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Fluoride in The Body – What it does
FLUORIDE IN THE BODY WHAT HAPPENS to fluoride once it has entered the human body? To answer this question one of two methods is usually used. In one the total quantity of fluoride consumed over a given period from all … Continue reading
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Revolution Chairman and CEO Steve Case
It is the largest industry in the country, and almost everyone is unhappy with it."
–Steve Case comments on the health-care industry in the Washington Post, April 5, 2005
Years after leading America Online into one of the most disastrous mergers of the century with Time Warner, AOL founder Steve Case has reinvented himself, launching Revolution, a new venture he hopes will shake up the health-care and wellness industry. The question is, will it shake things up in the way AOL shook up Time Warner? And what does health care have in common with the Internet, anyway?
- 3:30 p.m. PDT: Kara's first question: Where is Web 2.0 right now (and I use that term loosely, because I hate it)? Case says it's great to see mainstream acceptance of these technologies. The question is how do you take these things to the next level and apply them to other industries, like health care.
- On AOL: "I'm disappointed that 10 years ago we were in the catbird seat and now, for a variety of reasons, we've lost that." What would he do with AOL today? Case says "to be honest, I don't care that much. … I closed that chapter years ago."
- 3:35 p.m.: Conversation moves to a discussion of Case's new company, Revolution. Case says he wants to build companies that change the world, iconic companies. He's not interested in building companies simply to flip them. He wants to build companies that improve industries that are ripe for disruption, what he calls philanthropic companies.
- 3:40 p.m. Why health care? Case says it's a mix. "Personal experience and also the recognition that this is an industry that needs change. … People feel they are not in control of their health–they feel disenfranchised. … So we said let's bring a fresh perspective to this and build companies that empower consumers to take charge of their health." Case says health care needs to become more of a retail business. Revolution is apparently supporting what amounts to a collection of retail health clinics. In a nutshell, Case says basic health care should be as accessible as Starbucks.
- 3:45 p.m. Case says Revolution will offer packaged, relevant health-care information online. There's also a community function, he notes, as well as a records-storage issue. People can store their medical records electronically at Revolution. Kara notes that the latter is an idea that seems rife with privacy implications: Will consumers actually trust Revolution with their medical records?
- 3:50 p.m. Kara wonders how the medical community feels about Revolution's plans to allow people to rate doctors and other health-care providers. Case admits it's a concern, but one that's far outweighed by the consumer's need for a personalized approach to medicine. Case envisions a future world in which we manage our health information like a stock portfolio.
- 3:55 p.m. In Revolution's early days, Case says, the goal is to provide a brand of coverage that is characterized by fresh thinking and ideas.
- 4 p.m. Q&A:
- What about Revolution developing a kind of "concierge" health service, with plans tailored to individuals? Case says that Revolution will help consumers with insurance companies, dealing with claims and so forth, while keeping mechanisms in place to protect privacy.
- 4:05 p.m.Revolution will also help people choose doctors, Case says, noting that the way most people pick doctors is completely haphazard. "We're trying to figure out ways to move the system forward," he says.
- Case closes by coming back to a common theme: "You've got to have a more holistic way of considering health."

subset: commoncrawl


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The designated operator of Mexico, Servicio Postal Mexicano, wishes to inform the designated operators of UPU member countries that, as of today, Wednesday, 27 September 2017, postal operations have resumed for inbound and outbound mail at Mexico City International Airport, IMPC codes MXMEXD, MXMEXB and MXMEXE.
Although the official embargo has been lifted, it is expected, that carriers will be ready to forward mail to MEX again at the beginning of next week (week of the 2.10.2017).
Servicio Postal Mexicano thanks all designated operators for their understanding during this period.


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Squawky wheel: 'Parrothood' dropped, author 'Winging It'
Sleeping with Ward Cleaver author Jenny Gardiner's tale of life with a sharp-beaked parrot got her a book deal with Simon & Schuster–- and threats about trademark infringement for the title, Parrothood: Twenty Years of Caring for a Vengeful Bird Determined to Kill Me.
New York African gray parrot breeder Patrica Barth asserted that she held the trademark to "planned parrothood," and that gave her exclusive rights to the word "parrothood."
Gardiner's book comes out March 16, and it's now called Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who's Determined to Kill Me.
"I was completely within my legal rights, but with someone as single-minded as her, I just couldn't be bothered with her hassling me," says Gardiner. Nor could Simon & Schuster.
Parrothood wasn't Gardiner's first choice anyway. "My original title was Bite Me, which I liked the best but it didn't have as broad an appeal as the other titles," she says. "We didn't want people thinking it was a vampire book."
Barth remains convinced she would have prevailed, should the parrothood battle have reached court, but she's pleased Gardiner changed the title.
"I wish Ms. Gardiner much success," says Barth. "From what I've seen on her blog, she's an excellent writer."
Gardiner's first local appearance for Winging It is Sunday, March 21, at the Virginia Festival of the Book.


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Sometimes, two things that are really awesome on their own don't mix together very well. For example, sex and driving.
Just ask Mark Chalin of Mankato, Minn., the driver who earlier this week pleaded guilty to killing his girlfriend and another driver last year. What was Chalin doing at the time of the wreck? According to this report in the Twin Cities Pioneer Press, Chalin was having sex behind the wheel with his girlfriend, 23-year-old Amber Menezes.
The newspaper reports that Chalin was driving with Menezes straddling him, blocking his view of the road, which caused him to cross the center line and slam into a woman who had moved onto the shoulder on the opposite side of the road.
The resulting crash killed Menezes and the woman in the other car, 35-year-old Jonna Martin. Chalin was also badly injured, according to the report. He took a guilty plea in part because he doesn't remember what happened apparently. He is set to be sentenced in December.
As funny as it sounds initially, this wreck is tragically sad and serves as a reminder of the bad things that can happen when you're stupid behind the wheel. If you have to make whoopee, pull over or wait until you get home, kids.
Thanks for the tip Tony K!
Photo credit Citypages via the Mankato Free Press


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A Collection of Christmas Classics
Christmas is a season of story, song, artistry, and devotion. At its heart is the story of Jesus' birth, narrated in the Gospels and linked with a rich web of Old Testament prophecies and later New Testament reflections. Over the centuries, Christian preachers, poets, storytellers, and artists have reflected on the significance of the Christmas story in their own way, so that a rich body of Christmas literature and art now exists. We're excited to bring some of the best of that material together in a new Accordance module of Christmas Classics.
Christmas Classics begins with the Christmas story itself by providing Scripture readings for each day of Advent. These are followed by a selection of Christmas sermons by great preachers like Leo the Great, Martin Luther, George Whitefield, and Charles Spurgeon. Those who own John Piper's Sermon Manuscript Library can also follow links to his various Christmas sermons.
The next two sections include Christmas Carols and Christmas Poetry. The Carols section includes the lyrics to each carol along with a link to the iTunes store. Looking for just the right version of Silent Night to play this Christmas? Just click the link to sample recordings by Faith Hill, Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, Ray Coniff, even Willie Nelson!
The next section of Christmas Classics is called "Stories and Legends." It includes richly illustrated versions of Clement Moore's 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl, and O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi. You'll also find the famous newspaper column, "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus."
The final section of Christmas Classics contains images of the birth of Jesus by great artists like Rembrandt, Rubens, and Doré, along with an index to the illustrations from 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, A Christmas Carol, and The Gift of the Magi. If you're looking for the right image to include in a Keynote slide show or Christmas letter, Christmas Classics is a rich source to mine.
In addition to mining this module for images, you can also use Accordance's search capabilities to find quotations and excerpts with which to illustrate your own sermons and lessons. Search for a word or phrase like "peace on earth" or "Christ is born," and you may find a useful illustration from a lesser known verse of a carol or a bit of dialogue in the middle of a story.
This treasure trove of Christmas literature and art is on sale through December 24 for just ten dollars—a savings of 66% off the list price. Best of all, you can download and install Christmas Classics right away through Easy Install.


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Fans of 1980s cutting edge rock would do well to check out this third effort from Dot Dash. The Washington, D.C. band continues to channel Wire Train and The Church via shimmering guitars and the evocative vocals of singer-guitarist Terry Banks. The intriguing lyrics aren't always easy to interpret, but there's a running theme of lost opportunities on Half-Remembered Dream.
The high-speed "Here's To The Ghosts Of The Past" takes an acerbic swipe at nostalgia, and there's a sense of urgency behind the images of falling and feeling lost on "11th Hour." "Hands Of Time," which sports one of the most gorgeous melodies this group has ever created, has Banks singing, "What's gone is gone and what's done is done." The harder hitting songs, like "Bloom/Decay" and "A Light In The Distance" are fueled by Danny Ingram's drumming and hark back to the more punk approach Dot Dash took on its full-length debut, Spark>Flame>Ember>Ash.


