One of the standout works at the 2006 Shanghai Biennale was a pile of cheap Chinese export products that flowed from an open shipping container grafted to a wall in the Shanghai Art Museum. “Yiwu Investigation,” as designed by Liu Jianhua, reflected upon the unsteady relationship between the developed world and China. By choosing products from Yiwu, a thriving manufacturing center in Zhejiang Province, Liu suggested that the developing world’s consumer tastes had a mediating role in China’s emergence. According to an essay on the Biennale’s website:
“Although these commodities are known for their low design, usefulness, popularity, low cost and high added labor, they resonate with China’s connection to the world and symbolize the transitional position of Chinese society.”
On Thursday, Liu’s follow-up work, “Export - Cargo Transit,” opened at the Shanghai Gallery of Art. The new installation is also a meditation on the relationship between the developed world and China as expressed via trade. But the new work differs in that it focuses the developed world’s trade with China, and specifically shipments of hazardous “foreign rubbish” to Guangdong Province. Liu’s point is not subtle: today’s foreign scrap exports to China are the moral and economic equivalent of the 19th century opium trade. Or, as the printed materials distributed at the opening put it: “…past opium is today’s ‘foreign’ rubbish.“
First, a description of the work.
Upon entering the gallery visitors confront several large bales of scrap plastics and foil-covered paper. Other bales of similar materials are scattered throughout the space. To the left, the wall is covered with excerpts from articles describing the devastation wrought by the large-scale trade and processing of smuggled electronic waste (computers, televisions, air conditioners, washing machines, and refrigeration equipment) in China, including articles published by Spero, China Daily, and the New York Times.
At the back of the room, and winding along the large windows overlooking the Huangpu River and Pudong, a haphazard pile of scrap plastics mixed with some scrap paper, is piled against the wall. Nearby, a scrap baler is frozen in the process of disgorging a bale of scrap plastics. Beside it, a clear plexiglass case labeled “Art Export,” contains a colorful variety of scrap plastics. Additional “Art Export” containers are scattered throughout the exhibition.
For Liu, the “Art Export” component of the exhibition is key:
First “export” means importing “foreign rubbish” into China from foreign countries. For outsiders, it is export. If this export is taken by a collector from the west, the artwork is then being re-exported from China.
In an essay composed to accompany the exhibition, Cao Weijun suggests that the export of “foreign rubbish” reveals a moral failing on the part of the developed world, alone:
… we realize clearly that developed countries consider their national interest as paramount, which in fact reflects different political viewpoints. From economy, finance, culture to art, no matter how the imperial powers vary themselves, they are always the one who gain at the end. At least, so the colonizer is hoping.
All of this is predicated upon the idea that the “foreign rubbish” exported to China is unwanted, hazardous, and non-recyclable. As Liu notes in an interview with Rebecca Catching of That’s Shanghai:
Most of the garbage imported to China has to be incinerated or buried in China - only a mere 20 per cent of it can be recycled, which poses a big problem for the environment. Western countries have done a good job at handling their own environments, but I can’t help but think that has something to do with China.
Unfortunately, none of the “foreign rubbish” that Liu has installed at the Shanghai Gallery of Art is prohibited under Chinese or international law. That is, none of it is e-scrap. In fact, 99% of it is highly recyclable scrap plastic that fetches strong prices on the open market in China and the developed world.
In a May 2007 speech delivered to the China International Recycling Conference in Tianjin, Tan Yiwu, Vice-President of the Plastics Recycling the China Plastics Processing Industry Association, explained that production of “virgin” plastics from petrochemicals produced far more pollution than production of recycled plastics, and thus the Chinese government was strongly encouraging the development of the recycled plastics industry. In fact, according to Tan, the Chinese recycled plastics industry comprises 40,000 - 60,000 “related industries” employing more than 10 million workers. In 2006, China recycled 5.86 million metric tons of imported plastics … and approximately 10 million metric tons of domestically-generated plastics.
Liu, however, doesn’t seem to know or want to acknowledge the scale of China’s recycling industries, nor the fact that there is significant value in the 40 million metric tons of scrap materials imported into China each year. The material in the gallery, for example, ranges in value from the hundreds to thousands of US dollars per metric ton. Some grades of imported scrap metal are worth more per ton than the selling price of Liu’s past works. If, as Liu incorrectly said to Rebecca Catching, only 20% of this material is recyclable, the economics of the importation business would not work, and there would have been no imported scrap plastic for Liu to purchase in Guangdong (though there would have been plenty of Chinese scrap plastic). That is to say, Liu has no idea that scrap/waste imports into China are largely driven by Chinese buyers and manufacturers that use imported waste as a raw material in lieu of virgin materials.
What he also doesn’t realize - and should - is that valuable commodities tend to have global markets. So, for example, the imported scrap plastics exhibited in the Shanghai Gallery of Art were not necessarily destined for China. Instead, they might very well have stayed in their countries of origin (best as I could tell, the United States and Germany) where local companies would have re-processed them. Indeed, in almost all cases, China competes with scrap processors in developed countries for the “foreign rubbish” that Liu assumes is being dumped in China as a means of colonial control. In recent years, in fact, several of those developed countries have either imposed (Russia) or proposed (the United States) export bans on scrap to protect local processors from the competition of Chinese processors.
Liu’s confusion is at least partly semantic in origin. Most governments, including China’s, tend to categorize imported and exported waste/recyclable materials - legal or not - into a single category called “waste.” So, for example, the United States Customs Service would classify much of the plastic in Liu’s show as “Waste, Pairings, and Scrap of Plastics; of Polymers of Ethylene” despite the fact that it is mostly recyclable and non-hazardous. As a result, genuine waste - say, a stripped computer circuit board - is often lumped into the same category as a clean bale of scrap plastics. Though officials in the United States, Europe, China and elsewhere have spent years trying to change the definitions, the psychological barrier is high: most people outside of the recycling industry have a hard time believing that a bale of scrap plastic has value or minimal environmental impact (for an excellent discussion of this issue, see the position paper of the US-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries).
I don’t want to minimize Liu’s concern for the negative environmental effects caused by the processing of imported and domestic e-scrap in China. At Shanghai Scrap, and elsewhere, I have been very critical of US and European shippers of e-scrap to China and other developing countries. Liu’s problem is that he confuses the relatively small amount of hazardous e-scrap currently being smuggled into China (likely, in the thousands of tons) with the tens of millions of tons of legal, non-hazardous recyclables. His exhibition, meanwhile, confuses viewers by conflating the hazardous e-waste described on the gallery walls with the non-hazardous totally legal scrap recyclables on the floor. yiwu china
So let’s clarify.
Typically, e-scrap looks something like this:
Or this:
But not like this:
As I’ve acknowledged, the environmental consequences of the improper processing of e-scrap - or any other kind of scrap - can be devastating. In an interview that accompanies the exhibition, Liu recalls the recycling towns of Guangdong:
I saw with my own eyes that the rivers [were] so black that it was impossible to see through the water and the workers, without any protection gears, were picking up rubbish along the river.
With all due respect to Liu, I have seen this and much, much worse. But unlike Liu, I don’t see an analogy between the environmental devastation caused by improper recycling processes, and the opium scourge of the 19th century. First, the environmental devastation caused by imported waste materials has nothing to do - implicitly - with the materials themselves. Instead, the pollution caused by these materials is entirely predicated upon how they are processed. What Liu fails to appreciate is that there are environmentally-sound methods of processing most types of scrap materials, and those methods are used in the developing world and - increasingly - in China (which produces much more e-scrap domestically - about 150 million individual pieces annually - than it imports). Where they are not used in China, the fault is not with the foreign exporters but with Chinese importers who choose to subject their workers and the environment to dangerous and unsafe practices. Equal blame, too, might be leveled at local Chinese governments that allow the flaunting of China’s industrial safety and environment laws. Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. Chinese recyclers could and should make the investments to make their plants environmentally safe. But most of them don’t. And that is not the fault of the developed world - colonialists or not.
The final conceptual errors in Liu’s show are the “Art Exports” that he plans to send back to the developed world via wealthy art buyers. Implicit in this act, I think, is Liu’s certainty that “foreign rubbish” sent to China makes a one-way trip, only. But this is so totally incorrect as to suggest that Liu has only the most tenuous grasp of how China’s economy has developed over the last two decades. As it happens, “foreign rubbish” prices are at record highs over the last five years largely due to China’s demand for raw materials to feed its manufacturing sector. And that manufacturing sector is focused on exports. For example, in the following photo a workers dismantle American scrap paper bundles at a state-owned recycling plant in Shandong Province:
That ugly bundle of garbage will ultimately be processed and manufactured into new paper products that will be sold to box manufacturers who supply containers to China’s exporters.
