Jordan Miles Mountain Dew Discovered

Kind of a cool Pittsburgh murals story and a generous link from Sally Keelson here.

There's a new mural still under development on the North Side with a civil rights theme. The key component of the mural is the iconic Trayvon Martin "hoodie" photo with a layer showing the African land mass, pretty cool execution:

Doubly exciting to see that the Pittsburgh's Jordan Miles and the mysteriously disappearing Mountain Dew have taken a place within the presentation. (Jordan Miles was severely beaten by three Pittsburgh police who claimed their action was justified by what they thought was a gun, but turned out to be a Mountain Dew. Curiously, there was never any evidence of Mountain Dew - no bottle or can.

PG: Heinz Eco-Endowments Going Fracking Sane

An article in Sunday's Post Gazette: Personnel shake-ups at Heinz Endowments seem to indicate shift on energy issues delivers a very biased presentation. The event that provides the notional hook is the Heinz Endowments have discharged their environmental director, and the communications director is leaving at the same time.

The story opens by introducing Jim Seif's credentials as a former secretary for the state Department of Environmental Protection, and also a former legal chief with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency while presenting Seif's criticism of the Heinz Foundation's dismissal of environmental director Caren Glotfelty.

Only much further down at the bottom of the article does the P-G indicate how Mr. Seif is currently engaged:

Mr. Seif, now an energy expert with Ridge Global, the consulting firm founded by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, urged the Heinz board and the Heinz family to show some more backbone, and not be "spooked by a couple of screwballs" within the environmental movement.

So Mr. Seif is not all the article presents him to be, within the "inverted pyramid" of priorities used in newspaper articles. But still, it must be a great injustice to have the environmental director terminated, right?

Ms. Glotfelty has experience in government and in working with business that rounds out her passion for green causes, according to colleagues in the Pennsylvania conservation community.

It was that background in part that led Ms. Glotfelty and her former boss Mr. Vagt, who spent 10 years in the oil and gas industry before becoming president of Davidson College, to spearhead the creation of the Center for Sustainable Shale Development.

Seeded with Heinz money, the coalition was announced in March and was brought together to create new standards for operators extracting natural gas and related liquids from the Marcellus Shale formation.

The sudden departure of the Endowments' longtime communications director Douglas Root, whose last day on Thursday was the same as Ms. Glotfelty's, has added to concerns among Pittsburgh's foundation community that other changes could follow.

But wait, there's more:

But in June, a report from the Public Accountability Initiative -- a tiny nonprofit environmental watchdog group -- suggested that The Heinz Endowments should have been more forthcoming about the fact that Mr. Vagt is still on the board of directors at Kinder Morgan, a natural gas pipeline company, where he was paid $136,016 last year and where he owns $1.2 million in stock.

Mr. Vagt and the Endowments declined to comment on the report when it was revealed.

Environmentalists have also said that the center's "standards" weren't all that ground-breaking, and in some cases were less strict than the existing state drilling standards. The coalition, according to the Public Accountability Initiative, represented a "greenwashing campaign controlled by the natural gas industry, with the cooperation of a few philanthropies."

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So let's write another article about this story, shall we? More facts, fewer unattributed quotes, less agenda. Let's use only the materials provided in the PG article.

Heinz Endowments Eco-Director Dismissed after conflict of interest exposed

The Heinz Endowments have dismissed their environmental director, Caren Glotfelty, after a nonprofit environmental watchdog group uncovered that Glotfelty did not disclose the role that industry played in developed the Endowments' Center for Sustainable Shale Development. The CSSD was intended to address environmental aspects of the fracking industry.

While working for the Endowments, Glotfelty developed the Initiative along with Mr. Robert "Bobby" Vagt, president of the Endowments. Mr. Vagt is also on the board of directors at Kinder Morgan, a natural gas pipeline company, where he was paid $136,016 last year and where he owns $1.2 million in stock.

Mr. Vagt and the Endowments declined to comment on the watchdog group's report when it was revealed.

Jim Seif, an energy expert with Ridge Global, the consulting firm founded by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, urged the Heinz board and the Heinz family to show some more backbone, and not be "spooked by a couple of screwballs" within the environmental movement.

