Mexico protests border patrol firing tear gas across border

[ThePhoneGoddess]

Mmm. I'd noticed the urban sprawl issue.

I touched on this on a thread of Rahmota's on CS a while back. Except for a few urban spots, we are totally dependent on our vehicles. Our suburbs are built around car ownership, unfortunately.

A lot of our land may look arable, but it is not farmable. One of the biggest problems we have in the west is water shortages. In fact, I personally believe that Phoenix AZ and Las Vegas NV will have to be abandoned within the next 200 hundred years or so. Those two cities and Los Angeles all get the majority of their water from the Colorado river system, and it is slowly being drained dry. Los Angeles is on the sea, so if they can get a good seawater reclamation system going, they'll be all right when it finally runs out. The other two, however, are SOL.

Phoenix, especially, has problems. Arizona is a very conservative state; their Republicans are usually in control, and condequently Phoenix has absolutely no water restrictions rules in place. (Water restrictions are seen as a whiny-environmental-liberal thing to do.) The city 1) has some of the worst public transportation of any major city in the US. You cannot survive without a vehicle there. and 2) they have golf courses everywhere. In the desert. With lots of water fountains and such, at the golf courses and at many of the fancy hotels in Scottsdale. And because the tax laws in Phoenix are favorable to businesses, the place is growing like crazy.

This is not even touching on the fighting that goes on between urban areas and farming areas over water. The central California valley has this problem---there's lots of farming there, Napa Valley, etc, and on the coast, lots of cities that use a lot of water. They constantly fight over the set amount of water available.



The multi-million dollar stadiums you see are a use of excess wealth---but it's excess wealth the richest 10% of our population holds. Entertainment is probably the biggest business in America; a wealthy man can build a stadium, and rent it out to be used for sports events, religious gatherings, music concerts, big conventions, all sorts of things and make millions more off of it. Cities will borrow money to build these stadiums, but most of the profits goes back to the guy who lent the money in th efirst place, not the city.

[AFPheonix]

What's more retarded is when you have plans to build these new stadiums, and rather than the team owner footing the bill, they strong arm the city government to try and pass levies for the populace to pay.

Hello, it's a fucking SPORTS STADIUM. How about we pay for other things that are more important? Replacing the Sellwood Bridge would be awfully nice.

[Greenday]

For those who don't know, the Yankees are building a new ballpark. It was just recently estimated that it will now cost about $1.3 BILLION. It will contain party suites, restaurants, a martini bar, rooms built for video conferences so business owners can hold conferences while watching a game, a concierge service...

I mean, what else would you do with $1.3 billion?

[protege]

Speaking of stadiums, for those who don't know, Pittsburgh built *two* new ones a few years back. What was annoying as hell, is that there really wasn't anything wrong with 3 Rivers. The teams simply decided they wanted ones of their own, and actually threatened to leave town if they didn't get it. Well, setting up funding was discussed (don't even get me started about how the teams could afford to pay for it...), and was put out to the voters. Needless to say, the entire thing was voted down. Did that stop the local and state governments from using taxpayer dollars to do it? Fuck no. They ignored the people, and did it anyway by raising the sales tax in Allegheny, and the surrounding counties 1%. Trust me, the people were pissed...and got even in the next election. The city's mayor didn't get reelected, and a few officials got replaced.

Now the Penguins want a new arena. Apparently, it doesn't have "enough" luxury boxes to be competitive any more. And yes, they've threatened to leave too.

What pisses me off, is that I, along with 99.9% of the county, are being forced to pay so some rich asshole can attend a sporting event in a box...

[rahmota]

Protege: yeah thats what the Bengals did in cincy a few years back. They got tired of sharing riverfront with the reds and so a lot of small businesses along the river got ran out by emminent domain abuse and tax levies and stuff to build great american ballpark (named for the great american insurance company not anythign ptriotic althouh nice coincidence eh?) and the bengal's stadium whatever its called.