Similarly, in this photo workers in Shanghai sort shredded imported automobiles into constituent metals:
Later, the processed metal - now transformed into high-quality ingot - will be exported to Japanese automobile manufacturers. export from yiwu welding wire
Ironically, “Export-Cargo Transit” would have been rendered conceptually stronger if Liu had just installed his 2006 “Yiwu Investigation” into the Shanghai Gallery of Art instead of creating his silly “Art Export” containers. After all, many of the products manufactured in Yiwu contain parts and pieces manufactured from “foreign rubbish” imported into the nearby scrap markets of Taizhou and Ningbo. Cost-conscious art lovers unable to afford a Liu Jianhua Art Export, but still interested in taking a slap at colonialism, need only buy a Japanese manufactured aluminum Toyota car part.
Ultimately, “Export - Cargo Transit” fails as a work of conceptual art because - quite simply - Liu gets the conceptual foundations totally wrong. Likewise, it fails as a social commentary because the facts underlying the commentary are misrepresented and misunderstood. In the end, though, “Export - Cargo Transit” fails because Liu Jianhua committed himself to a political claim without being open to an honest assessment of its truth. And that approach is the essence of a diatribe, not art.
china gifts
2007年9月17日星期一
2007年9月16日星期日
Yiwu Huafeng Hotel Yiwu, Chine
Huafeng Hotel is the first three-star rate hotel for tourist and business men in the city of Yiwu, and had been honoured to receive country leaders such as Premier Zhu Rongji , Premier Wen Jiabao , Wu Xueqian, Li Desheng etc. Huafeng hotel is a very important window for oversea reception in YIWU . Deeply rooted in a tradition of hospitality which has been fostered over a decade, we are trying to serve you honestly every day. Region de serviced: It is located just in the downtown. It is Only 10 kilometers from railway station,3 kilometers from exhibition center,10 kilometers from airport. Information sur les tarifs: All rates indicated are for search purposes only; check availability to verify rate. Recreation info: The entertainment club is on the third floor. 2000 square meters include sauna center yiwu market,playing card rooms and barber here. Chinese traditional foot and body massage are served and you can relax yourself thoroughly. Restaurant: Restaurant is on the second floor and is right place to taste China food. You can enjoy chuancai , tanjiacai, hangzhoucai by way of its elegant Chinese decor and exquisite meals prepared by our Chef. It can cater 500 persons at the same time. Salle de conferences: Meeting rooms centralize on the fourth floor and the facilities are complete. There are three meeting rooms including large, medium and small ,which can accept 160 person. They are idea places to hold business negotiation, product show, news release and banquet. Deeply rooted in a tradition in hospitality which has been fostered over a decade, we well understand the uncompromising expectations of our guests and will try every possible way to meet and exceed them. From the moment you step into our elegant lobby, graciousness and style will mark your stay.
china toys
yiwu
china toys
yiwu
One of the New Seven Wonders of the World
The Great Wall of China was selected as one of the new Seven Wonders of the World in a global poll announced on July 7, 2007. “If you haven’t climbed the Great Wall, you haven’t seen China." Many of your friends who visited China before might have told you this. It is, indeed, an experience of lifetime. The Great Wall of China, one of the most magnificent man-made projects in the world, lies across the northern part of China like some great sleeping dragon, winding its way through the vast territory of China. With a history of over 2,500 years, the Great Wall is still active to attract visitors from all over the world. In 1987, the Great Wall was inscribed on the World Heritage List by the UNESCO.
History & FunctionThe construction of the Great wall began during 770-476 BC. Ducal states at that time built walls to defend their own territories. In 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang conquered the six kingdoms and unified China to become its fist emperor. To consolidate the country and ward off invasion by ethnic minority tribes in the north, he had the separate walls joined together and extended to form a united defensive system. Construction continued up to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), when the Great Wall became the world's largest military structure.
Construction-He who does not reach the Great Wall is not a real hero!The Great Wall is coagulated with Chinese labors' wisdom, sweat and toil. Ancient records report that at least one million slaves and prisoners of war were conscripted to build the great wall which followed the contour of the land, taking advantage of natural defenses. As many died from exhaustion and starvation while working on this colossal task, the Wall was also known as "the longest cemetery in the world."
The bricks, rocks and lime used to build the wall had to be carried up to the mountains by bare shoulders. Those who succeeded in climbing the wall today are often regarded as "real heroes", from this we should realize the difficulty in climbing the wall, and can imagine how difficult it is to build the Great Wall without modern machinery at that time. Chairman Mao proclaimed that any person who wanted to be a real hero must climb the Great Wall, which has inspired many ambitious visitors. All tourists now know Chairman Mao’s famous words, “He who does not reach the Great Wall is not a real hero!”
Legend-Meng Jiangnu bringing down a section of the Great Wall with her tearsMany beautiful legends and tales have left in China about the construction of the Great Wall. Among them, the most popular would probably be the one about Lady Meng Jiangnu.
On the night of their wedding, Meng Jiangnu's husband was conscribed to build the Great Wall by the Qin soldiers. Before he went away, Lady Meng broke her white jade hairpin into two halves and gave her husband one half as a token of love. One day, lady Meng dreamed that her husband was constantly yelling: "Cold, cold!" She recalled that her husband was wearing very thin clothes. Very soon, she made some padded clothes and left home to look for her husband. She didn’t expect that her husband had already died of exhaustion and she burst into tears. The Great Wall was moved and it collapsed for more than 20 Km, revealing the dead bodies of her husband and many others. On seeing this, she committed suicide by jumping into the sea.
Now, a temple can be found at Shanhai Pass near the sea in memory of this loyal lady.
LengthThe Great Wall is said to be the only man-made project visible with the naked eye from outer space. The current measurement of this defensive wall, which stretches from Shanhaiguan Pass in the east to Jiayuguan Pass in the west, is 7300 kilometers. Its thickness ranges from about 4.5 to 9 meters (15 to 30 feet) and is up to 7.5 meters (25 feet) tall.
StructureThe Ming Dynasty was the last dynasty in Chinese history when large scale construction of the Great Wall took place, and most of the walls we see today were built in the Ming Dynasty, starting around 1368 and lasting till 1640.
Its historic and strategic importance is matched only by its architectural significance. It is constructed of locally available materials – stone, adobe or rammed earth and also large blocks of granite and bricks. The Great Wall comprises walls, passes, beacon tower, watchtowers, castles and fortresses.
Beacon TowerAlong the 3,600 miles long wall, there are countless beacon towers that were used as signal tower to deliver messages from one place to another. When the enemy invaded in the daytime, heavy smoke was lit as a signal; while at night, big fire would be lit up, because fire was easy to see in the distance. Moreover, the scale of the smoke and fire signals could reveal the number of invading enemies.
Watch TowerThe watchtowers are built at intervals of 1,500 feet except where the terrain is more complicated, and then they are even closer. In ancient time, everyday thousands of soldiers were there to make sure the whole nation was safe. And at night, they slept inside the towers too.
the Great Wall near Beijing Factors, such as season, accessibility, safety, health condition, should be taken into account when visiting the Great Wall. The view as you climb to the top is stunning. Badaling and Juyong Pass is the most visited and most easily accessible part of the Wall. The section between Jinshanling and Simatai requires more physical stamina to climb. The scenery of Mutianyu Great Wall is extremely beautiful in golden autumn.
Juyong Pass Juyong Pass, located in a valley more than 50 kilometers from Beijing City, is one of the three greatest passes of Great Wal. (The other two passes are Jiayuguan Pass and Shanhai Pass)
The wall we can see today was built in the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The valley where Juyong Pass lies is steep and precipitous. Thus, Juyong Pass won the reputation of the most steep and dangerous pass. Juyong Pass and Badaling in the south are vital gateways in the northwest region of Beijing City.
Badaling Great WallThe best-preserved and most imposing section of the Great Wall is at Badaling, 45 miles away at the northwest of Beijing. In Chinese, ‘Bada’ means ‘giving access to every direction’. The name itself suggests its strategic importance. The section is made of large blue bricks, with an average height of 24 feet, 19 feet wide of the bottom, and 16 feet at the top. It is wide enough to allow ten soldiers to march side by side along the wall. The highest point here is more than 2,400 feet above sea level.
