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Celerity

Celerity's Journal
Celerity's Journal
July 26, 2022

RIBA reveals UK's three best affordable housing schemes

https://www.dezeen.com/2022/07/21/riba-2022-neave-brown-award-for-housing-shortlist/





Three housing projects have been shortlisted for RIBA's 2022 Neave Brown Award for Housing including a hybrid scheme in east London encompassing a primary school by Henley Halebrown. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) announced that 333 Kingsland Road by Henley Halebrown, Kiln Place by Peter Barber Architects and Lovedon Fields by John Pardey Architects were shortlisted for this year's award. The Neave Brown Award for Housing aims to acknowledge the best examples of affordable housing in the UK and is named in honour of modernist architect and social housing pioneer Neave Brown, who died in 2018.





333 Kingsland Road is a hybrid housing and primary school scheme in east London by Henley Halebrown. It comprises 68 affordable homes within a 10-storey, red-brick structure that has a colonnade-style façade. A primary school that is made up of courtyards and classrooms is shielded by the towering apartment block that surrounds it.





Lovedon Fields by John Pardey Architects is a rural development on the outskirts of Winchester, Hampshire. The project also won this year's RIBA South Award. The housing development includes 50 apartments, terraced and detached homes all of which are surrounded by allotments, bike trails, parks and grasslands.





Peter Barber Architect's Kiln Place in London is a collection of 15 homes added to a post-war housing estate in Camden, to increase the estate's density without demolishing its existing homes. Homes were slotted within underused areas of the estate as well as within old oil tank rooms and disused plant rooms. Seven of the new homes were built for social rent while the others were set for market sale. Last year Peter Barber Architects won the Neave Brown Award for Housing for its McGrath Road project.

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July 26, 2022

For thousands of Georgians, freely traveling for an abortion is not an option.


For Georgia residents on parole and probation, the state’s six-week abortion ban leaves few choices—and effectively deputizes parole and probation officers to make decisions about their reproductive care.

https://boltsmag.org/georgia-abortion-ban-probation-parole-travel-restrictions/



Being on probation and parole is becoming a uniquely challenging situation for pregnant people in Georgia following the Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Last week, a federal appeals court allowed a 2019 law prohibiting abortion after six weeks—before many women even know they are pregnant—to immediately take effect. The near-total ban will severely constrict the reproductive choices of Georgians on probation and parole. Residents in this category who need an abortion will be faced with an impossible choice: giving birth and caring for a baby they do not want and likely cannot afford to raise, or traveling out of state for an abortion and risking a violation of their parole or probation conditions, which could land them back in prison.

Amy Ard, the executive director of the Atlanta-based Motherhood Beyond Bars, works with expectant mothers in prison, on probation, and on parole. The organization also supports their former clients in transitioning out of prison. “I’ve talked to a few of them about the restriction on travel,” Ard said, “and how frustrating it is for them to hear you just have to go to another state, like that’s no big deal, like you get in a car and you drive to another state and stay with friends. That’s not the way it works for them. And you know, no one seems to understand that.” Around 666,400 women are on parole or probation at any given day in the U.S., according to a recent Prison Policy Initiative report. In Georgia, the rate of people under probation is the hightest in the nation, affecting hundreds of thousands. Around one in 25 adults are under “community supervision.”

This stems from a law that forced judges to give the maximum sentence to people convicted of a second felony, Andrew Fleischman, an appellate lawyer at the Atlanta firm Ross & Pines, told Bolts. “What this ends up meaning is that people who have relatively minor second offenses end up getting 20 years probation,” he said. And though Georgia enacted a 2021 reform that allows people to request early termination of their probation after three years, it’s too early to tell whether that will substantially reduce these numbers. Fleischman noted that many people simply don’t have the means to challenge their probation. “If you fix the rules but don’t give people automatic counsel or an automatic hearing, it’s not always going to get fixed,” he said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Georgians are living with this sword of Damocles hanging over them. Probation’s intended status as a community alternative to incarceration is “definitely complicated by the number of people who go back to prison for violating probation,” said Page Dukes, the communications associate at the Southern Center for Human Rights. “There’s so many restrictive conditions.” And being on probation often costs more than people can afford. In 2015, probation revocations accounted for an astonishing 55 percent of all prison admissions in Georgia. Over 1,100 people in the state were sent back to prison for technical parole violations in 2019—just over three people a day. A 2017 Harvard Kennedy School report on probation concluded that “the largest alternative to incarceration in the United States is simultaneously one of the most significant drivers of mass incarceration.”

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July 26, 2022

The U.S. Has No Plan to Prevent the Next Pandemic

We treat pandemics as inevitable when we could commit to averting them.

