A Post With No Comment: One Presenter Lives Here In Mesa @ Mesa ArtSpace Lofts

The Historic Millet House Here in Downtown Mesa Gets Some Well-Deserved Attention

Just an image with this caption

Artwork spotted in The Millet House courtyard.

Yay! and Thank-you to Lynn Trimble

Phoenix New Times September 9, 2019
The Best Free Things to Do in Metro Phoenix This Week
READ MORE > https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts
________________________________________________________________________
BLOGGER NOTE: Nice to see some "spotting" of downtown's small wonders - a gallery in an historic home
________________________________________________________________________

Don't mean to be derelict-in-my-self-appointed-duty to keep at least one eye on the City of Mesa-owned Mesa Arts Center, but even after 14 years the downtown Arts-and-Culture scene is not quite yet "flourishing"

Like most things year-after-year It could be.

And it could maybe sometime soon get to be self-supporting
not operating with a shortfall in revenues of $5M every year since it opened in 2005 at a cost of $100,000,000.
Just one more thing we are hoping for here in "The Old Donut-Hole"
so let's have a movie about The Life of Art On Earth to Kick-Off the 2019 Season Festival!

Fall 2019 Opening Reception

Fri, Sept 13, 2019

6-10pm

Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum

Opening Reception: Fri, Sept 13 (6-10pm) Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum Premiering Five New Exhibitions - Musical Entertainment by Walt Richardson Trio      - Artists in Attendance - Cash Bar FREE and open to the public

Walt Richardson Trio

VIP/Members Private Reception: 6-8pm
Alliance Terrace – Mesa Arts Center
Light Refreshments and Cash BarRSVP to 480-644-6615 or email Hillary.West@mesaartscenter.com
Become a Member today!
Season Kick-Off
Flourish: The Art of Life on Earth
Activities on Mesa Arts Center Campus: 6-10pm- Artist Demonstrations in the Art Studios
- Food Vendors and Cash Bar
- Musical EntertainmentFREE and open to the public
Other Happenings
Friday Night Out in Downtown Mesa, [most merchants open until 10pm]
2^nd Fridays this Fall: 6:30pm
(Oct 11, Nov 8^th and Dec 13^th)
Film Screening of Racing ExtinctionMCA Museum - Dobson Lecture Hall
FREE and open to the public
A team of artists and activists exposes the hidden world of extinction with never-before-seen images that will change the way we see the planet. Two worlds drive extinction across the globe, potentially resulting in the loss of half of all species. The international wildlife trade creates bogus markets at the expense of creatures that have survived on this planet for millions of years. And the other surrounds us, hiding in plain sight — a world that the oil and gas companies don’t want the rest of us to see. Using covert tactics and state-of-the-art technology, the Racing Extinction team exposes these two worlds in an inspiring affirmation to preserve life as we know it. From the Academy Award® Winning Filmmakers of The Cove. 1:34 min

 

Floods In A Mesa Neighborhood: Nothing About the Lawsuit Against The City

Resident and home owners call it "the storm of the century" just five years ago, when floods were the result of flaws.
Just another one of those "feel good" follow-ups, releasing the typical statement-of-sort:
The City of Mesa released a statement: 
"The City has taken several steps to improve extreme water mitigation since September 8th, 2014 when a historic high water incident impacted approximately 200 homes in Emerald Park, a neighborhood near US 60 and Stapley." 

Reporter Kim Powell got her version of the story published 8 hours ago in AZ Family
Mesa homeowners remember 2014 Emerald Park flooding like it was yesterday
MESA, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) - It's been five years since the historic flood near Emerald Park in Mesa, which damaged about 200 homes . . . READ MORE if you want to

Margaret Atwood's "The Testaments": It's The Right Time & The Place For A Shocking Revelation of Dystopian Theocracy

For those of us who live in certain states here in America - Utah, Colorado and Arizona -  this Canadian fiction novelist's sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, published in  1984. Her new book opens a testimony with a perspective that has historical precedent here, both about patriarchy and the pitfalls when a culture morphs into a theocracy.
Atwood has been called "a prophet".

This is the right time and the right place for the release of her new novel now.
Why?
In a recent ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals against the patterns and practices of what's conveniently called "a cult" here in Colorado City, Arizona - the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of The Latter-Day Saints that the FBI has been investigating for years.
Words of fiction, however, allow us to grapple with the reality of remnants of polygamy: multiple-wives who still call themselves "sisters" is just one manifestation, while the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also found that culture controlled nearly everything: they determined who got elected to be mayor and who got elected to the city council. They also dominated the police and fire departments.
Atwood's novel doesn't go there in a legalistic sense. Nonetheless it reverberates deeply in current American political moments that somehow all up over time. It's a milestone.
_________________________________________________________________________