Mutianyu Great WallThe great Wall from a different view! Mutianyu Great Wall, located 70km from the center of Beijing, is much steeper than Badaling Great Wall, and a more challenging climb. This section, older than Badaling, is considered by Chinese and foreign tourists as the best part of the Great Wall. There are fewer people about because the location is less accessible than Badaling. Surrounded by woodland and streams, this section takes on different looks in different seasons, blossoming flowers in spring, flowing streams in summer, red leaves in autumn and white snow in winter at this photogenic spot. Fiberglass Window Screening
SimataiThe Simatai Great Wall, 120 kilometers from the city center is often described with the following three words: perilous, diverse and peculiar. This section has not been restored as much as Badaling and much of the section is in a state of ruin with exposed bricks and incomplete structures. A famous specialist of Great Wall says: “The Great Wall is the best of the Chinese buildings, and Simatai section is the best of the Great Wall." This section was said to be "people's excellent cultural relics of the world" by UNESCO.
JinshanlingThe Jinshanling Great Wall, 140 km at the northeast end of Beijing City, features complicated and well preserved fortification systems. The walls are more solid, and the watchtowers taller and it retains its original Ming Dynasty outlook. Here you can see the Wall relatively undisturbed and in its slightly more original condition. The wall goes up and up along the ridge and stretches on endlessly. The wall is slightly in ruins and thereby has a special beauty. It is the section that foreign visitors like most.
Jiayu PassJiayu Pass, located in northwestern part of Gansu Province, was a pass of strategic importance in the Ancient Silk Road. This section, first built in 1539, is the representative of the part of Great Wall in western China, and also the west starting point of the Ming Walls. It enjoys reputable names as "the most important pass in the world" and "the most strategically significant pass in Hexi".WOW Gold
Great Wall
History & FunctionThe construction of the Great wall began during 770-476 BC. Ducal states at that time built walls to defend their own territories. In 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang conquered the six kingdoms and unified China to become its fist emperor. To consolidate the country and ward off invasion by ethnic minority tribes in the north, he had the separate walls joined together and extended to form a united defensive system. Construction continued up to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), when the Great Wall became the world's largest military structure.
Construction-He who does not reach the Great Wall is not a real hero!The Great Wall is coagulated with Chinese labors' wisdom, sweat and toil. Ancient records report that at least one million slaves and prisoners of war were conscripted to build the great wall which followed the contour of the land, taking advantage of natural defenses. As many died from exhaustion and starvation while working on this colossal task, the Wall was also known as "the longest cemetery in the world."
The bricks, rocks and lime used to build the wall had to be carried up to the mountains by bare shoulders. Those who succeeded in climbing the wall today are often regarded as "real heroes", from this we should realize the difficulty in climbing the wall, and can imagine how difficult it is to build the Great Wall without modern machinery at that time. Chairman Mao proclaimed that any person who wanted to be a real hero must climb the Great Wall, which has inspired many ambitious visitors. All tourists now know Chairman Mao’s famous words, “He who does not reach the Great Wall is not a real hero!”
Legend-Meng Jiangnu bringing down a section of the Great Wall with her tearsMany beautiful legends and tales have left in China about the construction of the Great Wall. Among them, the most popular would probably be the one about Lady Meng Jiangnu.
On the night of their wedding, Meng Jiangnu's husband was conscribed to build the Great Wall by the Qin soldiers. Before he went away, Lady Meng broke her white jade hairpin into two halves and gave her husband one half as a token of love. One day, lady Meng dreamed that her husband was constantly yelling: "Cold, cold!" She recalled that her husband was wearing very thin clothes. Very soon, she made some padded clothes and left home to look for her husband. She didn’t expect that her husband had already died of exhaustion and she burst into tears. The Great Wall was moved and it collapsed for more than 20 Km, revealing the dead bodies of her husband and many others. On seeing this, she committed suicide by jumping into the sea.
Now, a temple can be found at Shanhai Pass near the sea in memory of this loyal lady.
LengthThe Great Wall is said to be the only man-made project visible with the naked eye from outer space. The current measurement of this defensive wall, which stretches from Shanhaiguan Pass in the east to Jiayuguan Pass in the west, is 7300 kilometers. Its thickness ranges from about 4.5 to 9 meters (15 to 30 feet) and is up to 7.5 meters (25 feet) tall.
StructureThe Ming Dynasty was the last dynasty in Chinese history when large scale construction of the Great Wall took place, and most of the walls we see today were built in the Ming Dynasty, starting around 1368 and lasting till 1640.
Its historic and strategic importance is matched only by its architectural significance. It is constructed of locally available materials – stone, adobe or rammed earth and also large blocks of granite and bricks. The Great Wall comprises walls, passes, beacon tower, watchtowers, castles and fortresses.
Beacon TowerAlong the 3,600 miles long wall, there are countless beacon towers that were used as signal tower to deliver messages from one place to another. When the enemy invaded in the daytime, heavy smoke was lit as a signal; while at night, big fire would be lit up, because fire was easy to see in the distance. Moreover, the scale of the smoke and fire signals could reveal the number of invading enemies.
Watch TowerThe watchtowers are built at intervals of 1,500 feet except where the terrain is more complicated, and then they are even closer. In ancient time, everyday thousands of soldiers were there to make sure the whole nation was safe. And at night, they slept inside the towers too.
the Great Wall near Beijing Factors, such as season, accessibility, safety, health condition, should be taken into account when visiting the Great Wall. The view as you climb to the top is stunning. Badaling and Juyong Pass is the most visited and most easily accessible part of the Wall. The section between Jinshanling and Simatai requires more physical stamina to climb. The scenery of Mutianyu Great Wall is extremely beautiful in golden autumn.
Juyong Pass Juyong Pass, located in a valley more than 50 kilometers from Beijing City, is one of the three greatest passes of Great Wal. (The other two passes are Jiayuguan Pass and Shanhai Pass)
The wall we can see today was built in the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The valley where Juyong Pass lies is steep and precipitous. Thus, Juyong Pass won the reputation of the most steep and dangerous pass. Juyong Pass and Badaling in the south are vital gateways in the northwest region of Beijing City.
Badaling Great WallThe best-preserved and most imposing section of the Great Wall is at Badaling, 45 miles away at the northwest of Beijing. In Chinese, ‘Bada’ means ‘giving access to every direction’. The name itself suggests its strategic importance. The section is made of large blue bricks, with an average height of 24 feet, 19 feet wide of the bottom, and 16 feet at the top. It is wide enough to allow ten soldiers to march side by side along the wall. The highest point here is more than 2,400 feet above sea level.
Mutianyu Great WallThe great Wall from a different view! Mutianyu Great Wall, located 70km from the center of Beijing, is much steeper than Badaling Great Wall, and a more challenging climb. This section, older than Badaling, is considered by Chinese and foreign tourists as the best part of the Great Wall. There are fewer people about because the location is less accessible than Badaling. Surrounded by woodland and streams, this section takes on different looks in different seasons, blossoming flowers in spring, flowing streams in summer, red leaves in autumn and white snow in winter at this photogenic spot. Fiberglass Window Screening
SimataiThe Simatai Great Wall, 120 kilometers from the city center is often described with the following three words: perilous, diverse and peculiar. This section has not been restored as much as Badaling and much of the section is in a state of ruin with exposed bricks and incomplete structures. A famous specialist of Great Wall says: “The Great Wall is the best of the Chinese buildings, and Simatai section is the best of the Great Wall." This section was said to be "people's excellent cultural relics of the world" by UNESCO.
JinshanlingThe Jinshanling Great Wall, 140 km at the northeast end of Beijing City, features complicated and well preserved fortification systems. The walls are more solid, and the watchtowers taller and it retains its original Ming Dynasty outlook. Here you can see the Wall relatively undisturbed and in its slightly more original condition. The wall goes up and up along the ridge and stretches on endlessly. The wall is slightly in ruins and thereby has a special beauty. It is the section that foreign visitors like most.