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Music Home / Entertainment Channel / Bullz-Eye Home
Yes, that Thomas Dolby: the one who sang "She Blinded Me with Science."
It's a bit of a shame that such a talented and influential musician has been relegated to the status of an '80s one-hit wonder by the general public; in addition to recording several wonderful albums of synth-driven pop, Dolby also did quite a bit of work on other folks' albums. In fact, Bullz-Eye's opportunity to talk to Dolby came about not because of his music but, rather, because of his career as a producer.
Dolby helmed Prefab Sprout's 1985 pop masterpiece, Steve McQueen, which has recently been re-mastered and reissued as a double disc set, with the band's frontman, Paddy McAloon contributing newly-recorded acoustic versions of several of the songs. On the occasion of the album's re-release, we spoke with Dolby about his experiences working with McAloon and the band on the album, as well as revisiting the material when he sat down to re-master it last year.
Beyond that, however, we did manage to squeeze in several questions about his solo career and how he's perceived by the mainstream, his guest appearances on other artists' albums (he played on Def Leppard's Pyromania, you know), and, just under the wire, we even slipped in a question about his soundtrack work on – wait for it – "Howard the Duck."
Bullz-Eye: Hello?
Thomas Dolby: Hello, is this Will?
BE: This is.
TD: Hi, Will, it's Thomas Dolby.
BE: Hey, how are you?
TD: Good, how are you?
BE: Not bad!
TD: Well, all right. Sorry to call outside the allotted time. (Writer's note: although the publicist for Prefab Sprout's label had sent an E-mail with the designated interview time, Dolby hadn't actually checked his mail in several days. Fortunately, once the publicist finally got hold of him, he gladly offered to call me a short while later.)
BE: That's okay. But, now, my new first question is, "How can someone so irrevocably tied to technology go so long without checking his E-mail?" (Laughs)
TD: A-ha. (Silence)
BE: (Realizes the joke has gone over like a lead balloon, attempts to save face) But, no, I'm very excited about talking to you. Let's start off, I guess, talking about your move from recording your own work to producing the work of others. So, your first production job was with Joni Mitchell…?
TD: No, actually, Prefab Sprout was my first production job.
BE: (Surprised and embarrassed) Oh. Okay. Huh. All Music Guide has your work with Joni Mitchell and George Clinton before that of Prefab.
TD: Yeah, well, no, Prefab Sprout was earlier.
BE: (Feels flop sweat beginning but struggles valiantly onward nonetheless) How did you get that gig in the first place?
TD: With the Sprout?
BE: Rght, yes.
TD: I was a guest reviewer on a BBC radio talk show called "Round Table," and we were reviewing new singles, and I had a couple of Radio 1 DJs saying very things about all these records that I hated… (Laughs) …and came round to a song by Prefab Sprout called "Don't Sing," from Swoon. And I loved it. And it so happened that the band were listening in, because they knew their song was going to be on…and they were holding their breaths, 'cause they thought I was going to slaughter it. But they were very relieved when I said nice things about it! And one thing led to another, and they said they were just about to start recording their second album, and was I interested in producing them? They didn't have any demos to play me or anything, but they invited me up to their house in the north of England, and I sat for a day and listened to songs that Paddy…basically, his bed was built on a stack of lyric sheets! And he pulled a stack of them out, and he squinted at them and strummed them and sang them to me. And I picked my favorites, he put maybe 15 down on a cassette, and that became Steve McQueen.
BE: Before you heard their song on that radio show, had their name ever crossed your path before?
TD: I don't think it had, no.
BE: So did Paddy enter the sessions with an existing vision of how he wanted the album to sound, or did he just say, y'know, "Do what you do"?
TD: Looking back, he gave me a remarkable amount of freedom. The biggest role…the biggest challenge, I think, really, for my role was that because Paddy writes lyrics first and then adds the music, you end up with some bars that have three beats and some phrases that have five bars in them, and some awkward key changes and chord changes. And when you arrange that for a five-piece band, it can sound a little bit grating. And, so, the first thing I was able to do was sort of lend some of my arranging experience, because, y'know, I'd played in various configurations of bands myself and arranged my own album with a band, and so on. So the pre-production work was really crucial. And I've always felt that, with the right arrangement, the production basically takes care of itself. And, so, by the time we got the studio, we'd already done a lot of the preparation work. Of course, there were still some nice surprises in the studio, but mainly it was a case of keeping everybody in a good mood, keeping the energy level up, and capturing the best performances vocally and instrumentally.
BE: Did the songs evolve a great deal from how he originally envisioned them to how they ended up on the album, once you'd given your touch to them?
TD: I think some did and some didn't. I mean, there were some songs where I would get focused on one or two elements, and I'd say, "Look, this is really great, but I don't think we need this stuff; maybe you could trim it a little bit." Paddy was amazingly patient about it. He could've so easily been possessive about it and said, "No, that's not the way we do it." Some of them were songs that, as a band, they'd played in pubs years before, and they didn't have a lot of objectivity about them. (Laughs) But, no, he gave me a free hand, and everybody seemed to like the results as they started to emerge, so we just hit on a winning formula.
BE: Going in, did you imagine how much vocal diversity Paddy had in him? I mean, most of the time, he's smooth as silk, but he can certainly rage when he wants to.
TD: Well, I encouraged him to rage whenever he could, because I think that juxtaposition is really great. There's only a couple of times that he really lets rip, although we have some interesting outtakes… (Laughs) …after a few brown ales! But, no, I mean, listening back to his catalog, I think it's nice on his early ones where… (Hesitates) He's a very retiring kind of guy, a retiring kind of personality…he has such a hermit-like existence at this point…but there's a side of him which is very brazen: an exhibitionist, which only comes out from time to time. But it's very nice if you can catch that on tape, because it offsets the smoothness of most of his vocals.
BE: How was it for you to approach the album for re-mastering after having been away from it for so long? Did you feel that it had held up pretty well?
"I still think the demo version (of Prefab Sprout's "Wild Horses") is superior to the album version. But Paddy would never agree with that, because he has the sense that things need to be professionally produced and recorded." TD: Oh, it's great. Yeah, I mean, it's just great to put it up on big speakers. And I knew that the mastering room that I went to, they'd be delighted to hear music like it used to be done. I think many mastering engineers these days are in despair because, y'know, most people just sort of try out pre-sets 1 – 12 on their computer and go with #7, and that's it. So mastering is something of a lost art. Especially because, in those days, you were mastering for vinyl, and it's very hard to cut music onto vinyl. You have to make some sacrifices. The image of the mastering engineer in those days, kind of gazing through a microscope at the grooves on his acetate…it's almost like H.G. Wells technology. It's very different from today, where you're manipulating wave forms on the computer screen. But my goal, to go back to your question, was not to reinterpret the album; it was just to take advantage of new mastering technologies, get a good level and keep everything clear and separate, and make a digital version of the song that had the warmth of the original vinyl.
BE: I presume you've heard the acoustic versions that Paddy recorded for the reissue.
TD: Yeah.
BE: What did you think about the new arrangements?
TD: Well, y'know, initially, obviously, it's always a little bit of a shock to hear something that you've lived with for a couple of decades played so differently, but I welcome the differences, actually. I think that, as a performer, you evolve, and your material over the years…he's a different person from what he was when he was 21. One of the downsides of the conventional music industry was that you were forced to capture a single snapshot of a song and then live or die by it for decades to come, whereas, in reality, the natural way to perform a song varies according to who the audience is, the mood and the context. The version you play in a sweaty pub is very different from the one you play in a winery on a mid-summer's evening.
BE: Were any of these new arrangements similar to how he'd originally presented the songs to you before you began producing the album?
TD: Actually, no, which was kind of surprising to me. When the project originally got going, the label knew of the existence of some demos of the Steve McQueen songs that Paddy had made for me at the time, but Paddy was resistant to putting those on the album, mainly because A) he had literally recorded them into a portable cassette player with a cheap microphone, and B) I'd asked him to record the songs so I had kind of a working scratch pad in preparation for the album, so he just got them down, and he didn't put a lot of effort into the performance of them. And I think he felt also that it would've weighted people's opinion too much in the area of, "Well, this is a production masterpiece!" (Laughs) But, I mean, his demos are fascinating. I've got demos over the years of things that he's sent me, and the challenge for me, often, was that the demo was so great that, y'know, what the heck was I going to do in the studio to improve on it? Many…well, not many songs, but I'd say a handful of songs that I produced for them, I never really felt that I improved on the demo.
BE: Can you think of any examples?
