LIVE VIDEO STREAM: PTO Education budget workshop

Tonight at 7PM at Rogers Park, the city wide PTO will hold an education budget workshop where members of the board of education and school officials will talk about what's in store for the next fiscal year.

The live stream will start at 7PM.

House Proud on The Nate Berkus Show

Last post about Nate Berkus, I promise! Thanks everyone for watching :)

State Sen. McLachlan introduces "birther" bill

Remember State Sen Mike McLachlan? You know, that senator from Danbury who says one thing on the campaign trail (fiscal responsibility), but offers nothing but far right teabagging nonsense as a legislator (tenth amendment/state nullification bill, homophobic legislation proposals against same sex couples, etc).

Well, for someone who claimed to the News-Times that he was "attentive to the issues in the region" and sold himself as a stalwart for fiscal restraint during the campaign, the FIRST bill he introduces in the general assembly paints a different and more disturbing picture.

Proposed Bill No. 391


January Session, 2011


LCO No. 844


Referred to Committee on Government Administration and Elections


Introduced by:


SEN. MCLACHLAN, 24th Dist.


AN ACT CONCERNING QUALIFICATIONS TO APPEAR AS A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OR VICE-PRESIDENT ON A BALLOT IN THIS STATE.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:

That title 9 of the general statutes be amended to require the Secretary of the State to be presented with an original birth certificate of any candidate for the federal office of president or vice-president that certifies that the certificate holder is a natural-born United States citizen, prior to certifying that the candidate is qualified to appear on the ballot.

Statement of Purpose:

To require that candidates for president and vice-president provide their original birth certificates in order to be placed on the ballot.

Yes ladies and gentleman, Mike McLachlan is a birther.

For those who don't know what the term "birther" means, here's a little lesson:

Conspiracy theories often flourish in the wake of traumatic or game-changing events – the Sept. 11 attacks, the moon landing, the Kennedy assassination – and the election of America's first black president has been no exception.

Almost as soon as Barack Obama emerged as a serious candidate for the presidency, rumors about whether or not he is really an American, and thus eligible for the presidency, began popping up online. In response, the Obama campaign posted the Certification of Live Birth* (here it is) showing that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961.

But that did not quiet the skeptics, a group that has been come to be known as the "birthers." If anything, it encouraged them. They argued that the birth certificate is a fake, and that Mr. Obama is not the "natural born citizen" he claims to be. Mr. Obama, many birthers say, was actually born in Kenya, though there are a number of theories that fall under the birther umbrella.

The din eventually got loud enough that some reputable organizations checked out the birthers' claims – and they found no evidence to support them. In fact, there was overwhelming evidence against such claims, including Mr. Obama's 1961 birth announcement, printed in two Hawaii newspapers. Here's one detailed investigation, and here's another.

PolitiFact wrote after its extensive look at the claims a year ago:

It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world's biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything's possible.

But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what's reasonable has to take over.

Yes folks, State Sen McLachlan has joined that prestigious group of right-wing misfits that think President Obama was not born in the United States (despite all the evidence to the contrary).

CNN's Anderson Cooper has done an EXCELLENT JOB confronting and ripping apart state lawmakers such as McLachlan who introduce idiotic birther bills.

Have you heard that the Birthers are making a comeback? They are, baby! Straight up passing laws in Arizona that would require presidential candidates to submit their birth certificates in order to get ballot access for the election. It's just one thing that is making Arizona, in the words of State Representative Kyrsten Sinema (D-Phoenix), "the laughing stock of the nation".

But State Representaitve Cecil Ash (R-Mesa) supports the measure -- not because he thinks President Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States... no, no! -- simply because it would help to remove doubts. It's all part of that small government ethos that maintains that the power of an intrusive state government can and should be brought to bear in order to alleviate the silly concerns of legitimately crazy people.

So, last night, Anderson Cooper took up the issue on his eponymous CNN show, and more or less laid the wood to Ash, who reiterated his point about the need to dispel the "controversy."

ASH: Anderson, I think there's been a lot of controversy over the issue, created a division among a lot of people in the United States, for better or worse, many people don't believe he is a U.s. citizen, they believe he has divided loyalties, i suppose you could say.


COOPER: Right, but those people are wrong, he is a U.S. citizen.

ASH: You're telling me that he's wrong. I've never investigated that. If he is, he has nothing to fear.

