January 13, 2015

Detroit: Gabriel Richard Building Promises Over 100 Future Apartments

from Curbed Detroit:




As happy renters flood into fresh apartments at the Whitney and the Ashley, another empty office building is defecting to Team Residential. Take a look at the Gabriel Richard Building, a former Archdiocese of Detroit property kitty-corner from the Book Cadillac hotel. Built in 1914, the Gabriel Richard has 10 floors dressed in terra cotta. With a conversion into 110 apartments on the horizon, the building is under contract to be sold for $3.2M.

The buyer, Barbat Holdings, has been doing an awfully good impression of a Dan Gilbert shopping spree. With this purchase, the Barbat Machine will have gobbled up two office buildings, a low-income apartment tower, and part of a hotel since early 2014. Barbat's promised renovation investment now totals $26.5M, with 388 market-rate apartments planned. We'll be excited to see the first one.


http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2015/01/gabriel-richard-building-promises-over-100-future-apartments.php

January 13, 2015

Selma (cartoon)

http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/selma_20150110

January 13, 2015

Could the Oil Bust Last?

Could the Oil Bust Last?
Posted on January 13, 2015 by Yves Smith


Yves here. A few weeks ago, conventional wisdom was that oil prices might sink lower, but once excess supply was removed from the market, prices would return to the $80 to $100 a barrel level. Now that consensus view is starting to crack.

By Nick Cunningham, a Washington DC-based writer on energy and environmental issues. You can follow him on twitter at @nickcunningham1. Originally published at OilPrice

The oil industry has experienced boom and busts before, but the depths to which oil prices have plunged have surprised everyone. Could the oil bust now persist much longer than many think?

It is not just oil that has seen a bust. Over the last decade and a half, the global economy has witnessed a massive commodity boom, with prices rising for all sorts of raw materials, including gold, iron ore, oil, gas, copper, wheat, corn, and more. But the commodity “super-cycle” appears to be over, with vast new supplies having come online in the last few years.

As prices rose through the 2000’s, multinational companies extracting all sorts of commodities planned billion dollar projects. With new mines, new oil and gas fields, and other commodity supplies hitting the market at the same time, a bust has ensued.

“Supply has been outstripping demand not because demand has been particularly weak, but because there was too much supply,” Stephen Briggs, a commodities analyst at BNP Paribas SA, told The Wall Street Journal. “It looks like this won’t change anytime soon.”

The oil bust has captured worldwide attention in a way that crashing coal and copper prices have not. And for now, the bust may here to stay, at least a bit longer than many anticipated. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/01/oil-bust-last.html

January 13, 2015

Clint Eastwood treats Iraq like Iwo Jima. Will Americans really go for this horseshit?

from In These Times:


American Sniper: Guns, God and Gallons of Testo’
Clint Eastwood treats Iraq like Iwo Jima. Will Americans really go for this horseshit?

BY MICHAEL ATKINSON


Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper perfectly epitomizes a certain kind of American horseshit: the militaristic anthem thinly disguised as a sob story, the spray of nationalism scented with humanist rosewater. In telling the potentially resonant life story of Chris Kyle—a Navy SEAL who survived four tours in Iraq, where he reputedly became “the deadliest sniper in American history,” with 160 confirmed kills—Eastwood picks gently at the scabs of war, never questioning the wound or the society that inflicted it.

It’s all guns, God and gallons of testo’, delivered in the check-box fashion of the modern biopic. We follow Kyle from deer-shootin’, schoolyard-brawlin’ Texas tyke to aimless-n’-wild twentysomething (enter Bradley Cooper) to buffed-up SEAL recruit, and then it’s off to the circus. Kyle’s unit gets the deployment call, wouldn’t you know it, right in the middle of his wedding reception.

Eastwood treats Iraq like Iwo Jima, an unambiguous battle against Evildoers, with Kyle an honest-to-God American hero picking off headshots from rooftops. Nowhere in sight is the simple awareness that we were the invaders. This is another one of those movies, like Zero Dark Thirty, that makes me worry for the country, if only because it implicitly extols the virtues of xenophobic slaughter in lieu of even a glancing awareness of political facts.

Sure, Kyle is haunted by having to pop women and children from hundreds of safe yards away, but he’s Us, after all—a little guilt with the badassery is our holy burden. The Iraqis, on the other hand, are black-clad, sneering, Nazi-ish monsters, opening kids’ skulls with hand drills and hiding in shadowy villain dens. Like a superhero, Kyle even has an evil counterpart, a handsome arch-nemesis sniper who dares to shoot American soldiers. Cue the Act Three triumph via a slo-mo bullet and an inspirational exhortation after a comrade dies, “Do it for Biggles!” ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/17515/american_sniper_guns_god_and_gallons_of_testo

January 13, 2015

How Free Is Free Speech in America?

from truthdig:


How Free Is Free Speech in America?