TD: (Exhales deeply) Sure: "Wild Horses," a song from Jordan: the Comeback. It was just absolutely dead simple, a sample and guitar and this drum loop on the original. Whenever he'd send me a set of demos, it would always be, like, the worst time for me to commit to doing an album for them, because I was always committed to doing something else. But I'd say, "All right, I'll give it a listen, but I'm probably not available." And then there'd be one song on the demo tape that I would just fall head over heels in love with, and, at that point, I couldn't not do the album! And in the case of Jordan: the Comeback, it was "Wild Horses." And I still think the demo version is superior to the album version. But Paddy would never agree with that, because he has the sense that things need to be professionally produced and recorded, and he never releases demos. I mean, with his home recording over the years, he's improved a lot, and he's had at least a couple of entire album projects that never saw the light of day. And I always try to persuade him that, in the age of the internet, who needs a label, y'know…? You can just put this stuff out. He could put out four albums a year quite easily and build a fan base by the internet. You can say goodbye to ever seeing your face floor to ceiling in a Tower Records window, but that seems to me is a worthwhile sacrifice to make.
BE: That's what Nik Kershaw is doing now.
TD: Is he, indeed?
BE: Absolutely. So, obviously, since you went on to work together with Paddy again, you had a good rapport; do you think that Steve McQueen is the best of the three albums you worked on with Prefab Sprout?
TD: I'd say, on the balance of things. I mean, From Langley Park to Memphis I only did four songs on. You know, three of their albums parallel three of mine – The Flat Earth and Steve McQueen, Aliens Ate My Buick and From Langley Park to Memphis, and Astronauts and Heretics and Jordan: the Comeback – and had a lot in common in many ways. And the second of those was tongue-in-cheek, glossy, and oversaturated, and the third of them was a sort of deep, literate work, very introspective and has spawned a lot of columns about analysis over the years… (Chuckles) …but, probably, I would say that probably both of them somehow lack the simple naivete and beauty of Steve McQueen and The Flat Earth. So I think that, in the balance of things, that's probably the best album…although, in many ways, we tried hardest with Jordan: the Comeback, because it was just a massive work. To me, there was sort of a James Joyce-ian scale to it. And it took a lot of time. It took nine months to record, and we put a lot of effort into it. But, sometimes, the payback is less than with the four-week album where you didn't really know what you were doing. (Laughs)
BE: Do you have any idea why the B-sides from the era didn't end up on the reissue? I mean, I know that B-sides by their nature are often intended to be disposable, but, still, the fans want to hear them!
TD: Yeah, I dunno. When you're presented with a project like this, it's always a little bit…there's a bit of a conflict, because there's a side of you that says, "Leave well enough alone, it was what it was." And it's one thing to re-release it, but it's another to change the content or line-up or whatever, and there's a side of you that sort of says, "Well, that smacks of a record company trying to add bonus tracks for extra value," or something like that. So it's always a little hard, I think, with these things to think, "Well, what's the best thing for the album?" And at the end of the day, we just decided that we would just give a slightly more modern sheen to the original recordings, and that Paddy would take a few of the songs and just reinterpret them in the context of today, and hoped that that reflected some light back onto the originals.
BE: Okay, now I've got a couple of quick questions about your music career, but as long as we're talking about work you've done on other people's albums, I thought I'd start by asking if you remember anything about the experience of working on Robyn Hitchcock's Black Snake Diamond Role?
TD: Um…very little. I think I twiddled a knob, and that was it. I was the sea, as I recall. I think I probably just had some white noise in the Moog, and then made waves. (Writer's note: Dolby's actual credit in the album is "Ocean," but, yeah, that's the extent of his contribution. It's on a lovely song called "Love.")
BE: How did it come about that you were on the album?
TD: Well, a friend of mine, Matthew Seligman, played bass both with me and with The Soft Boys, so I rubbed shoulders with Robyn over the years. I can't remember the sequence of things, but he also did a voice for me on The Flat Earth; he did the voice of Keith (on "White City"). Robyn has this amazing ability to just start rambling, this Monty Python style rambling…
BE: Yes, I've interviewed him, so I know. (Laughs)
TD: I've never actually attended one of his sound checks, but I'd bet that, when they ask him to test his microphones, he just goes off for an hour. (Laughs)
BE: Someone recently provided me with a copy of Pleasure, by Girls at Our Best.
TD: (A few seconds of silence) Okay.
BE: (Laughs) Um, which you were on…?
TD: Yeah, I was. I don't really remember much of what I did, but it vaguely rings a bell. (Laughs)
BE: Do you remember any more about working on Def Leppard's Pyromania?
TD: I remember a lot about that, yeah. Pyromania and, also, Hysteria I did a little bit of work on.
BE: Oh, that I didn't realize.
TD: Well, I'd known Mutt Lange for awhile. He was a partner in Zomba, who were my publishing company. In fact, indirectly, I owe a lot to him for just getting discovered, because I'd sent some tapes in to Zomba, and they played them for Mutt, and Mutt said, "Well, the keyboard playing is fantastic. Is he available to come and do this Foreigner album I'm working on?" At the time, I was living as a busker and totally destitute, so it was very nice to get a call from New York, saying, "Would you come over and do a few days special work?" And then, when that album came out, my keyboard playing was very prominent and was a big change for Foreigner, and it was massive on the radio and stuff, and it attracted a lot of attention for me. And the flip side of it was that I'd also written a song for Lene Lovich that was getting played in colleges and in clubs…
BE: "New Toy"?
TD: Right, yeah, "New Toy." So, suddenly, I had a calling card at record labels, and they were very keen to hear my own stuff, so that was a big boost for me. And I really loved working with Mutt. He's a real taskmaster, and he can take all night to do twenty-five takes of a very simple part, but I liked working with him. I liked his sternness, and I learned a lot from him, and he was a great guy. So he asked me to come back in for his next project, which was Def Leppard, and which was never exactly my style of music. Def Leppard albums are basically Mutt Lange albums with Joe singing lead; they were really Mutt's albums. And that's about all I remember!
BE: Now, as far as your music goes, I actually saw you headlining at the Rams Head in Maryland, then I saw you opening for BT at the NorVa.
TD: Oh, right, yeah.
BE: In the spoken-word portion of your show, you make the comment that one of the big reasons you decided to go back out on the road was a desire to change the perception that you're "an '80s artist." Do you think the recent tours have helped change that?
On doing the soundtrack for "Howard the Duck": "When people ask me what movies I've scored, I sort of go… (Makes muffled, unintelligible sound) …or I mention that I worked at LucasFilms for awhile, and they go, 'Oh, what movies did you work on?' And I go, 'Oh, I forget the name…'" TD: I think they certainly have, actually. And it's sort of interesting that…I don't know if you've ever come across Google alerts, but you can create a Google alert for "Thomas Dolby," and any instance of those two words together on the web gets E-mailed to you. So, every day, I get a Google alert, and there's usually between three and ten references, and some are in blogs and some are in reviews, but, over time, you save them, and it makes an interesting barometer of what the overall public perception of you is. As you pointed out, my goal for that was… (Pauses) That was kind of back in the time where there was a lot of nostalgic interest in '80s music, and there were a lot of top-100 countdowns on VH-1 of the hundred greatest music videos from the '80s. And I'm an obvious feature in things like that. But I didn't…I feel as though there's a thin line that you tread with this stuff, which is that, well, if there's enough interest, you can go back on the road again and play a few casinos and cash in on that nostalgia trip…whereas my favorite artists that were my contemporaries in the '80s actually transcended the decades. A lot of them – Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, Van Morrison – were all sort of middle-aged and balding when I first got into them in the '70s, so it's not like you go see them play now and make comments about how many inches they've put on 'round their girth, or how many inches their hairlines have receded, or whatever. And, in a way, I wanted to make sure…and the work that I'm doing now, I wanted to make sure I'm listed with those guys rather than various '80s bands that I won't name that are out treading the boards again. But the ultimate test of that is, how much validity is there to the new music that you do? And I didn't feel that, after twelve or fifteen years away from making music, I could just go back into the studio and make a brand new album without having got back out there and seeing what was going on with the world. It would've been too much of a vacuum. So I wanted to get face to face with audiences, both my long-term, loyal audiences from the first time around, and also see what kind of younger people were coming to the shows, who presumably had only discovered me in the interim. So from that point of view, it was educational as well as a lot of fun.
BE: Did BT's audiences readily accept you?
TD: I think they did, actually, yeah. It was an interesting experience, really, because he started right about the time that I stopped, and, like me, he was commercially more successful with someone that wasn't necessarily closest to his heart. So the music he was playing at those shows was the quieter, more ambient side of what he does, which I find, personally, a lot more interesting. But, then, I'm not much of a clubber, so the other stuff wouldn't interest me. Of his audiences that came, there were some that were a little bit frustrated that he wasn't playing beats, but, often, that was because the venues hadn't done enough to make it clear that he was playing music from this binary universe and not just playing a dance set. But a lot of them stuck around for my set, y'know, because it varied some nights. We switched it around, and I would play after him sometimes.
BE: Yeah, I was going to say, because at the NorVa, you opened for him.
TD: Well, it was, in theory, a co-headlining situation… (Writer's note: although Dolby said this with good humor, his tone changed just enough to indicate that the distinction was, indeed, an important one…but, really, can you blame him?)