Also? He has "nothing to fear" because as Cooper noted, those people are wrong! But look: this is precisely how juvenile this stuff gets:

COOPER: But I mean the information is out there, it has been released, it has been shown there are some people who don't believe it but there are also some people that believe the moon is made out of cheese. You can say you never investigated it but I think you would probably say the moon is not made out of cheese.


ASH: I certainly would.

In short, idiotic bills like this reinforces my notion that McLachlan is a disgrace to the 24th state senate district.

UPDATE: Huffington Post picks up on McLachlan's idiotic proposal.

UPDATE 2: McLachlan further insults the public's intelligence.

"You have to have a birth certificate to get a driver's license," McLachlan said. "The same should be true to become president or vice president."

Earth to McLachlan...Obama ALREADY did that and it's been verified by just about every single media outlet AS WELL AS THE COURTS.

Wait...it gets better.

McLachlan submitted his proposal after hearing several arguments about President Barack Obama's citizenship, he said.

"They claim that he is not a natural-born citizen," McLachlan said.

McLachlan's stupidity knows no bounds as the claim that Obama's not a citizen has been dismissed in court...including THE SUPREME COURT.

McLachlan said he is not suggesting that Obama is not a natural-born citizen with this bill. Instead, McLachlan said, he hopes passage of the bill will stop these types of arguments in the future.

If McLachlan isn't suggesting that Obama isn't a natural born citizen, why is he proposing that candidates for President show their ORIGINAL birth certificate as opposed to a copy of a birth certificate that is upheld under article four of the U.S. Constitution

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof

Finally...

"Let's stop talking about this," McLachlan said.

Mike, you're the idiotic lawmaker who proposed the bill in the first place...maybe you should not listening to your ilk on the far right.

...unreal.

UPDATE 4:24 PM: More blowback against McLachlan's boneheaded bill.

“At a time when Connecticut faces a significant budget shortfall, it’s ridiculous that Senate Republicans are focusing on tired political attacks that have nothing to do with the issues facing Connecticut,” Democratic Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo said Monday.

“Our Democratic leaders are focusing on real solutions to move Connecticut forward, and their Republican colleagues in the Senate should join them,” DiNardo added.

In an update at CTNewsJunkie, McLachlan's backpedaling reaches new grounds as he tries to deflect that his bill has anything to do with President Obama.

McLachlan did not want to talk about the conspiracies surrounding Obama’s citizenship he said he simply wanted to write legislation that requires it going forward to stop the arguments about who qualifies. McLachlan said Sen. John McCain’s citizenship was also challenged by a Senate panel.

McLachlan's latest bit of nonsense caused a response from Governor Dannel P. Malloy.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy wondered why McLachlan was picking on McCain.

“You know, listen, I think we should honor our constitution and I think John McCain was eligible to run for president so I don’t know why the senators picking on John McCain,” said Malloy.

Enjoy your 15 mins of fame in the national spotlight Mike...you earned it buddy (you can thank me for all the attention you're receiving later)!

Buson: Winter Rain

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Distant rain, Ocean Beach, San Francisco: photo by Mila Zinkova, January 2006





The evenings of the ancients
Were like mine,
This evening of cold rain.






Rain falling on the streets of Kolkata: photo by Monster eagle, 2007





The winter rain
Shows what is before our eyes
As though it were long ago.







Evening rain at Azuma Shrine: Andō Hiroshige, from the series Eight views in the environs of Edo, between 1827-1840 (Japanese prints and drawings, Library of Congress)

This post dedicated to Don Wentworth

The evenings of the ancients / The winter rain: Yosa Buson (1716-1783), translated by Reginald Horace Blyth

Kant on natural purposes, part the Xth

Wherein Phil and Remley play a large and bizarre part in the proceedings,this being attributable to the writer having to take large doses of cold medication and high yield antibiotics.

Here the heavy slogging begins. We now come to what has historically been the predominate explanation for NOOPs; theism: the idea that these naturally occurring objects with apparent purpose, are indeed best explained as actually having been designed with purposes in mind. As we read this section, we should remember Kant is evaluating the theory, not only its own merits, but relative to the other three theories he has been mulling over in section 73: atomism, Spinozism, and what he terms “hylozoism” the notion that the universe is very like an animal body. Recall that there was a “dualist” reading of this last hypothesis, along with a “physicalist” reading. So, how does good old fashioned theism fare relative to the three competitors? Let’s find out. On to you ParaKant (remember he is wrapping up a section whose title lets it be known he thinks all four systems of thought have significant shortcoming. None of them “give what they pretend”):

Finally we come to theism. It’s not in any better a position to establish “dogmatically” that natural purposes exist as products of the explanatory entity it posits. Thus it cannot provide “a key to Teleology” that is; an explanatory fulcrum with which we can explain NOOPs.

