American Builders and Building

I propose an "Architectural August" here at Blowin' in the Wind.  Is there a distinctive American style of building?  How about regional styles; what style began in Chicago, or the West Coast, in Virginia, New York?  As an untrained appreciator of buildings, I find myself curious to learn a little more about the lives and public construction projects of four American architects: Thomas Jefferson, Louis Sullivan, Julia Morgan and Robert Moses.  And so you, dear readers, are going to get my amateur riffs and opinions and wonderings about this part of the American landscape: building.  Today, some general thoughts.  Next week: Jefferson and Neo-classicism, Monticello and University of Virginia.  Or maybe Louis Sullivan and the skyscraper.  Not sure.  Stay tuned.....

Americans are both a private people and a public people, and you can see this paradox in our buildings and cityscapes.  We isolate ourselves, and others, in exclusive gated communities and in ghettoized public housing projects.   We build massive cities with dense skylines of towering skyscrapers and get lost in a lonely crowd.   We "nest" in Martha Stewart cuteness in sprawling suburbs and we wait for the elevator to the one thousandth floor with our million closest friends.  Ever since the first Asian crossed the Bering Straights and built a house in Alaska out of ice, or Spanish settlers put up a roof to block the sun in Puerto Rico or New Mexico (long before the English built log cabins in Virginia and Massachusetts), we have built American.

Whaler’s CabinBut none of our buildings are very old, especially compared to other nations. The oldest still standing are in the Southwest: Native American pueblos from 750CE, and Spanish churches from the 16^th century.  Nothing in New England stands from before 1640.  Oldest now in California is 1752 Mission San Juan Capistrano. Here in Monterey County the Spanish Royal Presidio Chapel dates from 1794.  I volunteer as a docent at Point Lobos State Reserve and we brag that the Whaler’s Cabin there was the first building in Monterey Country built by Chinese residents, all the way back in 1851!!  I’ve seen guests from China puzzled and unimpressed by this milestone.  We are a young nation.

And we are a nation that takes up a lot of room and uses a lot of energy.  And so do our buildings.  We citizens and our buildings lead the world in carbon footprint.  We are also champions in the biggest new homes contest; here in the US folks move into a new home with an average size of 2164 square feet, compared to 1206 sq.f. in France and 818 sq.f. for new residences in the UK.  And then we turn on the lights.  Each US household uses over 11,000 kilowatts per hour of electricity per year.  A French home burns 6300 kw/h/year and in the UK it’s 4600.  Turn off the lights, US! 

OK, so we’re young and take up a lot of room.  Anything positive about our building?  Well, we seem to have invented the skyscraper – look for my piece on Louis Sullivan and the Chicago school in coming weeks.  Right, another Amercan thing that’s young and big, the skyscraper.  Actually, not so young; there have been controversies about tall buildings ever since the Tower of Babel. 

But an interesting part of the skyscraper story is that it was the new, cheaper, more flexible and stronger steel being produced down the road in Pittsburgh in the late 19^th century that made possible those soaring towers.  The walls no longer needed to be load bearing; instead, the curtain wall.  It also helped that Mr. Otis invented the elevator.  Up up up we go.

Perhaps it is in building materials, like steel, that we can see our particular American style and heritage most clearly. When we get to Julia Morgan and the Arts and Crafts builders we’ll see how much beautiful exposed wood, especially redwood, they brought inside the houses and castles, like the one she built for Randolph Hearst.  But go a little farther back to the Homestead Act in 1862, which gave millions of folks a free farm in the opening frontier, in exchange for cultivating the land and building a house on it.  Instead of the villages and town of the eastern US and Europe, we find the isolated farmsteads of the Midwest.  No Home Depot nearby, so these remote builders used local materials, like rustic sod, local stone, rough logs.  And farther west and south, they made their own adobe and sun baked roof tiles.  Much of today’s move toward sustainable architecture got its start in these loco-builders, like straw-bale construction 150 years ago.

