Borders to close

Not long ago it was America's second largest bookstore chain behind Barnes and Noble, but the times they are a changing, Borders is closing its doors. In proceeding into liquidation Borders is shuttering 399 stores and laying off 10,700 people. Read more here.

Durham expansion

Sometimes revitalizing old buildings is better than making new ones.

King's Sandwich shop was a nearly hollow, open to the elements, un-air conditioned shell until less than two years ago...Now it is gorgeous and busy.


The News & Observer has a story about big plans for expansion in downtown Durham, courtesy of Measurement Inc. and founder Henry Scherich. The company owns huge chunks of the Morris Street blocks between Geer Street and the downtown loop. According to the N&O the first project will be a 74,000 square foot office building on a half-acre lot just southwest of the Historic Durham Athletic Park, less than two blocks from the recently condemned Liberty Warehouse in Durham's thriving Central Park district.

The initial proposal had included condos, but the sliding housing market put the kibosh on that idea. In fact, as things stand the project only has one tenant beyond Measurement Inc. However, that tenant is a nifty little tech start-up, Urban Planet Mobile. They specialize in distance learning via text message, as we all know the best way to reach America's youth. Urban Planet Mobile has programs for S.A.T. vocabulary and foreign language learning among other things. It is an idea that we believe has great potential.

As for the Measurement Inc. development project? Time will tell. We do not root for growth for growth's sake alone. The N&O quotes Durham's Mayor Bill Bill, "...new buildings is good news for the area..." It may be a little more nuanced than that, Mr. Mayor, we hope you have your eye on the long view. Groundbreaking is tentatively scheduled for this July.

Distance deconstructed

Her wish list is on-line...

We recently published an article on the front page of the Clarion Content about an Indian teenager who sold his kidney on the internet. We wanted in it an anecdote to provoke thought about the collapsing of distance and temporal barriers to global transactions.

How is about this for another one?

Remember those distant stars of silver screen from days of yore? No, we are not about to tell you about how you can follow their every thought and musing on their Twitter feeds. Better.

How about you can look up your starlet's wish list on Amazon and buy her a present off of it. For reals.

Charity

The famous 12th century Spanish Jew pictured above, Moses ben-Maimon, is more commonly known as Maimonides. The Clarion Content's editor has long been fond of the code of charitable giving that he wrote. Maimonides wrote a lot of things in his time, Abraham J. Heschel once said, "If one did not know that Maimonides was the name of a man, one would assume it was the name of a university."

The Clarion Content likes the code of charitable conduct because the by-laws of dignity imply there is a grace to giving charity properly. We like this guidance.

Maimonides on Charitable Giving (paraphrased)

The highest degree of charity, exceeded by none, is that of finding a person a job, gainful employment, a business or a craft, an opportunity to provide for him or herself, that leaves them henceforth no longer dependent on the aid of others.

The next step beneath that is anonymous charitable giving where the giver does not know whom the recipient is going to be (only that the cause is good) and the donor remains anonymous, that is, he or she does not take credit for the charitable giving done publicly, anywhere. It is anonymous charity.

The next step beneath that is anonymous charitable giving where the giver does know whom the recipient is going to be. The identity of the donor is still anonymous, but the donor has direct how, where, and/or to whom the charity is to be distributed.

The next step beneath that is where the recipient of the aid knows where it is coming from, that is to say the giver proclaims somewhere publicly that they are giving the charity, but they are not told the exact how, where, and/or to whom the charity is to be distributed.

The next level is a where the giver and the receiver both know each other, but the giver gives the charity, help, aid or assistance before the recipient even has to ask for it.

The next degree lower is the giver who gives charitably only after the poor person asks directly, e.g., they are shamed into it.

Maimonides says the next degree lower than that is the person who gives less than can really afford to or should give, less than charitably, but at least they do not begrudge what they give.

Finally, the lowest degree is those who give less than they can afford to give, and give that begrudgingly and morosely.

Of course, below that would be those who give not all.

Food for thought.

New Wal-Mart coming to Durham

More of Wal-Mart in Durham

Have you have ever wondered why the parking lot for the Lowe's hardware store at Martin Luther King and Fayetteville Road always seemed too big? After all, Durham is filled with ridiculous parking lots with spots jammed in at the most illogical of angles, just to meet code.

