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Now I know that feeding these meters also feeds the Salvation Army and that’s not an organization the public should be supporting. According to an article in AZ Central, “The 11 bright-red meters were installed three years ago as the basis of the Change for Change program, the brainchild of Tempe Leadership Class XXIII.” They’re highly recognizable and you’ll probably know what I’m talking about the moment that you heard about them. Initially, I’ve been somewhat ambivalent about them. I enjoy that someone in Tempe actually wants to think of doing something good for the homeless population and comfort the Mill rats. However, further reading of the article reveals that the proceeds from the meters go to Tempe Community Action Agency, Tumbleweed Center for Youth Development and HomeBase Youth Services—and the Salvation Army. Right now, the Salvation Army promotes evil, bigoted views involving members of the LGBT community—a notable number of whom are represented within the homeless population in Tempe—and this organization also lauds themselves for spending some of their money on their bigoted behavior. A Facebook page popped up last year to make obvious that this behavior isn’t welcome in a free country like the United States and that they’re prejudiced against a segment of the very population they claim to seek to aid speaks volumes about the care we can expect them to give to the subject. The homeless population is better off if you give your money to HomeBase, Tumbleweed, or many others who do not have a reputation of anti-civil rights policies. Your money is better spent actually promoting the welfare of homeless individuals and our community in general than it is supporting an organization that cannot bring itself to treat all its charges with fairness regardless of their sexual orientation. Worse, the Salvation Army’s high level leaders have gone as far as to request that they be exempt from antidiscrimination laws from when receiving money from the Federal government; and when faced with being forced not to discriminate, they threatened to stop work for the homeless in New York City. Now, I’ve spent my share of time slumming it with the Mill rats for most of my life. I love these people. They are my people and I enjoy my time with them. We can do better than to fund a bigoted organization when there are many others who don’t have a civil rights and discrimination issue that they’re fighting to keep (using the money we give them to aid the homeless to do it.) Until the Change for Change program stops giving money to the Salvation Army or the Salvation Army cleans up its act I will not be putting money into those meters. Neither should you. [Image credit Deirdre Hamill/The Arizona Republic, via AZCentral.com] |
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Tomorrow, the Stop Online Privacy Act heads to a vote in the House Judiciary Committee. This much-omened act places a multitude of cherished traditions of free discourse in the United States on the chopping block of corporate copyright with the law hovering overhead like the axe of Damocles. Of course, numerous people who should know what censorship can do to the world have begun to rise up against this terrible legislation. Amid them are journalists, writers, and even the makers of the World of Warcaft. In honor of this—and to spread awareness of it—writer Kyt Dotson has put up the short story Dragon Tamers censored. To uncensor it, you must send an e-mail to representatives about why they shouldn’t pass laws like this. As a taxi cab driver, I listen to people speak every day. I have a strange glimpse into their lives and what makes them tick. Many on my beat have jobs that use the Internet on a regular basis and some of them spend most of the ride tapping away at their mobile phones on social media sites. Instead of providing good and proper tools to fight what is seen as copyright infringement and piracy, the Stop Online Piracy Act will give tools of censorship to giant corporate copyright holders. The United States does not need this tyranny of copyright; the law already provides a powerful resource for copyright holders both inside and outside of the US Internet. Say no to censorship. Link, via the EFF; and Dragon Tamers (censored) by Kyt Dotson. |
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Every now and again, I look around YouTube to see how the community of the Internet feels about our red bricks. This one seems to be made by a well-voiced narrator and some lovely editing using background sounds and static images. Take a gander. Link, via YouTube. Head over to YouTube and leave some comments too, let the producer know that Mill Ave has fans. |
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Now, according to an article in The State Press, Michael Monti has added yet another accolade to his political belt: he’s been endorsed by now Tempe City Mayor Hugh Hallman as a candidate in the mayoral race for the city.