Published on Sep 9, 2019

“The Testaments" is the greatly anticipated sequel to Margaret Atwood’s hit dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Though it’s fiction, Atwood says she doesn't "put anything in that doesn’t have a precedent in human history.” Jeffrey Brown spoke with Atwood recently about how the current American political moment affected her decision to write the sequel, more than 30 years after “Handmaid.”

kk

Mesa City Council Streaming Sessions: Lo-fi - or NO-FI - Drama In The Lower Chambers

FACT: There have been no updates or uploads of Mesa City Council Meetings of any kind since August 26, 2019
There was a Study Session on September 5th.
If you weren't there in-person at 7:30 a.m. - when very few members of the public take the time to be there - or viewed the study session streamed in real time when very few ever view the simultaneous transmissions, the public as a whole has been deprived of the right-to-know what our elected government is doing.
Marked "available" but they're not . . . Huh?

Meeting Name:

City Council Study Session

Agenda status:

Final

Meeting date/time:

9/5/2019 7:30 AM

Minutes status:

Draft

Meeting location:

Council Chambers - Lower Level

Published agenda:	Agenda	Published minutes:	Not available

Meeting video:

Video

_________________________________________________________________________
Try this link > http://mesa11.com/vod/?show=1805&Mode2=Video
VIDEO ON DEMAND
Video not available
_________________________________________________

Access To Private Personal Data: Breaking Codes of Conduct In Crisis-After-Crisis

The Problem: Privacy advocates for the protection of citizen rights are kept off-guard in scenarios of too-little-too-late far too many times after-the-fact. They keep making mistakes improvising through continuing hacking crises since we haven't had a broad debate over setting boundaries around government access to personal data collected by tech companies.
According to an article by Sara Fischer and Scott Rosenberg on 26 Aug 2019 published in
Axios , both government and tech companies are getting all of our personal un-protected data both ways - all-the-time, using crisis-after-crises to break into troves and treasures of our 'protected' private data
Government wants access to personal data while it pushes privacy
"Over the past two years, the U.S. government has tried to rein in how major tech companies use the personal data they've gathered on their customers.
At the same time, government agencies are themselves seeking to harness those troves of data.

Why it matters: Tech platforms use personal information to target ads, whereas the government can use it to prevent and solve crimes, deliver benefits to citizens — or (illegally) target political dissent. . .

> Investigations of specific crimes are the most common situations that pit the government's law enforcement needs against tech companies' privacy rules.

> Experience demonstrates that gathering stockpiles of data holds a magnetic attraction for government.

• In the post 9/11 era, the National Security Agency began a long and controversial program, widely seen as extra-legal, to broadly monitor phone and other telecommunications messages.

________________________________________________________________________

THERE'S ALWAYS MORE TO THE STORY THAN THAT
Fortunately, the two reporters include this somewhat outdated time-dated link from Mother Jones.
It's from that fateful day 911.
Here's the forward link > https://www.motherjones.com/nsa-timeline-surveillance

Politics September 11, 2013

How We Got From 9/11 to Massive NSA Spying on Americans: A Timeline

Total Information Awareness, PRISM, encryption back doors, a “black budget” of billions, and everything in between

"Recent news reports exposed how the National Security Agency has been collecting millions of Americans’ phone data and online communications.

Here’s how we got from the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to the massive domestic spying operations of today:

Two inserts:

2009	NSA headquarters NSA January: Google begins giving data to the NSA under the PRISM program. June: A federal judge upholds immunity for telecoms that handed over private information. The same day, Facebook starts participating in the NSA’s PRISM program.

2011

January: The NSA begins construction of a massive, 1 million square foot, $2 billion data center in Utah. “Just as we defend our lands, America also needs to also defend our cyberspace,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) says at the groundbreaking ceremony. It is scheduled to be completed in September 2013. May: The Patriot Act is renewed and signed by President Barack Obama. May: Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee has access to classified materials, warns: “When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry.”

2013

March: Wyden asks DNI chief James Clapper in a congressional hearing if the NSA collects information on millions of Americans. June: The Guardian reports that the NSA has been collecting millions of Verizon customers’ call data. A day later, the Guardian and the Washington Post reveal the existence of PRISM. Now under pressure from the revelations, Clapper admits that he lied in his congressional testimony. June: “Nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That’s not what this program’s about,” Obama says at a speech in Silicon Valley. “But by sifting through this so-called metadata, they may identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism.” He adds, “”You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience.” August 15: Based on more Snowden documents, the Post reports that the NSA had “broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year” since 2008. Sens. Wyden and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) say the reported violations represent “just the tip of a larger iceberg.” August 29: The Post publishes details of the United States’ $52.6 billion intelligence “black budget,” more than $18 billion of which is dedicated to the CIA and NSA data collection and analysis operations. September 5: The New York Times, Guardian, and ProPublica report that the NSA has engineered ways to foil virtually all encryption protecting the average person’s “everyday communications in the Internet age.” September 9: Der Spiegel reports that the NSA has the capability to bypass security features of iPhones, Android devices, and BlackBerrys, allowing it to access contacts, location data, photos and perhaps credit card numbers and passwords.