Of course, there is a reason. It had long been rumored that there would be a Wal-Mart on that site. Today the Triangle Business Journal is reporting it will indeed happen,

"The retailer will begin construction soon on a new Wal-Mart store on land it purchased in 2006 on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Durham... The new Durham store, which will be at 1010 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, will not carry the supercenter title, but the 109,180-square-foot building will be a full-service store with extended grocery selections, a deli section, a meats department and a pharmacy."

Duke tops $200 million in stimulus grants

Duke University has reached $200 million in grants from the federal stimulus package, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). According to a Duke University press release, through the end of September Duke had won 360 competitive grants for research and construction totaling $202 million from seven federal agencies. Of course, the lion's share of this money has gone to Duke's hospitals, Duke's Schools of Medicine and Nursing account for $166.3 million of the total.

Duke established a team of four grant administrators to help process more than 1,100 ARRA applications rapidly, and set up special websites and a phone hotline to answer faculty questions.

Duke continues to bring money to Durham. The press release quoted James Siedow, Duke's vice provost for research, "The stimulus funds are doing two things. Near-term, it's about creating jobs and economic activity. Longer term, academic R&D is an investment in American competitiveness." For example, one of the grants awarded $718,000 to Duke to set up a new research center and hire two new faculty to study the biology and culture of addiction and how it might be addressed through public policy. The Department of Energy has given David Beratan's work on solar fuels and next-generation photovoltaics one year of support at $210,000. Computer scientist Jeffrey Chase has received four years of support from the National Science Foundation ($627,000) to improve the reliability and trustworthiness of "cloud computing."

Good things are percolating at Duke.

West Durham development continues apace

According to this report on the blog The Bull City Rising, West Durham's development, especially in the area around Duke Hospital, continues to move forward. BCR reports that the land across the street (Kangaroo Drive) from Durham's 27705 Post Office will be developed into an apartment complex adjacent to the Millenium Hotel and the Sandy Creek Greenway.

Poem of a Lost Generation

This brilliant poem by Jonathan Reed has received more 13 million views on You Tube.



Thanks to the Morris County New Jersey contributor who sent it our way!

Ironman 2

Is anyone else irritated by all the Iron Man II advertisements? We do not mean the standard commercials for the movie, but rather the insidious product placement and fusion campaigns.

The Clarion Content has seen Ironman II footage and/or characters fused with ads for Dr. Pepper, Burger King, Audi and the NBA. It bugs that the movie is too present; it is everywhere, but because it is the sequel to one of the biggest movies of all time (sorta), we understand and expect that to happen. What is truly vile is the level on which these product placement ads cheapen the character and plot integrity of the movie.

This is not a new trend in the movies, the Clarion Content's editor grew up in an era where they ditched a planet of Wookies for a planet of Ewoks because they thought the toys would sell better. We would argue however that it is an additional iteration, another level, to see the Iron Man fused with the Burger King or to watch Tony Stark hop in an Audi like a real celebrity. This fusing of the fictional and the commercial eats at the core of story-telling. The willingness to suspend disbelief for a good story runs 180 degrees reverse course of humanity's hardened attempts to disbelieve advertisers. Getting sucked into a good plot is not supposed to make you one of P.T. Barnum's suckers.

This chafes our consciousness.

Food Rules

Michael Pollan author of The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food announced on his website recently that he has a new book forthcoming. It will be called Food Rules. Pollan in his own words explains the premise,

"The idea for this book came from a doctor—a couple of them, as a matter of fact. They had read In Defense of Food, which ended with a handful of tips for eating well: simple ways to navigate the treacherous landscape of modern food and the often-confusing science of nutrition. “What I would love is a pamphlet I could hand to my patients with some rules for eating wisely,” they would say. “I don’t have time for the big nutrition lecture and, anyway, they really don’t need to know what an antioxidant is in order to eat wisely.” Another doctor, a transplant cardiologist, wrote to say “you can’t imagine what I see on the insides of people these days wrecked by eating food products instead of food.” So rather than leaving his heart patients with yet another prescription or lecture on cholesterol, he gives them a simple recipe for roasting a chicken, and getting three wholesome meals out of it – a very different way of thinking about health.