Now, one wonders here why Kant makes this assertion. Keep in mind, the first paragraph here is stating his conclusions. Following paragraphs will give the arguments for those conclusions…hopefully.

Theism does have an advantage over all the other grounds of explanation, we have been exploring. Why? It saves appearances in a way they cannot. By postulating a faculty like human understanding in the being it posits, it rescues with adequate robustness the appearance of design in NOOPs in a way that is obviously lacking in the attempts to save appearances we find in the Idealist camp.

In both of the idealist theses, we have the merest of explanations as to why the damn things exist. Atomism is basically an ‘eventually everything will happen randomly’ type answer that is in fact applicable to all possible states of affairs. So, it really is a lazy man’s position. Spinoza’s view has it that NOOPs are necessarily existing modes or attributes of the (you guessed it) necessary being, once again, a mere “emanation” if you will. That postulation does no work toward explaining the apparent purposiveness as purposeful. We cannot help but note that the particular arrangements of material that make up NOOPs are such that, even though they follow the laws of nature as they operate, they are to all appearances contingently existing arrangements which could have just as easily never happened. Positing an understanding that constructed them gives an explanation of that apparent design, and the concomitant sense of contingency. But according to Spinozistic metaphysics, everything that exists necessarily exists as a sort of consequence of the existence of the necessary being. This just ends up being another lazy man’s position.

And things are not better for hylozoism. It postulates the universe as an organism. On analogy with organisms, the thesis claims that the universe self organizes. Yet, in order to make use of this thesis to explain NOOPs we have to make use of NOOPs to back up the postulation. So, we are arguing in a circle.

Boy, I'm taking liberties here. Just refer to the original CoJ section 73. None of that is in it. But I’m not obliged to stick so closely to the text. Why? Because I warned you, that’s why. And we need frickin’ guideposts man. And it has been days between these infernal Kant posts…Godangit.

But before we can begin to make a case that the explanatory ground of these NOOPs does indeed exist “somewhere” beyond nature, as theism suggests (to use Kant’s unhelpful terminology ‘before we can place the ‘ground’ beyond nature ‘in a determinate way’) we must first prove (I SAID PROVE) satisfactorily to ‘determinate judgment’ that the unity we see in NOOPs is impossible via the mere unguided ‘mechanical’ operations, hummings, and general goings-on in the vast material basis of the universe, the matter, after all, from which they are constituted.

Another interruption! Phil Harris simply cannot stand it anymore:

Phil here again, boys and girls. Remley an’ me see somethin’ fishy in this last little bit. I get what yer drivin at Clyde but..

Frankie interrupts: Curly, his name is ‘Kant’, not ‘Clyde’.

Oh, I dunno’ Frankie, that name’s too hard to remember. Can’t. Can. Cantina, Can-Can.. He kinda reminds me of Yoda. Can I call him that? Do you mind mister? Do you mind if I call you Yoda?

Kant is nonplussed but prefers not to be called Yoda.

So, anyway, as I was sayin’ before I was so rudely interrupted, I can see what yer drivin’ at. You’re settin’ up one of them disjunctive arguments. All this time you’ve been claiming yer four theses are all the possible theses, and collectively exhaust all the possibilities, both as presuppositions for research or discovery, and as postulates as to the actual origins of them things. I get it. I get it. But, what I ain’t getting’ is this business here about us having to prove the other alternatives impossible. Ain’t it good enough to show they are highly unlikely? Think of it this way Yoda..er..Cantina..er..little wigged friend: Suppose Frankie and me go to the bar and Abruzio the grocery kid is sittin’ there and offers us a bet. He has slips of paper with letters of the alphabet printed on ‘em. They are in a hat. He say to us, he says, “You guys like to wager that if I keep drawing letters, and putting each one back after I draw, and write down my results, that I will eventually draw, and write down the sentence, “Phil Harris is a genteel gentleman, and Mr. Remley is a left-handed guitar player.” Heck, Julius even spots us the punctuation marks and all of them there “g”s. Would we take that bet? Hell, no. Well, maybe Frankie here would be so peurile. But I ain’t no mark.