_________________________________________________________________________

If you don't know Mother Jones
FACT:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and the wealthy wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone.

If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2019 demands.

_________________________________________________________________________

 

Celebrating Themselves with A BIG GALA

Arizona Forward hosts 50th Anniversary Gala on Sept. 21
Arizona Forward is hosting its 39th Annual Environmental Excellence Awards & 50th Anniversary Gala presented by SRP on September 21, 2019, at the Arizona Biltmore Resort at 5:30 pm.

Since its inception in 1969 as Valley Forward and its statewide expansion in 2013, Arizona Forward has mobilized the state’s business leaders and policymakers to leverage their collective power to influence how Arizona best grows its communities, stimulates the economy and enhances the environment.

Arizona Forward’s annual awards program has recognized individuals and organizations that have implemented major sustainability initiatives and projects for the state of Arizona for nearly four decades.

This year, the organization will also celebrate its 50th anniversary at the event with more than 600 elected officials, business leaders and their guests.
________________________________________________________________________

“This year’s awards program is especially important,” said Lori Singleton, CEO and president of Arizona Forward. “As Arizona climbs the ranks of being one of the fastest growing states in the nation and we continue to add more people, rewarding the organizations and individuals who are developing solutions to maintain quality of life is essential."
Photo by Mike Mertes, AZ Big Media
Business News | 14 hours ago | AZ Business Magazine
________________________________________________________________________________

“In honor of our 50th anniversary, we are recognizing individuals and organizations that prioritize sustainability for Arizona,”
said Lori Singleton, president and CEO at Arizona Forward.

“It takes a village to create change. We are so pleased to showcase the projects and people who are making a difference for our state. For the past 50 years, Arizona Forward’s partners in the community have completed projects that achieve a balance between the built and natural environment – impacting the state’s physical, technical, social and aesthetic development.

 



In addition to the celebration of all projects submitted this year, awards will be given to projects that are outstanding demonstrations of environmental excellence.”

Known as the Academy Awards of the sustainability community, the award’s program is Arizona’s most prominent recognition of sustainability contributions. Nearly a hundred projects were submitted this year in nine categories:
> The Governor’s Award for Arizona’s future, buildings and structures
> art in public places
> site development and landscape
> environmental education and communication
> healthy communities
>sustainability champion
> and waste reduction.

A special 50th anniversary award will also be presented at the gala that will symbolize a commitment to sustainability in the past, but also recognizes its significant impact in the future.

A total of 10 judges were selected for their expertise in the various categories.

The lead judge was Grady Gammage, Jr., one of the founders of Gammage & Burnham.

¨Arizona has always been a place where some combination of clear skies, dry air, sunshine and nearly limitless land has brewed up an environment that challenges builders, dreamers and visionaries,” said Grady Gammage, Jr.

“From the Anasazi and the Hohokam to today, the complexity of living in a hot, dry place has given rise to creative solutions to sustainability. It was evident from the project entries this year that we are still at it – and still up to the challenges.”

Other judges include:
Hunter Moore, Policy Advisor with the Office of the Governor with the State of Arizona;
Mark Stapp, Executive Director, Masters of Real Estate Development, Arizona State University
Krista Shepherd, Principal and Board Member, Gould Evans
Lauri Johnson, Professor and Director, College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Arizona
Jay Hicks, Principal Partner, Dig Studio, Inc.
Nicole Snyder, president of the Arizona Association of Economic Development
Larry Lazarus, Partner, Lazarus, Silvyn & Bangs, P.C.
Elizabeth Fretheim, Head of Business Development, Nikola Motor Company
Kimber Lanning, Founder, Local First Arizona
Liz Shipley, Public Affairs Director, Intel Corporation
Tammy McCleod, president and CEO, Flinn Foundation.
The evening event will feature live music, a cocktail hour, a gourmet dinner, a multi-media presentation showcasing submitted projects from the Arizona community, remarks from Grady Gammage, Jr., and a special 50th anniversary tribute.
Corey McCloskey from Channel 10 News will be the Masters of Ceremony.
Arizona Forward is encouraging the public to attend and join in this celebration of environmental excellence and quality of life in Arizona.
More information about gala reservations can be accessed at arizonaforward.org.
Arizona Forward’s visionary members are
SRP
City of Phoenix
Wells Fargo
Intel Corporation
APS, Honeywell
and Freeport-McMoran.
These members are generous supporters of Arizona Forward’s year-round activities.

Arizona Forward’s special Gold Anniversary Sponsors specifically supporting this year’s gala are
Vitalyst
Nikola Motor Company
Northern Arizona University,
HDR
Arizona State University’s Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service,
the City of Mesa,
and the Maricopa County Air Quality Department.