Our institutions are poised to repeat the mistakes of COVID-19.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/07/monkeypox-covid19-us-next-pandemic/670946/

https://archive.ph/xo7xt



Ill-Fated

More than 6 million COVID-19 deaths have been confirmed worldwide, but in many ways that number severely understates the death toll. Experts also look at “excess mortality”—how many more people died as a result of COVID-19 than the number of people who would have died if the coronavirus had never materialized. That means counting people who died because of overcrowded hospitals, underlying illnesses exacerbated by an infection, economic deprivation and food insecurity, and other knock-on effects of the disease. One estimate suggests that between 14 million and 25 million total human beings lost their lives because of the virus.

Not only have millions died; we’ve lost trillions in economic output, countless families have been scarred by loss, and a generation of youth has seen childhood and education interrupted. The devastatingly personal nature of this crisis, even to the wealthy and well connected, can’t be overstated. And yet, there’s little evidence that our current political system has adjusted to take long-term threats any more seriously.

Growing up, I remember hearing a common refrain from environmentalists: We would take action on climate change only when the water hit our ankles. Once the crisis presented less as a hypothetical and more as an immediate danger, the public would pay serious attention and invest in countering it. Today, I’m not even sure that’s true. When the pandemic arrived in the United States, we did take quick action passing unprecedented financial relief, including extended unemployment benefits that helped keep Americans afloat and buffered the hit to our economy. Our short-term policy response to address and mitigate the harm of COVID-19 was admirable—but it can obscure how little we’ve done, mainly because of congressional inaction, to address the risks of future pandemics.

“We lost the war on COVID two months in, when we didn’t stop it from spreading outside of Wuhan,” Gabe Bankman-Fried, the founder and director of the advocacy group Guarding Against Pandemics, told me. “We’re already losing whatever the next war is, because it can take a few years to ramp up the technology and readiness … The time to panic about the next thing is now.” Bankman-Fried’s point is not that policy makers (or anyone) should run around like their hair is on fire, but that dealing with pandemics is about thinking long-term. Policy makers are focused on preparing for future pandemics—treating them as inevitable—rather than committing to preventing them from happening in the first place. Preventing them would mean doing much more to invest in testing, tracing, and developing early-warning systems.

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July 26, 2022

Dealing with inflation, really



Jayati Ghosh bemoans the economics profession’s inability to think beyond crude analyses of inflation—and crude policies to stem it.

https://socialeurope.eu/dealing-with-inflation-really



The inflationary wave has revealed all sorts of things about governments but also, more tellingly, about economists. The number of economists, and consequently policy-makers, who remain wedded to the unyielding idea that inflation results from too-loose monetary policy—hence central banks should restrict the money supply and raise interest rates—is legion. It has become what JK Galbraith would have called the ‘conventional wisdom’. It is still wrong. The causes of inflation vary by context and period.

Tighter monetary policy is a blunt tool which risks generating recession and unemployment—harming workers even more than price increases. And besides this human suffering, if the drivers of inflation lie elsewhere, reducing the excess demand purportedly at fault will not even resolve the problem. These obvious facts seem almost forgotten in mainstream discussion. Even the respected economist Olivier Blanchard, in a series of tweets, suggested that increasing unemployment was the only way to control inflation. The problem, apparently, was how to get workers to understand and accept this:

https://twitter.com/ojblanchard1/status/1550375189816410112
https://twitter.com/ojblanchard1/status/1550375193310265346
Leave aside the highly problematic assertion that ‘unemployment has to increase to control inflation’, which has been effectively refuted, conceptually and empirically, over the past two decades. Consider only the possibility that the driver of price rises is not ‘excess demand’ or workers demanding higher wages because they are not being adequately ‘disciplined’ by unemployment, but corporate profiteering, along with financial speculation in commodities markets. There are good reasons to believe this is the case, especially in global markets and in the advanced economies. (In many low- and middle-income countries, the causes of inflation are more complex and mostly come from cost-push factors, including imported inflation from global prices and currency depreciations.)

Corporate profits

In the United States, for example, the Economic Policy Institute has shown that increasing corporate profits have contributed disproportionately to inflation. From the second quarter of 2020 to the last quarter of 2021, corporate profits were responsible for 54 per cent of overall inflation—a dramatic increase from the 11 per cent they accounted for in the previous four decades (1979-2019). By contrast, unit labour costs were responsible for less than 8 per cent of the inflation, compared with 62 per cent in the previous four decades. Indeed, because of the recent price rises, the real value of the federal minimum wage is now at its lowest point in 66 years! The contribution of non-labour input costs—the famous ‘supply-chain issues’ so widely advertised—was 38 per cent, compared with 27 per cent in the earlier period.

