Graffiti complaints, cleanup efforts on rise

Graffiti complaints are on the rise across the USA, and some cities report as much as a doubling in calls about defaced property.Officials in large cities such as Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago, as well as smaller ones such Asheville, N.C., all report increases in graffiti cleanups in the past year or more.Cities aren't necessarily seeing a lot more graffiti, but police, politicians and the public are paying more attention to it, says Conni Kunzler of Keep America Beautiful, a coalition of groups supporting community beautification efforts."These sort of low-level, quality-of-life crimes are the things they see every day and that affect their neighborhoods," Kunzler says. "That awareness can often get the public to call in when they see graffiti."Some of the graffiti comes from gangs, Kunzler says, but as much as 85% comes from "tagging," an outgrowth of hip-hop culture in which the culprit leaves his or her signature. Taggers are trying to rebel or get attention, she says.Among the cities with sizeable increases in complaints and cleanups:Denver. Received more than 29,000 calls about defaced property last year, up 98% from the year before, and cleaned up 41% more graffiti, according to Regina Huerter, executive director of the city's Crime Prevention and Control Commission.Chicago. The city-run Graffiti Blasters finished 172,000 jobs in 2008, up 10% from the year before, sanitation department spokesman Matt Smith says. Cleanups are on pace to increase again this year, he says. Los Angeles. The city's Public Works Department removed graffiti from more than 31 million square feet of surfaces in the 2007-08 fiscal year, up 4% from the previous year and 48% from three years earlier, says Jonathan Powell, spokesman for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. This year seems to be keeping pace with recent years, he says.Burlington, Vt. Police Chief Michael Schirling says his city has seen such an increase in graffiti in the past 18 months that it has created a full-time job of removal coordinator and assigned a full-time detective to policing vandals. Asheville. City officials are considering what to do about their mounting problem. Police Capt. Tim Splain says calls related to graffiti increased an estimated 20%-30% in 2008 from the year before."It's starting to look like Mad Max in certain sections of town," says Anthony Cerrato, who owns Fiore's restaurant with his father. Graffiti covers the back door and the back of the building, he says.Not all cities are experiencing an increase.Complaints of graffiti in New York City fell 9% in 2008 from the year before, New York Police Department spokesman John Kelly says. Dallas police Senior Cpl. Janice Crowther says the problem there has diminished the past two years.The technology available to fight graffitists has increased, Kunzler says. Some cities are putting cameras in graffiti hot spots that send an alert and a GPS location to police when they spot someone, she says. Other police departments, she says, are scouring social websites to find culprits bragging about their handiwork.Schrader reports for the Asheville Citizen-Times in North Carolina.

Edward Clive

Continuing through the rest of the month at Holzmarktstrasse 3 in Berlin-Mitte is an installation of new works by Berlin artist Edward Clive entitled In The Future We Will Exercise For Fun. The ambitious suite of works contains several large sculptural display units; complete with shelfs, photographs, and small sculptures, they describe an uncanny, and occasionally monstrous relationship of the body to space. What makes the works so at home in the the large unfinished office space is the base quality of their materials. The works' plastic sheeting, unfinished drywall, and rudimentary armatures, are well-paired with the space's unpainted walls, exposed ventilation system, and raw concrete floor. While the works employs such ubiquitous materials, each work rewards the curious viewer as photographs, notes, and easily overlooked, well-made formal nuances abound. Found squatting behind walls or loitering in the far reaches of the space are a number of small sculptures. One entitled Lump Goddess (2008) is a squat and abstracted mutant figure composed of select found objects. Faceless, it sports four round cylinder legs and a single metallic claw, made from fake nails in their plastic case. Another similar work, Goth Or Hip-Hop (2009), conflates the aesthetics of science fiction with those of mid-century modernist sculpture. With fake nails, mustaches, teeth, and scars in a number of works, the aesthetic of costume cosmetics is central to the sculptures, making biological what would otherwise be inanimate. Along with a saran-wrap labyrinth containing a number of internet-found images relating to the body, Clive's work is both detritus from a grade-school science fair sometime in the far future and an acute description of how form constructs the body and space. Edward Clive (b. 1982) is an artist living and working in Berlin. He received his B.A. in Sculpture from the University of Brighton. His work has been previously exhibited at Keith Talent Gallery in London, BabelKunst in Trondheim, Norway, and ETC Gallery in Prague.

more Autumn pictures

The feijoas inside Poultry Palace. No flowers this season, but they have grown quite a bit since they have been inside the chook run. Come Spring, I think we will move the Palace and see how the feijoas get on then. The rampant garden. This is mostly mint and nasturtiums, but the convulvulus in there is rather less welcome. Chilli peppers. Just starting to turn orange. Probably time to harvest some this weekend. My favourite kale, cavolo nero, also known as tuscan kale and lacinato kale. I first saw this in a gardening magazine, towering over cottage garden flowers and was captivated. The blue-green colour is lovely and the shape quite different to curly kale. I planted this one in early summer and have been killing caterpillars from it as much as possible, saving it for winter use. I learnt after last year not planting my winter brassicas until Autumn. When growth was very limited, I started to see why neighbours had grown their silverbeet all summer and kept huge specimens for winter eating.

