Oklahoma SuperSonics

Should the public foot-the-bill for professional sports? Like it or not most major league franchises are supported and subsidized by the residents of their metropolitan area. Ususally taxes are accumulated to build or improve stadiums & ball parks. While franchise owners can generally afford astronomical payrolls for their players, they argue that the facilities must be built (in part) by the whole city.

Seattle and Sacramento bucked that trend last week. Both cities turned down proposals to raise taxes to build new homes for their Basketball teams. The Seattle vote very nearly garauntees that the SuperSonics will move by 2010 (to Oklahoma City). The fate of the Sacremento Kings is less clear.

"Public sentiment turned against the Sonics last winter when Mr. Schultz, the Starbucks chairman, demanded that the state provide $200 million to refurbish the city-owned arena. The team would have contributed $18 million." (Planetizen)

Sounds familiar, doesn't it.

"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a Hamburger today..." - J. Wellington Wimpy.

Wouldn't it be awfuly nice if the city paid for over 90% of your house, slashing your costs on that Half-Mil McMansion to a paltry $50,000. Of course you would have to allow guests over regularly for quality food, drinks and entertainment. $8.50 domestic beers, $45 entry fees, $3 coffee, and don't forget the merchandise to remember your visit!

It's about damn time people realized that cities shouldn't willingly fork over their tax revenues for these kinds of projects. I don't disagree that there is some public benefit to having a prominent sports venue. It makes good sense for large businesses who need to entertain clients, it can help to promote local history or industry (such as the Detroit Pistons, Pittsburgh Steelers, and the New England Patriots), and it can help to establish a place on a network of national and international destinations.

The tenor of the argument in Seattle no longer needed to "overpay" for professional sports since the city had so much already going in its favor.

“Citizens in Seattle look around and see Microsoft and Boeing doing fabulously, the Port of Seattle is booming and trade with China is going to define this city’s existence for the next 50 years,” Professor Olson said. “Seattle has said, We can be a big-league city, we can be an international city, without kowtowing to professional sports franchises.” (nytimes)

The Citizens for More Important Things led the campaign to deny public funding of a new arena for the SuperSonics. SacBee has more on Measures Q & R.

Bejing Olympics: 2008

Herzog & De Meuron are designing the Olympic Stadium for Bejing's 2008 Olympics. It's very imposing. It looks practically supernatural, like a webbing that happens to contain a stadium.

The Piezo Effect

Why isn't there a better name for this?

Astronomers call it "the blob" or "giant blob" and it is the most massive thing in the universe known to man.

You have never really seen "the blob," it is too dim for the naked human eye. Even so, it's not much worth looking at. You would think that a galaxy cluster over 200 light years in width would be pretty remarkable, right? Well it is, but not for its looks. "The Blob" is one of the oldest structures in the universe, it formed 12.7 billion years ago. Astronomers also speculate that this cluster is something like a nursery for whole galaxies.

Previously known structures with such high density are much smaller, only about 50 million light-years across. "The densest regions in the universe are the places where galaxies are thought to have formed first. Because this is one of the biggest structures known, it must be one of the very first to have formed," said Philip Best, an astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh in the U.K.

In any case, I'm calling on anybody who can read this to think of a better name for this awe-inspiring, mysterious part of our universe. After all, I think we can do a lot better than these old blobs.

Thanks to Seed Magazine for their blurb about "the blob" in their last issue.

Trip Pictures Ready!

More of that church..., originally uploaded by Helmers.

It's official, they're all up. See the Fall Loop.

Silver Floating Pillows

Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, and Harrar

(without realizing it, Starbucks users begin thirsting for a grande upon reading these words)

Wine aficionados know Champagne, Bordeaux, and Alsace - they're all French wines, and regions of France.

The three names in the title share this dual identity crisis. Starbucks uses these three names for its Ethiopian coffees. They are also places in Ethiopia. The most significant of the three (in terms of population) is Harrar.

(disclaimer: I'm no anti-globalization nutjob trying to get you to sign a petition. Seriously, this just interests me as an intersection of commerce, geography, and food.) I learned from Oxfam America about Ethiopia's attempt to protect the trademark on these place names. Starbucks opposes this plan and wants the ability to brand its coffee without paying for the naming rights.

Personally, I believe that if a product can only be produced genuinely in one place (like French wines, Cuban cigars, or African coffee) then distributors should play fair with the producers. Starbucks is hardly the 'evil empire,' they're just trying to make a few more pennies on each cup of hot Ethiopian coffee that passes over their counters. Ethiopia's plan to retain the trademark makes financial sense for an impoverished nation where coffee is a key commodity ('providing 65%-75% of Ethiopia's foreign exchange earnings').

ps. thanks to Co-op America for the email.

A Thousand Mile Loop

The trip odometer rolled over onto 1,000 miles just as we pulled into Lansing on Monday. The pictures will be up on flickr soon. In the meantime, I've rediscovered the Slatin Report, an excellent online periodical about real estate.

Now that more than a year has passed we can safely ask, Who's rebuilding New Orleans? Hispanics, and probably in massive numbers. According to a Tulane study about half of the construction work is being done by Latino crews. Many of these workers came along with firms from Arizona, Texas, and California, their crews are primarily first and second generation immigrants from Mexico and Central America. It's unlikely that most of these workers will settle in New Orleans, but their sudden appearance is already changing the landscape.

"'We're seeing day-worker sites in New Orleans for the first time,' noted R. Kelley Pace, director of the Real Estate Research Institute." Observers in NOLA say that Hispanic laborers are doing some of the toughest and most dangerous jobs. Contractors aware of the questionable nature of their labor's citizenship are taking unscrupulous risks.

What kind of impact will this influx of Hispanic people mean for New Orleans? Before Katrina the area had about 6% Hispanic population, the hurricane might transform New Orleans into a new hub of Hispanic culture and business. It could bring the wave of immigration to the doorstep of the American South.

Also from the Slatin Report: People who think the new World Trade Center project is a fiasco. (Letters in response to Vision Not Accomplished.)