So is there one “pure” American style of building?  Probably not, with 400 years of history and a diverse population, many of whom brought building preferences with them from another land.  The architects I have chosen to profile this month were all born on US soil.  But we live now in a global building-scape, and prominent architects like Gehry (Canadian), Koolhaas (Dutch), Foster (UK), Piano (Italy), Pei (China) and others are getting the big US commissions. 

There is an amusing list of the top 150 “favorite buildings in America,” a publicity ploy by the American Institute of Architects a few years ago.  The list was widely criticized for emphasis on “likeability” rather than artistry or style.  But still, it’s a fun list to look at, and here’s the top 15. 

Empire State Building, White House, National Cathedral, Jefferson Memorial, Golden Gate Bridge, United States Capitol, Lincoln Memorial, Biltmore/Vanderbilt residence (Asheville, NC), Chrysler Building (NYC), Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, St. Patrick’s Cathedral (NYC), Washington Monument, Grand Central Terminal, Gateway Arch (St.Louis), Supreme Court of the United States.

How many have you been to?

Copyright © 2014 Deborah Streeter

Will You Sign My Petition?

Last stop on the First Amendment Road Trip.  Hope you’ve enjoyed the trip.  You can tell the road is in some disrepair, big potholes when it comes to free speech, religious freedoms etc.  Today’s travel advisory: be careful about who’s paying and see if anyone is actually listening.

“Congress shall make no laws respecting…the right of people to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

I circulated my first political petition in 1967.  I was a 16 year old anti-war activist, led teach-ins at my school, a small private girls boarding school in the mountains of Northern New Hampshire. (It was called St. Mary’s in the Mountains.  We called it St. Mags in the Crags.)

But my petition, looking back, was rather selfish.  It wasn’t about the Gulf of Tonkin.  I wanted to change the dress code. The controlling administration had many rules, but my outrage related to skirts and arctic weather. 120 girls isolated in the mountains, we were required to wear skirts all the time, no pants. (Except during sports.  We could wear ski pants in the winter, but I think we wore weird skirts playing field hockey.)

Ever the student rebel, I dared challenge the administration.  First I tried to work through the system, brought my concern nicely to my dorm advisor.  When she said I had no chance, I recalled my American history classes, emulated the early revolutionaries, and circulated a petition among my peers. 

I think both John Adams and I were a little naïve that our many signatures would sway the power crazy king/headmaster.  But we believed in the power of united, assembled voices.

We weren’t greedy. The colonials didn’t start with independence, just a petition for no tax on tea.  My petition was also modest; on those dark winter days when the temperature went below 40 below zero (4.44 Celsius), I nicely asked that we be allowed to wear pants.

The colonials and I got the same result; the tyrants summarily rejected us.  But within two years after I graduated the school was co-ed, had dropped required daily chapel and lost the dress code.  History does not record my small but historic role in that crumbling of autocracy.  But like the Boston Tea Party, I helped change the tide of repression.

The Declaration of Independence centered on the indignity of tyrants ignoring sincere petitions:

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

So James Madison made sure to include the right to petition in the Bill of Rights. 

Sadly only 2% of Americans can name it as one of the precious five freedoms in the First Amendment.

Perhaps we don’t appreciate that those lonely or obnoxious signature gatherers in front of supermarkets are essential for us to exercise the First Amendment.  Not only do political candidates need signatures to get their names on ballots, but in many states if you gather enough signatures you can get an initiative on the ballot that can change policies and laws.  By petition, citizens can circumvent legislators and force change themselves.  Here in California we vote on 10 or 15 propositions every November, from taxation to gun control to insurance rates to gay marriage.  The people speak.  Thanks, Madison.

Signature gatherers can be paid, the courts have ruled, and some get up to $5 a signature.  Some argue that means only the rich get their initiatives on the ballot; in California, it costs $1 million just to give people to chance to vote on your good or crazy idea.  The elections people then check each signature to make sure it is valid, the signer really a resident, signed only once etc.  So if you sign, that’s public information.  Tea Party folks and anti gay marriage folks don’t like that; they want to sign anonymously. But courts ruled against them.  That’s the whole point of the First Amendment protection; you can advocate with your signature, government can’t retaliate.  But you can’t advocate in secret.