Slowly Going Into This

Location: St. Julian's, MaltaWake up at 3:00 PM. Fall out of bed. Drag a comb across my bed.Seeing where I really am.It's weird, now that I am off the grind I almost don't know what to do with myself. Despite all of my railing against normal society I feel most in its grasp. I am dependent on the rush, staying busy, of working all day, to keep me from going insane. If I am not working on something, or toward something, often I just get trapped in my own thoughts. I pace these halls.I'm not depressed anymore. I had problems with depression when I started this poker thing, or hell, adult life thing. Now I'm just kind of apathetic/content/happy. Hopefully working into something more.I feel content most of the time, but other times I wonder what the hell else I'm looking for. I never really feel satisfied. This time, I really have a lot of what I thought I needed, so I know its a personal problem. Always trying to patch holes that aren't there.The days have been lazy here. I wake up at 2:00-3:00ish. Sleeping 9 or 10 hours. I'm waiting for the water to get warm enough so I can swim. Since I can't yet I just do my normal jog, some push-ups. I'm getting skinnier and my arms don't look like twigs, which is nice, but I don't feel physically strong as I used to. I still feel physically stronger and in better shape than the average male but coming off the road and trying to work out every single day its a bit more obvious I've lost strength I used to have.Smoking doesn't help. Probably fucking with my lungs. Fuck it, let's make it clear, I don't smoke cigarettes, and I don't do hard drugs, and I really can't drink worth a shit, but I do enjoy hash and weed. For a long time I never did either, because I figured up till a certain age my brain was still developing, and also because I never really had any desire to do either. When people try to force me to do things it just pisses me off. It wasn't till I was in an environment where I was around it all the time in Seattle and nobody was pressuring me to do anything that I tried it. And yeah, I enjoy it.I always just said "smoking" in here because I thought maybe there might come a time when a site might consider me for a sponsorship and I didn't want it all over my blog, but you know what, fuck it, I don't have a prayer of ever getting a sponsorship from Stars, the only site that would give a shit. I speak only English, I'm white, and I'm American. I have no shot.I see where they are going with their family-friendly image, and its not really their fault society takes this view that me smoking trees up on my balcony to relax before I go back to work is worse than somebody drinking and getting in everybody's face, or being aggressive to some girl, but whatever. The latter behavior just happens, it's expected, but I'm some criminal.I'm sure my family is going to love reading this. Not that most of them don't already know about me, or that the stories of drunken debauchery worldwide weren't enough, but yeah, whatever.The nice thing about poker is I can just be whoever I want, wear what I want, do what I want, and I don't have to listen to anybody's shit. This world is full of people who settled, who want to burn you for not being in their same situation, in their same sinking ship. I got so fed up listening to other people's shit, other people's negativity.It's a huge reason I don't want to go back to the states. I have this expensive storage unit, I should just clear out and give away the things I have in there, because as expensive as they were they can't be worth how much it will cost me to store them for how long I am gone. I want to see my family and enjoy what I love in the states for a couple months then bail again.It's just materialism, and the type of people it breeds, I can't handle them. I love so much about the states but working yourself to death is so glamorized, and so many of the people are just so hollow to me. When I dated girls there it was like I was a commodity, a product, and once I wore off they moved on to the next guy. That was cool, I was doing my own thing too, but if I wanted a real relationship in Seattle forget about it.How much I make comes up so often. People are so fucking rude.I'd tell people I was a professional poker player and I'd get the 'oh, okay' and weird look. Like "you didn't play by the rules I've been taught since I was eight years old mister, if you want to be successful you need to go to school till your mid-twenties then work your ass off for someone else, then you'll get two weeks off a year and it will be grand."Then they'd see my place, and oh my god, suddenly I was this REALLY COOL PERSON. Dude, we should invite him over tonight.People see those interviews I do with Pokernews or whatever online and suddenly I'm someone valid. Zomg, an interview, like my favorite idols do!I'm going to be on TV now for the European Poker Tour! OMG. I must be a real pro now!Malta, if I'm meeting someone, there is a ton of materialism and bullshit here too, but I have to actually be a decent person.I just don't get it. People would come to my house and be like "wow you're doing well", and that was cool to hear, but I've never owned a car, I've never owned a watch. I just got a cell phone here for the first time in half a year. I go back home to the states and my friends working fucking retail jobs are buying Seven jeans and shit.I just want what I need at that moment. I spend too much on food. I spend too much going out. I spent a lot in Seattle on having a house that made me feel really comfortable to be in. Those things make me happy. I don't really buy expensive clothes, fancy electronics, cars, any of that because it doesn't do anything for me.Still, Malta