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July 26, 2022

Deftones - B-Sides & Rarities (Full Album)



Label: Maverick – 8122-76460-2, Warner Strategic Marketing – 8122-76460-2
Format:
CD, Compilation, Remastered
DVD, DVD-Video, Compilation, Digibook
Country: Europe
Released: 2005
Genre: Rock
Style: Heavy Metal, Alternative Rock, Post-Hardcore, Acoustic, Experimental



















July 26, 2022

Inside Scoop: London's best ice cream

https://www.themodernhouse.com/journal/inside-scoop-londons-best-ice-cream/



There’s nothing like summer in London to inspire a few scoops of ice cream. And while the simple pleasure of pale vanilla swirls from the local ice cream van never fails to delight, the capital’s scene of cool sweet treats is as jubilantly experimental as it is diverse. There are all manners of bright, rich and colourful soft serves around the city, as well as deep-violet Filipino ube sandwiched between soft milk buns, bouncy morsels of Japanese mochi ice creams, grown-up Middle Eastern flavours topped with baklava and tart fruity sorbets made from the best seasonal British produce, hidden in the corners of much-loved grocers. Here are our picks of the best ice cream London has to cool you down when the sun shines: homemade, soft-served, machine-churned or otherwise.



1. Mamasons

How do you know a Mamasons ice cream when you see one? This Filipino parlour’s scoops come in a signature violet hue, which is not the result of experimental food dye, but rather the natural shade of native ingredient ube. This purple yam crops up in a lot of Filipino cooking, but it’s perhaps most known for being churned into creamy, coconutty ice cream. It might be even tastier in the form of bilog – dressed in a sweet, soft milk bun. There are other enticing flavours at Mamasons too, from chocolate malt and black coconut to a queso scoop, which tastes like salted cheesecake. Their calamansi (Filipino lime) is the order of the day when a London heatwave strikes.



2. Bake Street

Bake Street might be best known for its diverse brunch fare, but the ice cream here is an equal draw. Situated between Stoke Newington and Clapton, the sibling-run cafe serves Hackney residents small-batch flavours, which are concocted using the tastiest fruit of the season, from juicy cherries to zesty pineapple. It also takes inspiration from nostalgic childhood desserts, such as rice pudding and coke floats, as well as whipping up new inventions that are unusually enticing. You might, for instance, go for a tub of coffee, date and almond ice cream, studded with croissant shards and toasted marzipan cubes. If in doubt, there is always the silky soft serve of a lovely Kesar mango sorbet.



3. Romeo & Giulietta Artisan Gelateria

Even on the cooler summer days, there’ll be a queue snaking around the corner of Albion Road home to Romeo & Giulietta Artisan Gelateria. This pocket-sized shop serves scoops of Italian gelato in classic flavours like pistachio and hazelnut. But there’s also ricotta with caramelised figs, its signature Biscokrok, a biscuit base covered in a chocolate sauce – think a sophisticated take on cookies and cream – and a seriously dark chocolate sorbet. Go for a scoop and leave with a tub – they’ll mix up to four flavours.

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July 26, 2022

Fabric 20 - John Digweed (2005) Full Mix Album 📡📽️📺💾🔭



Label: Fabric (2) – Fabric39
Series: Fabric (3) – 20
Format:
CD, Mixed
Country: UK
Released: 17 Jan 2005
Genre: Electronic
Style: House, Progressive House



















July 25, 2022

Fabric 34 - Ellen Allien (2007) Full Mix Album 💊🧪⚗️🧬



Label: Fabric (2) – FABRIC67
Series: Fabric (3) – 34
Format:
CD, Mixed
Country: UK
Released: 15 May 2007
Genre: Electronic
Style: Techno, Acid House, Minimal

















July 25, 2022

Justice ✝️ (Cross) (Full Album) (2007) (Unofficial Remaster) (French Electro)



Label: Because Music – BEC5772110, Ed Banger Records – BEC5772110
Format:
2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo, Gatefold
Country: Europe
Released: Jun 2007
Genre: Electronic
Style: Electro, House, Electro House














July 25, 2022

Def Leppard - Photograph (KGM Sasha Extended Version) (great Marilyn Monroe-centric video as well)



Extended version made with the multitracks.

Def Leppard would sometimes dedicate this song to Marilyn Monroe when they performed it live, and the original video featured a Monroe look-a-like.

Most of the video uses clips from the Marilyn Monroe movie "Niagara" (1953).



Label: Vertigo – VERX 9, Vertigo – 640 077-0
Format:
Vinyl, 12", Single. British-Only Welcome to 1984 Ltd Edition
Country: UK
Released: 1 January, 1984
Genre: Rock
Style: Hard Rock, Heavy Metal





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Gender: Female
Hometown: London
Home country: US/UK/Sweden
Current location: Stockholm, Sweden
Member since: Sun Jul 1, 2018, 07:25 PM
Number of posts: 43,286

About Celerity

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