Posted on Jan 13, 2015
By Bill Blum


If the terror attacks in Paris have a silver lining, it is that they have sparked an outpouring of support for freedom of speech across the globe and across the ideological spectrum. According to The Associated Press, even Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has weighed in on the side of enlightenment, saying “that radicals have done more to disparage the Muslim prophet than journalists who published satirical cartoons mocking Islam.”

Here in the U.S., the outrage has been virtually nonstop, expressed by media outlets, satirists and comedians, and in a marked display of solidarity, by Republican and Democratic party leaders.

As a nation, we are rallying around the First Amendment. To quote Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman from an Op-Ed published Friday:

“We in Western societies almost always defer to the wisdom of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who said the basis of the First Amendment is ‘not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.’ ”

.....(snip).....

The uncomfortable truth is that here, as elsewhere around the world, freedom of expression has never come easily and is nearly always threatened in one way or another. From the Salem witch trials of the 1690s to the Red Scares of the mid-20th century and the Pentagon Papers trial of Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo in the early 1970s, we have persecuted and prosecuted those whose ideas we fear. Intolerance and suppression of speech—along with the promotion of views favorable to dominant elites—have been hallmark American traditions.

.....(snip).....

3. Prosecuting Whistle-Blowers: The prosecution of whistle-blowers did not end with Ellsberg. Indeed, it will continue this month with the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who is accused under the Espionage Act of leaking information to New York Times reporter James Risen that the CIA provided flawed nuclear weapons data to Iran in 2000. As The Guardian and other publications have noted, “Only ten people in American history have been charged with espionage for leaking classified information, seven of them under Barack Obama.”

Chelsea Manning was convicted under the act in 2013. NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden awaits a similar fate should he return to the U.S. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_free_is_free_speech_in_america_20150113

January 13, 2015

ESPN.com's tennis columnists suck ...... 15 paragraphs of nothing from Peter Bodo

Same old bosses, Fed, Sharapova still rule
By Peter Bodo | ESPN.com


Judging from the first week of play in the new year, 2015 is less likely to be a year of sweeping change than one of business as usual. Sure, top-ranked and top-seeded Novak Djokovic was upset at Qatar. But isn’t that what Ivo Karlovic does for a living -- record the occasional resounding win, mostly at lower-tier events?

The reality is that Roger Federer winning his 1,000th match (the Brisbane final) was a more fitting comment on the state of the game. So let’s take a look at the evidence:

Juan Martin del Potro pulled out of Brisbane to kick off the new year, still experiencing pain in his left wrist despite having had surgery on the joint nine months ago. It just goes from bad to worse for the poor guy. The 2009 US Open champ, Delpo is a right-hander (but he uses his left on that two-handed backhand). He missed almost all of 2010 with a bad right wrist, and pulled the plug on 2014 in February of last year (this time because of his left wrist). Now the he’s down to No. 137.

The bulletin-board quote lives on in tennis. Borna Coric, a gifted 18-year-old eager beaver who has yet to win his 10th ATP main tour match, said something he may have trouble backing up. "I think my game is quite similar to Djokovic's,” the Croatian said at the Chennai tournament. “I move well, I don't miss many balls; I'm a fighter and my backhand is my best shot. Currently, I'm the best of my generation.” I’m not sure how he defines a generation, but I like his enthusiasm. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://espn.go.com/blog/peter-bodo/post/_/id/950/same-old-bosses-fed-sharapova-still-rule

January 12, 2015

Idea of reform is no assault on police

Idea of reform is no assault on police

By Dianne Williamson
[email protected]


One day, when I was a cub reporter working the police beat, the chief called me to his office and closed the door.

For the next 30 minutes, he proceeded to harangue me and blast my reporting about a controversial incident involving the cops. He told me I was irresponsible and untrustworthy. He said no one in the department would talk with me anymore. He insisted it was my duty as a journalist to portray the police favorably.

Then he dropped the line familiar to any reporter who's ever covered the police: "You're either with us, or against us."

.....(snip).....

Most police officers have fine qualities, but possessing thick skins aren't among them. That hasn't changed from my days on the cop beat, and I sympathize with the bullied de Blasio, who committed the cardinal sin of empathizing with the black community.

.....(snip).....

But to acknowledge that improvements are needed is not akin to turning against the cops. Addressing the ongoing divide, Jon Stewart said it best.

"By the way ... you can truly grieve for every officer who's been lost in the line of duty in this country, and still be troubled by cases of police overreach. Those two ideas are not mutually exclusive. You can have great regard for law enforcement and still want them to be held to high standards." ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.telegram.com/article/20150110/COLUMN01/301109725/0

January 12, 2015

AZ: Phoenix Transit Workers May Strike During Super Bowl

Phoenix bus and airport shuttle drivers may strike during the Super Bowl, an official with the union representing them said.

