Tuesday, March 22, 2005

subways, stadiums, city council

I don't know how closely y'all read your local news, but there have been so many track fires and service disruptions recently that Flushing's John Liu, transportation chair of the City Council, is calling a meeting. Liu, who has often targetted the MTA for its lack of accountability in previous events, has also participated in at least one Straphangers/NYPIRG action in the city.

I found a great stadium news site today, which is a relief. It's Field of Schemes, a website maintained by Neil deMause and Joann Cagan, authors of the book of the same name. This site has got more information on stadium deals than you can possibly imagine, including a detailed discussion of today's city council meeting relating to the various offers on the MTA yards.

That horrendous shooting in Minnesota has already been linked to the neo-Nazi movement in an article in The Guardian. This shooting, unlike most of these types of shootings, which are discussed in the book Rampage originated on a poverty-stricken Indian reservation, which according to all the press I've seen, was also plagued by violence. The coverage has been different from the sort you see when you look at white suburban kids, as everyone noticed the differences in the desciptions of that type of school violence from violent incidents plaguing predominantly black schools. I think it's significant that the shooter's grandfather was a cop, though, and I am curious to know more about the circumstances of his life.

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