has a ton of this too, materialism. Most places do. It's sad to me, the more I travel, the more I see my own country in everywhere.I could go on forever, just ranting, since I just woke up, but yeah what I meant to say at the beginning of that long-winded sidebar is I've been smoking more since I got back here. Not for any real reason, just because hash is so cheap here, and it's constantly available to me. It's just how I decompress. I sit out on this balcony and watch the boats come in. Unfortunately, I think it does make working out and everything harder. I don't really work less or anything. I don't feel that laziness or lack of motivation that other people talk about. Hell, I don't even get the munchies really.It's just been a weirder life. I really feel like the hard grind is over for now. I almost went broke and worked myself into the ground, because I took another flashy backing deal, where I could go so many places and play so many events. You don't even think about where its all going. The lack of freedom you really have in those deals. Yeah, you get to play everywhere, for millions of dollars, but its years of your life. It's a long term deal. It's not something you can half ass, or you'll become one of the guys who is stuck grinding forever to get out of unbelievable makeup.I'm really robust right now. I'm not one of these poker players who cares about the money incredibly and I think that actually hurts me, well, in regards to how successful I will be as a professional. I think I'm happier as a person. I'm only playing a few hours a day and actually doing really well at 1000 NL down to 200 NL, just 10-16 tabling 6-max, but I listen to some of these guys talk and they are just so into the money. I think I just like having a project that affords me so much freedom.Being backed cut that off from me. I love living in different places. I was going to have to stay pretty much in the United States for the next couple years if I wanted to be a tournament professional. That's all some of my friends want, and I wish them the best, but its so not me, at this time.I've been enjoying what I've been doing here. It's more stable and relaxing than rushing everywhere to play tournaments, but unfortunately not as exciting. I'm getting my 1,000 words a day written. I'm paranoid the book will read like shit but all I can do is keep hammering away and do what I want to do with it, make a book I would want to read.Cash is going really well, but its ridiculous how much of an upswing I'm on currently. Like I'm winning so many pots that could go either way and I'm coolering the shit out of people. I'm not getting cocky while things are going well.Other than that just getting chores done. Got a big list of them, doing one a day. Smoothed things over with the maid. Paid some bills. Got this place cleaned. Got infinity billion loads of laundry done. Called the dentist.Eating out a lot. Daniel and I go out a lot. When I'm not breaking things drunk we have a pretty good time.I think I'm going to start always working harder Sunday through Thursday then just party on Friday and Saturday.At some point, if Stars ever figures out how to make a fucking bank wire, I just may play some tournaments again.Reading a lot. Watching a lot of Samurai Champloo. Watched Cocaine Cowboys last night, and that was incredibly cool.Been doing some thinking about where I'm going after Malta. I've been doing a lot of reading into the Philippines and I'm really interested in living there. I kind of just want to get out of Europe for now. I've seen a ton of countries and lived in a lot of different places for the EPT this season, and I'm just kind of burned out here.There's a lot of culture and fun things to do, but it kind of lacks that insanity. I've had a ton of fun in Europe, but just kind of want a change.I get talked to like I'm a child a lot because I'm American, or just generally viewed as an uncultured ape, when I'm just different. Many Europeans have this belief that they are incredibly intelligent and cultured and I'm just some fucking idiot who has wandered into their space.Most people are cool, and I love how life is a little slower paced here and people take time to have meals and talk, but one person out of maybe 20 will just not like me for being American. They give me the "what a fucking idiot" look whenever I talk, sometimes when I'm just walking, they try to screw me over in clubs, they try to pick fights, they serve me last in restaurants, they just generally disrespect me, for nothing more than an accent.The women here are hot, but you have to have serious game. I botch shit all the time. In Latin America or Asia I can be sleep walking and still will probably get somewhere. Here if I'm not dressed right, move things a notch too slow or too fast, it just falls apart. Some women just love me for being American but a lot don't even give me a chance.That's not to say I haven't had a great time here. There's so much culture and history in Europe. I love the people and all the experiences I've had here. I've learned so much about the world, and had the time of my life. I just want a change.WSOP I'm still not decided on yet. The idea of two months of live poker and dealing with gamblers every day does not motivate me. I still am pretty sure I am going to go see my family though so I might just roll up with 20k and see what happens. If I'm not feeling it might just fly home.I want to go to Amsterdam to mellow out for a while. One of the few places I haven't been to in Europe yet that I want to see before I bail out.Currently Listening To:Lydia - This December; It's One More And I'm FreeThe Gathering - HomeReef The Lost Cauze - A Vicious CycleRammstein

why I'm so tired tonight.

