So far in Bellingham, low overhead plans seem to work better in the Central Waterfront Redevelopment District.

Some recent pictures of Bellingham's central waterfront redevelopment area.

The informal Container Village seems to be working well. Drawing people and activity. Low overhead and flexible. Small businesses in the container buildings seem to be thriving, during the warmer months at least. I think most of them close down for the winter, however.

Second story rooftop space on several businesses. Digester tanks from old pulp mill are now part of the artistic cityscape.

Other plans for higher end developments have proceeded much more slowly than expected, from what I gather. The flexibility of containers and lower overhead planning is a benefit.

2nd of 3 planned condo buildings. For sale signs in many windows.

3rd of 3 condo buildings.

It may be a long while before the 3rd building proceeds farther, as the second one still has lots of units for sale.

I sometimes jokingly say I hope there is reincarnation so I can see how this neighborhood turns out as it's been a decades long transition.

First of the 3 planned condo buildings looks more occupied.

Doing some AI research and my own memory of local news, I think the plans for larger projects, to help pay off costs of bringing the central waterfront into public use, have not panned out as soon as hoped. Much of the work, so far, has been paid for by environmental cleanup grants and government capital projects.

Still, there are long term plans for larger capital developments, but this may be much slower in coming than originally thought. Meanwhile the more informal, lower overhead flexible plans have proceeded bringing activity to the waterfront; the former site of Georgia Pacific Pulp Mill.

Many popular concerts and events around the container village.

A recreational bike track called the Pump Track. Tiled pulp storage tanks in the background left over from the pulp mill days.

An affordable housing project has been built in connection with a local nonprofit. There are plans for phase two.

Heat and hot water for major projects, including the condo buildings, comes from the waste heat of a small power plant. Encogen was first built when the pulp mill was running. It's natural gas turbines need cooling so it was originally planned as a cogeneration plant for electric power and to provide steam for the pulp mill. This could save fuel that GP normally burned in its boilers.

When the pulp and paper operations closed, the power plant was sort of left high and dry, so to speak. No one needed the excess steam, so they added some steam turbine technology for more electricity and to use waste heat off the gas (jet engine style) turbines. Still much of the heat is dumped out to the cooling fans.

Some of that heat is now used in the new waterfront buildings. When the power plant isn't running, I assume there is some gas boiler in the system to continue providing heat.

A major railroad track runs through the district. The sound of trains may bring pause to purchasers of high end residential. Relocating the track to the perimeter of the district would be expensive, plus there are many residential developments on the bluff above the perimeter.

Toward the end of the pulp mill's time on the waterfront, the railroad was working on a plan to relocate the line around the mill to reduce possible conflict between trains and factory vehicles, such as forklifts. Those plans were dropped, I guess, when the mill closed.

When the mill closed, a friend of mind said, "no point going around a ghost town."

As with all neighborhoods, they are always in a state of becoming. Some cathedrals, in Europe, were under construction for over a century.

There is lots of talk about sex, but anger is our most morally troubling emotion.

There is lots of talk about sex and morality, but I think anger is the most morally troubling emotion we have. Each emotion has it's moral consequences and pitfalls including sexuality, but anger seems to be the most anti social of all.

Our emotions are part of our being. We are said to be an animal species.

Emotions need to be filtered through our intellect for living in society, however. Some people say, "speak and act from the heart instead of from the head" (the heart being emotions), but another saying applies here as well. That saying is "be careful what you ask for as you might get it."

I tend to avoid anger if possible. In fight or flight I tend to favor flight. That strategy has worked pretty well for me.

I do get anger at times, but it's usually short lived. I've found myself swearing at a car that came close to hitting me or a dog that was chasing me. The reaction is almost subconscious as it usually happens before I'm aware of it. Then I'm sometimes surprised and think, "I yelled that?"

Most of the time, I try and avoid those situations if I can help it.

