2005.3.28=1[#87]:4703.2.19[#48/60]: 1)Ecotopia. 2)US Cracking?

Cloudy sun short rain/mild: up 7:20, KMT offical visit to China for the first time, and tsunami again (8.5 instead of 9.0) 10:40 drove mom to Dr. Chu's office for 4.15=5 3pm, to Wash Hosp for 5.26=4 2pm CT Scan then medical records for Ju to receive tel in a few days, walked to cafeteria $8.90 rich lunch/$1.25 good sweet bread, to Dr. Cheng's for 2 of us to talk with Mrs. Cheng without any benefit, to Rite Aid, to FoodMaxx, then o.h., back to house smoothed side yard then front near for one hour? until Mei/Jyun disruption home, walked back for cell phone. Bread, cracker & soy milk, and emails, now 8:54 blog here for Ecotopia topic. Now Jyun for computer, so 11:59pm, finishing this. Made up missed "The Story of A-Tieh" so off tv 1:45! 1) "Endangered Ecotopia: It's three hours south in Oregon, but is now a dream at risk", by Randy Gragg [ architecture and urban design critic for The Oregonian, Portland's daily newspaper ]; Seattle Weekly, March 23 - 29, 2005: http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0512/050323_news_portland.php "" In 1981, I discovered Ecotopia. Newly arrived in Seattle from Reno, Nev.—drawn by a childhood attraction to the setting for Here Come the Brides—I moved into a house full of Whitman College grads who promptly gave me the book, describing it as a Northwest "user's manual." Ernest Callenbach's '70s fantasy quickly became mine as I relished joining the natives seceding from Ronald Reagan's United States. But it wasn't until 1989 that I actually found Ecotopia, three hours south, across the Columbia River in Oregon. "" "" At face value, Measure 37 is simple: Any property owner whose land is reduced in value by new regulation shall either be compensated for the loss or have the regulation waived. But the fine print made the measure retroactive to the property's purchase date. In some cases of continuous ownership by a family or company, "new regulation" could mean zoning adopted in the 19th century. Sloppily written, but politically unstoppable, Measure 37 will take months, if not years, to legally sort out. In the meantime, it is threatening to bludgeon a 30-year legacy of land-use planning into something unrecognizable as Oregon. The message is clear: Unless the Citizens of Oregon get off the ropes, the next generation will only know the Ecotopia in Ernest Callenbach's book. "" 2) "America is Cracking"? "In a Nutshell: America is cracking", by Norla Antinoro, Ph.D. [ a life long Democrat. Born in California she spent the last 40 years in and around Tucson, Arizona. Currently a New Yorker she commutes regularly to Guelph, Ontario where she is the voluntary curator of the Rosalie Bertell Resource Centre. ] 28 March 2005: http://www.mytown.ca/nutshell/