hidin' on the back streets

Question:

What do Jon Bon Jovi 

billboard

and Bruce Springsteen,

columbia

have in common?

If you said “rock stars” you’d be right, 

but they are also farmers.

behance.net

And as farmers they receive part of the $100’s of billions paid out each year in corporate and farm subsidies.

Bon Jovi paid just $100 in property tax because he has an employee keep some bees.

A New York City Rockefeller heir was paid $342,634

to *not* farm his land in Idaho.

While, y’know:

Turns out each year per family we pay about $6000 in taxes for these business subsidies.

http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/24/average-american-family-pays-6k-a-year-in-subsidies-to-big-business/

But what do we actually bitch about? 

If you are in the 99% you’re getting screwed.

But if you’re The Boss, 

Baby, we were born to run.

 a farm.

thecommonconstitutionalist.com

play that funky music

Happy Holiday!

http://clocktowertenants.com/2015/04/73-of-all-effing-time.html

golden rule

Civilization came together in Japan about 12,000 years ago. You can read something more about that here:

http://clocktowertenants.com/2012/05/kurama-knows.html

Ancient temples are the rule and we approached the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto with the reverence it deserves.

It dates back to 1397, already 500 years old in 1886 when our ClockTower was built.

1886, wiki

The grounds are maintained as meticulously as the golden building itself.

Coatings of fine, clear Japanese lacquer protect extensive gold leaf gilding on the second and third floors.

A roof ornament Phoenix stands watch over everything else.

But things are not always as they seem.

 http://clocktowertenants.com/2013/07/shinto-is-bomb.html

This Golden Pavilion was actually built as a replica, 

in 1955.

http://clocktowertenants.com/2012/06/tao-and-zen.html

A schizophrenic monk burnt the original to the ground in July of 1950.

wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkaku-ji

divine intervention

Bette Midler tweeted yesterday about the Afghan commander who had a young boy chained to his bed for sex while on an American Military base.

Westerners do not agree with these practices, but we also have little understanding into why these customs endure.

Western nations are doing the humane thing by opening their borders to middle-eastern migrants.

But pedatory sexual practices established for thousands of years don’t change with immigration.

Migrants have made very clear they will not assimilate.

reuters

We keep doing the same correct things, 

expecting a different outcome.

concrete jungle

The term “ready mix” in concrete means no water is involved until the sandy dry mix is in the truck and actually on the way to the pour.

Dry ingredients like Portland cement plus aggregates like pebbles, sand and gravel are measured by computer, dispensed by weight to a central mixer and combined to a uniform grit.

It is (dry) loaded into a 9 cubic yard truck (hence the phrase the “whole nine yards”.)

Only when the truck is on the way is the water added, which is why you often see cement trucks spinning their loads on the highway.

They are mixing their cargo to that wet and grey, sticky stuff we have come to know as concrete.

http://clocktowertenants.com/2012/06/passing-clocktower-slump-test.html

Batch mixing concrete actually goes back to the Romans, from 300BC to about 476AD, a period of over 700 years.

wiki

Both the Colosseum (70AD-80AD) and the Pantheon Dome (118AD-128AD) are poured-in-place concrete.

Almost 2000 years after it was poured, 

the Pantheon dome roof remains the largest unreinforced concrete pour in the world.

Sometimes concrete is “subbed”, that is, subcontracted to a different supplier. 

A “ready mix” company will purchase the dry mix from another firm, then add water on the way and re-sell the wet concrete as their own.

It’s a dirty business in more ways than one, often influenced by the same families for decades.

But we couldn’t build much in New York City without it.

Happy Monday!

gospel gridlock

The Pope lives in the Vatican, the Vatican is in Rome, 

and Rome is the very heart of Italy.

dailynews

So much so, that before Pope Paul visited the United States in 1965 no Pope had left Italy since 1809.

dailynews

Francis’ visit later this week will make him just the fourth Pope to ever come into the United States.

It will be a blend of pious prayer and bold commercialism.

You can read about the upcoming transit changes here:

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/09/11/pope-francis-nyc-street-closures-mass-transit-changes/

The first visit by Pope Paul in October 1965, 

was a very big deal.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/pope-paul-vi-spent-historic-14-hours-nyc-1965-article-1.2366685

He met with President Lyndon Johnson in NY’s Waldorf Astoria because the feds couldn’t figure out at the time if a “non-country” should have access to the White House.

dailynews

But he did have VIP access to Yankee Stadium, 

giving mass before 50,000 people.

dailynews

He knew how to attract attention, too, 

wearing white with a cape of crimson red.

popes-and-papacy.com

No one really knows the divine inspiration for that costume.

variety