Frankey is taken aback: Curly, you have cut me to the quick. Is my intelligence so in question that you can insult me in this fashion? Peurile?

Phil: Frankie. Just remember, whatever you say, I ain’t interested in “I know a guy”. That’s how we got tangled up with this incomprehensible little Prussian man wearin’ knee britches and a powdered wig. That’s how we got stuck talkin’ to him in the first place. Now, I’m stuck here arguin’ with the guy, when I could be out with Alice painting the town red. Remind me never to listen to you again Rem.

Frankie: Curly. I have been reduced to astonishment at your treatment of your oldest and dearest friend. I will never again introduce you to any one of my fascinating friends. You can be assured of that. (He sniffles a bit, pulls out his hanky)

Kant: You two are very strange. You know that, don’t you? Can we get back to business? You were saying that my disjunctive argument is questionable?

Ok enough of Phil and Frankie.

The point is that the requirements Kant presents for exclusion of disjuncts seems unnecessarily high. If it can be shown that the ‘mere mechanism’ atomistic alternative is highly unlikely to have produced NOOPs in the amount of time given since the beginning of the universe, it would seem that, while that isn’t a proof of the impossibility of the postulate, it would nevertheless be sufficient reason to try out the other disjuncts. It is true that Kant has argued that the other options (hylozoism and Spinozism) are inferior to the mechanistic and theistic models. So, he feels he needn’t take them seriously. He has to deal with the best competitor, and that is explanation by unguided mechanism or natural laws. But he feels that in order to make an objective claim for theism one must show the mechanistic option to be impossible. That’s a tall order, and may in fact not be required for the purpose.
But, he is making the case that theism’s best competitor doesn’t have that much to crow about. Back to Kant:

We cannot advance this first step toward establishing the superiority of the theistic hypothesis read in its full blown ontological sense, because we simply cannot show the impossibility of NOOPs arising from unguided natural processes. That would have to be the first step, and we cannot even carry it out.

He’s just moving on ain’t he Rem?

Yep, Curly. That he is. Seems to me that you could take a first step if you accept that improbabilities count, if you accept something short of a full blown proof of impossibility.

Kant is now ticked: Would you guys shut up?

Oh, Alright go on why dontcha. You’ll hear nothin’ from us. We’ll be quiet as church mice.

Kant continues: By way of acceding to the structure and limitations of our cognitive faculty, and also given that we do not comprehend the inner ground of natural mechanism, we must admit two things.

1. We must not seek a purposive explanation for NOOPs in matter itself (as the two forms of hylozoism postulate). We have seen that the two hylozoic theories fail. One argues circularly from NOOPs to NOOPs. The other lands one in logically absurd situations where one and the same item is both passive and active with respect to the same mental or intentional event.

2. However, when we think carefully about what we are left with we have to say that we have really eliminated all the competing non-theistic disjuncts as being in very deep ways, incapable of being fleshed out in such a way as to give a robust account of the teleological features of organisms. They are stubbornly and perhaps permanently stuck at the ‘mere possibility’ phase. (Yes, even in the case of the Spinozistic thesis, the modes do emanate, if you will, from the necessary being, all we can say if we buy it, is that we see that IF Spinoza is right, that there is a necessary being, then necessarily everything that exists because of that thing is also something that came about necessarily. But this is still a very bare “explanation” as is the atomistic thesis. In both cases, what the theories end up saying is trivial. Things are different with theism: With the theistic thesis, we can make some narrative headway, and are dealing with no mere logical possibility, no mere logical necessity.

In fact, we have no other choice when we are judging as to how organisms came into being, or when we are investigating the inner organization of these damn things, and how their organs function. To make headway in making useful empirical discoveries, we have no choice but to treat them as carefully coordinated wholes, built with purposes in mind not only for the whole, but for each of the parts, as they reciprocally and systematically interact with each other and the environs.

But to think of organisms in this fashion is tantamount to thinking of them as being created by a designer possessed of an understanding, in its essence like ours, able to formulate practical imperatives or technical rules of thumb. What is more this originating understanding for NOOPs has to be conceived as being outside of and the cause of the world as a whole, because the non-theistic alternatives have been shown to be implausible at their several bases. But to be very clear, this is all merely a heuristic fact, if you will, not an ontological fact, or rather, it is something the objective or perhaps ontological ramifications of which we can never hope to verify.