It's hard to believe I received the formal offer letter just five days ago. It seems like a much longer time than that has passed, and it also seems hard to believe that there are still three weeks to go. Until I got the formal offer I refused to write anything down, plan-wise, lest I jinx it. But I was keeping a mental list of things which needed to be done, a list that turns out to have been quite detailed and long because when I actually wrote it down, it took up two pages.I've jumped right into it, paranoid about leaving things till the last minute. Here's what I've done in the last five days:1.) Made appointments for the cats to get current on their rabies shots and get micro-chipped.2.) Bought the cats safety collars (break-away) for the trip so they can wear their rabies tags and new ID tags, which I also got. Because micro-chipping alone isn't enough to assuage Mama Cat's paranoia about one of them getting lost along the way.3.) Bought the cats carriers for the trip. Minx, Morsel and Thundercat all get along well, and will ride together in the gigantic Sof-Krate I bought for them. It's actually a soft-sided dog crate for larger breed dogs, but will nicely accomodate three cats with room to move about and lie down. Miss Lilly, since she is a calico and therefore does not play well with others gets her own crate, also large enough to move around a little. Each cage will hold small food and water dishes. I also found the coolest corner litter pans, meant for ferret cages, which will fit in each. Not, of course, that they will be used but it seemed only polite to provide them. Actually, they may use them -- when Baby Boy was first diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy he spent some time in an oxygen cage, kindly donated by a friend. It's basically a large dog cage, sealed in with plastic sheeting with a hole for a hose that runs to an oxygen concentrator. I used to put a small pan of litter in there for him, and he'd just put his hindquarters in and use it.4.) Made arrangements to return said oxygen cage to said friend. She, like myself, is now caring for a second heart kitty, but like my Lilly, her cat is still asymptomatic as well. So it's been in my storage space for two years. Back it goes!5.) Researched the route to Albuquerque, and found pet friendly hotels for the cats ... okay, there seems to be a cat-related trend going on here. Anyway, while a lot of hotels are pet friendly, we're somewhat restricted because "pet-friendly" usually means "friendly to one or two cats" and I have four. So it's places like Econolodge and Motel 6 and other places which have exterior corridors which make it easier to sneak in additional cats.6.) Got my car lubed, oiled, filtered, had the belts checked, tired balanced and rotated (they're new-ish), the alignment checked, and the A/C recharged. If you live in eastern Massachusetts, go to Hogan Tire for your automotive needs, specifically the North Beverly location. They rock. It needs one more thing, a new catalytic converter -- though I could in theory let this go -- which gets done next Friday.7.) Called my bank and worked out when to get new accounts and all that -- they have a branch in Albuquerque, so no problems there.8.) Packed up my kitchen, sorted for "keep" and "yard sale."9.) Packed up my living room knickknack thingies.10.) Cleaned out one of my storage spaces, sorted things for "keep" and "yard sale."11.) Sorted out my 400+ books, got rid of most that I will not be keeping via donation.12.) With my mother's help (thanks Mom!) took my bed apart and brought it outside for whoever might want it. It's an old wooden platform bed, which would fetch nothing at a yard sale, and this basically emptied out the bedroom, which we cleaned. This way, I can store all the yard sale stuff in there which gives me a lot more room. I put the mattress on my futon, so I'll be sleeping in the living room from now on. I also disassembled and threw out the old cat tree. Which someone picked up right away. Even though it was raining that day and even though it's four years old and the sisal has mostly been ripped away. But I did vacuum off the worst of the cat hair before I chucked it.13.) Got the yard sale permit. They're free, but in a small town with minimal serious crime, the police actually do check to make sure you have the permit and will shut you down if you don't have it.14.) Brought home some boxes from work and two bags of foam packing peanuts which, fortuitously, were in said boxes.15.) Started training the three students in the lab to do all those assays and cells stuff I do now.16.) Brought some stuff to Mom's for temporary (really, I promise) storage. Actually, much of it was hers to start with. She'll send it along after we move into our new apartment.17.) Got a new apartment. Actually, Dancing in Socks Guy did this. His current apartment is a smallish one bedroom, which we might have gotten away with if it had just been us. But, there are of course the six cats to consider, so we wanted a two bedroom. Luckily, thanks to the end-of-semester student exodus, there is a ton of stuff available at the moment, but we really wanted to stay in the area he's in now. It's literally right across the street from the university and less than two miles from where I'll be working. This could have waited till I got there, but school starts up again in August, which means things start getting rented in July. Luckily, a two-bedroom in the complex where he is now opened up which made it so easy -- he's already a tenant there, so there was no fuss, just a small transfer fee. Sweet! Of course, this means we spend three days driving across the country, have one day to recover and then have to move to a new place. But it's literally fifty feet from where he lives now, and his friends will help. They'll have to because I'll be at work that day. Not a full day, just HR stuff. Oh, darn.18.) I also got my signed offer letter and non-disclosure agreements signed and mailed to the new job.19.) I also resigned my per diem home-health aide job. I was actually working Sunday nights for them, on a pretty regular basis, which I guess makes it more of a part-time job. My last day for them is the fifteenth. I will miss them, they're a great agency.20.) Got a copy of my birth certificate -- actually, Mom did (thanks again, Mom!). Although she did ask, "Will they let me get a copy of your certificate?" To which I answered, "Did you give birth to me?" I lose my birth certificates all the time, mainly because replacing it has never been a big deal since I live ten miles from where I was born. This is about to change.21.) Found my social security card and the title to my car! I filed away the loan maturity stuff the finance company mailed me when I paid off my car, and couldn't remember if the title was in there, an issue because I'll need it when I change my registration, and getting a copy of a car title in Massachusetts is a uniquely challenging experience. But there it was.All that. In five days. And there's still so much more to do!Elle