BE: Sorry, I should've said that you went on first.
TD: …but, yeah, I mean, his audiences seemed to be quite receptive, and many of them said that they'd never heard of me prior to this, but they were big enough BT fans that getting the BT stamp of approval was enough for them to shell out for one of my albums and check me out. So that was good. And it's good because I need some fans who'll still be alive in twenty years! (Laughs)
BE: So have you now gone back into the studio, then?
TD: In the studio? No. I mean, my studio is my laptop at this point. I'm beginning to write some new material, and whether I'll wait until I've got an album's worth and put it out as an album or do it piecemeal as an EP there and a download there or a song on a movie, I don't know.
BE: And my last question: I have spent the last twenty years with the hook to the theme song for "Howard the Duck" stuck in my head…
TD: (Laughs)
BE: …and I was just wondering about whether, if they were to do a special edition DVD release of the film, you would willingly contribute to any retrospective featurettes?
TD: Ummmmmmm… (Exhales heavily) That's certainly a barbed question! (Laughs) There's a side of me that says "no." When people ask me what movies I've scored, I sort of go… (Makes muffled, unintelligible sound) …or I mention that I worked at LucasFilms for awhile, and they go, "Oh, what movies did you work on?" And I go, "Oh, I forget the name…"
BE: (Laughs)
TD: So I don't know. Yes, I would probably contribute to it. I mean, I'm not ashamed of the music for that movie. I thought the music was actually great. The movie went a bit off the rails, but it's not like it's the worst movie ever made. It's certainly been superseded many times since by blockbuster-budget movies that didn't exactly break the box office.
BE: All right, well, I appreciate you getting up with me.
TD: Good!
BE: And thanks a lot for your time.
TD: I'm actually going to be touring again in your area in September.
BE: Oh, excellent! Maybe we can chat again then; I had actually hoped to do an interview with you when you came around here the last time, but it didn't pan out.
TD: Oh, right, well, I'm back at the Rams Head on… (Pauses) Is the Rams Head close to you?
BE: Well, actually, I'm in Norfolk, so the Rams Head's about four hours away.
TD: Oh, okay. I'm trying to think: is Pittsburgh any closer to you?
BE: No, DC and Maryland are definitely closer.
TD: Oh, really? Okay. Well, at the moment, I don't think we have Norfolk in there…
BE: Fair enough.
TD: …but if you get a chance to mention it, probably by the time you publish this, there'll be info on my website about the September tour.
BE: No problem. That way, we can make the piece as up to date as possible.
TD: All right, thanks very much!


text:
Read the full story here Web Link posted Friday, July 27, 2007, 12:00 AM
Town Square
Parking woes prompt permit push
Original post made on Jul 27, 2007
Read the full story here Web Link posted Friday, July 27, 2007, 12:00 AM
Comments (58)
a resident of Charleston Gardens
on Jul 27, 2007 at 8:34 am
Naturally College Terrace will get permit parking. Anything that College Terrace wants--they get from the city. They have traffic calming, but it was not enough--now they have more traffic calming. Now they want permit parking.
Oh, if only other neighborhoods in this city could be so blessed with getting anything they want from the city
Whatever happened to the concept of public streets? Isn;t everyone entitled to park on any street in Palo Alto or is College Terrace planning to become a enclosed enclave where "outsiders" will not be permitted.
a resident of Stanford
on Jul 27, 2007 at 9:03 am
Someone needs to educate Pria Graves as to the difference between private and public areas. Stanford is a private university and an regulate parking on it's property. College Terrace streets are a public entity and therefore anyone is entitled to park on the streets (as long as they are not red curbed). Perhaps a solution to the problem is for the residents of College Terrace to privatize the streets in their neighborhood--that way they will be allowed to regulate parking (they will also be responsible for all maintenance and upkeep of said streets).
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jul 27, 2007 at 9:27 am
I often feel very bad for residents in the Paly neighborhood also as I know that many people park there. I often have to myself as there is not enough parking in Paly for parents during the school day when I have to visit for an hour or so. I am sure that students must use their streets also.
a resident of Charleston Gardens
on Jul 27, 2007 at 10:38 am
Let's give College Terrace permit parking because the Council will not be able to discriminate against other neighborhoods who request a similar permit parking program in the future.
When the Campus for Jewish Life with its 400 seat theater is built, everyone will park on the streets of Charleston Gardens and Adobe Meadows, A precedent will have been set, and we can apply to the City for permit parking in our neighborhoods.
Eventually, the administrative costs to the City will be huge.
a resident of Crescent Park
on Jul 27, 2007 at 11:01 am
I bought a house near the railway line. The noise from trains is really unacceptable. The train line should be closed down or re-routed so that these commuters don't ruin my neighborhood.
Someone bought a house next to a University knowing that people from the University parked on their street. Now they want to change it so that they can avoid the problem that came with the property.
Grow up.
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jul 27, 2007 at 11:02 am
The residents of College Terrace benefit from being close to Stanford (including an overly inflated property value on their homes) but whine if there are any downsides to their location. I say, take the bad with the good. Stanford was already there when they bought their houses. It's like when people buy houses, at reduced prices, on busy streets and then want the city to slow or reduce traffic (traffic calming) on their street.
a resident of Charleston Gardens
on Jul 27, 2007 at 11:23 am
Resident--I am not sure this will create a precedent, since the College Terrace area has excess "traffic calming" measures, while other neighborhoods have none. Also, in another thread, a College Terrace resident was pushing for another traffic light on El Camino (want to bet that they get it?). I think that granting College Terrace this parking permit request will set a dangerous precedent--College Terrace gets whatever they ask for, while other neighborhoods in PA get ignored.
Joe--you are right on with your comments about College Terrace.
I personally want to see "traffic calming" on San Antonio Road--I think all that traffic coming off of 101 should be diverted to the Embarcadero and University Avenue (i.e north PA) exits.
a resident of Barron Park
on Jul 27, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Right now, based on the pettiness of the above comments, CT comes off looking pretty good.
The fact is that CT is bordered on two sides by Stanford's commercial buildings, and Stanford housing. CT is thus in a situation that is almost unique, and deserves some relief.
Downtown residents have parking signs. Evergreen Park residents have wanted parking zones for a long time.
Frankly, I think that any neighborhood that is impacted by outside parking should be able to make a case foro regulated parking. Why not?
If we had better MASS TRANSIT, none of this would be a problem.
a resident of Menlo Park
on Jul 27, 2007 at 3:36 pm
we have parking restrictions in our neighborhood because we live next to a park that charges $5.00 to park. I am all in favor of the parking restrictions. I have permits that I can hand out to my guests. The parking restrictions are from thurs-sun. College Terrace could look into having limited restrictions during the most busy times. I also like that you cannot park your car on the street overnight in Menlo Park. I bet if PA had that rule that College Terrace would not have as bad a problem with parking.
a resident of Triple El
on Jul 27, 2007 at 3:51 pm
It is not exactly clear what form the permit parking in CT will take.It should definitely not be a 24 hour, 7 day week restriction--maybe only weekdays from 8AM-5PM.
the parking permit requirement for much of Stanford is from 6Am-4PM weekdays, after that anyone can park.
Not sure the CT residents would want to go the way of menlo Park, based on this part of the original story:
"Graves said the problem is exacerbated by the fact that many College Terrace residents live on narrow lots with one or no parking spaces on their own property. Families with multiple cars must park their own vehicles on the streets, too.
"I think right along Stanford Avenue, it's probably about as bad as Berkeley," Graves said.
But not all College Terrace residents are frustrated enough to want city action.
Some, like 20-year resident Geoff Dietz, opposes the idea of permit parking. Dietz lives on the portion of Stanford Avenue across from Escondido Elementary School that does not allow street parking. Though he doesn't like all the traffic in front of his house created by the university and the grade school, he doesn't think permits will fix things.
"I wouldn't advocate for anything to change. That would be a minority opinion, I suspect," he said.
Permits, Dietz said, would further inconvenience his guests who already must park around the corner from his house.
"Do I have to have a permit for somebody to come over and visit me in the evening?" he asked.
Down the street from Dietz, Elina and John Haggerty feel mixed about cars left on their neighborhood streets. The Haggertys, who both work for Stanford and walk to their jobs, keep a truck in their driveway and two cars on the streets."
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jul 27, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Anyone any idea of how many houses in College Park are rented to students with 6 or so students living in each with 6 cars too.
a resident of College Terrace
on Jul 27, 2007 at 4:26 pm
I guess I am missing something here. Why doesn't Stanford just give free parking permits to its workers, students, faculty? They would then park at Stanford, instead of CT. There would be no more traffic than there is now, but it would all just be on the campus. If Stanford feels it needs to incentivize its own people to take public transportation, car pool, etc., then just start a program whereby those people are given a stipend to do it.
a resident of Charleston Gardens
on Jul 27, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Instead of the city council giving CT what they want (again), maybe it would be fairer to have a trade-off---permit parking will be created for CT and all of the "traffic calming" will be removed (so that the public streets will once again be open to the public and not just the residents of the "private" enclave of CT).