(That is, UNLESS we can show up that ‘mechanistic explanation’ as a genuine impossibility? Ed.)

There are shades of a pragmatic or instrumentalist view here. Theism is respectable as a sort of metaphysical research program. Used as a heuristic device, it is very useful for the purposes of ‘reverse engineering’ organisms, and finding out things about their structure, their organs, and indeed their fitness for environment. So, its fruitfulness suggests theism as a desirable starting point for the scientist. We have examples of this in the history of science. Kepler essentially operated from within this heuristic framework. His frustrations in finding that nature did not conform to a Platonic ground plan eventually led him to discover the fact that nature uses elliptical orbits,( so to speak, of course). No doubt discoveries in biology found similar origins. I’m too lazy to look up instances though.

One wants to press ParaKant here. From one direction: He is making the claim that the presupposition of a designer is in some sense of the word indispensible to scientific research as regards organisms. He makes very strong claims to the effect that we cannot do without that heuristic.

Darwinists would probably respond: While it’s true that something like this heuristic is very useful and fecund in generating or facilitating scientific discovery, it is simply false that we cannot do without it. While the details of the story are multitudinous the basic story is this: You have DNA, a molecule that in the quite ordinary chemical process of things, finds itself replicating. Random changes in replicated copies have macroscopic effect, because DNA also, once again as a result of the quite ordinary chemical processes it undergoes in its interactions with materials within cells, ends up building and maintaining cells.

Changes in the DNA molecule cause changes in functionality, which again is reducible to a very complex description of densely imbricated and intertwined chemical reactions. Some of these functions cause their housing macroscopic organisms to have a higher probability of survival and, because they, among other things, distribute and combine genetic materials, making new beasties, there will be a tendency for the DNA that coded for that favorable rate of survival to indeed be passed on into future generations of the macroscopic beasties. The end result is macroscopic organisms that appear to have been designed for their environments.

Kant would probably respond:

I know all about that story, but the fact of the matter is, you are not going to be able to flesh it out in any more detail than you just did. When it gets down to the nitty-gritty of understanding the chemical steps themselves, the task is simply too great. You will never move beyond this skeleton of a narrative. The task is simply too immense. It would be like telling the entire story of how it is you came to be reading this post.

But, and this is key, we simply see no way forward in filling the pre-biological portion of the narrative, the portion that has to do with how the genetic material first came into being via the non-guided actions of atoms bustling about according to natural laws. So, because of the immensity of the task, we find it much more fruitful to approach these things from the point of view of the reverse engineer. However, that does not amount to saying there is such a being. It’s more a commentary on the limited and finite nature of our cognitive capacities than anything else.

It does not follow from the fact that we cannot conceive or understand a thing unless we make use of a heuristic with feature X, that feature X reflects some objective feature of the world. Kant agrees with this.

From a direction more sympathetic to theism:

Look Kant old boy. You spend a great deal of time making the case that, of the four theses, the one with less flaws is the theistic hypothesis. If it is truly indispensible for cognition or discovery, vis biology, why not then, claim this as evidence that theism is true? If we are unable to come up with any other viable alternative, isn’t that good evidence for the thesis?

Consider this analogy. I happen upon a tree. A car is lodged in its top branches. The event that placed that car is over, and cannot be revisited. Yet, I am able to infer the nature of that event. There is a nearby river, and signs of recent flooding. My mind gets to a’ cypherin’, and bingo, I have the most plausible explanation. There simply cannot be a more plausible alternative. Similarly with the theistic hypothesis. Even though it is in principle not possible to witness or see the cause of NOOPs, it does not follow that the can make no inference as to its nature. If mere mechanism is either impossible, or immensely improbable, and we do have competing explanations that can account for the observations (theism or some variant), why not take that explanation seriously? Why all this caution? Why not bite the bullet and say the evidence you present is evidence for ‘determinative’ judgment?

Response: Because, as we have seen, the logic of the argument forces that being outside the realm of the universe. As such, we cannot hope to learn anything about it other than that it exists.

Counter: You’ve learned that it has an understanding, have you not?

K: No, we’ve learned that it produces things that look like what we would produce using our understanding, if we had the technical knowledge and skills. Since the thing is outside our world, we have no assurances that it is like things in this world, including ourselves (with our understanding, the very basis of the analogy here being used).

