General Motors Sinks $2 Billion in to Detroit Plant

The lost neighborhood under New York's Central Park

Things we never knew about . . . .

Before Central Park was built, a historically black community was destroyed. Become a Video Lab member! http://bit.ly/video-lab
If you’ve been to New York, you’ve probably visited Central Park. But there’s a part of its story you won't see. It’s a story that goes back to the 1820s, when that part of New York was largely open countryside. Soon it became home to about 1,600 people. Among them was a predominantly black community that bought up affordable plots to build homes, churches and a school. It became known as Seneca Village. And when Irish and German immigrants moved in, it became a rare example at the time of an integrated neighborhood. Everything changed on July 21, 1853. New York took control of the land to create what would become the first major landscaped park in the US -- they called it “The Central Park.” In the Vox series Missing Chapter, Vox Senior Producer Ranjani Chakraborty revisits underreported and often overlooked moments from the past to give context to the present. Join her as she covers the histories that are often left out of our textbooks. Our first season tackles stories of racial injustice, political conflicts, even the hidden history of US medical experimentation. Have an idea for a story that Ranjani should investigate for Missing Chapter? Send it to her via this form! http://bit.ly/2RhjxMy Sign up for the Missing Chapter newsletter to stay up to date with the series: https://vox.com/missing-chapter Explore the full Missing Chapter playlist, including episodes, a creator Q&A, and more! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... The Institute for the Exploration of Seneca Village History website: http://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/sen... The exhibit on Seneca Village through the Central Park Conservancy: https://www.centralparknyc.org/progra... Check out the 1856 before and after Central Park plans at the New York Public Library, as well as dozens of other Central Park maps and archives: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/i... Read the full report on the 2011 Seneca Village excavations: http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/a... Read the New York Times’ coverage of Seneca Village: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/28/op...

Fiery Space Debris BLAZES Through Atmosphere - "Hair Raising" Skies!

Boeing Cancels Phantom Express Launch Vehicle 2 Years After Winning XS-1...

27 Jan 2020 > 17,248 views 

Scott Manley

1.01M subscribers

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The XS-1 program was a DARPA project to develop a rapidly reusable launch vehicle which could also be used for hypersonic research. Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Masten Space Systems were seen as the main contenders, but Boeing eventually won with a design based on the RS-25 Space Shuttle Main Engine. After 2 years working on the project Boeing stopped, essentially killing the project and leaving another hypersonic aircraft project unfinished. Masten XS-1 Aerothermal Calculations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjZ43... Colonial Viper CFD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbj0d...

WEIRD BUT DANGEROUS, RUSSIAN KAMOV KA-50 AND KA-52 HELICOPTERS #WARTHOGD...

27 Jan 2020 648+ Views
The Kamov Ka-50 "Black Shark" (Russian: Чёрная акула, romanized: Chyornaya akula, English: kitefin shark, NATO reporting name: Hokum A) is a Russian single-seat attack helicopter with the distinctive coaxial rotor system of the Kamov design bureau. It was designed in the 1980s and adopted for service in the Russian army in 1995. It is manufactured by the Progress company in Arsenyev. It is used as a heavily armed scout helicopter. It is the world's first operational helicopter with a rescue ejection system. During the late 1990s, Kamov and Israel Aerospace Industries developed a tandem-seat cockpit version, the Kamov Ka-50-2 "Erdogan" (Russian: Эрдоган, Turkish: Erdoğan), to compete in Turkey's attack helicopter competition. Kamov also designed another two-seat variant, the Kamov Ka-52 "Alligator" (Russian: Аллигатор, NATO reporting name: Hokum B).

Hizzoner John Giles Has Raised $250K To Finance A Run For 2nd Term As Mayor

Former college track-star and personal injury/accident law attorney John Giles, who first rode into the un-elected office of mayor on the tail-winds of a vacancy created by the resignation of former Mayor Smith back in 2014, is now seeking a 2nd term in his own right - not as the chosen 'hand-picked" successor to get anointed by the generations-old Political Machine, but it sure likes that replay all over again.

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John Giles raises record $250K for Mesa's mayoral race.

How much competition will he face?

Alison Steinbach, Arizona Republic 

Published 1:09 p.m. MT Jan. 23, 2020 | Updated 3:28 p.m. MT Jan. 23, 2020

LINK > AZ Central

Giles said he anticipated a contested election, so his team got to work on fundraising.

“Mesa’s a big city, so to put on a city-wide campaign and to get the message out to the number of people that we have in Mesa, that requires a fair amount of funds,” he said.

> Details of Giles’s fundraising

Giles raised $231,020 from individual donations over $50 and $18,241 from political action committees between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, according to his campaign finance report filed in mid-January.

His campaign committee had $1,482 when the campaign finance reporting period began."
BLOGGER NOTE: Readers of this blog can access and view all the public documents, and required financial disclosure statements and campaign information mesaaz.gov
Office of The City Clerk
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INSERT FROM AN EARLIER POST ON THIS BLOG
> Details of Giles’s fundraising
This fund-raiser is from 2018 when Giles was in-office, half-way through his first term.
Please Note: Members of the Host Committee
Karen Taylor Robson, Jeff Barney, Lori & Jeff Branford, Craig & David Krumwiede, Amy & Sean Lake, Jordan Rose, Dea McDonald, Shirley & Tony Wall ....