Humbling to say the least—I didn’t even know that Monti was seeking the mayorship. I guess that shows how much attention I pay to most of Tempe politics; at least that which doesn’t directly affect Mill Avenue. Looking at his opponents, I’d say he’s got quite a run in front of him. Two thorough politicians in the form of Tempe city councilwoman Linda Spears—serving from 1994 to 1998—and son of past Tempe City mayor and former U.S. congressman Harry Mitchell, Tempe councilman Mark Mitchell. In a sort of way, it might be interesting to have an entrepreneur rather than a politician in the mayor’s seat for a while; but looking at the sort of path the city has made for Mill Avenue, I’m not sure anyone is going to be ideal for that seat. Truthfully, I’m going to be rooting for Monti because in a lot of ways he’s one of ours. For good or ill, he’s been part of the Ave for a very long time and although this still divorces him from the day-to-day problems that have been heaped down by the city’s decisions; it also means that he knows some of their effects. It means also that he may have a better boots-on-the-ground strategy for fixing it. If he wins, I’ll probably be one of the first to park my cab at La Casa Vieja to go in and congratulate him. |
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Tomorrow, Oct 15, Occupy Phoenix will be preparing their occupation of Cesar Chavez Plaza, 201 W. Washington St. I am offering a ride to several of my friends who will be joining you for the occupation event. These protests have been changing lives for weeks now and it’s obvious that a mark is being made. I won’t be able to occupy with you—except perhaps for a few hours at a time—but I’ll be with you in spirit. Stand strong. From another one of the 99%. |
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It looks like Occupy Wall Street has come all the way down to the Sonoran Desert and even visited the red bricks of Mill Ave. Saturday evening a few dozen protestors gathered right in front of P.F. Cheng’s restaurant—you might know it: the spot with all the weird block-shaped artwork sticking out of the ground. MyFoxPhoenix.com ran a video addressing the protest (however, it cuts off right in the middle of some woman’s speech…) From the article accompanying the video,
Occupy meme protests have spread across the entire United States. While the initial protest emerged in New York a few blocks away from Wall Street, I have seen reports of protests at Seattle, WA (#OccupySeattle), Portland, OR (#OccupyPortland), Boston, MA (#OccupyBoston), among many others. One is even planned for Phoenix, AZ (#OccupyPhoenix) that involves a march that will start next Friday, wind through downtown and then finally come to rest and occupy Ceasar Chavez Park. As I haven’t been able to get down there this week (most of my fares have me driving through north Phoenix lately) I’m not sure if #OccupyTempe is still across from the newly built CVS. Don’t bring your own chairs people: City of Tempe apparently has an ordinance against itRecently, a few friends of mine decided to run a D&D session on Mill Avenue–last Friday in fact–according to their accounts, they were approached by three bicycle police officers. They were told that the City of Tempe does not allow people to sit on unaffixed chairs on public property. The officers then went on to also tell a nearby busker with a guitar that he could not use a chair either. I am told they’d set up three chairs, a table, and some tabletop gaming paraphernalia in front of the US Post Office on Mill Ave and 5th St. The game continued even after dismantling the chairs and table–although on the ground instead. For the curious, I’m told that it’s a floating 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons game. Questioned, one of the participants stated, “We just want to bring a little weirdness to Mill Avenue.” The spokesperson police officer nodded, then responded, “Oh, it certainly doesn’t need any more of that.” As a fan of Mill Ave, I think the cop in question certainly shows little regard for what is good and proper weirdness. Does anyone else believe that this police attention to chairs on Mill Avenue—which had not happened to previous D&D sessions with chairs on the Ave—might be part of a reaction to attempting to avoid an Occupy movement to appear in Tempe? Perhaps the officers have received a memo to be on the lookout for people with chairs and shoo them away (or at least their chairs.) The timing seems suspicious. |
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We had a bit of a rain splash down on us this week (following a bit of a dust storm) on Oct 4, 2011. Flickr user videoal got a beautiful photograph of Mill Ave after the rain showing the slick shine on the road reflecting neon lights and headlamps alike. Rain in the desert is a cleansing experience—it blows away the hard heat of the day, rattled on our windows, and brings a sudden bloom of green to otherwise empty lots and land. It’s also a little bit dangerous. A multitude of car accidents happen in the first five minutes of a rain when the oil and the dirt pressed into the road makes it slick and slippery. Arizonans aren’t used to rain, they’re bad at driving in it. Increase your stopping distance when it’s raining, people. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been driving my cab and had someone tailgating me on the freeway while it’s raining because I wasn’t driving 10 miles over the speed limit. I know my tires will stop me in time on a wet road—I have a mechanic check them regularly because I’m constantly on the road and it’s a safety issue—and I still won’t drive too close to someone else when the road is wet. Everyone else: enjoy the rain. Deserts don’t get a lot of this. Link, via Flickr. |