Phil and Remley just shake their heads. Phil pipes in:

Look Immanuel, I admire your caution, but it just seems to me that being inside or outside of the universe don’t make no difference regarding whether or not the cause of NOOPs has understanding. If the best or most plausible explanation, as far as we can tell, makes use of the hypothesis that such a thing exists, then why not go with it? Whether or not it is in space time don’t make no difference. So, the designer has understanding, and he exists nowhere and nowhen. So what? He still has understanding all the same, don’t he? You with me on this Rem?

Remley is deeply confused, while Kant is deeply impressed that Phil has fully grasped the notion of the “noumenal”

Phil, there is a barrier that cannot be overcome, between our phenomenal realm, (the world as we experience it) and the world as it is in itself. We cannot remove ourselves from this world, move over ‘into’ the other, and compare our experiences of objects, space and time, with the real things that cause us to have experience of a universe spread out in space/time. So we have no assurances that the universe in itself is similar to how we take it to be. There may be space and time; there very well could be nothing like that at all. It may be that the ‘real’ world is incomprehensible to us. We just don’t know, and can never know, due to our cognitive limitations.

Well, it just gets worse if we try to make dogmatic claims about the extra-universal cause of all the things in the universe. In effect, that thing is at two removes from our phenomenal experiences, (it’s the thing that is behind what is behind our experiences!) and even less likely to resemble objects in our phenomenal universe. In fact, speaking more cautiously, we have no basis on which to determine the probability that such a demiurge exists. The ultimate nature of the universe is permanently and profoundly mysterious. The concepts we use to describe this thing, and understand it, all of them, are concepts that are tied up with our experienced world, and thus we have assurances as to their applicability only with regard to that world we experience, not the whatever-the-hell-it-is that is causing (damn, there goes that word again) all that experience.

Remley now steps up:

That’s some pretty high falutin’ stuff there I-man. But, I think you are being inconsistent..have you been hitting the bourbon?

Phil butts in: Remley! That is quite a swipe at this fine gentleman. I will thank you for apologizing immediately!

Remley and Kant: Well! La-dee-da!

Remley: Mr. Kant I’m glad to see you are not as easily offended as Mr. Harris. Do you see my point? You more than once tell us that we should adapt as a methodological principle, or metaphysical research program, the atomist or mechanistic thesis, see how far we can go with it. You also tell us that we can also rest assured that it does tell us something about the things we investigate using that thesis, something objective (even as you make these warnings concerning the noumenal causes of the phenomenal world of objects).

On the other hand, you say ‘make liberal use of the theistic hypothesis, just don’t take it literally. It seems we have options you don’t consider: Why not take them both as mere heuristics, or take them both as making objective claims? You need to argue these points.

As we have seen just above, Kant does make these arguments, and will develop them in upcoming sections. Stay tuned.

My Date With Nate

My appearance on the Nate Berkus show is airing THIS MONDAY (Jan.31st!). Oh my.

*****

A quick little recap of our NYC adventure with Nate...

Jan.12

10:00AM - Consult Urbanspoon and decide on delish breakfast at Sarabeth's. Follow it up with a brisk walk to Central Park to burn off some nervous energy.

12:00PM - Bye bye Lucerne Hotel & hello CBS studios!

12:30PM - WHOA, my own green room (that isn't really green)

1:15PM - hair & makeup, and a run-through with the panelled wall mockup. Two minutes after this photo was taken, I almost spilled an entire bottle of carpenter's glue on my shoe!! Yikes!

3:30PM - waiting, waiting, waiting and then it was showtime! Sorry, no photos in studio. You'll have to watch and see how it turned out!

4:15PM - All done and packed up - but stop for one more quick photo with "Nate"... the fake Nate that appeared on the show too :). Bye CBS studios!

Jan.13

9:00AM - up bright and early and head to our favourite store, Fishs Eddy. Stop into Eataly and admire the pretty packaging.

11:00AM - check out ABC Carpet & Home. Love the herringbone floors. Hmm, that wood frame around the wallpaper in the Barbara Barry display has me inspired to do something similar in my own home...

12:00PM - meet up with one of my favourite bloggers, Mrs. Limestone! And yes, she is just as lovely and humble in person as she appears on the blog.

4:00PM - So long New York! We had a fabulous time!!

2011 EDUCATION BUDGET CRISIS: If you thought last year's education budget process was bad...

...wait till you get a load of the coming attractions.