In the early days of the Obama Administration when they were still hopeful they could change both style and substance of government, they started a website called We the People, where anyone could start a petition, had 30 days to get 5000 signatures and the administration promised a response.  It was so successful that they raised the threshold for response first to 25,000 and now to 100,000. 

But the promise is only to respond; no action is guaranteed. Indeed, in 1984 the Supreme Court ruled:

"Nothing in the First Amendment or in this Court's case law interpreting it suggests that the rights to speak, associate, and petition require government policymakers to listen or respond to communications of members of the public on public issues." 

But that hasn’t stopped Americans from petitioning.  Among all the issues on the We The People site, (human rights, immigrant rights, indict George Zimmerman, gun control, stop animal research, etc.) my favorite is the one enough people signed in 2013 to get an official response;  Star Wars fans demanded the US Government build a Death Star.  They argued it would not just be cool, but would spur job growth and strengthen national defense.  Sadly, the Obama administration advisor of science and space responded

"The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

• The Construction of a Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000 (850 quadrillion). We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.

• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.

• Why would we spend countless taxpayers dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?"
  

We Americans have opinions on everything.  I sign internet petitions and the clipboards in front of supermarket.  I take part in telephone opinion polls and I’ve whipped up the neighbors against continuing tyranny.  (We stopped a local effort to log the redwoods in our canyon a few years ago; very satisfying.) This right may encourage our selfishness, like mine to change the dress code, but I’m glad those girls aren’t freezing their butts off anymore.

Copyright © 2014 Deborha Streeter

We’re Here, We’re Assembling, Get Used to It

Our summer trip down the First Amendment Highway arrives today at our fourth of five stops, “the right of the people peaceably to assemble.”  Next week we’ll conclude with the right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  These last two may not seem as interesting or volatile or memorable (both Dale and I had trouble remembering them before this informative series of columns) as the protections of freedom of speech, worship or press, but they are no less important in our history, or today.

America loves a parade, happy assembled crowds on public streets.  Just don’t make us look at gay people in the parade.

The US Supreme Court hasn’t ruled as much on the right to assembly as it has on the other rights in the First Amendment, but when it has, only twice in the last 30 years, the cases have been about whether the right extends to gay Americans.  Both times the Court has answered, “No.”

A Boston Gay and Lesbian Club wanted to march in the city’s big deal St. Patrick’s Day Parade in the 80’s, citing their right to assemble.  The Court ruled that the organization putting on the parade did not have as one of its stated purposes promoting gay rights, so they could exclude the club.  Beer drinkers, leprechauns – fine, part of the mission.  Gay Irish folks – no right to assemble.

The court ruled more recently that since the Boy Scouts’ mission is to promote “clean,” “straight” values, they can exclude gay kids and leaders from their assemblies and association. (Strictly speaking, this case was about the right to association, not assembly, which is not named in the Constitution, but has derived from the assembly right; it is the right to form associations and decide who can belong; women and blacks won many of these cases in the 60’s and 70’s against male and/or white organizations, but recent courts have given groups more power to exclude.)

(Both Boston and the Boy Scouts have since progressed, on their own accord, or from local pressure and changed cultures, and now are much more open to gays and lesbians.  Not perfect – they’re in the parade and among the scout troops, but forbidden as scout leaders.)

Occupy MovementThe whole point of assembly is to be seen.  Every week I drive past a small group of 5 or 6 Tea Party supporters holding signs on a street corner, and I’m happy to see these idiots out there berating Obama.  I’m happier still to look back at these photos of US history being changed when ten of thousands have assembled in Washington.  The courts allowed, or did nothing to prevent, dramatic assemblies of people, like the Women’s Suffrage marches (that brought many women into public activism for the first time,) the March on Washington (that moved Johnson to sign the Civil Rights Act), or Vietnam Moratorium protests (that changed Nixon’s mind about escalating the war).