And believe me I would help the sports tema pack up if they wanted to leave town. You hit the nail on the head with this comment:

What pisses me off, is that I, along with 99.9% of the county, are being forced to pay so some rich asshole can attend a sporting event in a box...

Whats worse is the whole Banks project in cincy is stalled backpedaling and failing while Northern Kentucky gets their act together and draws more business, nice homes and urban renewal. Its just crazy.

Seshat: As for the land a lot of the farming that is done in the west is done on land that is marginal at best and like TPG pointed out if it wasnt for irrigation then there wouldnt be any farming at all in many of those lands. At least not to the degree we have now. A lot of the west wasn't meant for the plow to break it. There isnt enough rain or snowmelt and the ogalahha (Spelling?) deep resevoir has fallen by 20 feet since the 1920s when they first measured it according to some experts. And according to them this has a 5-10,000 year refill time.

The colorado used to reach the ocean now it ends 200 yards or so short so much water is diverted upstream. The Rio Grande isnt doing much better from what i've read. Places there a person can run across and not get their knees wet certain times of the year.

And then even in areas like Ohio. Instead of passing laws to help promote and protect the family farm they encourage housing developments to spring up. I cannot tell you how sad it is to see a 100 acre or more farm taken and broken down into 5 acre lots in this county. Down closer to cincy they would break that down into 1 acre lots or less and put up thsose stupid big houses that take up 80% of the lot so you might as well live in an aprtmnet buildign you're so close to your neighbor.

And sad to say water shortages are not exclusive to the west anymore. Remember hearing about that town in Tenn that ran out of water and the mayor had to go to the next town over and truck back enough water to let people have water for 2 hours a day? Florida, Georgia and Alabama about got into a major fight over water rights with each other and the feds.

Heck the local lakes around here had a few boat ramps they had to shut down because the water was too low for people to get anythign bigger than a rowboat out.

Things are not pretty. Things are not going to be pretty for some time.

[Seshat]

I know that arid and semi-arid land isn't farmable and should be farmed very carefully - if at all. We're increasingly eating kangaroo here because soft-footed narrow-mouthed animals eating local grasses is much gentler to arid/semi-arid soil than hooved wide-mouthed animals that pull local grasses up by the roots and rely on imported grasses - which rely on irrigation.

Once again, I failed to say what I meant - which is my fault. Sorry.

You have some lovely soils in the midwest and the east: a combination of geologically young/median soil and good rainfall. That's the arable land I meant. My apologies.

But look after your deserts as well.

As for water-wasters who think ecological care is crap: I hope they're all in Las Vegas and Phoenix when the people further south than the water diversions break the diversion pipes. And that noone else is. And that the pipes take time to fix. Do you think two weeks is enough for them to learn their lesson?

[ThePhoneGoddess]

The east does not have a whole lot of available farming land, that I am aware of. Rahmota lives over there, so maybe he can shed some light on that area. The midwest, though, has its own problems. They also suffer from water shortages.

The other issue they have is the obsession with corn production. Most midwesterners farm corn. Corn is used in everything over here; corn oil and corn starch are extracted from the corn and put into every kind of convenience and packaged food imaginable, and the leftovers are used as livestock feed.

A huge amount of corn is also used to manufacture ethanol. As the price of gas goes up, more and more people are switching to ethanl laden fuels, making it profitable for corn farmers. Consequently a lot of people don't want to grow anything else. You know what happens when you don't rotate crops? The soil then has to be artifically laden with vitamins and minerals to grow stuff. It happens all over here.

Note: many of our most socially conservative people are midwestern farmers. It's very common in rural farming areas in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, etc to be an evangelical Christian. The politics in that region reflect this: it's a very conservative area, and the laws are heavily skewed in favor of businesses, giving them little oversight.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

I was surprised when Seshat said she sees America as very wealthy and well cared for. I wonder if that is what she sees on TV? And yes, that includes news stories from American news media. Beware what you see on TV---TV land is a magical land of perfect suburbs and smiling families with no problems on the horizon. News media is included in that. I was surprised because to those who live here the problems are glaring, obvious, and have become really bad in the last 20 years.