News-Times:

The superintendent's proposed $187. 6 million spending plan for 2011-2012 has no surprises. It maintains services without adding new programs, school board members said.
The plan serves the needs of the city's 10,100 students and the board doesn't expect to make major reductions until the city makes its allocation.
But Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said Friday he was sure there would not be money for the $4.7 million or 4.1 percent increase over current spending.

If you recall, last year the board recommended a 3.81 percent increase which was dead on arrival by the time it was presented to the mayor and city council. Instead, the council gave the board of ed a 1.79 percent increase, which resulted in some rather drastic cuts in school services, which included the accelerated closing of Mill Ridge Intermediate School, the elimination of paraprofessionals in elementary school, and well other cuts in services.

Needless to say that last year's budget allocation from the city council resulted in hardships at the schools, which are reflected in the number of teachers and parents expressing their concerns towards the board of education about the state of school system over the past year.

One board member sums up the attempt to decrease school's budget proposal...

"If we have to cut more, we'll have to cut into the classroom," she said, "and I don't know how the teachers will be able to do what they have to do."

I have the feeling that this year's wrangling over the education budget is going to make last year's battle look like child's play.

MUCH more later.

In Bill's Backyard, Bolinas

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Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951): publicity photo depicting amusement park scene (image by Harrington Smith, 2010)

Now light streams through the trees of the dream.
Dead friends idly amble through the arches
The green bower makes over our heads;
In Bill's backyard -- framed for this flashback
To the days before, or perhaps during, the Flood --
Things are, as in a kind of moonlit masque
Lit up at night like the carnival scene
In Strangers on a Train; yet strangers
There are none, only friends; summer fog coming in
On the marine layer clockwork shuttle
Over the populous village in the dream;
Sea, hill, wood, numberless goings on;
Off in the distance beyond Elm somewhere,
Off beyond Ocean Parkway in the mists,
A whistle buoy intermittent; blue reedy
Spiritual openness of Eric
Dolphy floating from inside the humble shack
Taking shape as words, a cool
Geometrical language; then cloudy faces
Tossed up on the cresting waves
Beyond the reef, in the dream: ghosts
Waving, not drowning. So let's make this stroll
Through the underworld last.

Into the gloom of the Tunnel of Love on a boat named after Pluto, god of the underworld: screen shot from dvd trailer for Strangers on a Train (image by Yworo 2010)

Ver las cosas como son y no como quieres que sean

The Marty Heiser Show 01.27.11 broadcast

Interior Design Show / IDS11

Its been a busy week here for Rambling Renovators! Its the Toronto International Design Festival which means all the biggest and best events in design are happening this week. The week culminates with the Interior Design Show which opened last night with quite the gala event. Along with a few other bloggers and media, I had the privilege of seeing the IDS show floor a mere 24 hours before opening night.

We started off our tour all smiles in our dorky hardhats. (Notice the always stylish Arren Williams in his orange Hermes helmet). That's Shauny Levy, director of the Interior Design Show beside Arren, who conducted the tour. We got a peek at the Sarah Richardson designed Panton chair that was going up for auction last night. Sarah had the chair shuttled around the city to get it signed by many celebrity personalities. Then we headed to the show floor - and let me tell you, it was pure chaos! I didn't know if they were going to pull it off.

76,000 hours + 9000 cups of coffee + 3000 steel toe boots + 1200 gallons of paint + 3 football fields of storage + 56 people laying carpet by hand. Those are just some of the numbers behind putting an event of this magnitude together.

We saw some beautiful installations in progress, like these stunning brass pendants at the Snob booth and the always inspiring lighting at Ikea.

The Miele folks showed off their new dishwashers which feature an auto-open feature that helps to dry the dishes, and their new multi-function steam convection oven. The ovens are in this shiny white exterior - apparently, shiny white kitchens are all the rage in Europe and are making their way here.

The highlight of the tour was the Sibling Revelry spaces created by pairs of designery siblings. Glenn Dixon and his fashion designer brother David were inspired by the book "Sadaku and the 1000 paper cranes" and created a dreamy space. I loved all the moulding and trimwork, which for a temporary installation was quite well done.

The Brothers Dressler created a giant room of glass. The exterior was made from reclaimed windows, all of which would be reused in other projects after the show.

And then of course, there was the spectacular space created by Sarah Richardson and her brother Theo. It was a standout. Each room was designed to showcase a product made by Theo, a partner in design studio Rich Brilliant Willing.