Jiayu PassJiayu Pass, located in northwestern part of Gansu Province, was a pass of strategic importance in the Ancient Silk Road. This section, first built in 1539, is the representative of the part of Great Wall in western China, and also the west starting point of the Ming Walls. It enjoys reputable names as "the most important pass in the world" and "the most strategically significant pass in Hexi".WOW Gold
Great Wall
Napco Libra Wireless Equipment
Napco Libra wireless equipment stands head and shoulders above all other products available on the South African market! The main difference between it and other manufacturer's equipment is - this range of products works, every time!Transmitters are crystal controlled. Only a crystal oscillator has the frequency stability and narrow bandwidth signal needed to "punch-through" interference. Receivers are crystal controlled, superhet, dual-diversity receivers. The superhet allows signals to be "grabbed" out of the congested bands - dual-diversity reception provides the facility to "lock-on" to a weak signal. Distance covered may be up to 900 metres, line-of-sight, depending upon conditions! gas detector smoke alarm PIR detector
Lithium batteries, providing a life of up to four years under ideal circumstances are used, and every transmission incorporates a battery-condition indicator. Receivers may be programmed to require a regular "supervisory transmission" every hour, and signal strength is monitored on every transmission. Detectors and transmitters are common across the entire Express and Gemini ranges. Receivers however, are divided into an eight-zone model for the three-wire keypad bus of the Express XP400/600 and Gemini P400/800 range, and eight, sixteen and ninety-six zone models for the four-wire keypad bus of the Gemini P816/P1632/3200/9600 panels. Transmission devices are programmed into each receiver by means of unique serial numbers - to install a detector, the serial number is entered and "associated" to a specific zone by entering the required zone-number. Thus for example, the eight zones of an eight-zone receiver may be used to provide wireless coverage of any eight zones which need not be contiguous in position. The serial number sent with each transmittion is monitored by the alarm control panel (together with the battery condition indicator) - this makes for very quick, easy installation.To the user, there is no difference in operation between a "hard-wired" detector and a Napco Gemini wireless device. Zones are bypassed, activated, and indicate exactly as if they were hard-wired!For trouble-free, no-nonsense wireless coverage of difficult sites, the Napco Gemini wireless range cannot be bettered!
smoke detector motion detector
Lithium batteries, providing a life of up to four years under ideal circumstances are used, and every transmission incorporates a battery-condition indicator. Receivers may be programmed to require a regular "supervisory transmission" every hour, and signal strength is monitored on every transmission. Detectors and transmitters are common across the entire Express and Gemini ranges. Receivers however, are divided into an eight-zone model for the three-wire keypad bus of the Express XP400/600 and Gemini P400/800 range, and eight, sixteen and ninety-six zone models for the four-wire keypad bus of the Gemini P816/P1632/3200/9600 panels. Transmission devices are programmed into each receiver by means of unique serial numbers - to install a detector, the serial number is entered and "associated" to a specific zone by entering the required zone-number. Thus for example, the eight zones of an eight-zone receiver may be used to provide wireless coverage of any eight zones which need not be contiguous in position. The serial number sent with each transmittion is monitored by the alarm control panel (together with the battery condition indicator) - this makes for very quick, easy installation.To the user, there is no difference in operation between a "hard-wired" detector and a Napco Gemini wireless device. Zones are bypassed, activated, and indicate exactly as if they were hard-wired!For trouble-free, no-nonsense wireless coverage of difficult sites, the Napco Gemini wireless range cannot be bettered!
smoke detector motion detector
Sell RK410PRW Wireless PIR Motion Detector
RK410PRW Wireless PIR Motion Detector is another ROISCOK's special design for luxurious residential installation. smoke alarm PIR detector It has features as strong ability to catch signal, low false & lost alarm, low power consumption and true temperature compensation, high technology and smart manufacture and elegant appearance with stable performance and long use life. Main Features: ? Coverage is 12M ? Dual Passive Infrared Detective Technology ? Microprocessor Design Improves False Alarm Immunity ? True Temperature Compensation ? Dual Polarity Pulse Count is Adjustable ? Resist Interference of White Light ? Power Consumption is Low ? High RFI Immunity for False Alarm Prevention (25V/M - 1GHz) ? Professional Optical Pigmented Lenses ? Installed on Wall, Ceiling and/or Corner Mounting ? Convenient for Installation ? Pulse Count is Selectable ? Resist Fluorescent Interference ? Memory and Form-C Relay ? Compact and Attractive Design is Ideal for Residential installations Specification: ? Operating Voltage:9-16VDC ? Current: 20uA ? Contact of Alarm: NC, 12VDC, 100mA max ? Contact of Tamper: NC, 12VDC, 100mA max ? Time to Alarm: 2.2s ? Time to Warm: 2 minutes ? RFI characteristic: 25V/m,10Mhz ~ 1Ghz ? Operating Temperature: -10ºC~ 55ºC ? Storage Temperature: -20ºC ~ 60ºC ? Size: 107×58×39mm ? Height of Installation: 2.0-2.5Msmoke detector
motion detector
gas detector
motion detector
gas detector
2007年9月15日星期六
How We Ended Up With the Great Wall of Waterfront Blight
Given the acrimonious political debate over the Alaskan Way Viaduct's replacement, leading to—but certainly not ending with—Tuesday's mail-in advisory ballot, you'd think the elevated eyesore was controversial evenbefore its 1953 opening. Not true. Everyone loved it then, in part because the duplex waterfront highway was an entirely native solution to the downtown gridlock caused by U.S. Highway 99 dumping cars into both ends of town. It wasn't a new, forced mandate from Olympia or Washington, D.C., but the fruition of almost three decades of municipal planning—mostly forgotten now, and poorly documented then.
The great bypass route was actually conceived during the 1920s, well before there was any need for it. Seattle still had streetcars; private automobiles were rare; the north–south Pacific Highway 99 was new and clear; and the Depression would soon empty the streets of all but the most necessary traffic. It was then, on a 1927 visit to the Midwest, that local engineer J.W. "Arch" Bollong beheld the majesty of Chicago's new bilevel Wacker Drive, which still roars today along the shore of theChicago River (and which is best known from the final chase sequence in The Blues Brothers). Though his exact words—and indeed most of his biographical details—are lost to the sands of time, he essentially declared, "Damn, we gotta build us something like that back home on Elliott Bay." And build it we did.
It took another 26 years, basically the rest of the young traffic engineer's career, for the northern third of the viaduct to open on April 4, 1953, and it's unclear whether Bollong lived to see it. His presence isn't chronicled at the official ribbon-cutting ceremony, and I was unable to locate any of his descendants. But he would have been the happiest man in Seattle that day. Arch Bollong's story is one of triumph—a cheerful, optimistic, partisan's view of how problems could be solved with careful planning, popular support, the cooperation of public officials, and sound financing. All of which the viaduct originally enjoyed. In the words of 97-year-old former Washington Gov. Al Rosellini, whose political memory goes back to that era, "I don't recall there was any particular fuss about it."
Of course, that may also be because the city approved the project on Christmas Eve during a newspaper strike.
The secret history of the Alaskan Way Viaduct is one of little opposition and even less public scrutiny. The documents I followed through our city library and municipal archives aren't even remotely complete, and the gaps and literally X-Actoed-out pages hint at a broader problem that haunts us still: a lack of government transparency and accountability. No one can fully account for how the viaduct was built. No one seems able to clearly explain how it ended up under the control of the state. No one appears capable of stopping or starting its successor. Is it any wonder our long-fought clusterduct battle has such long roots?
Following his 1927 visit to Chicago,Bollong drew up an elaborate scheme of highway corridors throughout the city, of which the eventual viaduct was just one."A double-deck roadway should be built on Railroad Avenue," Bollong wrote in an official report to his superiors at the City Engineer's office. At the time, Railroad Avenue ran alongside Elliott Bay, following the route that's now called Alaskan Way. It was basically composed of offshore pilings and wooden decking topped with a maze of railroad tracks and interspersed with open "man traps" through which unlucky souls occasionally fell into Puget Sound. Bollong proposed that the mounds of inconvenient dirt then being blasted off Denny Hill be used as fill to widen and stabilize the avenue and build the viaduct above.
He bolstered his presentation with many photos and impressions of his recent trip. "This Wacker Drive in Chicago and the Riverfront Plaza in St. Louis hold a very close relation to our own Railroad Avenue," he wrote, "where plans have already been brought forth for the erection of a two-deck roadway, the lower deck to be used for commercial vehicles and the upper for fast-moving passenger traffic." The viaduct would also provide 5,000 parking spaces beneath it, he noted, "as business and the automobile go hand-in-hand."
Then, page 42 of his viaduct proposal reads: "See sketch attached." The next page has been neatly sliced out, like the centerfold in a vintage Playboy someone desperately wanted to keep.
At the time, Bollong's plan to build a highway over a rail-choked apron of rotting pilings was far-fetched and risky, not to mention that there was no money. Moreover, Railroad Avenue was still somewhat disputed turf. The region's two great rail monopolies, the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific, had dominated the waterfront since the late 19th century, when young, weak Seattle was desperate to move freight eastward. Their properties and wide rights of way were gradually diminished by the 1905 completion of the rail tunnel (removing a tangle of waterfront tracks from Washington to Stewart streets) and the 1911 creation of the Port of Seattle, which wrested most of the piers away from railroad ownership.
In the mid-'30s the city built a new seawall (yes, the same gribble-infested structure that needs replacing today), which essentially allowed Seattle to push its boundary west and claim the new dry ground beneath Railroad Avenue. The whole area became ripe for development—tabula rasa for certain old transportation plans rolled up in a desk drawer.
With the seawall in place, Bollong's dusty blueprint was now unfurled. That new land naturally drew the gaze of Mayor William F. Devin, a Democrat and stalwart FDR supporter who held office in consecutive terms from 1942 through 1952. While manpower and federal largesse were tied up during the war years, the city began a stealthy program of condemnation, clearing warehouses, businesses, and other obstacles to the viaduct's future path. Ultimately, the city spent $1.2 million, or 10 percent of the initial viaduct costs, on securing land for the right of way. None of this money was subject to public vote or any kind of special levy.