Or we can proclaim that the streets in CT are historic!!!
a resident of College Terrace
on Jul 27, 2007 at 9:51 pm
I live in CT and love it here. Yes the non-resident parking is a pain for me and my family. I cannot park in front of my own house. I have any number of cars left for weeks in front of my house. It's frustrating. But we deal. If we get permits here, fine. If not, fine. Please do Not lump all of us CT residents in one. Not all of us agree with the actions of the resident association and it's many sub-groups. Many of us did not see a need for further traffic calming or permits or what ever the complaint of the day is.
Just one happy CT opinion. :)
a resident of South of Midtown
on Jul 28, 2007 at 7:16 am
This parking permit issue should be treated like single story overlay The College Terrace Association should be required to get 78% of the residents to sign a petition requesting parking permits. Then it should go to Council for their consideration. If they get fewer than 78% of residents signatures no approval should be sort or given.
a resident of Professorville
on Jul 28, 2007 at 8:41 am
Dear CT resident - cars in PA can only be parked on the street for 72 hours. The Police Department has an online reporting method if you'd like to have the cars tagged (they give lots of notice before they ticket or tow). Here's the link Web Link
a resident of Stanford
on Jul 28, 2007 at 8:49 am
John, Stanford used to have free parking for staff, but things have changed. The moneymaking machine is in charge now. You may have noticed.
a resident of Mountain View
on Jul 28, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Curious Observer is a registered user.
Stanford provides lots of incentives to get their employees to use public transit (Go Passes for Caltrain and the Marguerite shuttles for example). However, they also know a certain percentage of people will not give up their cars. The money they make from selling the permits helps pay for the transit incentives. The fewer permits they sell, they less money they have to fund the incentives...get it???
When I first moved to the area, it cost 75cents to park all day at Tressider. I am grateful that parking is still free after 4 p.m. and on the weekends. I hope that never changes.
a resident of Menlo Park
on Jul 30, 2007 at 9:34 am
All of my sympathy goes to College Terrace. Stanford has a problem with its General Use Permit (GUP): it is obliged to keep the number of trips to and from campus in the morning and afternoon commute hours to a certain number or pay enormous fines. We Stanford employees repeatedly - for about the last year or so - have had to report to our managers saying how we get to campus. Apparently that measure caused a number of people to start parking in College Terrace where they can easily pick up the "A" Marguerite to get to their jobs. These workers can say, when their manager asks, that they come to their jobs on the Marguerite shuttle. What they don't say is that they transferred a Stanford problem to its neighbor, College Terrace.
In my opinion, Stanford needs to take further steps to stop its employees creating trouble for its neighbors. The employees are greatly at fault, but in the end, it is Stanford's problem, and a very serious one.
a resident of Charleston Gardens
on Jul 30, 2007 at 9:50 am
Ms Minto--the Stanford employees are not "creating trouble for its neighbors" as you state. I am not sure how big a problem this parking issue really is for College Terrace and whether College terrace is just doing what it is good at doing (i.e. extracting traffic concessions from PA).
Anyway, Stanford workers are just doing what is their right--parking on PUBLIC STREETS.
a resident of Menlo Park
on Jul 30, 2007 at 10:02 am
Marvin, of course it's their right, but it's a right that they are obviously not supposed to avail themselves of. Stanford clearly did not want its employees parking on public streets.
I am, by the way, not so sure how "public" public streets are, having sat in enough Menlo Park City Council meetings and having heard residents complain about outsiders leaking oil on "their" streets. Residents watch very, very closely who parks on their streets: public/private is, in a very important sense, not relevant.
I know - I see - there is a huge amount of resentment against College Terrace because of all that it has done to calm traffic - but let's leave that out.
a resident of Charleston Gardens
on Jul 30, 2007 at 10:15 am
Meg--it sounds like there are multiple issues here:
1) small narrow streets and single car driveways in CT
2) people having multiple cars that must be parked on the streets
3) according to the PA Daily article--people elaving cras for weeks and months on the street in CT
4) public availing themselves of the right to park on public streets
It is always easy, especially for CT to blame all of their woes on Stanford.
Regarding the statement "Stanford clearly did not want its employees parking on public streets."--Stanford cannot control where there employees park on public property.
Public streets are just that--public. they were paid for by the taxpayers and therefore are for the use of EVRYONE.
a resident of Menlo Park
on Jul 30, 2007 at 12:56 pm
It looks as though I've been unrealistic about (a) what Stanford can do to get employees to understand and accept and (b) how willing employees are to (1) support their employer through a difficult time and (2) be fair to residents of College Terrace.
a resident of Crescent Park
on Jul 31, 2007 at 4:40 am
BART to CT ! Move PA Garbage and recycling to CT. Why is CT so special ?
a resident of Downtown North
on Jul 31, 2007 at 10:04 am
College Terrace is not in a unique situation. Every neighborhood has it's own set of issues with traffic/parking. As an example, Edgewood Drive has to deal with cars bypassing traffic back-ups on Highway 101. As a resident of the west end of Downtown North, parking near our homes can be a challenge sometimes. Our neighborhood does have signs notifying drivers as to the hours when the street cleaners come through. This is for only part of the neighborhood and for a few hours on alternating Tuesdays. I think even these signs are unnecessary because we really only need street cleaning in the Fall. The combination of folks who park in the neighborhood then walk to the train station, and the people who park in our neighborhood who work downtown, as well as the customers who patronize the downtown businesses makes it hard for my neighbors to park near their homes. While it can be an inconvenience, I certainly wouldn't consider permit parking because at least I know that people are taking the train or contributing to the businesses nearby. Traffic and parking will always be an issue but to issue parking permits will not make the problem go away, it will just move the problem to another neighborhood.
a resident of College Terrace
on Jul 31, 2007 at 10:55 am
College terrace does not need parking permits. Those are pubic streets and anyone should be able to park on them.
The point above that Stanford should not charge for parking is the appropriate solution.
We should also change zoning in CT so that there is no more multi unit housing. Single family houses will decrease the over crowded neighborhood as well.
PS. The traffic calming is a joke. Don't let traffic circles get put up in your neighborhood. They are just a nuisance.
a resident of Midtown
on Jul 31, 2007 at 11:48 am
The reason Stanford has high parking rates for it's staff is simple, and it's not to raise revenue. Under the current General Use Permit with the county, the University is allowed no new net traffic flow over the next 10 years. To keep the traffic flow down, Stanford must discourage its employees from driving to work and parking on campus. Therefore it has lots of incentive programs (high parking permit rates, limited parking spaces, free bus and train passes, etc.) to discourage traffic flow to campus. But as a result of the limited parking and high rates on campus, people are parking nearby in CT.
a resident of Midtown
on Jul 31, 2007 at 11:56 am
Stanford should be required to supply adequate free parking on campus for all users. Any permitting that halts that is against the public interest. People opposed to accomodating the express needs of the public should not enter public service.
a resident of Meadow Park
on Jul 31, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Please look at the examples below of some existing city ordinances. You can google residential parking ordinances to find more examples.
(1) Parking of vehicles in residential areas by nonresidential users creats residential problems of a safety, environmental and aesthetic nature. To encourage reliance on car pools and mass transit, which is achieved by assuring convenient parking to residents who leave their cars at home during the day, to enhance the quality of life in residential areas by reducing noise, traffic hazards and litter, to reduce air pollution and other environmental factors of excessive automobile commuting, and to preserve the safety of children and other pedestrians, and the residential area from the above-mentioned health and safety hazards, a Residential Permit Parking Ordinance
is necessary. [The council of the City of Saint Paul finds that the residential area adjacent to or near the University of Minnesota, Saint Paul Campus does not have sufficient off-street parking to safely accommodate the residential parking needs of the residents, and the parking needs of nonresidents using this institution.]
(2)Residential Parking Permit Program (RPPP)
The Residential Parking Permit Program was established to provide guideline and procedure when granting approval or denial for the establishment of RPPP Zone. A written request for the establishment of the zone for a particular area can be initiated by the residents or by the City staff. Please contact the Transportation Division for more information.
[Web Link]
This Program is enacted to mitigate the serious adverse effects of congestion associated with on-street parking of motor vehicles by non-residents upon roadways within certain areas and neighborhoods of Alameda County. As set forth in more specific detail in Section 12.30.020 of this Chapter, such long-term parking by non-residents displaces resident parking, impairs the health, safety, and welfare of all Alameda County residents and negatively impacts the aesthetic appearance of residential neighborhoods. The provisions of this chapter set forth procedures for the establishment of Residential Permit Parking areas within unincorporated Alameda County.
