Celebrating Blog’s 19th Anniversary

 

  Nineteen year ago I started this blog as a distraction from my father’s heart attack and slow recovery. It was late 2004 and social media & video streaming apps didn’t exist yet — or at least not widely available to the general public. Blogs were the newest means of …

Thoughts on NGA West’s Upcoming $10 Million Dollar Landscaping Project

 

  The new NGA West campus , Jefferson & Cass, has been under construction for a few years now. Next NGA West is a large-scale construction project that will build a new facility for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in St. Louis, Missouri.This $1.7B project is managed by the U.S. Army …

Four Recent Books From Island Press

 

  Book publisher Island Press always impresses me with thoughtful new books written by people working to solve current problems — the subjects are important ones for urbanists and policy makers to be familiar and actively discussing. These four books are presented in the order I received them. ‘Justice and …

New Siteman Cancer Center, Update on my Cancer

 

  This post is about two indirectly related topics: the new Siteman Cancer Center building under construction on the Washington University School of Medicine/BJC campus and an update on my stage 4 kidney cancer. Let’s deal with the latter first. You may have noticed I’ve not posted in three months, …

Recent Articles:

Sunday Poll: How Do You Prefer To Drink Beer?

 

Please vote in the poll, located in the right sidebar
Please vote in the poll, located in the right sidebar

The beer industry has seen lots of changes in my lifetime, as a kid I thought beer was the canned Coors my dad drank at the end of the workday. As an adult I learned beer is also sold in other forms like bottles and draft. The beer options today are much more varied than they were when I turned 21 (1988). Craft beers have taken so much volume from big beer that big breweries have consolidated and began buying craft brewers. See 9 Craft Beers You Didn’t Know Weren’t Craft Beers.

In the news last week was discussion of Budweiser and the use of the famous Clydesdale horses in advertising:

The self-proclaimed King of Beers is more of an afterthought among young consumers at Jake’s and bars across the U.S.: Some 44% of 21- to 27-year-old drinkers today have never tried Budweiser, according to the brand’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV.

Young drinkers aren’t the reason Budweiser volumes have declined in the U.S. for 25 years, from its nearly 50-million-barrel peak in 1988 to 16 million barrels last year. Light beers like its sister, Bud Light, have chipped away at Bud’s share of the market for decades. Bud Light overtook it as the No. 1 selling beer in 2001, and Coors Light displaced it as No. 2 in 2011. (Wall Street Journal – Bud Crowded Out by Craft Beer Craze)

This got me to thinking about a poll on beer, but different than previous polls in 2009 & 2013. I used a poll I found online as the model for today’s poll question: How do you prefer to drink beer?

Various answers like plastic cup, can, bottle are listed. The poll is open until 8pm (Central) today, results will be posted Wednesday. The poll is at the top of the right sidebar.

— Steve Patterson

Heating With Soft Coal Caused Black Tuesday 75 Years Ago Today

 

"Mist and smoke hung over St. Louis on this day in January more than year after Black Tuesday however the smoke lifted within a hour." Missouri Department of Natural Resources
“Mist and smoke hung over St. Louis on this day in January more than year after Black Tuesday however the smoke lifted within a hour.” Missouri Department of Natural Resources

During the 1930s the population of St. Louis was declining, no doubt in part due to the unhealthy air during the winter months when soft coal was used to heat nearly every building.

In February 1937 a smoke ordinance was passed creating a “Division of Smoke Regulation in the Department of Public Safety”, forcing larger businesses to burn only clean coal and setting standards for smoke emission and inspection. By 1938 emissions from commercial smokestacks had been reduced by two-thirds. (Wikipedia)

Mayor Bernard F. Dickmann, the first Democratic Mayor in decades, put Raymond Tucker in charge of cleaning the air. In 1941 Dickmann lost the race for a third term, defeated by Republican William F. Becker:

 

Perhaps the most significant development during Becker’s term as mayor was the adoption of a civil service amendment to the City Charter. The amendment enacted a merit system for the hiring of city employees. Prior to that time, a political patronage system prevailed in which all city employees could be replaced with a change of partisan administration. Becker supported the civil service reform and it was approved by the voters in September 1941. Becker also retained Raymond Tucker who had been appointed Smoke Commissioner by Mayor Dickmann, and supported his efforts to reduce air pollution within the city. (Wikipedia)

Becker was killed in a glider accident just two years later, he was succeeded by the Republican President of the Board of Aldermen Aloys P. Kaufmann.  Kaufmann was elected to a full term in 1945, he was the last Republican mayor in St. Louis.

I’m glad the citizens of St. Louis in the 30s & 40s took the big steps they did to clean the air. Today I don’t think we have the kind of political leadership that it takes to achieve such change.

— Steve Patterson

Happy Thanksgiving St. Louis

November 27, 2014 Events/Meetings 1 Comment
 

Hope you get to spend the day with family and/or friends.

— Steve Patterson

Grand Jury Decision Sooner Than Readers Expected

November 26, 2014 Featured, Ferguson, St. Louis County Comments Off on Grand Jury Decision Sooner Than Readers Expected
 

The AutoZone at 9947 W. Florissant in Dellwood was one of many businesses burned following the grand jury decision.   Photo date: August 19, 2014
The AutoZone at 9947 W. Florissant in Dellwood was one of many businesses burned following the grand jury decision.
Photo date: August 19, 2014

In the Sunday Poll at the start of this week it was looking to many like we wouldn’t see a decision anytime soon. Only 6 readers correctly guessed Monday as the day.

Here are the results, in chronological order:

Q: What day do you think the Michael Brown Grand Jury will announce their decision?

  • Today: Sunday 11/23/14 2 [6.25%]
  • Tomorrow: Monday 11/24/14 6 [18.75%]
  • Tuesday 11/25/14 4 [12.5%]
  • Wednesday 11/26/14 3 [9.38%]
  • Thursday 11/27/15 0 [0%]
  • Friday 11/28/14 1 [3.13%]
  • Saturday 11/29/14 1 [3.13%]
  • Sunday 11/30/14 2 [6.25%]
  • Sometime in December 2014 7 [21.88%]
  • Unsure/no answer 6 [18.75%]

The answer with the most votes was “Sometime in December 2014.” I’d expected the results the following weekend, I thought on Sunday the 30th.

The destruction we all witnessed on TV Monday night/Tuesday morning was easy to anticipate.  A look at history makes this clear:

  • The 1979 White Night Riots in San Francisco after Dan White was convicted of Manslaughter for the murders of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
  • The 1992 Los Angeles Riots after four white cops were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King.
  • You can read a long list of civil unrest in the US going back to the late 18th century here.

This destruction we saw underscores the problems we have in the St. Louis region, see Guest Post: Why It Takes More Than Changing Beliefs To End Racial Inequality.

Peace…

— Steve Patterson

 

Spring 2015 Municipal Election Season Has Started

 

The St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners is on the first floor at 300 N. Tucker (@ Olive)
The St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners is on the first floor at 300 N. Tucker (@ Olive)

The national midterm elections are only 3 weeks behind us, but already the Spring 2015 St. Louis municipal election season has begun, yesterday candidates filing for office in the city’s even-numbered wards. Also on the ballot will be the citywide office of President of the Board of Aldermen.

So far the following wards will have contested races in the Democratic primary: 4, 8, 15, 20, 24. 28.  The last day to file for office is January 2, 2015.  You can see a list of candidates that filed yesterday here.

— Steve Patterson

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