Our government is corrupt. It is corrupt from the highest levels, way down to, in some cases, even the local county or city level. The government lies to us regularly, they strong-arm us into legislation that is badly thought out, they use our occupation of other countries to manipulate us for their own ends. We know this, and many of us try to vote in such a way that will help root it out, but it is not working. We regularly vote people out, voting new people in who promise to fix things, and then they start all over again with the same crap. The system is corrupt all the way through and we can't seem to get to the root of it; like pulling weeds, if you don't pull up the entire root, it sprouts up again and continues to grow. This happens at local level all the time, to school boards and city councils and such. It never seems to end.

Oh, and let us not forget the entertainment. TV, film actors, tabloids, sports figures---it's all there. The writer's strike is a great microcosm of what's going on here. They write the content---but they get paid the least. Hollywood writers live lower middle class. Meanwhile, the words they write are produced vy producers who make millions, and spoken by actors who make millions.

[protege]

Sure, there is some wealth here...but it's mostly concentrated in very small areas of the US.

And no, life in the 'burbs, is *not* what you see on TV. Yes, we have very little crime, but that's where the similarity ends. Quite a bit of things go unreported, or do not make the papers. How do I know this? Well, after my credit card number was stolen last year, I went to the police station. As the officer and I were talking (he knew my dad), he was telling me of some things that had happened--domestic violence is actually pretty common where I live. Contrary to what you see on shows like COPS, it doesn't just happen in the trailer park.

As to our government, it seems that no matter who we get in office, it's still "business as usual." Locally, our taxes keep going up, the young people (and jobs) keep leaving...and the elected idiots can't figure things out. ...and before anyone blames the Republicans, Pittsburgh has been a Democrat stronghold since 1933. They claim to be the party "for the working man" yet seem to screw over the "working man" constantly.

What sucks, is that whatever happens in downtown Pittsburgh, also affects the rest of the county. Their cash flow problems have hit the rest of us. Recently, those fools implemented a 'commuter tax' on people who worked inside the city, yet didn't live there. They got away with it, since the people who were being taxed, didn't live inside the city limits, therefore couldn't vote on it! Taxation without representation...meaning some companies said "fuck you" and moved outside of the city.

The system is such a bloated mess that change doesn't happen. During every election, there are constant claims of bringing jobs here, and trying to keep young people here. Does it happen? Hell no. From 1950 to 2000, we've literally lost about half our population! Most of those folks moved out to the 'burbs or surrounding counties. Those who didn't, left the area totally.

Sure, there are some jobs created, but not on the large scale that the mills once had--some had about 25,000 people working in them! Some of those mill sites have been redeveloped for retail and living space, but it's not like it was. The jobs created are usually not high-paying. We need to attract more employers to the area, which, given the taxes and other things, probably isn't going to happen.

[AFPheonix]

I guess I'm lucky, our area isn't too bad off, what with Nike, Microsoft, Intel, and Boeing in my region.
Portland and Seattle are also pretty progressive cities that are desirable to live in.
Portland especially has been very good at urban planning and building a reputation as a green city.
It's also doing a fairly good job of integrating neighborhoods into the city proper to keep populations inside, rather than becoming an exodus to the burbs.
We do have a large suburban area with Beaverton and Hillsboro, but the use of the urban growth boundary has been a great way to preserve natural areas and farmland from sprawl. It's not a perfect solution, but it hasn't been at all bad, either.
We do have a lot of immigration up here, both from other states and from down South. I've had to translate about 10 time here in the last week for customers who did not speak english well enough to understand the english-speaking pharmacists. Overall though, they haven't been a total drag on our economy. If anything, the crackdown on immigration hurt many small farmers, berry patch owners, and orchard owners. We had a lot of crops go bad on the branch last summer for lack of people to pick them. We just don't have the technology yet to automate those jobs when it comes to fleshy fruits.
They've automated nut harvest well, simply by keeping the areas under the trees absolutely immaculate and driving essentially a large vacuum down the rows and sucking the nuts up off the ground.