Because the Campus for Jewish Life will be the largest development ever built within Palo Alto, I am in favor of putting a residencial parking permit ordinance in place before the project is completed. I also favor these parking permit ordinances in other Palo Alto neighborhoods.
a resident of Menlo Park
on Jul 31, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Anyone who would like to look (Google) can see what the terms of the General Use Permit are. There is a parking lot cap under the permit, and I understand Stanford has reached it. In any case, the number of trips could not increase even if there were more spaces.
No more trips and no more parking spaces. Clearly people are supposed to use public transit and the shuttles.
"As a result of the limited parking and high rates AND REFUSAL (OR WHATEVER) TO USE PUBLIC TRANSIT, people are parking in nearby CT."
(Don't mess with the zoning!! The best neighborhoods are mixed.)
a resident of Mountain View
on Jul 31, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Curious Observer is a registered user.
An item on Stanford's News page discusses the building of the new campus for the Graduate School of Business. Do you think this new campus is going to accommodate the current staff and students of the Business School or do you think it's going to be even bigger thus paving the way for even more faculty, staff and students???
a resident of Menlo Park
on Jul 31, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Curious Observer, see the last two issues of the Stanford Report: Stanford sees the main campus as being for faculty, students, and researchers, and to a lesser degree for staff. Staff and their "business offices" will be moved elsewhere, probably fairly soon, some to SRI, some to Porter Drive (the other side of College Terrace). Later on, many offices will move to Redwood City.
The problem that everybody has today is thought to be a temporary one. If 20% of Stanford staff are off campus in a few years...
The GSB will be near the dorm housing its students. The Law School will be near the Munger dorm housing its students. Those arrangements will presumably lead to fewer trips at critical times. The people spending their days on campus will be people already resident there; if I'm not mistaken, that's the plan.
a resident of Professorville
on Jul 31, 2007 at 1:46 pm
It makes sense to have permit parking in areas significantly impacted by non-neighborhood parking (College Terrace and Downtown, both North and South come to mind). A reasonable program which could accommodate residents, visitors and the general public.
If only one side of the street was permit parking it would allow visitors a space, keep some of the mass-transit parking and give residents preference for parking.
a resident of Community Center
on Aug 1, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I live by the Rinconada pool. Every summer the parking in this area is horrendous. We need to have parking permits in this area as well. Non-residents should not be using residential streets to park and use the pool!
a resident of College Terrace
on Aug 1, 2007 at 1:58 pm
The reality is that policy makers are loathe to let this sort of thing happen without STRONG neighborhood support.
City staff is lean to the bone, and not wont to support this sort of thing without STRONG neighborhod support.
Go out and get petitions going in your respective neighborhoods - otherwise, neighborhood permitting will never happen.
btw, I'm in favor of neighborhood permitting, which is essentially a band-aid covering a more compelling need for comprehensive, affordable, and efficient MASS TRANSIT.
Web Link
We need to learn a few things from the Europeans, about getting people efficiently from point A to Point B, as well as INSISTING on leadership that is not afraid to buck the automobile madness (and lobbyists) in American culture.
a resident of College Terrace
on Aug 1, 2007 at 2:21 pm
I am thinking about your comment about mass transit. The best way for me to get my head around it is to think about specific examples. For example, if I lived in San Jose, and worked at Stanford, I could take CalTrain to Palo Alto, then take the Stanford or PA buses to get to campus. If I lived in Tracy or Fremont, I could take any number of carpool vans that have been running for many years. The problem that one faces is convenience. It is still more convenient to drive.
I have been to Europe several times. Yes, there is better mass transit, but cars are winning the battle. Rome is a sea of cars.
On this issue of Stanford, I do not think we can wait for a perfect world in order to solve the immediate problem. The essential problem, as I understand it, is that those, perhaps like yourself, have demanded that Stanford develop mass transportation. At the same time, Palo Alto encourages ever MORE car trips to PA. It's a double standard. We need to get rid of the strictures against Stanford, while also providing incentives (not disincentives) for carpooling, train rides, buses, low poluting cars, etc.
I do agree with you that parking permits will require a big buy-in from CT residents. I am only in favor of them as a last resort.
Release Stanford from the car count first...then let us see what happens.
a resident of College Terrace
on Aug 1, 2007 at 4:52 pm
If there was a serious regional mass transit plan on the table that was designed to be more than a five year negotiation (thus enabling policy makers and administrators to say "we're working non it") - THEN I would support some relief for Stanford.
You're right about the double standard, but I don't see relief from those strictures as an incentive for Stanford to do what is necessary to bring mass transit to its employees.
In fact, I would like to see FURTHER strictures placed on municipalities foro failing to provide coordinated mass transit.
Stanford is made to two the line in ways that most municipalities don't. I don't know whether that's an artifact of Stanford's traditional aloofness, or a result of a failure by Palo Alto and other neighboring municipalities to get on the same page and work WITH Stanford in ways that are forward-looking, and seriously proactive.
a resident of College Terrace
on Aug 1, 2007 at 5:15 pm
With resepct, I think you have just defined the problem, and it is you.
Stanford is the economic engine of the mid-peninsula. The prosperity of Palo Alto and Mt. View and Menlo Park...and others is dependent on Stanford, either directly or indirectly. Palo Alto would not exist without Stanford, historically.
You seem to want Stanford to lead some kind of environmental crusade. Even with Stanford's penchant for wanting to lead the way into the future, even if it is wrong about the future, the bottom line is that Stanford is a university. In the modern age this means that it is a major enterprise, one that needs to grow and expand, if it is to stay on the top edge of research and education of future researchers. Stanford MUST become more dense, in terms of facilities and housing and employees. I believe that we should encourage this growth, not inhibit it.
Palo Alto benefits much more from Stanford than Stanford does from Palo Alto. We PA citizens need to get off our high horse and let Stanford develop according the 'market' that exists for a world-class institution. On the other hand, and at the same time, we need to insist that Stanford satisfy its own obligations concerning parking issues.
I do support car-pooling and train rides, etc., but I think they needs to be voluntary (perhaps incentivized), and not mandated.
a resident of College Terrace
on Aug 1, 2007 at 8:52 pm
There's no need to debate about what Stanford should or should not do about the cost of parking on campus and its relationship to the spillover parking in College Terrace. It doesn't matter what Mike or Craig or Walter or Marvin or any of us think would be the best policy -- in fact, it doesn't even matter what the City of Palo Alto thinks.
The facts are that:
1. Under the environmental laws of California, it is no longer an option for major institutions to go on "biggering and biggering" without dealing with the traffic congestion that such growth would produce. There are economic and environmental costs of this congestion, and institutions like Stanford are required by local authorities to mitigate the impacts that would be caused by their growth.
2. The academic campus of the University is governed by the County of Santa Clara -- NOT the City of Palo Alto. And under the terms of the university's General Use Permit of December 2000, one of the conditions of approval was that:
"Stanford shall mitigate the transportation impacts of its additional development and population growth either through a program of 'no net new commute trips' or through proportional funding of mitigation measures for specified impacted intersections."
Links for more info on this requirement:
Web Link
Web Link
Here's the actual legal document detailing this mitigation (see pages 6-12 of the PDF):
Web Link
3. Stanford CHOSE the more enlightened "no net new commute trips" option instead of being required to pay for traffic congestion reduction at the a couple dozen "impacted" intersections near the campus. Choosing to provide incentives for staff, students and visitors not to drive to campus was not only a green choice, it also is much cheaper than forking over the megabucks for road "improvements" that would otherwise be required of the university.
4. "No net new commute trips" is another name for "trip demand management" (TDM). And there are two main strategies in any effective program that actually shifts people out of solo driving and gets more to take transit, carpool, bike, walk, etc:
a) improving incentives for using alternatives to driving alone -- federal law allows up to $110 tax free per month for transit and vanpools; see Stanford's transportation website for many other examples (Web Link)
b) increasing the costs that solo drivers have to pay. Remember that free parking is actually not free -- the land consumed by parking commuter vehicles could otherwise be used for something productive, green space or whatever. Depreciated costs of a parking space in a parking garage are usually over $5,000 per year -- there is no such thing as a free lunch and there is no such thing as "free" parking, it's just a question of who pays for it. Even existing surface parking spaces cost about $1000 per year when useful life and replacement costs are taken into account.
4. Joe Simitian, who was a County Supervisor of the time, recognized that any serious TDM program undertaken on the academic campus of Stanford University was going to generate spillover parking in College Terrace, the closest neighborhood with parking that would be attractive to both Stanford students and staff attempting to avoid paying parking permit fees. And the professionals on Stanford's Parking and Transportation staff recognized that spillover parking in College Terrace was going to be a problem. Here's the wording of the requirement that Stanford agreed to as part of 2000 GUP mitigation requirements:
"Within twelve months of General Use Permit approval, Stanford shall allocate funding to the City of Palo Alto or to an escrow account for a residential parking permit program in the College Terrace neighborhood, bounded by Stanford Avenue, El Camino Real, California Avenue, and Amherst Street. The funding shall be for the purpose of consideration and initiation of a parking permit program and shall not be required to exceed $100,000."
