Riding the Rarely and Never

I’ve been trying to keep up with the extensive reporting by the Times on the shabby state of New York’s subway system, and how it got that way. Here’s a nugget from Brian M. Rosenthal et al.’s kickoff (it’s from November—did I say that I was trying to keep up?):

A bill passed by the Legislature in 1989 included a provision that lets state officials impose a fee on bonds issued by public authorities. The fee was largely intended to compensate the state for helping understaffed authorities navigate the borrowing process. It was to be a small charge, no more than 0.2 percent of the value of bond issuances….

The charge has quietly grown into a revenue stream for the state. And a lot of the money has been sapped from one authority in particular: the M.T.A.

The authority — a sophisticated operation that contracts with multiple bond experts — has had to pay $328 million in bond issuance fees over the past 15 years.

In some years, it has been charged fees totaling nearly 1 percent of its bond issuances, far more than foreseen under the original law….

But records show that other agencies have had tens of millions of dollars in bond issuance fees waived, including the Dormitory Authority, which is often used as a vehicle for pork projects pushed by the governor or lawmakers. The M.T.A. has not benefited as often from waivers.

The Dormitory Authority? What’s that? DASNY likes to style itself as New York State’s real estate developer. Its Wikipedia article needs some work.

Some links: 80

Patuxent River

catching raysStephanie Mason and Cathy Stragar led a walk to two locations along the Prince George’s side of Jug Bay. Snow flurries as I arrived at the park; up in the woods, out of the wind, temperatures were tolerable. We focused on plants and animals that manage to make a living, a little photosynthesis, under cold winter conditions. We enjoyed lightly scratching the bark of thin-barked trees like American Beech and Carpinus caroliniana to see the green evidence of chlorophyll just underneath. We stopped for drifts of evergreen lycopodium nearly covering the forest floor, not shaded out now that the leaves are down. The fuzzy underside of the dead but moist leaf of a Mockernut Hickory is quite pleasantly velour-y.

restingWe drive to Selby’s Landing, and then walked down to the bridge over Mattaponi Creek. A new birder in our group got a look at a small museum of Cedar Waxwings, feeding on Winterberry.

My year in hikes and field trips, 2017

Enh, I need to get out more.

And several trips to my home park, Huntley Meadows Park.

2016’s list. 2015’s list. 2014’s list. 2013’s list. 2012’s list. 2011’s list. 2010’s list. 2009’s list. 2008’s list.

New venues, 2017

A renewed acquaintance with Olney Theatre Center, following their expansion and rebuilds.

Bonus out-of-town venue:

  • Jazz Standard, New York

Bonus out-of-town library:

  • Mertz Library, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York

2016’s list. 2015’s list. 2014’s list. 2013’s list. 2012’s list. 2011’s list.

The year in review, 2017

Scanty posting for much of the year. Nevertheless, my annual slice through the first-of-the-month posts:

  • 5 January: WATCH assignments are ready!
  • 2 February: Augmented by a stack of books from Leta’s library.
  • 2 March: Woolly continues its admirable run of productions in which people of faith—specifically, Christian faith—are front and center, with their questions and fears driving the story.
  • 2 April: Richard Bolles has passed away.
  • 2 May: From my last report to the nest box team:
  • 3 June: A lovely “bloom” of one of our common yellow myxomycetes in the Ridge Heights meadow.
  • 2 July: O Gray Catbird, who have been tapping at your reflection in my window glass, maybe if I post your picture on the internet you’ll be embarrassed and cut it out.
  • 5 August: TIL that IAD was originally planned to be built in what is now Burke.
  • 1 September: In the course of researching the life of Laura Lyon White (Mrs. Lovell White), I came across an interesting turn of events concerning LLW’s estate.
  • 2 October: Kevin Dodge, Shirley Gay, and Steve Kite led a walk though Ice Mountain Preserve.
  • 5 November: Another piece by one of our journalists was cited in one of the textbooks that I’m recording for Learning Ally:
  • 3 December: Hilary Howard reports on the precarious state of independent acting conservatories in New York.

The year in review:

My year in contributions, 2017

If you’re looking for a last-minute contribution to make—maybe to round up your tax-deductible total for the year—I have… some suggestions.

These are the groups and projects to which I gave coin (generally tax-deductible), property, and/or effort in 2017.

Upcoming: 49

The matrix of judging assignments for 2018 WATCH has been released. I’ll be visiting a member company that’s new to me. And doing a lot of driving.

  • Johnston, House
  • Sondheim, Assassins
  • Morgan, The Audience
  • Menken, Ashman, and Rice, Beauty and the Beast
  • Mamet, American Buffalo
  • Simon, California Suite
  • Morey/Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
  • Lerner and Loewe, Brigadoon

Plus two ever-popular TBDs.

R. L. May

Long-overlooked research explains the nature of Rudolph’s glow, and its fitness for his habitat.

The records for 25 December 1949 indicate a worldwide fog of unprecedented extent. Claus’ adoption of Rudolph and cultivation of a pure-breeding strain facilitated his navigational tasks during the smogs that beset developed countries in the 1950s and 1960s.

A mystery: 11: solved

Thanks to Cameron Binkley and his librarian contacts at the California Academy of Sciences, I now have confirmation that Laura White’s memorial to her husband, as specified in her will, was indeed realized at CAS. According to academy’s 1958 annual report, the Lovell White Hall of Man and Nature was part of the Hall of Science (along with the Alexander Morrison Planetarium).

The Whites’ daughter-in-law Ruth gave an oral history interview in 1976. She fills in some of the details of the White-CAS connection.

RB: So then I gave [the Garden of Allah] to the California Academy of Sciences and they had it for about three years, two or three years and they loved it. The reason I selected that to give it to is because the California Academy of Sciences has a memorial for Ralston’s father, Mr. Lovell White. His mother gave it to the California a memorial there, so I thought it would be very appropriate for the —

CE: The Academy of Sciences. Were they delighted with the bequest?

RB: They certainly were delighted but regrettably their income was restricted to be spent in the City and County of San Francisco so they had to give it up painfully.

A mystery inside a mystery: The Garden of Allah, Ralston and Ruth’s Marin County home, is not the Los Angeles resort of the same name that is the setting for Scott and Hem in the Garden of Allah.

The Hall of Science was demolished as part of CAS’s rebuild in 2008, so maybe Laura and Lovell would have been better off with a plaque or a statue.