“Seeing Plaid”
March 27, 2017, model and it-girl Gigi Hadid steps out in spring’s must have item: a pair of plaid pants.
KZ
Originally known as “tartan,” the woven fabric came from the Scottish highlands where travelers wore plaid blankets as cloaks to protect them from the cold. Now, we’ve repurposed plaid as an embodiment of a chic, cozy, conspicuously rebellious, and overwhelmingly trendy aesthetic.
Johnny Rotten, lead singer of the Sex Pistols and punk rock icon, pioneered a pair of similar plaid trousers to Ms. Hadid’s in the late seventies.
Why do we recycle trends? Is it some kind of method of soaking up nostalgia in the seams of our clothes? Are the clothes we pick out in constant communication with one another? What kind of dialogue can we create with a pair of pants?
We don’t know why Ms. Hadid slipped into her plaid pants, or who, if anybody picked them out for her. But what we do know is what we see—a flash of plaid embellished with a sliver of a chain, reminiscent of the burgeoning punk movement of the late seventies unraveled and remixed to fit Ms. Hadid’s frame.
We live in a world where we are constantly defining ourselves by the images we create. We photograph ourselves and skim through the filtered and fuzzy images friends and strangers cultivate, bombarding us with visuals that make us think. Escaping images is impossible—we know what strangers wear and eat and if sometimes we couldn’t care less, we still find ourselves looking. But if we are what we eat, aren’t we also sometimes what we wear?
Is Ms. Hadid a Sex Pistols lover? Or is she just a girl in a pair of plaid pants making headlines? The all-encompassing power of clothes rears its sartorial head as we look at snapshots of strangers and begin to dream.
–Camille Dourmashkin-Cagol
Green Light Means Go, Red Light Means…Tickets?
For any drivers out there, odds are you’ve received that dreaded ticket in the mail from a red light camera at least once. Usually positioned at busy intersections, the big metal boxes are responsible for some 29 million dollars’ worth of fines in NYC in 2015 alone and have racked up 600 million in Chicago from their installation. Recent controversy about the true function of red light camera – be it as a source of revenue or an act of safety – have lately been the cause of a slew of proposals being entered for voting in the House to ban red light cameras in places like Texas, Missouri, and Florida. According to an article on the pending Texas ban, the debate centers on this:
“While police and other supporters of the cameras claim they help to reduce crashes, critics argue that the cameras are an invasion of privacy, put a burden on drivers to prove their innocence and are used to raise cash for local governments.”
Last year, Stephen Ruth from Suffolk County, better known as the Red Light Robin Hood, made it his business to redirect and cut wires to red light cameras around his neighborhood resulting in multiple arrests. He believes that the red light cameras are a scheme to make money, and specifically targeted “red light cameras where yellow light duration times were shortened by the city in order to generate more citations and revenue. The shortened duration at the traffic lights generate $32 million for Suffolk County, which is why the county allows the practice to continue despite their own study showing they lead to an increase in accidents with injuries.”
Ruth further publicized that the red light cameras were increasingly placed in lower and middle class neighborhoods, and were rarely seen in more affluent neighborhoods.
Though unlike Suffolk County, cities like Chicago, which pull a crazy amount of revenue from the red light cameras, seem to be ultimately benefiting from their installment. A recent report found that:
“… injury-producing crashes decreased by about 10 percent because of the camera program; more dangerous angle and/or turn crashes decreased by 19 percent. The study also found less dangerous and less frequent rear-end crashes increased by 14 percent, consistent with experience in other cities. For this portion of the study, the researchers used data from 2005 to 2007 (before red-light cameras were deployed) and data from 2010 to 2012 (after red-light cameras were mostly deployed).”
They also documented what they called the “spillover effect” of improved traffic safety at intersections without cameras.
So what do you think? Should traffic regulation be limited to an actual, present police officer, or can automated cameras do the work for them? The recent slew of actions to ban red light cameras seem to prefer to the former, but it proposes an interesting dilemma. At what point do the cameras stop being a safety device and start being a government cash cow?
Best,
Merav
Sources:
(2) http://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2017/03/30/texas-senate-votes-to-ban-red-light-cameras
(3) https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2017/march/chicago-red-light-camera-program-safety-benefits/
Opening Day!
Baseball is back!!
April 2nd and April 3rd are the official Opening Days for 2017’s Major League Baseball (MLB) season, where there will be three and twelve games, respectively.
There’s nothing like the start of a new season where schedules have been made, and new expectations and predictions for your favorite teams have been set.
Every October when the season ends and a World Series champion is crowned, baseball fans are left excited (if their team won) and/or disappointed (if their team lost and the season is over).
What makes Opening Day truly special is the promise of the best pitching match-ups of the season. Each team presents their best available pitcher which always makes for an exciting game.
Just look at defending American League Champions, Texas Rangers’ Yu Darvish vs. Cleveland Indians’ Corey Kluber.
These are two of the best pitchers in the MLB today who are expected to deliver a must see game.
While, Kluber has an edge due to Darvish missing the entire 2015 MLB season, Darvish has come back stronger than ever.
Texas Rangers manager, Jeff Banister says of Yu Darvish:
“No. 1 was overall health. Not only with the arm, but the body … Secondly …He’s in great shape … the laser-sharp focus. He wants to be the best pitcher on the planet. He has rebounded from every bullpen session and every outing. He is healthy and ready to go.”
How close are these numbers?
| Corey Kluber vs. Yu Darvish 2014-16 | |||||
| Player | K/9 IP | HR/9 IP | BAA | ERA | FIP |
| Kluber | 9.91 | 0.78 | .225 | 3.01 | 2.84 |
| Darvish | 11.55 | 0.92 | .229 | 3.20 | 2.94 |
| Source: FanGraphs.com | |||||
Another exciting matchup is The New York Mets vs. The Atlanta Braves, especially on Opening Day, where there are two young pitchers ready to put on a show of a lifetime.
Mets’ Noah Syndergaard, 24 and Braves, Julio Teheran, 26 are both still very early in their careers and have already made a huge impression. This is Syndergaard’s first opening day and Teheran’s fourth which means that all eyes will be on them.
Noah Syndergaard spoke briefly about pitching on Opening Day:
“I feel like it doesn’t matter if I’m starting Opening Day or not, I feel like we have five aces on this team that can come in and do the job. I’m just fortunate enough to lead us off and hopefully set the tone for the rest of the season.”
It doesn’t matter which team one supports, Opening Day is a special day for all baseball fans.
Here’s to an exciting Opening Day!
For more, click here, here, and here!
KN
The Junction Journal 