Michael Cornelius, lead negotiator for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1433, said in an email Friday that Phoenix should anticipate a strike if workers and service companies don't agree on a contract. The last contract expired at the end of June.

The union represents more than 300 employees that staff Phoenix buses and rental car shuttles around Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The city contracts with First Transit for drivers for Phoenix-area bus routes that serve thousands of riders. The union overwhelmingly rejected a contract offer from First Transit on Dec. 30, the Arizona Republic reports...

Read the complete article at http://tucson.com/news/state-and-regional/phoenix-transit-workers-may-strike-during-super-bowl/article_08c3b7b1-643e-58dc-8d99-5e78c4380127.html

January 12, 2015

Drowning Cajun Country

from In These Times:


Drowning Cajun Country
Will the eaters of étouffée disappear along with the Louisiana bayou?

BY KENDRA PIERRE-LOUIS


On first glance, the Bayou Corne sinkhole doesn’t look like much. The 32-acre rent in the earth in the thick of Louisiana’s Cajun Country can easily be mistaken for a lake. The only hint of something amiss is a 40-inch-thick empty pipe floating on the water’s surface—and the fact that I must wear a life vest on dry land (although I’m not sure what protection the vest will afford if the ground collapses).

To see the true impact of the sinkhole, one must travel half a mile west to the town of Belle Rose. The streets, like Sauce Picante Lane and Jambalaya Street, stand eerily empty. Most of the town’s 350 inhabitants have fled.

The sinkhole formed after the collapse, two years ago, of a vast underground salt dome mine operated by Texas Brine. Salt domes are injected with fresh water through surface wells—a little-known cousin of fracking—and the resultant brine is pumped to the surface to help transform oil into plastic, leaving a cavern behind. One such cavern, Oxy Geismar No. 3, gave way after it was mined too close to its edge.

When Oxy Geismar No. 3 caved in, it didn’t just create the Bayou Corne sinkhole—it also released fumes from 8,000 barrels of trapped crude oil that were noxious at best, toxic at worst. Texas Brine and the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security found the air quality to be safe, but residents believe it wasn’t monitored quickly enough to know.

Because of the threat of the sinkhole’s expansion, the town is under a mandatory evacuation. But resident Dennis Landry, Cajun by birth, is staying put. His voice thickens as he explains, “If you’re from South Louisiana, you want to live on the river or lake or bayou [the marshy outlet of a lake or river]. … It would be virtually impossible to replace a paradise like this.” .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/17450/drowning_cajun_country

January 12, 2015

No One Is Safe From Backlash When Criticizing the Police, Even the Police

No One Is Safe From Backlash When Criticizing the Police, Even the Police

Sunday, 11 January 2015 09:21
By Crystal Shepeard, Care2 | Report


In early December, an Instagram photo of Richmond, California Police Chief Chris Magnus began to circulate online. The uniformed police chief was holding a sign with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter during a peaceful protest. He, along with the Deputy Chief, had gathered with the 150 protestors outside a community center in one of hundreds of similar protests that had happened since two grand juries had failed to indict officers in the killing of unarmed black men in Missouri and New York City.

Under Chief Magnus’ watch, the police department had averaged only one police officer involved shooting since 2007. The record of no officer-involved killings since 2008 had been broken just two months before when a suspect was killed during a pursuit and subsequent struggle with an officer. The chief was so revered that the suspect’s family invited him to the funeral.

Nevertheless, when the photo appeared, the local police officers association took offense, saying that his participation in the protest while in uniform was a violation of law (it wasn’t). They were disappointed that the chief had chosen to participate in a political statement. As the backlash continued, Chief Magnus responded by asking, “When did it become a political act to acknowledge that ‘black lives matter’ and show respect for the very real concerns of our minority communities?”

.....(snip).....

Even the media is not immune in the rare cases it acknowledges there are real issues.

A cartoon that appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times in Pennsylvania depicted children lined up to speak to Santa Claus. The children, who were black, smiled as Santa was holding the hand of the first one in line to pull him toward him. The little boy’s Christmas wish is for Santa to “keep us safe from police.” The cartoon by nationally syndicated cartoonist Chris Bratt incensed the president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 in Pennsylvania, who, after condemning the paper and the media to hell, demanded an apology for the racist cartoon. The paper nor the cartoonist apologized, the latter highlighting in an editorial that the venomous letter only highlighted how law enforcement viewed so many with disdain. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28474-no-one-is-safe-from-backlash-when-criticizing-the-police-even-the-police