My favourites were the In The Right Light pendant lights and the Appalachian Chair featured in the dining room. Evocative of rowdy family gatherings around the dining table, the room blended modern and vintage features. I loved the brushed metal cupboard, the striking subway art, the Ikea dishes and bottles, and the mixed chairs all painted in the same warm cherry red.

At the gala last night, I was able to see how it all came together. I posted a few pics on my facebook page but do encourage you to come to the Interior Design Show this weekend and see for yourself!

LOCAL ACCESS VIDEO: Community Forum 01.26.11 broadcast

LOCAL ACCESS VIDEO: The Marty Heiser Show 01.20.11 broadcast

Hanging Outdoors with Alfred Sung

If there is one name synonymous with Canadian design, it's Alfred Sung. Since the 1980's, Alfred has been creating apparel, fragrances, and home and fashion accessories in his signature timeless elegant style. So when I was invited to a Blogger social event in honour of the new SUNG Outdoor collection, I knew I would be in for a visual treat.

Saul Mimran, Jordin Mimran, and Alfred Sung

Held at the Mimran offices, the collection was featured in a white and airy loft space. Dramatic lighting and creative displays showed the pieces to full effect. It felt more like viewing an art installation than a furniture collection!

I love how they displayed the Madrid lounger on the wall. Its open weave design is sculptural and beautiful. Imagine lounging on that poolside! The stripey Mykonos chaise longue is pretty nifty too.

These white faux wicker chaise longue are part of the Capri collection and available through The Bay department stores. Only $399 each, I think they are a pretty reasonable investment. There is a lot of ugly outdoor furniture out there (why is that?) so to find something attractive, and affordable by a Canadian brand is pretty cool.

The Blackwatch collection was based on Alfred's favourite Blackwatch Tartan pattern. Its made of hand-woven faux wicker on an aluminum frame and so handsome! Its only available during IDS11 this weekend so hurry to the show if you want this gracing your backyard!

My favourite in the collection? The Paris chair, mais oui. I love the preppy gingham check pattern and I'm sure HandyMan would fall for the simple lines and open construction of the piece. Quite a statement chair!

Thanks to Alfred and the Mimrans for hosting an enjoyable event. They really have me craving summer now!

Sarah 101: Andrew's Bedroom

On Sarah 101 this week, Sarah and Tommy tackled a large loft space. The loft, in a former baseball-making factory, belonged to a single guy so you would think it be designed as a more masculine space. What they ended up with was something both feminine and masculine which I like... what do you think:

Where to start decorating when you have a room this large? Fabric! And in this case, the bolder, the better. Sarah used Schumacher's ubiquitous Chiang Mai dragon fabric (at $150/yd!) as her jumping off point. I love this fabric but would a guy, a straight guy, love it enough to put it on his headboard? Any guys care to chime in on that? She paired it with leather sides on the bed and added nailhead trim. One interesting detail: she cut out the headboard corners to line up with the window sill. Think of these details - that's how you get a perfect, custom look.

Anyway, from this fabric, the rest of the decor palette fell in place... mustard yellow and teal paint on the walls, antique red carpet, bold yellow lamps, linen & teal draperies, blue stools. The teal was brought in again on the ring pattern fabric on the masculine wing chair. Other details included the personal heirlooms made into art, and the big large scale accessories like the ladder and reworked vintage mirrors.

A few more tips from Sarah:

- work with the style of the space. The loft had a rough, industrial vibe which they echoed in the industrial chic accessories

- with a bold fabric (like on the wing chair), use a contrasting piping to emphasize the shape of the piece and support the "heaviness" of the fabric

- in an open concept space, you can change the paint colour anywhere you have a sharp corner. Its easier to change at an inside corner (where two walls meet) because your painting doesn't have to be super precise

- use a rug to add human scale to a large space

- in a single room, drapes should be all the same fabric but you can change up the application. Here, Sarah mixed roman blinds and drapery panels

- running a rug perpendicular to your bed means you'll have comfy walking space around the perimeter of your bed

- best location for a bed is on the wall you first see when you walk into the room

Lots of good tips this week! I think too the episodes are getting better. We got to see more of that Tommy & Sarah playfulness this week - and Tommy got a bit more input into the design this time around!

** Don't forget to tune into Sarah 101 next week. I think they're featuring Geeta's Dining Room, and as you may know, Geeta found out about the Sarah 101 casting call right here on this ol' blog :)