Indeed, concerned about a lack of oversight for these expenditures, the Seattle Municipal League, a good-government watchdog group founded during theProgressive Era and still around today, actually sued the city in 1940 for excessive borrowing for its condemnation program. Which halted exactly nothing. People were paying attention to the war in the Pacific during those years, not the war alongElliott Bay. But as Allied troops steadily advanced eastward toward Japan, politicians including Devin began strategizing how to pillage the Federal Highway Aid Act of 1944, which promised a postwar bounty of funding.
The Muni League was particularly irate about the closed-door planning of the viaduct. "As far as we can determine, the only study given to the viaduct was at a meeting on October 19, 1944 at which the City Engineer [Charles L.] Wartelle discussed 25 items in his department's postwar program," the Muni League complained in a letter to the city, written after the condemnations were over and officials had begun angling for federal money. According to the League's letter, Wartelle had admitted in an October '44 meeting with the City Planning Commission that the viaduct project "may not be needed in the five-year period following the war. However, to play it safe, it was included in the program." Basically, the viaduct was being placed on the city's wish list in order to be eligible for the Federal Highway Aid Act. As with the officials who promoted Sound Transit in the '90s, a primary goal was to not miss out on available federal funds.
Viaduct planning continued through World War II. A few months after the Japanese surrender, a map appeared in the Nov. 18, 1945,Seattle Times that included Mayor Devin's plan. Shortly thereafter, a curious thing happened: The city's printers went on strike, effectively putting the Times, P-I, and now-defunct Seattle Star out of business. All that was left was the weekly Municipal News, whichreported on Dec. 22, "Approval of construction of an elevated four-lane arterial on Alaskan Way has been recommended to the city council by the council's streets and sewers committee."
The strike didn't end until Jan. 12. But the next day the Times reported that a formal council vote on the viaduct had taken place during the news blackout. In the city archives, confirmation comes in the form of council Resolution No. 14138, which recommends that "the necessary preparatory measures be taken immediately for the construction of an elevated structure on Railroad Way" and that "the City Engineer is directed to proceed at once with the necessary steps to secure federalaid matching moneys for this project."
And what was the date for this resolution? Christmas Eve, 1945. Some gift.
The middle stage of viaduct history proceeded quickly and without much interest, like some vaudevillian brought on to juggle balls between acts. On Aug. 19, 1946, the council passed Ordinance No. 75292, creating a funding authority for the roadway. Costs escalated repeatedly, more ordinances condemned property and cleared rights of way, a new mayor was elected, the Times and P-I predictably cheered the project, and the Muni League continued to protest the planning process—or lack thereof. A 1948 editorial from the League decries the city's "cursory study" of the project. TheMunicipal News continues: "The viaduct was never approved as a project separate from the many other items in the public works program. Rather, the [City Planning] Commission gave a broad endorsement to the entire public improvements program."
Too little, too late. Hot air wasn't about to stop the concrete from pouring. Construction on the first third of the viaduct, from Battery to Pike, lasted from 1949 to 1953. It opened on April 4, with sled dogs, a beauty queen, and the ritual ribbon cutting. (The fake oversize scissors didn't work, and a pocket knife had to be employed. Prophetic?) The state Department of Highways had its own magazine at the time, Highway News, which includes the following piquant observation: "At this point it is interesting to note that unlike the Aurora Bridge [completed in 1932] and the Lake Washington Bridge projects [1940], the Alaskan Way Viaduct met no organized opposition and had very little fanfare. It seems practically everyone in the area agreed this was the route to take through the city."
Everyone, perhaps, except prominent modernist architect Paul Thiry (designer of KeyArena and other local landmarks), who told the Times, "It will block off all bordering buildings from the bay." And the city archives include a few prescient protest letters from citizens, like R.S. Hawley of the Central Building Company, who warned of the viaduct: "It would always remain an unsightly structure. It should not be many years before Seattle wakes up to the desirability and the need of redeveloping its waterfront in a high-grade manner, and when that time comes, it will be unfortunate to have a viaduct of the nature proposed encumbering our very valuable waterfront." Greg Nickels couldn't have said it better.
Two more sections were built by 1959, connecting U.S. Route 99 to its southern arm in our present-day stadium district. The state estimated that some 32,000 vehicles daily were diverted from city streets. (Today, the viaduct carries three times that amount.) For its first dozen-odd years of highway supremacy, the viaduct stood unquestioned and majestic along the waterfront, a marvelous concrete garland for a can-do age. As Bollong optimistically wrote in a 1947 traffic division report to his bosses, "Now—new worlds to conquer!"
Ramps at Seneca and Columbia streets were added in the '60s. This made the viaduct less of a thoroughfare and more a means of getting to downtown for residents of the North End and West Seattle. The trend was made more pronounced with the 1965 completion of I-5, which reduced traffic along 99 by two-thirds. Thus Bollong's original vision of a bypass route was subverted. I-5 became the bypass and 99 the back door to the city, where people mostly worked and didn't reside. By the 1970s, it came to be seen as a barrier to the waterfront; and by the '90s, with I-5 increasingly clogged, a bypass of the bypass, and an impediment to downtown living.
Still, since the state now owns the viaduct and high-handedly lectures us about its fate, it's ironic to note that the city actually paid the lion's share of the structure's cost. In a proud 1952 overview of the project in Civil Engineering magazine, City Engineer Ralph Finke itemized the $10.6 million tab thusly: $2.3 million in federal aid, $2.5 from the state, and $5.8 million from the city. This included the city's condemnation and right-of-way costs—though not, of course, the potential value of that waterfront land in the future.
Today one might reasonably ask, how did Seattle, the instigator and major partner in building the viaduct, lose control of its future destiny? How did Bollong's innocent Wacker Drive dreams get subsumed into a morass of interagency transportation planning? Therein lies a continuing mystery.
The viaduct, 50 percent funded by the city and 100 percent built on city land, was originally part of the U.S. highway system when it opened. Yet at the same time, the state was considered operator and owner of the highway, even before 99 was downgraded from a federal to state route in the late '60s. Basically, city and federal involvement with the highway ended with the ink drying on the checks. Seattle appears to have granted the viaduct's aerial right of way to the state in perpetuity. Where the specific city ordinance or state legislative act may lie within some forgotten archive, no one at WSDOT or SDOT has been able to tell me. Remember the vast warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark? It's something like that.
And this, too, is consistent with the viaduct's murky origins. "Washington's Highway Department has been regarded for years as a sort of dynasty that ran itself from within. And a rather expensive one, too," the Times' Ross Cunningham wrote in 1953. "The internal organization has helped elect and defeat several governors. One result has been that the Highway Department 'ins' stayed in power despite the outcome of elections."
We're about to see that confirmed once again. Fiberglass Window Screening
I wish I could report a Rosebud, or even a lost ark, amid the musty troves of viaduct birth records, but they belong to the incomplete era of tattered carbons and faded mimeographs. (Which still smell better after 60 years, I might add, than the CD-ROMs and PDFs of today.) Over and over, I heard the same response from well-meaning city and state officials—"Records aren't so good from the 1940s." In part, obviously, this is because there was a war on: The press, public, and government workers weren't so concerned with observing every bureaucratic nicety. Not every meeting note made it into a file; not every document was filmed onto microfiche. The monument that lasted was the viaduct, not its paper trail.
And Arch Bollong was no Robert Moses, the legendary "Power Broker" who built New York City's great transportation grid—arguably ruining much of the city in the process—by collecting his own tolls and spending them as he saw fit. And our Department of Highways never had the nefarious clout of the Los Angeles Water Department under William Mulholland. There's no great villain in the viaduct saga, no single individual who can be charged with killing the waterfront, or at least planning its murder, during the prewar era. Because the waterfront as we conceive it now, a desirable public space to be integrated with the rest of the city, simply didn't exist in those terms back then.WOW Gold
Great Wall
The great bypass route was actually conceived during the 1920s, well before there was any need for it. Seattle still had streetcars; private automobiles were rare; the north–south Pacific Highway 99 was new and clear; and the Depression would soon empty the streets of all but the most necessary traffic. It was then, on a 1927 visit to the Midwest, that local engineer J.W. "Arch" Bollong beheld the majesty of Chicago's new bilevel Wacker Drive, which still roars today along the shore of theChicago River (and which is best known from the final chase sequence in The Blues Brothers). Though his exact words—and indeed most of his biographical details—are lost to the sands of time, he essentially declared, "Damn, we gotta build us something like that back home on Elliott Bay." And build it we did.