5. Why was the solution specified as a parking permit program? Simply put, the politicians and staff involved in the decision knew that there is no other solution that works -- there really is no debate about this among people who actually know about managing the negative impacts of cars. In fact, every other town/gown boundary that involves residential areas and higher education institutions of Stanford's size in Northern California (and nearly all in Southern California, too) already have residential permit parking programs.
All that is happening now is that residents from College Terrace who are suffering growing impacts of the campus parking spillover are asking the City to initiate the required study to find a solution that has been spreading from Stanford Avenue to most of the side streets in the neighborhood between Stanford Avenue and College.
No conspiracy. No special privilege. No Stanford bashing. Just trying to solve a problem that will not be solved any other way, and for which non-taxpayer money is already on deposit with the City.
a resident of College Terrace
on Aug 2, 2007 at 7:02 am
You have listed the rationale that has caused the problem: "green".
Since spillover parking in CT was recognized from the beginning, it must have been recognized that the parking restriction program would fail to meet its goals. A standard of "No net new commute trips" is an absurd one for a growing instituion like Stanford. If Palo Alto does not control this absurdity, at least PA could actively lobby to get rid of it.
Parking permits might help in CT, but it would also push the problem farther out. If people are currently parking in CT, then jumping on their bikes to get to the center of campus, they will also be willing to do the same thing from a neighborhood or shopping center somewhat farther away.
This is a problem caused by environmentalist true believers. It needs to be solved by realists. I have little patience for those, in CT, who want parking permits, but refuse to challenge the underlying regulations that are causing the problem.
a resident of Professorville
on Aug 2, 2007 at 8:17 am
Neighbor - thank you for all the info!
Craig - What Neighbor was saying is that PA has no control over the "no new parking" but does have control over a solution for the impacted neighborhood. Stanford has already paid 100,000 for the solution and it should be implemented.
a resident of College Terrace
on Aug 2, 2007 at 10:31 am
PA Mom,
If the "solution" is not really a solution, and we continue to avoid a real solution, then we have just displaced the problem.
It sounds like Stanford has the choice of "No net new commute trips" or intersection upgrades. The former is an illusion; the latter is a solution.
We should be insisting that Stanford revisit its use permit, and upgrade its intersections. PA city council should use their political heft to force the issue.
Parking permits will only push cars onto other streets and neighborhoods. Besides, the permits would probably not be enforced in CT, since other laws are routinely unenforced in PA. $100k probably wouln't even cover the cost of an enforcemnt office for one year. What happens in year two?
We need to talk about solutions, not fantasies.
a resident of Adobe-Meadow
on Aug 2, 2007 at 1:27 pm
"Parking permits will only push cars onto other streets and neighborhoods."
But that doesn't matter as long as the problem is solved for CT! Other neighborhoods can argue their concerns on case by case basis after we've solved the CT problem. If we try to find an "overall" solution nothing will ever happen or will take years.
a resident of College Terrace
on Aug 2, 2007 at 1:41 pm
A non-solution is not a solution.
I think your reply is satirical, although I am not sure.
I, personally, do not want to push our CT parking problem off onto someone else.
a resident of Charleston Gardens
on Aug 2, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Maybe go CT's suggestion is one of the problems we have in PA--the city council will go out of it's way to grease the squeaky wheel (in this case a vocal neighborhood--or vocal members thereof) and avoid conflict, without taking in to consideration what needs to be doen or what will be good for the entire city.
And youc an bet your bottom dollar that neighborhood activists know this--the louder they yell, the sooner the city council will grant them their every wish, without regard to the city as a whole.
a resident of College Terrace
on Aug 2, 2007 at 2:21 pm
I agree with your specific criticism, as my post, just before yours, indicates.
I would like to make the point, though, that CT was a crucial player in the Mayfield deal (playing fields, housing, SRP expansion), something that benefits the entire city. The housing element, in particular, was contentious in CT, and will continue to be. It is unfair to suggest that CT gets special privileges. CT has special problems that other neighborhoods do not.
Marvin, please tell me what your situation is in Charleton Gardens that needs city consideration. I might even agree with you.... Do you have major cut-through traffic? Do you have lack of accessible park space? Lack of police protection? What, exactly, is your beef?
a resident of Charleston Gardens
on Aug 2, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Craig--I think much of the problem in South PA is the general feeling that the north part of the city gets more consideration than the south (many people say that this is due to the fact that most council members are from the north side of town).
AS for traffic, there has been recent talk of closing University Avenue and "calming" traffic on Embarcadero--I think this will lead to more traffic on San Antonio Road.
In general, I think the major problem is that our leaders do not give any thought to the city as a whole, but give certain areas what ever they want
a resident of College Terrace
on Aug 2, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I know this feeling exists. I think there is a certain elite that sets the agenda in PA. I don't know that it is North vs. South, although it may be (just don't know). I would say, specifically, that the Stanford parking issue is a result of certain elites that demand a green agenda, no matter what the actual costs.
I think the Alma Plaza deal was, and is, a disaster, one that can be blamed on the 'South', if there is blame to be had. South PA is newer than the older North PA. It was developed, largely, after WWII. It had the benefit of planned neighborhoods, thus the cul-de-sacs and curved mazes for streets. Recently, folks in the South decided to protect their Eichlers by demanding a single-story zoning overlay in some neighborhoods. They brought that on themselves.
The main reason that CT is so organized is that it faces major pressures, unlike many other neighborhoods (North and South).
I do agree with you about San Antonio. I am sure that I could agree with you on other details in the South, but I think you might want to take a step back and consider the special circumstances of CT.
a resident of Adobe-Meadow
on Aug 2, 2007 at 4:25 pm
The comment was half tongue in cheek. However, if you do want an "all inclusive" solution then you will be waiting years, if ever. Just consider how long Downtown North has been waiting for parking permits "Wednesday, March 28, 2001": Web Link
"The program's estimated startup cost is $1.08 million. Annual operating costs are estimated at$893,000. In order for the program to pay for itself, more than 1,300 parking citations would have to be issued per year. Should parking citations fall off because offenders park elsewhere, the program will no longer pay its own way. The sale of parking permits alone will not bring in enough money to cover the costs."
a resident of College Terrace
on Aug 2, 2007 at 4:32 pm
I THINK you are saying that parking permits are not the way to go. Too costly. Not effective. Correct?
a resident of Adobe-Meadow
on Aug 2, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Parking permits would be very effective but if you read the associated web link it comes down to money:
"We're saying - given that we want to put any money that we have into the infrastructure - (the parking program) would have to be paid through revenue from permits and possibly through citations. So if it is a good idea, we're saying it has to be at cost recovery. Staff is not recommending that we subsidize the program."
I don't believe everyone understands the cost these things. $100,000 sounds like a lot of money but look at the estimated running costs of the above program. Yes, the CT program could be smaller and simpler but is it really 1/9th of the size and that's at 2001 prices.
You're going to have a problem getting the rest of the city agreeing to subsidize you year-after-year.
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Aug 3, 2007 at 12:34 pm
The statements about permit parking being too expensive or not a solution are both uninformed by facts. Cities all around California have implemented residential permit parking next to growing universities who do not have the option of unlimited free parking. These programs are self supporting and not a burden on the City budget. Just because the PAPD wrote a report claiming exorbitant costs (without consulting with anyone who actually had experience with designing and implementing workable programs) doesn't mean that it's true.
Also, despite what some folks on this and other online forums may assert, Stanford's General Use Permit is a binding agreement between the County of Santa Clara and Stanford University, based on an Environmental Impact Report which assessed the impacts of 2.2 million square feet of growth on the academic campus and an extensive public input process. It has been legally binding since December 2000, when it received the final approval of the county's final decision making body (which in this case was the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors). It is not subject to change, even by lawsuit, at this point.
A basic summary of the GUP, plus links to official documents, reports etc may be found on the County's web site:
Web Link
(If the link doesn't come through, search for "Santa Clara County Planning Office" and then click on "Plans and Programs" and then on "Stanford University".) Sections G and H of the GUP Conditions of Approval provide accurate information about transportation and parking.
The bottom line is that new development in California (and especially in the Bay Area) is subject to the provisions of CEQA (the state environmental quality law). This was not adopted in Sacramento by any green conspiracy, but is the result of legal efforts beginning in the 1970s to ensure that landowners and developers be held accountable for the air/water pollution, hazardous materials, noise and other impacts of their proposed development.
In a built out environment like ours, where peak hour traffic is close to capacity of our roadways, the traditional "solution" of widening roads to increase capacity is extremely costly and only a temporary fix. Stanford is to be commended for choosing the option of no net new commute trips. While there are "cheaters" using College Terrace streets, the idea that "free" parking would solve the problem is not even advocated by conservatives who understand basic economics.
a resident of Downtown North
on Aug 3, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Just because the PAPD wrote a report claiming exorbitant costs (without consulting with anyone who actually had experience with designing and implementing workable programs) doesn't mean that it's true.
