Other Notable Blogs

Cafe Unknown
Travel, History and Portland Oregon by Dan Haneckow

Jack Bog's Blog
By Jack Bogdanski of Portland, Oregon. (Like he needs any other introduction by now? -- A.B.C.)

For Portlanders Only
"Why buy a mattress anywhere else?"

Good Stuff NW
Featuring stuff that is good in the NW

LOST Magazine
LOST Magazine is an online monthly magazine that combines elements of many other literary, online, and national magazines with a singular mission--to reclaim in writing lost people, places, and things.

Mapes on Politics
Way West of the Beltway

Outside Is America
A journal about photography, roadtrips, trains and life, with occasional detours into movies, baseball, music, family and more.

The Photographers' Railroad Page
Good photos usually have good stories to go with them.... The goal of The Photographers' Railroad Page is to provide an outlet for top quality photographs and their story.

Portland Food & Drink
Throwing Ourselves on the Grenade of Bad Food to Save You

Portland Transport Blog
A Conversation About Access & Mobility in the Portland/Vancouver Region

PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media -- and booksellers

RailPixCritic
One person's musings on railroad photography, focusing on discussions of specific images or groups of same

Rambling West
The musings of a farmer with a typewriter and camera

Stumptown Confidential
Documenting Portland, Oregon architecture, history, and culture through photos, postcards, and words.

The Unauthorized Observer
Observations on faith, photography, trains, baseball, the city where I live (Fullerton, Calif.), anything that I find funny (a lot of things) or irritating (some things) and various incidents involving friends and family.

Under the Weather
...the open road, fatherhood, family life, music, railroads, photography, popular and unpopular culture, sex, violence, religion, the oppression of consumerism and capitalism and the general bullshit that makes up modern life.

Urban Planning Overlord
A blog to counter the myths, lies, and demagoguery others use against sound city planning to further their own ends, fair and foul - but also to urge the profession itself to pull back from the occasional wretched PC exces.

VanPortlander
Living in Vancouver; working in Portland. I have some thoughts.

Whiskey, Texas
...life and experiences in Texas and the Southwest. Recurring themes: Photography, railroads, fading ads / ghost signs, fallen-flag railroad logos, boxcars, bicycling, Texas music, pop culture, sports, road trips, literature, kids and family.

World Scott
The Travel Writing and Photography of Scott Lothes

Blegs & Bargains

 Amazon Book Wishlist

 B&H Wishlist

 My eBay Listings

 Powell's Books Wishlist

Thursday, January 31, 2008

There's been a lot of infrastructure news this week. First up, Seattle's Sound Transit might get an expanded authority to oversee general road projects in the region. I'm not sure if this idea is a boon of synergy or a monopolistic boondoggle.

Rail has been front and center in a lot of the news. In Oregon, Governor Kulongowski has told the Central Oregon and Pacific that there will be no discussion of helping out with maintenance or rehabilitation costs unless the company reopens the Coos Bay line first. (Good for Ted!) Meanwhile, the Port of Tillamook Bay's coastal line has until February 7th to get their FEMA request in. I don't know if this means they need their 25% share by then, or just a pledge towards it, or what, but I can hear a loud ticking reminiscent of the intro to 60 Minutes. Lastly, a proposal to restore the Amtrak Pioneer continues to drag along.

Then there's the continuing saga of the bridges. Of note: Salem wants $680 million for a new one, while the Portland metro area's new Columbia River crossing just may not pencil out.

At the rate that infrastructure costs are climbing, we'd either better start flooding the market with steel to bring prices down, or face the possibility of reduced weight capacities and a reduced flow of people and commerce.

Labels: Automobiles, Food, Media, Photography, Public Policy, Railroads, Technology, Transportation

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Friday, January 25, 2008

As I opened iTunes tonight, I noticed a new TriMet TV podcast. TriMet TV has been rather absent of late, the last episode having been put out prior to New Year's. So what prompted the transit agency to issue another episode?

That's right. Security:

"We recently hired 16 new security guards, for a total of 36.... The number of officers has increased by 10 percent, and will expand by another 10 percent when the new MAX Green Line opens in 2009."

Labels: Media, Portland, Public Policy, Transportation

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Thursday, January 17, 2008

Okay, what is this? Is the Willamette Week taking a page from the Onion? If so, can't hurt.

While you're there, check out this acerbic piece by Corey Pein. I don't think I've read as entertaining of a summing-up of the Portland political landscape in a while. Informative while hilarious; well done.

And while we're on Portland subjects, just a brief note that quid pro quo is alive and well.

"The Commission is working to examine not only the condition and future needs of the nation's surface transportation system, but also short and long-term alternatives to replace or supplement the fuel tax as the principal revenue source to support the Highway Trust Fund over the next 30 years."