It took another 26 years, basically the rest of the young traffic engineer's career, for the northern third of the viaduct to open on April 4, 1953, and it's unclear whether Bollong lived to see it. His presence isn't chronicled at the official ribbon-cutting ceremony, and I was unable to locate any of his descendants. But he would have been the happiest man in Seattle that day. Arch Bollong's story is one of triumph—a cheerful, optimistic, partisan's view of how problems could be solved with careful planning, popular support, the cooperation of public officials, and sound financing. All of which the viaduct originally enjoyed. In the words of 97-year-old former Washington Gov. Al Rosellini, whose political memory goes back to that era, "I don't recall there was any particular fuss about it."
Of course, that may also be because the city approved the project on Christmas Eve during a newspaper strike.
The secret history of the Alaskan Way Viaduct is one of little opposition and even less public scrutiny. The documents I followed through our city library and municipal archives aren't even remotely complete, and the gaps and literally X-Actoed-out pages hint at a broader problem that haunts us still: a lack of government transparency and accountability. No one can fully account for how the viaduct was built. No one seems able to clearly explain how it ended up under the control of the state. No one appears capable of stopping or starting its successor. Is it any wonder our long-fought clusterduct battle has such long roots?
Following his 1927 visit to Chicago,Bollong drew up an elaborate scheme of highway corridors throughout the city, of which the eventual viaduct was just one."A double-deck roadway should be built on Railroad Avenue," Bollong wrote in an official report to his superiors at the City Engineer's office. At the time, Railroad Avenue ran alongside Elliott Bay, following the route that's now called Alaskan Way. It was basically composed of offshore pilings and wooden decking topped with a maze of railroad tracks and interspersed with open "man traps" through which unlucky souls occasionally fell into Puget Sound. Bollong proposed that the mounds of inconvenient dirt then being blasted off Denny Hill be used as fill to widen and stabilize the avenue and build the viaduct above.
He bolstered his presentation with many photos and impressions of his recent trip. "This Wacker Drive in Chicago and the Riverfront Plaza in St. Louis hold a very close relation to our own Railroad Avenue," he wrote, "where plans have already been brought forth for the erection of a two-deck roadway, the lower deck to be used for commercial vehicles and the upper for fast-moving passenger traffic." The viaduct would also provide 5,000 parking spaces beneath it, he noted, "as business and the automobile go hand-in-hand."
Then, page 42 of his viaduct proposal reads: "See sketch attached." The next page has been neatly sliced out, like the centerfold in a vintage Playboy someone desperately wanted to keep.
At the time, Bollong's plan to build a highway over a rail-choked apron of rotting pilings was far-fetched and risky, not to mention that there was no money. Moreover, Railroad Avenue was still somewhat disputed turf. The region's two great rail monopolies, the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific, had dominated the waterfront since the late 19th century, when young, weak Seattle was desperate to move freight eastward. Their properties and wide rights of way were gradually diminished by the 1905 completion of the rail tunnel (removing a tangle of waterfront tracks from Washington to Stewart streets) and the 1911 creation of the Port of Seattle, which wrested most of the piers away from railroad ownership.
In the mid-'30s the city built a new seawall (yes, the same gribble-infested structure that needs replacing today), which essentially allowed Seattle to push its boundary west and claim the new dry ground beneath Railroad Avenue. The whole area became ripe for development—tabula rasa for certain old transportation plans rolled up in a desk drawer.
With the seawall in place, Bollong's dusty blueprint was now unfurled. That new land naturally drew the gaze of Mayor William F. Devin, a Democrat and stalwart FDR supporter who held office in consecutive terms from 1942 through 1952. While manpower and federal largesse were tied up during the war years, the city began a stealthy program of condemnation, clearing warehouses, businesses, and other obstacles to the viaduct's future path. Ultimately, the city spent $1.2 million, or 10 percent of the initial viaduct costs, on securing land for the right of way. None of this money was subject to public vote or any kind of special levy.
Indeed, concerned about a lack of oversight for these expenditures, the Seattle Municipal League, a good-government watchdog group founded during theProgressive Era and still around today, actually sued the city in 1940 for excessive borrowing for its condemnation program. Which halted exactly nothing. People were paying attention to the war in the Pacific during those years, not the war alongElliott Bay. But as Allied troops steadily advanced eastward toward Japan, politicians including Devin began strategizing how to pillage the Federal Highway Aid Act of 1944, which promised a postwar bounty of funding.
The Muni League was particularly irate about the closed-door planning of the viaduct. "As far as we can determine, the only study given to the viaduct was at a meeting on October 19, 1944 at which the City Engineer [Charles L.] Wartelle discussed 25 items in his department's postwar program," the Muni League complained in a letter to the city, written after the condemnations were over and officials had begun angling for federal money. According to the League's letter, Wartelle had admitted in an October '44 meeting with the City Planning Commission that the viaduct project "may not be needed in the five-year period following the war. However, to play it safe, it was included in the program." Basically, the viaduct was being placed on the city's wish list in order to be eligible for the Federal Highway Aid Act. As with the officials who promoted Sound Transit in the '90s, a primary goal was to not miss out on available federal funds.
Viaduct planning continued through World War II. A few months after the Japanese surrender, a map appeared in the Nov. 18, 1945,Seattle Times that included Mayor Devin's plan. Shortly thereafter, a curious thing happened: The city's printers went on strike, effectively putting the Times, P-I, and now-defunct Seattle Star out of business. All that was left was the weekly Municipal News, whichreported on Dec. 22, "Approval of construction of an elevated four-lane arterial on Alaskan Way has been recommended to the city council by the council's streets and sewers committee."
The strike didn't end until Jan. 12. But the next day the Times reported that a formal council vote on the viaduct had taken place during the news blackout. In the city archives, confirmation comes in the form of council Resolution No. 14138, which recommends that "the necessary preparatory measures be taken immediately for the construction of an elevated structure on Railroad Way" and that "the City Engineer is directed to proceed at once with the necessary steps to secure federalaid matching moneys for this project."
And what was the date for this resolution? Christmas Eve, 1945. Some gift.
The middle stage of viaduct history proceeded quickly and without much interest, like some vaudevillian brought on to juggle balls between acts. On Aug. 19, 1946, the council passed Ordinance No. 75292, creating a funding authority for the roadway. Costs escalated repeatedly, more ordinances condemned property and cleared rights of way, a new mayor was elected, the Times and P-I predictably cheered the project, and the Muni League continued to protest the planning process—or lack thereof. A 1948 editorial from the League decries the city's "cursory study" of the project. TheMunicipal News continues: "The viaduct was never approved as a project separate from the many other items in the public works program. Rather, the [City Planning] Commission gave a broad endorsement to the entire public improvements program."
Too little, too late. Hot air wasn't about to stop the concrete from pouring. Construction on the first third of the viaduct, from Battery to Pike, lasted from 1949 to 1953. It opened on April 4, with sled dogs, a beauty queen, and the ritual ribbon cutting. (The fake oversize scissors didn't work, and a pocket knife had to be employed. Prophetic?) The state Department of Highways had its own magazine at the time, Highway News, which includes the following piquant observation: "At this point it is interesting to note that unlike the Aurora Bridge [completed in 1932] and the Lake Washington Bridge projects [1940], the Alaskan Way Viaduct met no organized opposition and had very little fanfare. It seems practically everyone in the area agreed this was the route to take through the city."
Everyone, perhaps, except prominent modernist architect Paul Thiry (designer of KeyArena and other local landmarks), who told the Times, "It will block off all bordering buildings from the bay." And the city archives include a few prescient protest letters from citizens, like R.S. Hawley of the Central Building Company, who warned of the viaduct: "It would always remain an unsightly structure. It should not be many years before Seattle wakes up to the desirability and the need of redeveloping its waterfront in a high-grade manner, and when that time comes, it will be unfortunate to have a viaduct of the nature proposed encumbering our very valuable waterfront." Greg Nickels couldn't have said it better.
Two more sections were built by 1959, connecting U.S. Route 99 to its southern arm in our present-day stadium district. The state estimated that some 32,000 vehicles daily were diverted from city streets. (Today, the viaduct carries three times that amount.) For its first dozen-odd years of highway supremacy, the viaduct stood unquestioned and majestic along the waterfront, a marvelous concrete garland for a can-do age. As Bollong optimistically wrote in a 1947 traffic division report to his bosses, "Now—new worlds to conquer!"