Part of what keeps Portland and the rest of Oregon so honest is a very involved populace. We also use the initiative system heavily to create voter-driven legislation. Sometimes it turns out badly, but overall it's a good thing. It does need some tweaking in places, especially laws regarding signature gathering.

Can you tell I really like where I live?

[Seshat]

I was surprised when Seshat said she sees America as very wealthy and well cared for. I wonder if that is what she sees on TV?

I've been to the States several times, living in the homes of ordinary people, talking to ordinary people.

Even comparing US vs Australian lower middle class, the American has more stuff and superficially looks wealthier. But the Australian does have better medical care and more educational opportunities, and other such things that probably matter more when real wealth is compared. (For comparison, here's our income tax rates. We also have a 10% goods and services tax on non-foods and pre-prepared food.)

However, when considering international issues, you Americans probably need to understand that you look wealthy. Even your working poor look well off, to those who see US media. Even to those who communicate regularly with Americans, or who have been to the States. It takes looking for the details of your lives to really see the problems. So when you're trying to understand things from the POV of foreigners, bear that in mind.

It's interesting watching this thread. I'll sort of go quiet and listen for a while, I think.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

Even your working poor look well off, to those who see US media.

I think that's the problem right there, our News Media is notoriously corrupt and far too influenced by our entertainment industry. (One of the biggest surprises in recent years to those in power is how few young people get their news from traditional news media. Most of the young here get their news from the internet.) The 'working poor' you see on the news are, for the most part, either lower middle class or people living paycheck-to-paycheck because they are in college or something like that---being poor temporarily while they better themselves. Do not trust what the American news media tells you---they manipulate you.

I assure you, the REAL poor here don't end up on the news. They're not interesting enough or pretty enough to be. You never see pictures of the people who live in primitive log cabins in the Appalachias, or the people who live over garbage dumps along the US Mexico border. You never see pictures of poor Navajo or Lakota children living in their 640's on the reservation, eating government issued cheese and flour rations and dying from diabetes at an inhuman rate. And those are just the out of the way areas---you also never hear about the rural whites in places like Michigan or Pennsylvania, who are overwhelmingly dependent on welfare, have no job prospects in their small towns, and commit suicide at alarming rates.

Take Second Harvest---America's biggest food bank Network. According to them, nearly 35 million Americans lack access to enough food to stay healthy. Around 4.5 million people receive emergency food assistance from them in any given week. Food banks are facing a growing shortage of food to give out to the people who come to them in need, because less food is being donated while more people are seeking them out.

[Greenday]

Speaking of educational opportunities, I pay about $16,000 a year for my college, and that is out of state. That's considered pretty cheap for college here. How much is it for those of you not in America?

[CancelMyService]

I remember seeing a bumper sticker a long time ago (before the Iraq mess when such stickers weren't as common) saying something to the effect that wouldn't it be nice if schools got billions and the Air Force had to have a bake sale for funds.

Obviously that's more than a bit glib, but it does bring up a good point at how the US will give the military industry literally any dollar amount they want to go kill people on the other side of the world while our kids have to whore themselves out for school supplies. Not to mention any mention of wanting to increase funding for schools gets you branded a bedwetting tax and spend liberal. Where's the common sense?

[Seshat]

Speaking of educational opportunities, I pay about $16,000 a year for my college, and that is out of state. That's considered pretty cheap for college here. How much is it for those of you not in America?

For my first years of university - nothing. Well, books and paper and travel and the like, plus about $600 AUS in student union fees.

The HECS system (Higher Education Contribution Scheme, from memory) was instituted just in time for me to catch the first year or two of it. You went through uni, and you could either pay your HECS debt up front, or through taxes after you graduated. Looking HECS up now, it's - ah. It changed in 2005. My HECS debt was only about $5K.

Maybe someone going through Aussie uni now can explain the current system.