"...all work was done by or for US-DOT directly. I reported to Susan Binder, executive director of the Commission and deputy secretary of USDOT. She reports to Mary Peters, [Secretary] of US-DOT who reports to George W. Bush who probably doesn’t know or care what we are doing. But I am in the fourth layer down from The Top. This is the highest I have ever been or am ever likely to be."

"LOST Magazine is an online monthly magazine that combines elements of many other literary, online, and national magazines with a singular mission--to reclaim in writing lost people, places, and things."

"(PORTLAND, OR) -- The City of Portland Office of Transportation's Parking Enforcement Division will celebrate its 50th anniversary on Friday, January 18, 2008. The media are invited to attend this special event that includes an entertaining slide show presentation on the history of parking enforcement in Portland."

For Portlanders Only;

Elrond Lawrence's Outside Is America;

Kevin Scanlon's The Photographers' Railroad Page;

Martin Burwash's Rambling West;

Dave Styffe's The Unauthorized Observer;

Scott Lothes' World Scott.

Labels: Blogging, Civics, History, Media, Photography, Portland, Portland History, Public Policy, Site News, Transportation, Week in Review

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Thursday, January 10, 2008

Reason has an interesting review up of Andrew Keen's Cult of the Amateur. An interesting topic, and I'm not sure I wholly agree with Keen, but I am sympathetic to many points he makes.

And yes, I'm aware of the hypocrisy of saying that on a blog.

Labels: Blogging, Book Reviews, Books, Civics, Media, Photography, Portland, Public Policy, Railroads, Transportation, Week in Review

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Friday, December 7, 2007

Aaron over at VanPortlander wrote in this morning to ask if there are any RSS feeds.

I confess that The Addendum is a bit of a passive-aggressive blog. I have blogged before, sometimes quite intensely. Overall, though, I got tired of it. Aaron put up a post yesterday that outlined one of many reasons the blogging thing gets old. At some point it feels like a rat-race to be the first to post your opinion about whatever is going on, out there, out in the non-cyber world.

The entire route99west site, however, began its rebirth as an outlet for various artistic pursuits. I viewed (and continue to view) this site as an extended, web-based portfolio of my work. The Addendum grew into the project when I needed a place to put an occasional article or item that just didn't seem to merit the energy investment that a photo essay might. It's also a convenient place to plop some links to interesting stuff that is going on with others on the web.

My reaction against blogging continues. I know from previous experience I won't always have time for updating this page, so I'm trying not to get into the habit of posting to it on a crack-hyper squirrel pace. You'll probably see more Week in Review type posts.

So now, dear readers, you know my excuse for not having made site feeds available in the past. You can thank Aaron for prompting me to change that, however. You can find an atom-based feed here, and an RSS 2.0 feed here. I've also plunked links to both over at the left side of the page, under the heading "Feeds & Etc..."

Labels: Blogging, Internet, Journalism, Media, Site News

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Thursday, December 6, 2007

It seems one of the stock investigative journalism stories in the post-9/11 world is the "TSA Security Breach." You know the drill. Reporters get together some kind of security violating package, like dummy weapons or fake explosives, then smuggle it past security at a major airport. Thanks to a few hidden cameras, the whole shebang gets broadcast on television about a week later, with alarmists "are we safe?" comments slung back and forth throughout the accompanying monologue. It's over-the-top, and it's also borderline instruction video for wannabe terrorists, but it's not surprising that the average journalist doesn't even comprehend such a thing. It's all about shock, sensationalism, and a degraded notion of what a "scoop" means.

For those of us a bit sick of such fabricated news, check out this video from The Onion. As usual for this parody news outlet, they've done a great job capturing everything that is absurd about such reports. It's no small wonder that Reason Magazine's Greg Beato called The Onion "our most intelligent newspaper".

And now, add to that, our most intelligent television news.

"With I-5 shut down in the Chehalis area, truckers heading to and from Seattle aren’t clogging up I-5 or I-205, leaving the two routes into Vancouver clear for passenger vehicles. Even though I left work about half an hour later than normal, I got home only 5 minutes later than when I’ve driven on a typical day. The removal of long-haul trucks from the interstates cut my commute nearly in half."

“If this is true, this is an outrage. Transit security is a national security issue and national security is the responsibility of the federal government. Why should public transportation riders, who take public transportation 34 million times each weekday, be treated as second class citizens?"

"People are complaining that it will take 35 years to pay off not counting maintenance. That's funny, do you own a home? How long is your mortgage? 30yrs plus with each refinance & that doesn't count the maintenance but you are willing to pay for that. What benefit are you getting from that mortgage? Is it making you money? No it is serving a need, which is a roof over your head."