Ramps at Seneca and Columbia streets were added in the '60s. This made the viaduct less of a thoroughfare and more a means of getting to downtown for residents of the North End and West Seattle. The trend was made more pronounced with the 1965 completion of I-5, which reduced traffic along 99 by two-thirds. Thus Bollong's original vision of a bypass route was subverted. I-5 became the bypass and 99 the back door to the city, where people mostly worked and didn't reside. By the 1970s, it came to be seen as a barrier to the waterfront; and by the '90s, with I-5 increasingly clogged, a bypass of the bypass, and an impediment to downtown living.
Still, since the state now owns the viaduct and high-handedly lectures us about its fate, it's ironic to note that the city actually paid the lion's share of the structure's cost. In a proud 1952 overview of the project in Civil Engineering magazine, City Engineer Ralph Finke itemized the $10.6 million tab thusly: $2.3 million in federal aid, $2.5 from the state, and $5.8 million from the city. This included the city's condemnation and right-of-way costs—though not, of course, the potential value of that waterfront land in the future.
Today one might reasonably ask, how did Seattle, the instigator and major partner in building the viaduct, lose control of its future destiny? How did Bollong's innocent Wacker Drive dreams get subsumed into a morass of interagency transportation planning? Therein lies a continuing mystery.
The viaduct, 50 percent funded by the city and 100 percent built on city land, was originally part of the U.S. highway system when it opened. Yet at the same time, the state was considered operator and owner of the highway, even before 99 was downgraded from a federal to state route in the late '60s. Basically, city and federal involvement with the highway ended with the ink drying on the checks. Seattle appears to have granted the viaduct's aerial right of way to the state in perpetuity. Where the specific city ordinance or state legislative act may lie within some forgotten archive, no one at WSDOT or SDOT has been able to tell me. Remember the vast warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark? It's something like that.
And this, too, is consistent with the viaduct's murky origins. "Washington's Highway Department has been regarded for years as a sort of dynasty that ran itself from within. And a rather expensive one, too," the Times' Ross Cunningham wrote in 1953. "The internal organization has helped elect and defeat several governors. One result has been that the Highway Department 'ins' stayed in power despite the outcome of elections."
We're about to see that confirmed once again. Fiberglass Window Screening
I wish I could report a Rosebud, or even a lost ark, amid the musty troves of viaduct birth records, but they belong to the incomplete era of tattered carbons and faded mimeographs. (Which still smell better after 60 years, I might add, than the CD-ROMs and PDFs of today.) Over and over, I heard the same response from well-meaning city and state officials—"Records aren't so good from the 1940s." In part, obviously, this is because there was a war on: The press, public, and government workers weren't so concerned with observing every bureaucratic nicety. Not every meeting note made it into a file; not every document was filmed onto microfiche. The monument that lasted was the viaduct, not its paper trail.
And Arch Bollong was no Robert Moses, the legendary "Power Broker" who built New York City's great transportation grid—arguably ruining much of the city in the process—by collecting his own tolls and spending them as he saw fit. And our Department of Highways never had the nefarious clout of the Los Angeles Water Department under William Mulholland. There's no great villain in the viaduct saga, no single individual who can be charged with killing the waterfront, or at least planning its murder, during the prewar era. Because the waterfront as we conceive it now, a desirable public space to be integrated with the rest of the city, simply didn't exist in those terms back then.WOW Gold
Great Wall
Provisions on Guiding the Orientation of Foreign Investment
Article 1 In order to guide the orientation of foreign investment, to keep the orientation of foreign investment in line with the national economy and social development planning of China, and to protect of the lawful rights and interests of investors, these Provisions have been formulated according to the laws and provision on foreign investment and the requirements of industrial policies of the State.
Article 2 These Provisions shall be applicable to the projects of investment and establishment of Chinese-foreign joint ventures, Chinese-foreign cooperative ventures and foreign-funded enterprises (hereinafter referred to all as foreign-funded enterprises), and foreign-funded projects in other forms (hereinafter referred to as foreign-funded projects) within the territory of China.
Article 3 The Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance and the Catalog of Foreign-funded Dominant Industries of the Mid-west Region shall be formulated by the State Development Planning Commission, the State Economic and Trade Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation jointly with other relevant departments under the State Council, and shall be promulgated upon the approval of the State Council;
When it is needed to partly adjust the Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance and the Catalog of Foreign-funded Dominant Industries of the Mid-west Region in light of the actual situation, the State Economic and Trade Commission, the State Development Planning Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation jointly with the relevant departments under the State Council shall make the revision and promulgation timely.
The Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance and the Catalog of Foreign-funded Dominant Industries of the Mid-west Region shall be the basis of the application of relevant policies in directing and examining and approving foreign funded projects and foreign-funded enterprises.
Article 4 Foreign-funded projects fall into 4 categories, namely encouraged, permitted, restricted and prohibited ones.
The foreign-funded projects that are encouraged, restricted and prohibited shall be listed in the Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance. And the foreign-funded projects that don¡¯t fall into the categories of encouraged, restricted or prohibited projects shall be the permitted foreign-funded projects. The permitted foreign-funded projects shall not be listed in the Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance.
Article 5 A project in any of the following situations shall be listed as the encouraged foreign-funded projects:
1) Being of new agriculture technologies, agriculture comprehensive development, or energy, transportation and important raw material industries;
2) Being of high and new technologies or advanced application technologies that can improve the product performance and increase the technology economic efficiency of the enterprises or those that can produce the new equipments and new materials which the domestic production capacity fails to produce;
3) Meeting the market needs and being able to improve the product level, develop new markets or increase the international competitive capacity of the products;
4) Being of new technologies and new equipments that can save energy and raw material, comprehensively utilize resources and regenerate resources, and prevent environment pollutions;
5) Being capable of bring into the advantages of human power and resources of the mid-west region into full play and being in conformity to the industrial policies of the State;
6) Other situations as provided for by laws and administrative regulations.
Article 6 A project in any of the following situations shall be a restricted foreign-funded project:
1) Being of technology lagged behind;
2) Being adverse to saving resources and improving environment;
3) Engaged in the prospecting and exploitation of the specific type of mineral resources to which the State applies protective exploitation;
4) Falling into the industries that the State opens step by step;
5) Other situations as provided by laws and administrative regulations.
Article 7 A project in any of the following situations shall be a prohibited foreign-funded project:
1) Harming the State safety or impairing the public interests;
2) Polluting the environment, damaging natural resources or harming human health;
3) Occupying too much farmland and being adverse to the protection and development of land resources;
4) Harming the safety and usage of military facilities;
5) Using the particular techniques or technologies of China to produce products;
6) Other situations as provided for by laws and administrative regulations.
Article 8 The Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance may provide that a foreign-funded enterprise is limited to joint venture, cooperative venture, with Chinese party at the holding position or with Chinese party at the relatively holding position.
Limited to joint venture and operative venture shall refer to that only Chinese-foreign joint ventures and Chinese-foreign cooperative ventures are allowed; with the Chinese parties at the holding position shall refer to that the total investment proportion of the Chinese parties in the foreign-funded project shall be more; with Chinese parties at the relatively holding position shall refer to that the total investment proportion of the Chinese parties in the foreign-funded project shall be higher that the investment proportion of any foreign party.
Article 9 Apart from enjoying the preferential treatments according to the provisions of the relevant laws and administrative regulations, the encouraged foreign-funded projects that engage in the construction and operation of energy, transportation, municipal infrastructure (coal, oil, natural gas, electric power, railways, highways, ports, airports, city roads, sewage disposition, and garbage disposition, etc.) that needs large amount of investment and long term for recovery may expand their relevant business scope upon approval.
Article 10 The permitted foreign-funded projects of which the products are all directly exported shall be regarded as the encouraged foreign-funded projects; the restricted foreign-funded projects of which the export sales accounts for more than 7072653640f their total amount of sales may be regarded as the permitted foreign-funded projects upon the approval of the People’s governments of provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government and cities under State Planning or the competent department under the State Council.
Article 11 The conditions may be eased for the permitted and restricted foreign-funded projects that really can bring the advantages of the mid-west region into full play; among which, those listed in the Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance may enjoy the preferential policies for the encouraged foreign-funded projects.
Article 12 Foreign-funded projects shall be examined and approved, and put on record respectively by the departments of development planning and the economic and trade departments according to the limit of authority for examination and approval; the contracts and articles of association of foreign-funded enterprises shall be examined and approved, and put on record by the departments of foreign trade and economic cooperation. Among which, the foreign-funded projects under the limit for restricted foreign-funded projects shall be subject to the examination and approval of the corresponding competent departments of the People’s governments of the provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government and cities under State Planning, and shall be reported to the competent departments at the next higher level and the competent industrial departments, the power for examination and approval of this kind of projects may not be granted to the authorities at lower levels. The foreign-funded projects in the service area that are opened to the outside world step by step shall be subject to the examination and approval according to the relevant provisions of the State.