Environmentalists have also said that the center's "standards" weren't all that ground-breaking, and in some cases were less strict than the existing state drilling standards. The Endowment's CSSD, according to the Public Accountability Initiative, represented a "greenwashing campaign controlled by the natural gas industry, with the cooperation of a few philanthropies".

Industry lobbyist Seif had words of caution for the Heinz family: "All the stakeholders in the Pittsburgh, Marcellus and environmental [communities] will be watching carefully," he said. "If they lurch out of the center of the road, it will do harm to a lot of people, and spoil a wonderful family legacy for Pittsburgh."

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I'm sure the Heinz family is really concerned about what Jim Seif is saying on behalf of the fracking industry.

• Mint Press News: Environmental Endowments’ Director Quits Abruptly Following Partnership With Big Oil

From One Second to the Next

From Werner Herzog:

Playing Favorites with Wrong Way Signs

Sometimes people make mistakes and it's good policy to build systems that tolerate mistakes and provide a safety net. For instance, sometimes people are driving around, get distracted, and mistake an opposite-direction one way street for the place they're supposed to go.

To prevent that, we've decided that it's cost effective to put up signs to warn drivers "hey, don't drive here" and we put those signs up all over the place. Millions and millions and millions of them.

Let's think about a different situation. Twenty years ago, the law of the Commonwealth was to ride your bicycle on the left side of the road, opposite the direction of traffic. That's still the procedure for joggers and walkers.

But we've changed that law in the meanwhile. Now, bicyclists are supposed to ride in the same direction as the cars.

Here's a question: If you learned to ride your bike thirty years ago, and got your license twenty-five years ago, how would you know about the change in the law? Did the state tell you? Is there a periodic update or retest? No, no, no.

And so, if you're a 55-year old man who hasn't ridden in years and you buy a bike at a garage sale and start riding back and forth to work, you'd probably use the same habits as you used back when you were a kid, and you'd be riding on the wrong side of the road, and you might be killed.

Unless, of course, we had signs up like this one (taken by @darsal in DC)

But we don't put up those signs on Pittsburgh roads or on Pennsylvania roads, because we don't care about bicyclists as much as we care about drivers.

If our streets were built for everybody, then maybe once every five blocks, piggybacked on the back of some important sign for cars we'd have a "bike-right" sign like the one above. Doesn't have to be everywhere; a reasonable distribution would go a long way to putting out the message.

It would be a much more effective program than the current policy of doing nothing, killing a cyclist periodically, and then letting the news coverage do the work.

Emma Goldman on Exporting Democracy (I Wonder if That Means What You Think It Means)

Emma Goldman:

How else is the world to take America seriously, when democracy at home is daily being outraged, free speech suppressed, peaceable assemblies broken up by overbearing and brutal gangsters in uniform; when free press is curtailed and every independent opinion gagged? Verily, poor as we are in democracy, how can we give of it to the world?
Trial and Speeches of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman in the United States District Court, in the City of New York, July, 1917 (link)

Emma Goldman, Pittsburgh resident from the Homestead Strike until her colleague Alexander Berkman was put in prison at Western Penitentiary for attempting to assassinate Henry Clay Frick.

Via Mon River Dreams Ringtone

Gosh Thank You Governor Tom Corbett

Thank you, Governor Tom Corbett, my family and I feel a lot more secure about our financial future and we just weren't sure who to thank for it. (also, I did not take this as a dog-whistle-code "I got the bums to work", really no I didn't.

It is, of course, really fortunate that all those people who are now going to work own cars, because the way you've unfunded public transit there's no way they're taking the bus to work.

Too bad about the fracking and your failure to fullfil your duties as specified in Article 1 Section 27 of the PA Constitution. Damn greenies.

Nice job signing legislation restricting the right of free suffrage (specified in Article 1, Section 5 of the PA Constitution) in spite of the fact that there is no, zero, zilch documentation of voter fraud.

Also, I think you were misinformed about Article 3, Sections 14 and 15 of the PA Constitution. You're supposed to fund public schools and not fund sectarian schools, I think you mixed that up.

Nice job delaying the Penn State child abuse scandal until after your election. Kind of surprised you still signed off an a $3M state grant to Sandusky's foundation as governor, knowing what you knew as attorney general. Real glad you wasted more tax money suing the NCAA.

Major props and acknowledgement to Will Blank.