Make no mistake: our health care crisis is in large part a crisis of the American diet-- roughly three quarters of the two-trillion plus we spend on health care in this country goes to treat chronic diseases, most of which can be prevented by a change in lifestyle, especially diet. And a healthy diet is a whole lot simpler than the food industry and many nutritional scientists –what I call the Nutritional Industrial Complex—would have us believe. After spending several years trying to answer the supposedly incredibly complicated question of how we should eat in order to be maximally healthy, I discovered the answer was shockingly simple: eat real food, not too much of it, and more plants than meat. Or, put another way, get off the modern western diet, with its abundance of processed food, refine grains and sugars, and its sore lack of vegetables, whole grains and fruit.

So I decided to take the doctors up on the challenge. I set out to collect and formulate some straightforward, memorable, everyday rules for eating, a set of personal policies that would, taken together or even separately, nudge people onto a healthier and happier path. I solicited rules from doctors, scientist, chefs, and readers, and then wrote a bunch myself, trying to boil down into everyday language what we really know about healthy eating. And while most of the rules are backed by science, they are not framed in the vocabulary of science but rather culture—a source of wisdom about eating that turns out to have as much, if not more, to teach us than nutritional science does.

Pollan says that his is a simple and unconventional diet book. It consists of sixty-four basic rules, each with a paragraph of explanation. It sounds like a powerful tool to the Clarion Content.

Check out Pollan's website here.

Best of the best

The Clarion Content's staff are regular visitors to Craig's List. We love their collection of the best posts submitted by Craig's List users. This isn't your grandma's Reader's Digest.

Here are the two best, "Best of Craig's List" Posts, that the Clarion Content has seen lately. Both reveal the hilarious, insider perspective that many folks have, but which is so rarely ventable in a public forum. Craig's List allows for the anonymous shout or the anonymous shout-out.

First from Fairfax, VA a post entitled, "The drudgery of adulthood for single, free-spirited life..."

Tired, achy, worn-down 39 year old seeks to trade one weekend with his 20 year old former self. 20 year old former self will get a gut, thinning hair, bills, a honey-do list a mile long, a soul-killing job, and the realization that it's going to be another 26 years to retirement. Tired, achy, worn down 39 year old will get a flat stomach, chest and arm muscles, a full head of hair, and access to keg parties and tipsy 18 year old college women. More than willing to make this a permanent thing.

Second from Chicago, IL a post entitled, "Cute but doomed girl who gave me the finger..."

You: young hipster girl with dark hair in two ponytails. Your ride stopped smack dab in the middle of George last night, while you took your sweet time pouring yourself out of the car, opening up the back door, pulling out your groceries and making sure your panties were on straight. We couldn't get around you, so my friend honked his horn, just a couple of times. You finally allowed us to pass, carrying your bag in one hand and using the other to shoot us the bird.

I know that you were totally the most punk rock girl in your dorm. However, you now live in the neighborhood known as Avondale. The person you flip off could very well be a Maniac Latin Disciple or a tough street girl who is waaaaay meaner than you. A neighbor once got a beat down for telling a kid to get the f**k off of her car. I know there's a family out there, probably in Crystal Lake or such, who loves you to death and is terrified about your move to the big city. For their sake, keep your head low, choose your battles carefully and chill out.

Check out more from the Best of Craig's List here.

Diamond sets a record

A flawless, vivid blue, diamond weighing 7.03 carats sold for almost ten million dollars this week...


not the Blue Diamond in question.

Reuters reports that the price paid, a stunning $9.49 million, was a new record for a fancy vivid blue diamond. The auction was held by Sotheby's jewelry department, Europe and the Middle East, and conducted by chairman David Bennett. The final two bidders apparently battled back and forth in hectic fifteen minutes by phone before the diamond was sold.

Sotheby's noted that the rectangular-shaped blue stone set a record for price per carat of any gemstone ever sold at auction, $1,349,752/carat. Blue diamonds are the rarest members of the diamond family after reds. According to Reuters the new owner will have the right to name the stone, which is mounted in a platinum ring. It was put up for sale by London-listed Petra Diamonds, which extracted it last year from the historic Cullinan mine in South Africa.

Breakthrough battery charger

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced a breakthrough in lithium-ion battery chargers yesterday. They claim that the advance allows lithium-ion batteries, the standard in small electronics cellphones, and hybrid vehicles, both to charge and discharge stored energy much more quickly than presently possible. While it might take six, eight, ten minutes to fully charge a cell phone now with a good charger, the MIT prototype can do it in thirty seconds. Because it is a new technique of manufacturing lithium-ion battery materials, rather than a new material, itself, researchers said production could be only two to three years away. It could be a huge boon to the electric car. Read more detail here from The Times of London.