What would US history be without the people assembling, mostly peaceably, to effect social change?  Think labor strikes.  Think Occupy.

Oh yeah, the Occupy Movement.  Not much legal or community support for their right to assemble.  Arrests, evictions, that was the norm, supported by local politicians of both parties.

We love our First Amendment, but court opinions and public opinion lately seems to be more about control and limits to these freedoms rather than full expression. 

Free Speech ZoneFree Speech ZoneThe most depressing examples of the current state of the right to assembly are the so-called “free speech zones” found at national conventions for both the Democrats and Republicans.  Chain link pens as much as three miles away from the event, where protesters must remain.  No press access and coverage is allowed of these “assemblies.”  These caged pens flourished in the Bush Administration but have continued to today, ostensibly in the name of security.  Over and over pro-Bush assemblers were allowed to remain along a motorcade or at an event, but anti-Bush assemblers were forced to enter these cages far from the event or media and were arrested if they objected.  Many called them “Orwellian.”  Like so much in America, fear about safety and security becomes paranoia and control, and the loser is our constitutional freedoms.

Congress shall not limit the right of people peaceably to assemble.  As long as the people are like us, and if not, we put them over there in cages.  I’ve seen caged things in parades, but they’re not my fellow citizens. 

Copyright © 2014 Deborah Streeter

Big Fat Liar

Dale Rominger is a big fat liarThe next station stop on our summer road trip through the First Amendment:  freedom of the press.  We’ve already visited free speech and free expression of religion.  We’re half way home! (Coming up:  free assembly, and the right to petition for grievances.)  Actually, we’ve barely scratched the surface of these complex rights.  But at least I’m learning something. 

And I get to say outrageous things like:

Dale Rominger is a big fat liar. 

Thank you, First Amendment to the US Constitution, for protecting my right to make that statement in this blog.  The US Ninth Circuit Court recently ruled that bloggers are journalists.  We have all the same free press protections as institutional media like newspapers and TV news.

So I can make any statement I want about Dale in this column, without fear that he will sue me for defamation of character. 

The Revolutionary War was won as much by the colonial newspapers brazenly decrying taxation without representation as it was at the battles of Lexington and Concord.  James Madison knew a free press was essential for a free people as a check against government power.  Since then our courts have honed, limited and expanded what a free press can and can’t do.  For example, defamation of character.   The courts have ruled that a reporter can’t write something about someone that they know is false; it is defamation when they recklessly disregard the truth.

George III was a Big Fat TaxmanOur founding journalists were telling the truth about George III.  They were not defaming him.

And I am telling the truth about Dale.  He has told me that 4000 people read this website every week.  That just can’t be the case.  Dale is a big fat liar.  I know that to be true.

And as a respected journalist blogger, the courts have given me even more protection.  I don’t have to reveal the names of my sources.  Like those shady people who met me in a parking garage and told me the real numbers of our readers here at the Back Road Café.

There’s more, thanks to the courts.  I can say what I want about Dale, because he is not just a private citizen.  He’s an important public figure. The courts have ruled that the press can be freer in what they say about public figures, who have sacrificed some privacy to the gods of fame.  Moreover, if the issue in question is a matter of serious public concern, the courts have said, it is all the more crucial that the press be free to report on these matter unfettered.  Only the most serious matters of national security can justify muzzling the press.  While Dale’s veracity might not be a serious national security threat, the trust of our 4000 weekly readers certainly constitute a serious public concern.

So: hear ye, hear ye…..

_________________________________________________________________________________________

That was my attempt at a humorous recapitulation of some of the issues and limits of freedom of the press, as presented by a recent case in the Ninth District Federal Appeals Court in San Francisco, one of the courts just below the Supreme Court.

Blogger Crystal Cox wrote in her on line blog that Obsidian Finance Company was a big fat liar.  Well, she wrote that they were defrauding their customers.  And lying about it.  (The name of her blog might have given it away: <obsidianfinancesucks.com>.