Labels: Journalism, Media, Portland, Portland History, Public Policy, Railroads, Transportation, Week in Review

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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

War correspondent Micheal Yon goes over the ins and outs of cameras for some real high-pressure shooting environments --
war photography.

"When the Nikon D70 got combat stress, I jumped out of the pool and into the Bering Straits of digital cameras. Drum roll . . . I opened the box . . . the Canon Mark II 1DS. Welcome to photography hell! No dummy buttons. The engineers apparently assumed the owner actually knows something about photography to spend $8,000 on a camera body. You make a wrong move with the Canon Mark II 1Ds, and your photos are trash."

Labels: Journalism, Media, Photography, Technology

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Sunday, November 4, 2007

Parade Magazine this weekend highlighted passenger rail's future and the debate over Amtrak funding. Many Amtrak press articles end up being way off base, either making Amtrak out to be a saint persecuted by the Eeeeevil Bush Administration, or to be a big pork-barrel project that exists solely to put public money into union employee pockets. Amazingly, the Parade article is neither, and gives a very balanced if brief view of the situation.

(The comments section I can't say as much about. To be honest I didn't even read it. Internet comments may be one of the least useful inventions in journalism.)

A snippet:

"'I'm amazed at the rancor about our numbers -- they are so small,' says Alex Kummant, Amtrak's CEO. 'It costs about $1.50 for every man, woman and child to sustain this network -- one cup of coffee per person. Look at highway congestion, environmental issues, the capacity of airline travel. For city-to-city transportation, we need passenger rail.'

As our airways and highways have slowed down, demand for train travel has been increasing. In fact, Amtrak ridership was up for the fifth year in a row, reaching record levels -- despite the fact that a third of trains arrived late last year. In the Northeast, since Amtrak introduced higher-speed Acela trains in 2000, the railroad's share of 10,000 daily commuters between Washington, D.C., and New York City increased from 45% to 54%."

Labels: Journalism, Media, Public Policy, Transportation

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Saturday, October 27, 2007

Okay, one last post before bed. To all my friends and former colleagues over at THE Magazine of Railroading, Happy 1027 Day!

Labels: Journalism, Media, Publishing, Railroads, Transportation

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Monday, July 2, 2007

The New York Times this weekend published a review of Andrew Keen's new book, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture. (If the times asks you for a registration to read it, just go to http://www.bugmenot.com/view/www.nytimes.com and get a login set.)

Although the title alone suggests this will be an anti-digital rant bordering on the luddite, Keen's theory merits a second glance. Although he takes a few swipes at one of my favorite projects, Wikipedia, he makes a strong case for the gradual replacement of quality content with simple quantity. As Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani summarizes, Keen fears a destruction of truth:

"Postings about political candidates, for instance, can be made by opponents disguising their motives; and propaganda can be passed off as news or information. For that matter, as Mr. Keen points out, the idea of objectivity is becoming increasingly passé in the relativistic realm of the Web, where bloggers cherry-pick information and promote speculation and spin as fact. Whereas historians and journalists traditionally strived to deliver the best available truth possible, many bloggers revel in their own subjectivity, and many Web 2.0 users simply use the Net, in Mr. Keen’s words, to confirm their “own partisan views and link to others with the same ideologies.” What’s more, as mutually agreed upon facts become more elusive, informed debate about important social and political issues of the day becomes more difficult as well."

"The "democratization" of media through the establishment of websites, blogs, and so forth has enabled cults, extremists, and partisans at the expense of the more moderate, homogenized "traditional" media. This has created a networked society where whatever "news" an individual finds and likes can become for them a truth just as valid as any other -- even if it's no more than propaganda. We are in danger of losing ourselves in a sea of media "choice", of enveloping our society into fragmentary fits of what is known as solipsism."

Labels: Internet, Journalism, Media

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Thursday, June 21, 2007

Online Journalism Review has web-published a review of slideshow navigation for web image presentations. While this may be a bit dry at first, for many of us building web sites, this is very interesting research. The biggest surprise? Almost nobody in their study used thumbnails.

Labels: Design, Internet, Media, Photography

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Sunday, May 20, 2007

I've mentioned before the transition that magazines in the railroad enthusiast or "railfan" field have been undergoing. Now, general historians will be mourning the loss of a publishing giant in their niche, American Heritage.

Founded in mid 1950s, American Heritage was a highly successful general history rag distributed on newsstands nationwide. According to the New York Times, who reported late last week about the magazine's closure:

The circulation is currently 350,000, or as high as it has ever been, and hundreds of those readers can still be reliably counted on to write in arguing about the true causes of the Civil War or, as happened recently, to point out that the author of a World War II article doesn’t know the difference between the M-1 rifle and the M-16, which didn’t come in until Vietnam.

Labels: Internet, Journalism, Media, Publishing

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