Porn Bailout

and


In an Andy Kaufman-esque move, porn industry moguls Larry Flynt and Joe Francis said Wednesday that they are asking Washington for a $5 billion federal bailout. Reports from the LA Daily News said that Francis's tone was tongue-in-cheek. However, there have been reports from across the mainstream media of a softening in porn revenues.

Flynt and Francis claim in their press release that porn DVD sales and rentals rates are flaccid, down by 22% in the past year, as individuals devour free porn online. Flynt and Francis say the $5 billion dollar stimulus figure is pulled from the decline in porn industry revenues from a climactic peak of $18 billion three years ago. Obviously, this announcement on the eve of the industry's four-day Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas is a bit of a publicity stunt.

But more hard evidence from the LA Daily News talking to an adult film star named Jenna Presley, she said, "I know companies are reducing their rates. Instead of paying a girl $2,000 for a boy-girl (scene), now they’re trying to pay $1,200. She went on to note that revenues at her on-line site have been less than firm, the LA Daily News says, "Her Web site has seen a 20 percent decline in customers, about 1,000 of whom pay $19.99 a month to watch the 22-year-old perform online."

There is no way Washington, D.C. politicos (Francis and Flynt are petitioning Rep. Barney Frank and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson) or President-elect Obama are going to include the porn industry in any kind of bailout or stimulus package. But it is interesting to reflect on the idea that the sagging economy is hurting the porn industry. Is this a sign of the depth of the economic woes of the American economy? Is it a sign that porn for most people is a cut-able entertainment expense? The Clarion Content thinks it probably means that there is a lot of free porn on-line.

Banker desserts

Hopefully you saw the British comedy clip we posted last week about the roots of the economic crisis. It was dry, acerbic, funny stuff. Here from the highly recommended Best of Craig's List is a little more fiery American response rooting for the bankers to get their just desserts. Ahh, comeuppance.

It is titled, "You reap what you sow: the greed of an archetypal Lehman douche."

"Most of you deserve this, you really, truly do. You chose this road because it was easy and because you’re stupid. This was and is the best you’ll ever do. You know who I’m talking about. I’m pointing the finger at you, you and you. And especially you. To all the overtanned Jersey douchebags with steroid addictions, to the smug Ivy League grads with dads in high places, to the good looking brain dead women that eschew Anne Taylor Loft for sales rack Brooks Brothers, and to the upwardly mobile black girls with fake hair and inappropriate-for-work Joyce Leslie outfits. Actually, scratch that. The black girls can stay.

Fuck all of you. You brought this upon yourselves. Your Alpha male bullshit begat this greed, your vile existence is truly at the core of this collapse. For all the times you and your drunk cronies threw up on the street outside Pacha, for all the times you made a scene on the 3:51 LIRR train to Babylon, for all the times you stood on the Path train, or the 6, iPod in hand, desperately trying not to touch anyone. You had it coming.

Is there some kind of code that says you MUST wear a blue shirt? Or is that some kind of unspoken bro ethos? Like, if you’re the dude in the white button down in Bryant Park, is no one gonna blow you? Or is conforming just that much easier, is conformity just a part of your DNA? Is that really the true reason why you’re so universally loathsome to anyone that’s not a part of that vile world?

Before the Bubble O’ Bullshit burst, you would laugh at me. You were the douche bags that felt superior, the ones who turned up their nose at their working-class roots, the ones who scoffed at their peers who worked at the Local Union. You were the ones who laughed at those that worked at non-profits and LIKED IT. “Art History? What are you going to do with a major in Art History?” Yeah, your finance major got you real fucking far. Maybe after this ship sails you’ll realize that aside from your rape trial, college didn’t teach you much of anything. Sorry bro, but in the real world, you can’t walk down the street, lacrosse stick in hand, and just get respect.

I hope that with this smashup comes your own social foreclosure. I hope all those dudes from my high school -- you know who I'm talking about -- the ones that never got good grades, the ones that never knew how to act like decent human beings, the date rapists, the juicers, the guidos, the Quinnipiac or Iona grads that never should have graduated yet somehow landed cushy Wall Street jobs -- receive the guerdon from the gods . I hope you’re evicted from your Upper East Side apartment, I hope your Denali gets repoed, I hope you can’t afford your bullshit Murray Hill lifestyle. I hope you truly get your comeuppance. Because it’s well fucking deserved and the Universe knows it. And what about me, you ask?