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Some of that crime, of course, takes the fashion of vandalism. This happens to be the problem Mill Ave is facing this year regarding the lights that get hung over the Yule season to make the trees look like they’ve been dusted with snow. According to an article in the State Press, Nancy Hormann, president and executive director of Downtown Tempe Community, Inc., spoke in front of a city quality of life council meeting to address the problems vandalism has brought to the red bricks,
I like driving down Mill Ave during the winter holiday and seeing those lights on the trees, it reminds me of distant days in the northern US when I experienced fog and light. Arizona isn’t for wont of fog, so much, so instead I use my imagination. It strikes me that vandalism will happen. It saddens me that it was possible for $4,000 to happen from people just yanking down the lights and fixtures. Yes, most of the population has a tendency to act like toddlers and hang off everything they can—including the lampposts—but there’s no reason to rip down strings of lights wrapped around trees or take a swing at an unlit snowflake. I am not a fan of The Festival Of Lights. It’s a gigantic waste of electricity, even if it is essentially a marketing gimmick for APS. Yes, it’s pretty and interesting and brings interest to Mill Ave; however, we could do it much better with other things. In fact, the lights on Mill Ave are themselves expensive to operate and we might want to look into alternatives that use less electrical power for a similar effect. The General Manager of Blondie’s Sports Bar and Grill on Fifth Street and Mill Avenue, Kevin Rodgers, weighed in on how drunk people behave on Mill Ave. “These people were ripping the decorations down, for no other reason but to be destructive,” he said. As a result, the city will focus on decorations that are harder to damage.
With luck, we’ll see the lights along Mill Ave return on the Saturday after Thanksgiving until they’re extinguished again after December 31. This has been a tradition for Tempe and Mill for the last 20 years. I’ll see you then. |
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According to MTV News, there’s enough truth to the matter of his arrest to comment on it,
Today I learned that there are misdemeanor DUI charges. I must say, although as a cabdriver I take a lot of drunk people home late at night and end up driving with people still sloshed and on the road, and I’m surprised that there is any DUI charge ever that can be considered a misdemeanor. My understanding of the law is such that I cannot comment on this…but what? Last I heard, he bailed out of a Tempe jail and received another order to appear. We also learn that Gordon grew up in Arizona, he’s a Native American actor belonging to the Hualapai tribe, and he’s also a Mormon. He belongs to the same chapter as Twilight author Stephanie Meyer, who deputized him into his role. He plays a werewolf named “Embry Call”. |
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The flour mill is our best and brightest historic structure right off Mill Ave between the main drag and the Tempe Town Lake. Constructed in the 1870s, it’s been a strange edifice that has soaked up every sight, sound, and smell of Mill culture—so much in fact, the street itself is named after it. As a historic structure, it’s been defended from the certainty of being crushed beneath the wheels of the Backhoe-of-Progress and has stood there abandoned and derelict for many years. In fact, when I started taking fares on Mill Ave in my cab, it’s one of the first landmarks I recall using to orient myself. According to Benjamin Leatherman over at the Phoenix New Times blog, we may be seeing some dramatic changes coming to the old mill within weeks. Decisions that will affect the future of the structure have finally come to fruition and even Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman is talking about it. As such, we can expect a renovation by Valley architect Bill Tonnesen who intends to transmogrify the old mill into a space for events and a Tempe history museum. Something that I’ve been arguing for since I first put foot on the red bricks.
Amid the attractions that should attach themselves to the newly reconstructed mill, we can expect the Tempe Urban Garden. The garden will move itself from its current location on Forest Avenue and will even include some picnic tables and benches. Perhaps the mill will become a romantic sweet spot for people to pause while moving between the Tempe Town Lake and the Ave proper. As the place is being turned into a museum, the city expects to leave some of the ancient machinery in place as well as other fixtures as part of the display. “The goal is to turn it into an operating museum,” Hallman says. “Opening these windows to allow visitors to view inside the building and the historic equipment to show people what’s been going on inside the mill for more than a century.” There have been numerous attempts to do this to the Hayden Mill in the past, and yet we’ve seen them all fall by the wayside due to politics, economic recessions, and just bad planning. It’s been over a decade since anyone did anything with the structure and it’s about time that we actually set about preserving it. |
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It’s been a long low legend for Mill Avenue, the way that the Hayden Flour Mill has lurked on the periphery outside of the scintillating lights of the Ave itself. As a result, it’s something that I have been watching with heavy eyes from through my windscreen for some time now. It’ll be an interesting fact to put this one in the rearview, but first I’m going to have to see where this goes.