When growing up, I remember having some debates with people. I thought folks should not get angry. Other people would say that anger is a healthy emotion. They would say that there can be constructive anger and how anger is expressed is what matters, not that anger is bad.

Some would also say that you had to let anger out, or it would build up inside you, like in a reservoir. I think that theory has been debunked to some extent, but trying to fix the situation that makes you angry is still needed, rather than just letting someone walk all over you.

I used to say anger was bad, but justified if someone got mad at you. Then you had a right to get angry back. That was a little rule I articulated during childhood.

Since then, my ideas have become more nuanced, but I still have similar thoughts. I realize now, that anger is an emotion that is part of us. It's like sexuality, fear, sadness and other emotions. Though emotions are a part of being human, they are often problematic. This is why I think, today, that anger is the most problematic of our emotions.

During childhood, I also remember saying that anger leads to wars. Other people would counter by saying that, "war is a different topic." They would say that, "war is politics, economics and so forth, rather than anger."

Now I realize that war, between nations, is sort of a stretch to a different context than just plain anger between individuals. I still hold to some of those ideas, however.

Maybe a more convincing thought is that anger, between individuals, can escalate to more destructive things, like bar fights and violence. Those escalations happen all the time.

During my childhood, I didn't think about that point. The connection between anger and escalation to more violence at a personal level is a closer connection than war, but war is still in my discussion.

Today, many people are saying, "there is too much anger in politics." The connection to war is still there, though a bit more distant than my childhood ideas.

I think that anger isn't a good tool in politics. It tends to bring pushback so the side with the most power usually wins.

Anger can also lead to internal strife and factionalism within a political movement. Sometimes these internal conflicts, within a movement, are called "the circular firing squad."

For many people, anger is a motivation to get folks off the couch and out in the streets, or maybe to get out the vote. Yes, it does motivate, but I still see it as not normally a good tool for political change. There are other tools. Anger often just brings retrenchment and "doubling down" on the other side, rather than change or more understanding.

Yes, anger is a natural emotion, but it tends to be more problematic than other emotions, like sexuality. Sexuality can be problematic also and it does tend to get most of the limelight in terms of discussions about morality.

I put in a vote for saying that anger is our most troubling emotion.

Remembering the people and buildings destroyed by hatred 25 years ago.

Picture I took at end of my 1993 bike trip which got me as far as Hudson, NY. Then I took train back home changing trains in NYC, the only time I've been in that city.

I stayed 1 night and walked around a lot. Didn't go up to observation decks as it seemed like they were up in the fog. This image taken while I was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. My bicycle was being shipped back to Bellingham from Hudson.

I walked across the plaza and quickly walked through a lobby, 1993.

During childhood, I had a big interest in buildings and city planning. That interest is still with me to this day. I wrote to quite a few places for information, including Rockefeller and the World Trade Center. I still have a box of brochures from many places.

Here depicts state of the art technology from around 1971.

Without accepting some changes in consumer expectations, changes at the top have little support.

When gas prices go up due to environmental regulation and taxes, it seems like more working people turn to the right both in USA and parts of Europe. Yellow Vest protests in France and populist support for Trump in USA.

Now that Trump's war on Iran is pushing up gas prices, the opposite may be happening, working masses turning to the left.

Grassroots dependency on fossil fuels means that politics at the top has a big effect. Regulations and taxes, from the top, are passed along in higher prices and more inconvenience to average people. This is a big reason why I believe that changes in lifestyles, at the grassroots level, needs to be there also. Not just top down down solutions, such as taxing the oil industry.

When fossil fuel production gets restricted, people, who are still dependent on fossil fuels, tend to turn to the right advocating lower taxes and less regulation. Today, however populism's swings has brought us Donald Trump with his war on Iran and higher gas prices.

Grassroots changes, rather than just top down solutions, are needed. One grassroots solution is for ordinary people to turn out and vote.