Any research that contradicts what we want must simply be wrong. They need to do it again until they get it right. Amirite?
a resident of Adobe-Meadow
on Aug 3, 2007 at 2:54 pm
"get the facts",
Yes, you really need to. Stanford charges between $216 and $552, how much money are they making out of their program? Cities all around California *subsidize* their parking permit programs.
All I'm saying is that you will find it hard to get the rest of the city to subsidize yours. You may be able to do it but Downtown North is still waiting 7 years for their program. You can stand in line with your hand out if you wish - just don't expect anyone to donate.
a resident of University South
on Aug 3, 2007 at 6:36 pm
there is no reason that parking fines could not fund the program.
the level of enforcement can be scaled to the price and number of tickets.
a resident of Downtown North
on Aug 6, 2007 at 10:27 am
Well done, Chris, great idea! Just divide the cost between those cited! If it costs $400,000 to create and monitor and there are only 100 citations that year then each citation will be for $4,000 each! That's how we can make it cost-neutral. Simple! Why didn't the city think of this!
I bet you worked on that cost-neutral proposal for MI as well.
a resident of College Terrace
on Aug 6, 2007 at 2:33 pm
we have lived on stanford ave for close to 15 years and i have had more hassles from the PA police about parking my own cars than i have had from stanford students and other people.
we live in college terrace because the university, the hills and calif ave offer us something nice. consequences of living nr a university are students, some noise, some traffic. we deal with it.
i do think i am one of a "larger number than you think" (more silent) of college terrace people who dont need the city to babysit us with useless traffic circles, traffic bumps, and permits.
lets not waste time and $$ on this
a resident of Walter Hays School
on Sep 26, 2017 at 3:34 am
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Jonathan LaPaglia and Luke Hemsworth have joined the cast of The Reckoning, which is set to begin shooting on Apr 29 in Australia. Lightning Entertainment will handle international sales.
John V Soto will direct the found footage thriller about a detective on the hunt for a killer.
Deidre Kitcher is producing the Filmscope Entertainment production co-financed by ScreenWest, Fulcrum and private investors and described The Reckoning as Memento meets Kalifornia.
Robert Lundberg, Greg Coote, David Calvert-Jones, Roger Savill and Kim Savill will serve as executive producers.
Lightning president Robert Beaumont made the announcement on Monday [25].


text:
San Diego (CNN) -- A federal judge on Wednesday rejected a motion by lawyers for Jared Lee Loughner to prevent prison doctors from forcibly medicating the Arizona shooting suspect.
"I defer to medical judgement," U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns said in ruling that prison doctors were within their rights to force Loughner to take mind-altering psychotropic drugs against his will. "I have no reason to disagree with the doctors here."
Burns, who conducted the hearing in his San Diego court, also ordered that sensitive medical and legal documents relating to Loughner's treatment for mental illness remain sealed.
Loughner has already started receiving the powerful drugs, Wednesday's hearing revealed.
Lawyers representing Loughner contend that forcing him to take the drugs against his will violates his rights. Authorities at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, where Loughner is being held, should have tried lesser restraints such as milder tranquilizers, argued Reuben Camper Cahn, one of Loughner's lawyers.
Prison authorities "allowed competing objectives to interfere" by ordering the psychotropic drugs, which are for treating mental illness, in an effort to restore Loughner to mental competency so he can stand trial -- as desired by law enforcement and judicial systems, Cahn asserted.
Prosecutors responded Tuesday that prison officials acted properly in ordering the medication, which they said was necessary for Loughner to control his mental illness.
"This is a person who is a ticking time bomb," proscecutor Wallace Kleindienst said. "He's lunged at his defense counsel and spits at her."
Loughner, 22, is charged in the January mass shooting in which six people were killed and 13 wounded, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in front of a Safeway grocery story in Tucson, Arizona. A federal judge ruled last month that Loughner was not competent to stand trial, and he was sent to the federal facility in Springfield.
Burns, at the beginning of Wednesday's hearing, suggested the federal court in Missouri, where Loughner is being held, might be where medical decisions should be made.
"If he had a bad toothache, complained about treatment, would he come to me?" Burns asked.
In their emergency motion on June 24 to halt the forced medication, Loughner's lawyers said prison officials held a deficient hearing process and used faulty reasoning in deciding to drug Loughner against his will.
For example, Loughner had no attorney present at the June 14 hearing, the lawyers said in their motion, and officials failed to state the drug and dosage he should receive.
According to the emergency motion, authorities had earlier assessed Loughner as dangerous because of incidents before his transfer to the Springfield prison: He threw a chair against a door and spat at an attorney.
However, the reasoning by prison officials in Springfield for deciding to administer the drugs was to treat Loughner's mental illness, rather than to subdue any dangerous behavior, the motion noted.
Prosecutors argued in their response that Loughner received a proper administrative hearing on the matter, and the medication prescribed was necessary to prevent him from being a danger to himself and others.
CNN's Bill Mears contributed to this report.


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Our climate is intimately connected to the evolution of life, to the erosion and formation of rocks, and even to the generation of mountains. And all of these things are equally responsible for the evolution of climate!
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DWTS Season 10, Week 2 – No, the results weren't rigged!!
Gee, E! Online, I give you a big old DUH. I've been writing about this since LAST season, but I give you an A for effort, I guess. At least you get to talk to Conrad. But, silly people, I have to say "duh" to the parts I excerpted below, in particular:
But let's back you away from that window you're shouting from, and consider the charges:
• Charge No. 1: DWTS goosed the results to keep Aldrin around because, geez, the man walked on the moon—you can't dump an American hero to the curb after two lousy dances.
• Charge No. 2: DWTS goosed the results to keep Gosselin around because, c'mon, she's notorious, and she's helping the show pull record numbers.
• Charge No. 3: DWTS judged Doherty the most expendable, and, for good ratings measure, put Pamela Anderson in the bottom two.
See, if you crunch the judges' scores the way they do at DWTS, then the field bunches—the lows aren't as low, the highs aren't as high, although, sure, a good amount of outer space still separates Aldrin from Nicole Scherzinger. But Doherty's lead over Aldrin becomes less than 3 percentage points, her lead over Gosselin less than 2. That's not a lot of wiggle room for when the public's votes are added in—if Aldrin manages to best Doherty by just three full points there, then, presto, he's ahead.
And they way we crunch them HERE….
"I can assure you absolutely there's no rigging of these votes," Green said, citing the rules, regulations, more rules and three independent accounting firms. "I couldn't do anything about them if I wanted to."
If the suspicious figure that's exactly what a man in Green's position would say, then maybe they wouldn't expect him to say he knows why there was uproar over last night's results: "Whenever logic is defied," he said, "people get angry." Or to put it another way, if you watched the routines, there's no way Aldrin doesn't go home, there's no way Anderson's on the firing line, there's no way Doherty doesn't stick around, and so on.
Unfortunately for Doherty and Anderson, the two might have fallen victim to the oldest stumbling block in Chris Daughtry book. Said Green: "A lot of people assumed they'd get the votes."
While every vote always counts, every vote is especially important in the early, contender-packed shows. "The margins can be really small—it can just be a few hundred votes," Green said.
:::sigh::: I'm not bitter. 😉 Anyway, I was just telling someone the other night that if they rigged the vote, they could go to jail. Fraud. Remember the movie Quiz Show? Now, they can certainly manipulate viewers. How? Well, showing temper tantrums. Showing injuries (not Mark's – he, like Derek, keeps that on the down low until it won't make a difference – if possible). Showing other, unflattering (or highly flattering) things. Some would say that they do that for DRAMA and RATINGS – and of course they are – but they also can use that stuff to manipulate viewers. I'm not saying they ARE, I'm just saying they could if they wanted. 🙂


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Hey there!
This past Sunday (9/11), I ran my first 10k after about 3-4 months of practice jogging.
This week and next I'm doing 8km (5mi) per day, 5 days a week. My plan for the next 2-3 months is to gradually increase my weekly mileage until I'm doing 12-13km per day x 5 days a week (60-50km/week or 37.5-40ish miles/week).
If everything goes according to plan (which, I think it will), do you guys think that I'll realistically be ready to start marathon training? I'd like to run the Goodlife Fitness Toronto marathon on May 6/2011. That means that I'll have 3-4 months of novice jogging (pre-10k), 2-3 months of endurance training, plus about 5 months of actual marathon training, or about 11 months (in total) of jogging experience before I run the marathon.
Does this seem like a realistic/attainable goal?
I'm asking this because a lot of websites are saying that you should have 2+ years of jogging experience before you start marathon training - but I'm in great health and don't see any reason why my plan wouldn't work. Am I underestimating the difficulty in preparing for a marathon?