The foreign-funded projects involving quotas and licenses must apply to the departments for quotas and licenses first.
Where there are otherwise provisions of laws and administrative regulations on the procedures and measures for the examination and approval of foreign-funded projects, those provisions shall be observed. yiwu yiwu market
Article 13 With respect to the foreign-funded projects examined and approved in violation of the present provisions, the organ of examination and approval at the next higher level shall cancel it within 30 workdays from the day of receiving the documents for record of that project, its contract and articles of association shall be void, the department of enterprise registration shall not register it and the customs shall not handle the procedures for import and export for it.
Article 14 Where the applicant of a foreign-funded project manages to obtain the approval for the project by deceiving or other illicit means, his legal liabilities shall be investigated for according to law regarding the seriousness of the circumstances; the organ of examination and approval shall cancel the approval for that project and the relevant competent organs shall deal with it correspondingly according to law.
Article 15 Where any of the personnel of the organ of examination and approval abuses his power or neglects his duties, criminal responsibilities shall be investigated for according to the provisions of the criminal law on the crime of abusing powers or the crime of neglecting duties; where the circumstances are not serious enough for criminal punishment, administrative punishment of recording a special demerit or more severe punishment shall be given.
Article 16 With respect to the investment projects established by overseas Chinese and the investors from the Hong Kong Special Administration Region, Macao Special Administrative Region or Taiwan Area, these Provisions shall be applicable by reference in implementation.
Article 17 These Provisions shall come into force on April 1, 2002. The Interim Provisions on the Guidance of Foreign Investment Directions approved by the State Council on June 7, 1995 and promulgated by the State Planning Commission, the State Economic and Trade Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation on June 20, 1995 shall be nullified simultaneously.
china toys
Article 2 These Provisions shall be applicable to the projects of investment and establishment of Chinese-foreign joint ventures, Chinese-foreign cooperative ventures and foreign-funded enterprises (hereinafter referred to all as foreign-funded enterprises), and foreign-funded projects in other forms (hereinafter referred to as foreign-funded projects) within the territory of China.
Article 3 The Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance and the Catalog of Foreign-funded Dominant Industries of the Mid-west Region shall be formulated by the State Development Planning Commission, the State Economic and Trade Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation jointly with other relevant departments under the State Council, and shall be promulgated upon the approval of the State Council;
When it is needed to partly adjust the Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance and the Catalog of Foreign-funded Dominant Industries of the Mid-west Region in light of the actual situation, the State Economic and Trade Commission, the State Development Planning Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation jointly with the relevant departments under the State Council shall make the revision and promulgation timely.
The Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance and the Catalog of Foreign-funded Dominant Industries of the Mid-west Region shall be the basis of the application of relevant policies in directing and examining and approving foreign funded projects and foreign-funded enterprises.
Article 4 Foreign-funded projects fall into 4 categories, namely encouraged, permitted, restricted and prohibited ones.
The foreign-funded projects that are encouraged, restricted and prohibited shall be listed in the Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance. And the foreign-funded projects that don¡¯t fall into the categories of encouraged, restricted or prohibited projects shall be the permitted foreign-funded projects. The permitted foreign-funded projects shall not be listed in the Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance.
Article 5 A project in any of the following situations shall be listed as the encouraged foreign-funded projects:
1) Being of new agriculture technologies, agriculture comprehensive development, or energy, transportation and important raw material industries;
2) Being of high and new technologies or advanced application technologies that can improve the product performance and increase the technology economic efficiency of the enterprises or those that can produce the new equipments and new materials which the domestic production capacity fails to produce;
3) Meeting the market needs and being able to improve the product level, develop new markets or increase the international competitive capacity of the products;
4) Being of new technologies and new equipments that can save energy and raw material, comprehensively utilize resources and regenerate resources, and prevent environment pollutions;
5) Being capable of bring into the advantages of human power and resources of the mid-west region into full play and being in conformity to the industrial policies of the State;
6) Other situations as provided for by laws and administrative regulations.
Article 6 A project in any of the following situations shall be a restricted foreign-funded project:
1) Being of technology lagged behind;
2) Being adverse to saving resources and improving environment;
3) Engaged in the prospecting and exploitation of the specific type of mineral resources to which the State applies protective exploitation;
4) Falling into the industries that the State opens step by step;
5) Other situations as provided by laws and administrative regulations.
Article 7 A project in any of the following situations shall be a prohibited foreign-funded project:
1) Harming the State safety or impairing the public interests;
2) Polluting the environment, damaging natural resources or harming human health;
3) Occupying too much farmland and being adverse to the protection and development of land resources;
4) Harming the safety and usage of military facilities;
5) Using the particular techniques or technologies of China to produce products;
6) Other situations as provided for by laws and administrative regulations.
Article 8 The Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance may provide that a foreign-funded enterprise is limited to joint venture, cooperative venture, with Chinese party at the holding position or with Chinese party at the relatively holding position.
Limited to joint venture and operative venture shall refer to that only Chinese-foreign joint ventures and Chinese-foreign cooperative ventures are allowed; with the Chinese parties at the holding position shall refer to that the total investment proportion of the Chinese parties in the foreign-funded project shall be more; with Chinese parties at the relatively holding position shall refer to that the total investment proportion of the Chinese parties in the foreign-funded project shall be higher that the investment proportion of any foreign party.
Article 9 Apart from enjoying the preferential treatments according to the provisions of the relevant laws and administrative regulations, the encouraged foreign-funded projects that engage in the construction and operation of energy, transportation, municipal infrastructure (coal, oil, natural gas, electric power, railways, highways, ports, airports, city roads, sewage disposition, and garbage disposition, etc.) that needs large amount of investment and long term for recovery may expand their relevant business scope upon approval.
Article 10 The permitted foreign-funded projects of which the products are all directly exported shall be regarded as the encouraged foreign-funded projects; the restricted foreign-funded projects of which the export sales accounts for more than 7072653640f their total amount of sales may be regarded as the permitted foreign-funded projects upon the approval of the People’s governments of provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government and cities under State Planning or the competent department under the State Council.
Article 11 The conditions may be eased for the permitted and restricted foreign-funded projects that really can bring the advantages of the mid-west region into full play; among which, those listed in the Catalog of Foreign-funded Industry Guidance may enjoy the preferential policies for the encouraged foreign-funded projects.
Article 12 Foreign-funded projects shall be examined and approved, and put on record respectively by the departments of development planning and the economic and trade departments according to the limit of authority for examination and approval; the contracts and articles of association of foreign-funded enterprises shall be examined and approved, and put on record by the departments of foreign trade and economic cooperation. Among which, the foreign-funded projects under the limit for restricted foreign-funded projects shall be subject to the examination and approval of the corresponding competent departments of the People’s governments of the provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government and cities under State Planning, and shall be reported to the competent departments at the next higher level and the competent industrial departments, the power for examination and approval of this kind of projects may not be granted to the authorities at lower levels. The foreign-funded projects in the service area that are opened to the outside world step by step shall be subject to the examination and approval according to the relevant provisions of the State.
The foreign-funded projects involving quotas and licenses must apply to the departments for quotas and licenses first.
Where there are otherwise provisions of laws and administrative regulations on the procedures and measures for the examination and approval of foreign-funded projects, those provisions shall be observed. yiwu yiwu market
Article 13 With respect to the foreign-funded projects examined and approved in violation of the present provisions, the organ of examination and approval at the next higher level shall cancel it within 30 workdays from the day of receiving the documents for record of that project, its contract and articles of association shall be void, the department of enterprise registration shall not register it and the customs shall not handle the procedures for import and export for it.
Article 14 Where the applicant of a foreign-funded project manages to obtain the approval for the project by deceiving or other illicit means, his legal liabilities shall be investigated for according to law regarding the seriousness of the circumstances; the organ of examination and approval shall cancel the approval for that project and the relevant competent organs shall deal with it correspondingly according to law.
Article 15 Where any of the personnel of the organ of examination and approval abuses his power or neglects his duties, criminal responsibilities shall be investigated for according to the provisions of the criminal law on the crime of abusing powers or the crime of neglecting duties; where the circumstances are not serious enough for criminal punishment, administrative punishment of recording a special demerit or more severe punishment shall be given.
Article 16 With respect to the investment projects established by overseas Chinese and the investors from the Hong Kong Special Administration Region, Macao Special Administrative Region or Taiwan Area, these Provisions shall be applicable by reference in implementation.
Article 17 These Provisions shall come into force on April 1, 2002. The Interim Provisions on the Guidance of Foreign Investment Directions approved by the State Council on June 7, 1995 and promulgated by the State Planning Commission, the State Economic and Trade Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation on June 20, 1995 shall be nullified simultaneously.
china toys
订阅：
博文 (Atom)