Ackman's desperate Target fightFelix Salmon

There's another of Bill Ackman's song-and-dance shows today: he's waging what the FT calls “one of the largest and most expensive proxy battles in US corporate history” against Target, and eliciting some pretty compelling pushback from Bill George in the process. George is no lightweight: he's the former CEO of Medtronic, is a professor at Harvard Business School, and is a board member of both Exxon Mobil and Goldman Sachs. The Ackman fight is confusing, especially given the very peculiar quote he gave to the FT: “This is not a poorly managed company,” he told the Financial Times in an interview. “This is really just about improving the board.” I really have no idea what this is supposed to mean. No one spends $15 million on a monster proxy battle just because he thinks that one set of independent directors will be marginally better at giving direction to existing management than the current set of independent directors. But Ackman has backed himself into a corner. When he started his fund, Ackman had all manner of bright ideas about how Target could achieve better results through financial engineering. But the world was different then, and much more amenable, in principle, to such suggestions. Today, talk of spin-offs and lease-backs is extremely unfashionable: we're living in a back-to-basics business culture, and that's no bad thing. The problem for Target is that Ackman still has a fund to run, and pushing financial engineering is the only way that he knows to try to justify that fund's existence. The fund might have been a bright idea when it was set up in 2007, but not all bright ideas turn out well, and this is one which turned out badly. So we get mission creep: Ackman is now targeting the board, rather than management, for reasons which are increasingly vague. Most investors, if their investment in a company doesn't work out, sell it and move on. But Ackman can't do that, because he's running a single-stock fund. So he's liable to be an expensive annoyance to Target for the foreseeable future. He has very little choice.

David Bowie 1972 The Year of the Spiders BBC Sessions Various Dates & Location @ 320

THE SOUND OF THE SEVENTIES WITH BOB HARRIS (18th May 1972)[Maida Vale Studios, London, UK]1. Hang Onto Yourself2. Ziggy Stardust3. Waiting For The Man4. Queen Bitch5. Five YearsTOP GEAR TV SHOW WITH JOHN PEEL (16th May 1972)[Maida Vale Studios, London, UK]6. White Light White Heat7. Making Believe8. Hang Onto Yourself9. Suffragette City10. Ziggy StardustTHE JOHNNY WALKER SHOW (22nd May 1972)[The Aeolian Hall, London, UK]11. Starman12. Space Oddity13. Changes14. Oh You Pretty ThingsTHE SOUND OF THE SEVENTIES WITH BOB HARRIS (23rd May 1972)[Maida Vale Studios, London, UK]15. Andy Warhol16. Lady Stardust17. White Light White Heat18. Rock'n'Roll Suicide http://rapidshare.com/files/100792105/Bowie1972p1.rarhttp://rapidshare.com/files/100794648/Bowie1972p2.rar