Rad Geek People's Daily

A man who scrubbed filthy road signs until they were gleaming has been told to stop by a council.

Cory Poynton, 27, started cleaning dirt-covered signs in Warwickshire a few weeks ago after noticing them across the county.

Since then, more than 3,500 people have reacted to his Facebook post that shows the results of using detergent and a cloth in his spare time.

However, Warwickshire County Council has since told Mr Poynton that it could not support his work because cleaning close to roads put him in considerable danger.

— Alice Cullinane, Man told to stop cleaning filthy signs by council
BBC (10 May 2024).

Why? Good lord, no it doesn’t.

On Facebook, more than 3,500 people reacted to Mr Poynton’s post showing the results of using detergent and a cloth in his spare time.

I see dirty signs all the time so I thought it’s about time someone such as myself takes action — otherwise, who will do it? he said.

Users on Facebook praised Mr Poynton for being a local “hero” who did “tremendous work” to keep roads safe.

— Alice Cullinane, Man told to stop cleaning filthy signs by council
BBC (10 May 2024).

Once again, with apologies to H.L. Mencken and Max Weber, I think our theoretical lexicon needs some revision. Thus:

Bureaucratic rationality, n.: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy without a license.

See also:

• GT 2010-05-17: The Clean Water Act vs. Clean Water
• GT 2005-02-13: Bureaucratic rationality
• Katherine Mangu-Ward, Guerrilla Public Service in Reason (May 2010)

Here’s some more from the ongoing use of hyperspectral imaging and transformer-based machine learning to decipher the Herculaneum scrolls (technological civilization is awesome). Researchers have been working closely on a scroll of Philodemus’s History of the Academy for a couple years now; here’s more on some newly deciphered passages that just dropped, in The Guardian:

Awesome.

• Joseph Schumpeter (1942/1950), Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (3rd edition).

• Paul M. Sweezy (1943), Professor Schumpeter’s Theory of Innovation, in The Review of Economics and Statistics 25.1 (February 1943): 93-96.

• Hebert Giersch (1984), The Age of Schumpeter, in The American Economic Review 74.2 (May 1984): 103-109.

• Bret Devereaux (2024), Phalanx’s Twilight, Legion’s Triumph Part Ia at A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (2024-01-19). This is the first part of a long multi-part series that’s aimed at — as far as I can tell — a squarely tactical look at possible answers to the classic old question from Polybius;^[1] or, as Devereaux sees it, why was the Roman legion able to decisively defeat the Hellenistic sarisa-phalanx?

1. ^[1]From Plb 1.1: Can any one be so indifferent or idle as not to care to know by what means, and under what kind of polity, almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and brought under the dominion of the single city of Rome, and that too within a period of not quite fifty-three years? Or who again can be so completely absorbed in other subjects of contemplation or study, as to think any of them superior in importance to the accurate understanding of an event for which the past affords no precedent….↩

I wanted to just post this story here with a quick comment to the effect of, Well, good. Parking minimums are stupid and they’re especially unneeded around neighborhoods that are growing vigorously precisely because of the huge, pleasant walking trail that they’re growing alongside.

Of course, municipal government being what it is, the Atlanta City Government can’t just let the City of Atlanta alone; yet another foray into urbanism is immediately moving forward with a deep, abiding and utterly ridiculous suspicion that people in a city can’t just work it the fuck out on their own. We’re doing some City-Building and Neighborhood Planning here, and if cars are no longer required to get around, then by god we’ll take steps to forbid them:

New legislation passed by the Atlanta City Council will remove parking minimums in the BeltLine Overlay District, a half-mile zone on either side of the BeltLine trail and light rail system.

According to an article by Josh Green in Urbanize Atlanta, the new rules, introduced by Council Member Jason Dozier, will also ban new gas stations and drive-throughs.

The theory goes^[1] that less space (and less upfront money from builders) devoted to parking will allow more room for less expensive housing, restaurants, shops, offices, and other vibrant uses, while encouraging neighborhood planning focused on pedestrians, not drivers.

— Diana Ionescu, Atlanta Eliminates Parking Mandates Near BeltLine
In Planetizen (2024-02-08).

For God’s sake. If nobody needs gas stations and drive-throughs, they won’t use gas stations and drive-throughs, and you won’t have them to kick around anymore. If gas stations and drive throughs can stay in business within the arbitrary Overlay Zone then city-dwellers must have some use for them after all.

Let it be, let them pass.

1. ^[1][Sic. Of course there is no real theory here, just the arbitrary guesswork of neighborhood planners who figure they know ahead of time how people are going to use the places that they live and go. —R.G.]↩