I’m laughing all the way to the nonexistent bank."

The Clarion Content says, "Whoa."

Truth is often said in jest

This comedy routine recorded in 2007, sounds all to real circa 2008, (save the racially insensitive humor.) It is a line that is frequently attributed to Shakespeare that, truth is often said in jest. Some speculate it dates to a courtly era when only the jester could point out certain things to the monarch aloud, publicly. This maxim continues to apply because humor is a natural human defense mechanism, what is indefensibly ridiculous or hard to believe is roundly mocked. This is very dry British comedy from the longest running TV show in the UK, "The South Bank Show."

Below George Parr appears on the fake talk show, "The Last Laugh."

Who's the plumber?

Joe the plumber from Ohio got more air time than Iraq last night at the presidential debate. He doesn't look like the Joe Six Pack we pictured. McCain used him to bludgeon Obama on tax policy, declaring it was a bad time to raise taxes on anybody. Obama turned it around to point at McCain's dangerous and ill-advised health care plan, and his support for taxes cuts for the uber-rich. (Though as McCain noted, Joe the Plumber is no Warren Buffett.)

So who is the real Joe the Plumber?

Here are a couple of links to read about him.

Pithy F*rging Sayings (8th ed.)

"Familiarity almost inevitably breeds indifference." ---Marc Bloch

"Aging comes at you like the tide. It only feels like waves because of the way humans measure time; birthdays, anniversaries, seasons."---staff

"An attempt to rest political equality on religious truth is simply a recipe for social disaster and political failure." ---Andrew Sullivan

"He hungered to explain who he was...an orphan boy...who had been poor all his life, had grubbed for a living, and was poor in other ways too- if he was that one what was he doing in prison? Who were they punishing if his life was punishment?"---Bernard Malamud in The Fixer

"Sometimes things that go without saying should go unsaid."---staff

"Never think that wars are irrational catastrophes: they happen when wrong ways of thinking and living bring about intolerable situations."---Dorothy L. Sayers

"Bad data is a far worse problem than no data."---staff

"It is...chimerical to build peace on the economic foundations which, in turn, rest on the systematic cultivation of greed and envy, the very forces which drive men into conflict."---E.F. Schumacher

Link to other Clarion sayings posts.

Tax Holiday

A quick reminder, for our dear local readers, there is a sales tax holiday this weekend in North Carolina. That's right! You can spend your hard earned dollars without the governor taking the state's usual cut. Items on the tax exempt list include clothing, footwear, and school supplies of $100 or less (per,) sports equipment of $50 or less (per,) computers of $3,500 or less, and computer supplies of $250 or less (per item.)

The relative price of computers (of the non Mac variety) is very low right now. Top of the line PC desktops and laptops can be had for under $650. Take advantage? It is certainly worth thinking about, especially if you know you are going to be in the market for a computer any time soon. The tax holiday runs from midnight Friday until midnight Sunday.

US Air where your safety comes first

US Air where your safety comes first, or at least second, after costs and profit margins; that's how the Clarion reads remarks this week by US Air pilots about the carrier's shocking and potentially unsafe practices.

Eight pilots have filed complaints against the airline for allowing their aircraft to fly dangerous low on fuel in attempt to cut costs. Less fuel when a plane departs is less weight and therefore better fuel mileage. Pilots said in a full page ad in USA Today that US Air was ordering them to depart with less safety margin fuel than they felt necessary. FAA regulations require all domestic flights have at least forty-five extra hour worth of fuel than it would take to get their destination. (In 1990 an Avianca Airlines plane ran out of fuel after a lengthy holding pattern over Kennedy Airport and crashed into Long Island, killing seventy-three.)

Pilots who have been requesting more fuel than the company policy deems necessary have been ordered to attend punitive training sessions to explain why. The carrier denies the pilots claims, and says the extra training sessions are an opportunity for the pilots to explain their requests for additional fuel. The company further says that its policy is for planes to have an extra hour's worth of fuel per flight.

Note that all of this is occurring in the context of a labor dispute between the company and the pilots.

Jet fuel recently surpassed labor as airlines' biggest cost.