Even if people dismiss the power of lifestyle changes, a lifestyle that includes voting is needed to create the top down solutions anyway. We can't rein in the power of the super wealthy and large corporations if voters don't consistently support those kind of solutions.

For decades, it seems like we have oscillated between top down Republican ideas of deregulating business and left leaning ideas of regulating and taxing business. Both are top down ideas.

The people's personal lifestyles creates power in mass also. It moves mass markets and influences government with voting. That tends to be more what I talk about. Lifestyles make a difference as well as just how the top is arranged.

One of my recent posts got lots of views on Facebook which is still a useful tool.

My Facebook post from September 5 about various map projections has seemed to go, at least somewhat, viral. It's been forwarded 25 times and seen by around 15,000. At least that post is getting out and about. I set my preferences on Facebook so people, beyond just my friends list, can see what I share.

I also put things on this blog for a few more viewers not using Facebook and for archival use. I sometimes call Facebook the McDonalds of the internet. Hard to beat it's continued convenience and popularity. Nothing is perfect, but it can be a good tool. Some people don't like Facebook, but people also use oil companies and claim they don't like them either. I don't drive.

If the US wants to look at the world using a Mercator map, here is the US using a Mercator map.

Besides just the name of a lake, maps are making more news. The UN has adopted a new map, versus the "old standard" Mercator Projection map.

The US government, under Trump, has rejected the new worldview. Ironically, the US (lower 48) is usually not depicted by Mercator in most maps. They use yet another projection.

If the lower 48 were shown by Mercator, the northern states would look much larger than the southern states.

Another projection that most Americans are used to for the lower 48; not the Mercator.

Mercator maps tend to make things look larger near the poles while things closer to the equator look smaller.

Mercator map of the world distorts sizes near the poles and usually cuts off Antarctica completely. This map shows Mercator sizes versus actual sizes.

Showing the round earth on a flat map isn't easy. I learned about map projections, as a geography major in college. Nothing depicts the globe accurately, except a globe itself which is harder to carry around.

Mercator projection showing Antarctica.

Another style of map showing more equal areas, but less accurate shapes.

The new world map the UN is adopting.

Maps I found searching the web.

My other blog entry about Mercator Projections and the Cold War.

Violence and anger are usually counterproductive.

I often think that if the October 7th 2023 Hamas attack against Israel that killed so many civilians had not happened, maybe Trump would not be president today.

That attack led to Israel killing many more people as it retaliated against Gaza. Moderate Democrats, in USA such as Biden and Harris, lost votes for not taking stronger action against Israel. Many people, on the left, did not vote in the 2024 election feeling there was little difference between the candidates.

This allowed Trump to get back into office with his even more unfriendly policies toward the Palistinians.

Trump's extreme executive power given by this Supreme Court and this Congress.

It's too bad how much executive power Trump has taken advantage of. This, because the Supreme Court has almost given him dictatorial powers when it over rides lower courts that have tried to restrain him. Congress hasn't done much either due to Republican majority.

Normally geographic names are handled, in the US, by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN): Established by Congress in 1890. Trump's executive orders can override that so things can be named by his whims.

Names within the US aren't necessarily accepted internationally. In some cases, countries disagree, like in 1982 during the Falkland Islands conflict between UK and Argentina. The UK called that territory the Falkland Islands while Argentina (which was trying to take it by force during the Falkland Islands War) called it Islas Malvinas.

Google Maps is following it's normal protocol off the cliff, so to speak. Google Maps determines geographic names based on local laws and official government mapping sources within each country. For disputed territories or bodies of water with varying names, Google follows a long-standing policy to display local, legally recognized names to users residing within those specific jurisdictions.

Other mapping entities, such as MapQuest and Apple Maps do it differently. New York State and many other public and private entities can it differently as well.

One person, Trump, is exerting lots of executive power over what has normally been decisions made within the US by community via entities, such as the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. Before a recent Supreme Court ruling, these parts of the US government have had more independence and were less dependent on the whims of one person.