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Developers,

attorneys and

real estate investors dominated the individual donations, which is common although not without criticism in municipal races. Of the more than 60 people who donated between $1,000 and $6,450, the vast majority listed those occupation.

The 14 donations from political action committees included $4,000 from Mesa’s Commercial Metals Company PAC, $3,000 from the Scottsdale-based homebuilder Taylor Morrison Building Strong Business PAC, $2,941 from Salt River Project PAC and $2,000 from Boeing PAC, which has a facility in Mesa

Council members Jen Duff and David Luna, and the wife of Vice Mayor Mark Freeman also donated to Giles' campaign.

> 'This is my dream job'

Giles, an attorney who previously served on the City Council, said he has no political aspirations beyond serving one more mayoral term.

“This is my dream job. This is my hometown, and there’s nothing that I would rather do then spend my full time and energy and what talents and skills I might have in order to promote Mesa," the Mesa native said.

Giles said he expects to spend all the campaign money, explaining that Congressional campaigns spend “in the ballpark of what I’m raising.”

> Competitors for the mayoral seat?

Giles has faced little competition in his previous two mayoral races, but this year may be different.

“There’s always rumors and social media is always full of folks that are quick to take issue with anything that you’re doing,” Giles said. “I anticipated that there would be opposition.”

> Jeremy Whittaker

Whittaker, who is up for reelection for his District 2 City Council seat, said he is “going back and forth” on whether to run for mayor or council.


 

“I’m weighing the options,” he said, but added that a lot depends on the “Yes on Affordable Utilities” ballot measure he is leading.
 

Whittaker wants to amend the city charter to limit how much money city leaders can take from the city's utility service to use for general fund expenditures. Other city leaders say this would be devastating to the city’s operating budget.


 

> Verl Farnsworth

Farnsworth said he has begun collecting signatures. He is a retired business owner in the construction industry and unsuccessfully ran for council against David Luna in 2018. Whittaker chaired that campaign.

Farnsworth has been a vocal opponent of Mesa’s partnership with ASU for a downtown building and a frequent critic at council meetings. His platform centers around frugality and responsible spending, openness and transparency, debt elimination and public safety.
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29 May 2019

City of Mesa Sold-Off 132 Acres of Land Long-Promised For A Public Park

Why did that city-owned $25-Million "Land-Auction Deal" on the pristine desert site purchased for $4 million in 1998 really matter to someone like Verl Farnsworth, now an elder member of The Farnsworth Family who developed of lot of residential real estate here in Mesa for more than four decades? 
It might have been the traditional value-issue of "Promises Made Are Promises Kept" for him. For the City of Mesa it's a wind-fall $21-Million profit to pay-off some major debt . . .

For what? Residents of Red Mountain Park, a large and long-establish adjacent subdivision, have strongly and actively objected to "the deal" made on 132-acre neighboring land in northeast Mesa. 
They expected a park made in a promise by the city in the original intent.

Did the city listen to residents? NO. That action speaks the truth to what the current City Administration pays only "lip-service" to:"The Mesa City Council believes that its people, not leaders, are what makes a City great and actively works to encourage citizen participation in the decision-making process. Whether it is through neighborhood meetings, advisory boards and committees, telephone calls and letters, or email, the Mesa City Council sets policies based on the input and needs of its citizens."  [click or tap here ]
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How other 2020 races in Mesa are shaping up 

Along with the mayor's race, three of six council seats will be up for grabs this year.

Here's a look at who has filed statements of interest so far:

 

District 1: Mark Freeman may run for a second term.
District 2: Whittaker and Julie Spilsbury.

District 3: Francisco Heredia, who was appointed to the council in 2017 and won election to complete the term in 2018, Jacob Martinez and Christopher Bown

Have a story about Mesa or Gilbert?
Reach the reporter at
Alison.Steinbach@arizonarepublic.com
or at 602-444-4282.
Follow her on Twitter @alisteinbach.

Cognizant: The American Dream’s Promise of A Better Life ..."If You Work Hard Enough" Is Fracturing

BAM!
The big picture:
"Socioeconomic mobility in the U.S. is at its most sluggish in history. Not only are fewer Americans living better than their parents, but there’s also a growing number of people doing worse than their parents. . ."

Erica Pandey

Axios Erica PandeyJan 25, 2020

A surge in the "jobs of the future"

Data: Cognizant; Chart: Axios Visuals

"The last quarter of 2019 saw a big jump in demand for a bundle of jobs that could dominate the future, per an index tracked by the IT services firm Cognizant.

Why it matters: "The notion that there's gonna be a jobs apocalypse has been with us for the last decade, but the data shows that's not coming to pass," says Rob Brown, VP of Cognizant's Center for the Future of Work.

The backdrop: For over a year, Cognizant has been tracking U.S. hiring for 50 jobs that it deems forward-looking, with statistics going back to 2016 pulled from the Bureau of Labor Statistics via Burning Glass, a jobs database.

• Cognizant's Jobs of the Future Index includes jobs in AI, transportation, health care, human resources and more.
• That demand for these jobs of the future is growing faster than demand for all jobs is a bright spot in the ongoing discussion about how tech will upend the future of work. Yes, automation and AI will disrupt jobs, but they will — and already do — create a host of new occupations and wholly new industries.

But, but, but: There's still a dire lack of job training in the U.S. — a necessary step to prepare workers for the future of work                        |                        
Data: Cognizant; Chart: Axios Visuals