inkbluesky

Sci-Fi Regionalism

Frank (architect Frank Harmon) talked about the use of local materials; how to survive humidity, thunderstorms, summer dry spells, and the harsh winter cold without using electricity, putting architecture itself to use as a local climate modification system; and, finally, the blending of traditional design styles with what could be called global architectural modernism.

There is a much better photo of the Prairie Ridge Eco Station at the link. Listening to architects is sometimes like listing to a precocious nine year old. Those like Harmon have such bright hopes for the future. Seeing that the U.S. population will likely reach 400 million in the next ten years building isn’t likely to stop the least we can hope for is that we build better greener buildings and greenify the old ones. Don’t ask me where the sci-fi regionalism comes in I didn’t understand how that related to the post at BldgBlog.

green transitions wallpaper.

Stop Saying Iraq Is Another Vietnam; It’s Another Enron

Iraq is Enron, and President Bush is Ken Lay. He’s fighting a war with phony accounting tricks. The Bush administration fudged the numbers to get us into Iraq, and cooked the books to keep us there. “The surge” is simply another in a long series of inflated stock quotes.

This past weekend Marcel Marceau passed away at age 84. Doctors say he went quietly. Thus proving that evil thrives when good men stay silent. And just like with Enron, the good men and women who are blowing the whistle on Iraq contractor fraud are being vilified, fired, demoted, and those are the lucky ones.

Last Friday morning the Senate Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing entitled “The Mistreatment of Iraq Contracting Whistleblowers,” just in time to make the Friday news dump. According to the committee more than $10 billion dollars in Iraq reconstruction and military support contracts is unaccounted for.

I am stunned at the treatment of Navy vet Donald Vance who reported that one of the military contractors ( Shield Group Security Company) was selling guns and other materials to insurgents then literally tortured in Saddam’s old prisons for blowing the whistle on these weasels.

Peasants at Rest 1757, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770)I’m not sure whether the artist was being purposely naive or just wanted to glorify his subjects. These were supposed to be actual workers of the period. They’re not wearing leggings which titled gentry would wear, but that is about all the realism there is. The standing figure is given the look of roman statuary. The other two are incredibly clean and relaxed for men that would have worked from sun up to sun down six days a week.That said its a well composed painting. Note the classic triangle made by the positioning of the figures. While the details such as the foliage and clothing is remarkable.