The company sued her for defamation of character, arguing that the rules protecting journalists did not protect her as a self-described investigative blogger and whistler blower.    She countered that she was a journalist, and she said that Obsidian’s CEO was a public figure because he had been named by the courts as a trustee for the clients they were ripping off, and that it was a matter of public concern. 

The judges in her home state of Oregon ruled against her, saying she was not a journalist.

She and a law professor from the University of California at Los Angeles took the case to the next higher court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

That court overturned much of the Oregon ruling and said, in effect, “No, Crystal Cox is a journalist.  There is no way to separate ‘professional’ and ‘amateur’ journalists, especially in the age of blogs and social media.  And Cox is right, this was a matter of public concern.  But you were right, Oregon judges, the trustee was not a public figure.  So go back and have another trial, but refer to previous rulings on what journalists can and can’t do.  Look at the facts again and see whether she misrepresented them willfully.  You might, or might not, come to a different conclusion.”

A big learning for me this summer in this crash course in constitutional law is that these cases are messy and complex.  The issues go far beyond the headlines and there are often no simple winners and losers.

Dale Rominger Contemplates Future ActionLike this case: it turns out that Crystal Cox may very well actually be a big fat liar.  She is, according to some websites, not just a blogger.  She also hires herself out to do on line reputation cleanup.   If people say mean or false things about you on line, she will, for a fee, clean it up and right that wrong.  The problem is, after she wrote those nasty things about the Obsidian executives, she then turned around and offered them her “protection” services.  Some say she extorted them, threatening to continue her “investigations” unless they signed up for her services.  Cox’s critics compare her to the stereotypical Mafia goons who firebomb your store and then demand protection money so they won’t do it again.  They say real journalists can’t have conflict of interest or benefit from their stories.

So she’s not exactly Daniel Ellsburg, the usual hero of US freedom of the press stories.  Because he gave the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and they published them, and the Supreme Court upheld their actions against the objections of the President, we know about Watergate and Nixon had to resign.

But Courtney Cox may be less principled.  I don’t know that for a fact.   I’m just reporting what I’ve read.  Be careful what you read and believe in the “press.”  Including this column.

The press is messy.  So is justice.  Some characters in court, like Cox, may be messy. 

But not Dale.  He has never lied to me.  I just made that up to get you to read this piece.  I am a desperate blogger.  Forgive me, Dale.  Please don’t sue.

Copyright © 2014 Deborah Streeter

Morning After Pills and Peyote Pipes

Last week we packed our newspapers and law books and set out on our summer road trip down the First Amendment Highway. In coming weeks, we’ll be good tourists and visit some historic markers in Constitutional history (maybe Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley and the Free Speech Movement?)  But we’d better drive carefully, because if the Supreme Court keeps up its controversial decisions, our road might be blockaded in spots, crowds of protestors exercising their right to assembly.  Take last week’s Hobby Lobby ruling – I would call that a full scale car crash pileup that we’ll be stuck behind for a long time. So climb in – never a dull moment on the First Amendment Highway.

The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free expression thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Peyote Bird PipeBecause Native Americans consider it a sacrament to smoke peyote in their religious ceremonies, the US Supreme Court ruled last week that employers may refuse to cover birth control for their employees, if the owners object on religious grounds.

Or put it this way; if you are a religious American you can smoke peyote but your boss might deny your access to birth control, thanks to the First Amendment.

I wonder: when James Madison wrote in the First Amendment to the US Constitution that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free expression thereof” did he have any idea the courts would be writing about morning after pills and peyote pipes?

Welcome to America’s diverse, fluid and contentious religious landscape. 

Roughly speaking, the religion protections in the First Amendment has two parts.  One, the government can’t set up or favor one religion over others (establishment.)  Two, people can’t be stopped from freely expressing their religion (free expression.)  (Note that  the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution – that’s a later concept, and slightly different.)

Over the years the courts have decided many cases on both these protections.  Earlier this year, in a case named for the small town of Greece, New York, some Jews and atheists sued the town council for allowing primarily Christian pastors, using explicitly Christian language, to open council meetings with prayer.  Most people expected the court to rule in favor of the plaintiffs, because it seemed to favor one religion over others.  But – surprise! – the infamous five conservative justices, all Catholic men, said that prayer before meetings was a cultural tradition, not a religious expression, and allowed it.

