alteration without going before a citizens committee which examines the historic relationship of the building to the environment. Or something like that. But they still let you do what you want as far as the alleys go, though the municipal architects and concerned citizens *watchdog* groups I believe are zeroing in on regulating what can be done to a building's caboose. Good, bad or indifferent.

I was saying to a good friend in the area, how I thought it would be exciting to see a new kind of building style emerge from the Mile-End neighborhood. It would be a form and living design which encouraged and facilitated certain activities, such as creative work or socializing with neighbors. Or it would embody whatever it was people aspired to in life, rather than one which simply dealt with life's problems. Having lived in Los Angeles for four years, I came to realize how much I valued and relied upon my garage. This is a very Californian aspiration, to have a garage - along with a ranch home or bungalow. And that particular style of dwelling I'd say is drawing ever more reproach from the environmentally conscious.
But putting that aside, I wonder if there is something to be taken from the example of California and the wonders that have come out of its garages? Surfboards, skateboards, apple computers, steadi-cams. There is just an amazing amount of really cool things that have come out of the backyard garage/workshop. And I'm not even bringing up bands.

But my Montreal friend was skeptical. We don't want that, she said. We don't want this place to be California. And she went on to explain how the Montreal triplex building, with the outdoor stairs, and the backyard and breezeways; was the best possible use of space to give the most people a certain quality of life. In other words, they have attained perfection. But what about workshop space, I asked. There's no place to rebuild your motorcycle suspension, or paint signs for a political rally. It's obvious to me that every indoor space in this part of Montreal is occupied. Space is critical to developing small, artisan industries, and those are the ones that grow into big, earth shaking companies. And Canada is such a big country. Hello suburbia!

My friend's real point about architecture in the city being unregulated, is that it would quickly fill up with custom homes for wealthy individuals. There would be even fewer people per square foot than now. It would be like L.A. in other words. Big garages for all the pimp cars. Hot tub on the roof. Maybe a Texas Hold-em room! But if the only alternative is Le Corbusier's school of urbanism as a utopian social project, well, I'll be out in the pool.

THE HEAT IS ON

here in the city of HELL ON WHEELS. Los Angeles is going to get hot in the summer of 07. And I can only watch and contemplate. The streets here are wild. Every inch of pavement is occupied by cars going to seemingly every other inch of L.A. Unlicenced vehicles are common and enjoy the anonymity of the balaclava. Cars are toys, weapons, prostheses and hearses.

It's hard to know where to start a discussion about transit in L.A. It is so unmanageable, as to be incorrigible. No one is in charge, or even thinking about the city's direction. The governors and mayors of Southern California cities just dispense budgets and manage relationships. And a massive city of gridlocked, single-occupant, sport utility vehicles burns up it's savings on gas and valet parking.

When it was only a question of 1970s smog affecting the health of Angelenos, they could accept it if they got to keep their cars. But now we know that the consequence of a city that depends of automobiles for even one mile trips to run errands. It's not morally correct. It has terrible consequences for the ecology of the planet. And it has quality of life costs for the people here who have to muddle through it.

The suburbs around greater Los Angeles are vast. From Valencia to Temecula, to Irvine and Anaheim and all the way up to Calabasas - developers are filling in every last canyon and draining the few stream that remain here. In their place are golf courses, strip malls and private communities. Every one drives their cars everywhere. I'm not aware of any check on this sytem of sprawl. But the developers who can offer a two-bedroom house in L.A. county for $400,000 will get water hookups out in the desert for the lawns of these spec-towns, served by Box stores. And all those cars are pouring onto already clogged freeways. California can't afford to build freeways at the rate developers throw up their Cosco mansions.

If someone in the L.A. city government would come out and say, we would like to see people ride bikes, skateboards and scooters. We want to see walkable communities and we will support them by responding to warnings about dangerous intersections for bikes and peds. But there is no response from the city when a pedestrian gets killed in a crosswalk. At most they will post a cop at the spot for a week to hand out tickets and make the city a little money. Until someone else gets smashed to pieces by a car. Then the cop comes back.

If there was the least boost from Mayor Villaraigosa, to talk about the kind of city want to build for the future. But there is nothing in the way of leadership. The L.A. city government *servants* ride around in Ford Expeditions with tinted glass, just like the gangsters who ride around in their domination wagons, looking for some reason to get into it with people, and then run them over or shoot them.

This sad phenomena will probably drag Los Angeles down economically. More and more the only affordable housing is in the counties 40 or 50 miles outside of LA city, and those commuting in will be bled out just paying for gas to run those government subsidized SUVs and trucks. It's the same form of cancer that is killing General Motors and Ford, the United States armed forces and the nation of Iraq. It is the greed of large corporations that have our government in their back pocket.

Wake up L.A. We're building our future in a hot, ungovernable third world city. Every time we fill up the car, we make a billionaire richer so he can buy more influence in Dick Cheney's office.

A.W.O.L. The Unexcused Absence Of America’s Upper-classes From The Military And How It Hurts Our Country
Frank Schaeffer

I heard this author on NPR’s TO THE POINT this afternoon. He makes the case that America’s all-volunteer military has become a warrior-class. Schaeffer likened America’s relationship to the military like that of the Persian Empire, with imperial projects all over the known world.
Those who join the service will be the ones to define its character. The navy may be more liberal than the army, mainly because it is immovably based in coastal areas. San Diego and Seattle are examples of navy towns. And a couple of famous Democrat Presidents came out of navy careers. Kennedy and Carter both had their own ships. The navy is indeed more blue than the other branches of the service. The navy guys have probably been into tattoos longer.
The air force on the other hand is in Colorado Springs. I think that’s about as far as you can get from the oceans in America. I’m not sure if there’s a worthwhile comparison between the forces. I saw a TV special about the growing Evangelical presence among Air Force officers. The implication was that this was splintering the officer corps, and affecting commands and promotions. That gave me a small chill. Those guys are missile command.
What this got me thinking was that the military is reflecting more and more the views of the hardcore red-states. I’ve discussed this with friends and we ask the question over and over: How is it that the Republicans have the exclusive on defining patriotism? It’s like they’ve wired it so that when someone questions the war, or questions the President himself, it hurts the feelings of the people serving in the armed forces. I’ve been around some active duty marines recently and it’s my opinion that you can’t speak against the war in the presence of the uniform. It’s just not cool. I suppose the people who wanted this war understood that when they embarked on the project. The harder you try to pull back, the tighter it ratchets down. Operation fishhook.
The author concludes that we need a draft to restore the All American-ness of the armed forces. Very interesting...