But this week’s case, about birth control, was about the second clause, free expression, which likewise has been honed and refined over the years.  (Prayer before school football games, soldiers wearing yamulkes, etc.)  Were the fundamentalist Christian owners of the craft store chain Hobby Lobby being denied their right to freely express their religious conviction that birth control was wrong and did that free expression extend to their employees who might not share those beliefs?

This time, sort of like last week’s abortion and free speech ruling, the ruling was more narrow than the headlines implied.  Justice Scalia writing for the majority said yes, Hobby Lobby’s religious expression was being limited.  But, he said, there was an easy workaround; the Obama administration had already offered an exception to the health insurance birth control requirement to churches and synagogues and temples, as well as religious schools and hospitals.  You can do that too, Hobby Lobby, the court said.  Just sign a form saying your religious beliefs prevent you, the company, from paying for the contraception directly, and the insurance companies will be required to pick up the costs. 

But then later in the week the justices seemed to contradict themselves when they granted a conservative religious college the right to do a workaround around the workaround. Wheaton College said they couldn’t even sign the form, that that would be complicit in the evils of contraception.  So the men of the court said, OK, don’t sign the form, just bring a lawsuit and we’ll give you a pass.  The three women justices were furious and penned an extremely explicit condemnation of their colleagues’ duplicity. 

Stay tuned for more suits from both businesses and religious institutions seeking exceptions and so-called clean hands. 

So where do the peyote pipes come in?  25 years ago the Supreme Court had ruled on another religious expression case, in Oregon, where a Native American who was working as a drug counselor was fired when he tested positive for drug use.  His defense was he had smoked peyote as part of a Native American religious ceremony. The court ruled against him, saying the state had the right to enforce drug laws for the greater good and to restrict his religious expression.

There was huge public outcry after this court ruling.  All kinds of religious organizations, conservative, liberal, Jewish, Muslim, Christian fundamentalist united to pressure Congress to pass a law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which expanded the rights of citizens to express their religion and required the government only to limit them in the least restrictive way possible.  The Native Americans could smoke peyote sacramentally. 

What amazes me is that 93 out of 100 senators, Democrats and Republicans, came together to vote for a law to overturn that Supreme Court ruling, saying it was too restrictive, and religions should have more freedom of expression.  Did they really feel that strongly about Native American sacramental peyote?  Maybe it was the parallel suit at the same time by Native Americans to stop the US from taking control of more Native American lands including some sacred sites, which also claimed their free expression was being limited.  I can see Americans defending land rights, but hallucinogen rights?  But they did, and Clinton signed it.

But because Congress passed that new law, the courts now have to rule that any law limiting religious expression must use only the least restrictive methods.  Scalia wrote the ruling overruling sacramental peyote use.  But now he and the court (some new folks on the bench, thank you George W. Bush) seem to have had a change of heart.  If it’s OK to smoke peyote, it’s ok to express your religion on the backs (or the uteruses) of your minimum wage women employees. 

I haven’t even brought up the whole issue of how the court has decided recently that companies are now considered people with First Amendment rights (the Citizen’s United case), and so, like people, they have free speech rights.  (This means that companies can give as much money as they wanted to politicians, because money is speech.)  So now, with the Hobby Lobby case, companies have religious rights as well.

Democrats are hoping that this ruling will improve their chances at the polls in November, that they can appeal to women voters especially, with the promise that they will pass a new law, like the Religious Expression law, that will force the courts to rule differently on birth control and religion. I’m not very optimistic.  Congress hasn’t voted on much of anything, let alone bipartisan 93-7, for the past 8 years.   And when it comes to birth control, which 90% of Americans, men and women, support, the men of Congress and the courts and the religious right are running the show.  I guess Jefferson really meant it when he wrote, “All MEN are created equal.”

Copyright © 2014 Deborah Streeter