Life as Edward Jensen

I’m starting up, hopefully for the Fall 2008 semester and beyond, a Chorale and Glee Club at the Downtown Phoenix Campus of Arizona State University. I’m still working on all the paperwork, but here’s what I know so far:

1. Anyone who are students, faculty, staff, and friends of the Downtown Phoenix Campus, can join us for rehearsals and performances.
2. I’m hoping that this ensemble will prepare some of the best a cappella choral literature, starting with Elizabethan madrigals to more contemporary music.
3. We will be the only college and university within Arizona to have a glee club. Make history with us!

If you’re interested, let me know! I have a ‘contact me’ link on the sidebar.

Cheers! -Edward Jensen

When the new METRO Light Rail starts up on 27 December 2008 (only 252 days away!), many of the local bus routes that run on the rail route will change. A summary of all the changes is available here: http://phoenix.gov/newsrel/1704buschanges.html. I wonder what the proposed changes are. A summary of changes is listed, but that leaves much up to the imagination.

Go check out the website so you can see for yourself.

Cheers – Edward Jensen

(NB: I have written a lot of entries this week, so please scroll down and read them!)

As I was going through my list of downtown Phoenix resources and blog entries, I found this: www.silverplatter.info. It is a comprehensive list of concerts happening here in downtown. Aside from the main performance venues (Phoenix Symphony Hall, Orpheum Theatre, Dodge Theatre, etc.), there are a lot of intimate performance venues at small art galleries in the area around the downtown Phoenix campus.

I guess rather than post individual entries about helpful websites, I should prepare a list. I’ll work on that…

Cheers! – Edward Jensen

There are many Downtown Phoenix blogs that I read and from which I learn many things. One of those blogs is the Downtown Phoenix Journal (our own Sam Richard is a guest blogger for the ASU Downtown section, as is Phil Gordon, the mayor of Phoenix).

Anyway, the DPJ posted a link to Local First Arizona / Arizona Chain Reaction (http://www.localfirstaz.com/), which is a coalition of independent businesses. According to their website, “We are the locally-owned, independent businesses that are the backbone of the Arizona economy. When you shop at a locally owned business, 45 cents of every dollar stays in Arizona – versus only 13 cents of every dollar spent at a national chain!”

The cool part which is pertinent to downtown Phoenix residents is a 7-page PDF map of downtown Phoenix stores, shops, and restaurants. Go check it out at http://localfirstaz.com/downloads/small-wonders.pdf.

Cheers! – Edward Jensen

Arizona’s public arts program is under fire.

[Source: Brenda Sperduti, Arizona Citizens for the Arts] – The sponsors of Senate Bill 1330 have attached the language dissolving the Arts Trust fund to an unrelated bill Senate Bill 1192. The procedure, called a “strike everything” amendment allows the original bill which stalled in the Senate, to gain new life and will be heard in the House Appropriations Committee Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.

The new bill, SB 1192, would cause a permanent reduction to the Arizona Commission on the Arts (ACA) grants budget of 40% (approx. $1.6 million annually). SB 1192 proposes the transfer of Arts Trust Fund receipts that ACA has received since 1989 to the Department of Mines for safety issues surrounding abandoned mines.

NOW it is time to let every member in the House of Representatives know how strongly you feel about this attempt to decimate arts funding in Arizona. The programs funded by the ACA are crucial to every community in our state and there is no justification for sweeping money from the arts as an answer to the public safety issue of abandoned mines.

Contact your Representative and tell them to vote NO on SB 1192. Use the automated e-mail message AzCA has prepared by clicking here or, better yet, send your own message or make a phone call today! Phone numbers and other contact information can be found by clicking here.

Please share this ACTION ALERT with other art advocates you know.

(see ASU State Press news story)

When I started off with this blog, it has been my intention to withhold from commentary but this instance requires it. As one who has been a passenger on the shuttle for as long as I have been a student at ASU, I am familiar with the ins and outs of operating such an enterprise. I have aided drivers in finding alternate routes because the primary routes were blocked by accidents. I am a familiar face to some of the shuttle drivers.

I am familiar with one of the three ASU intercampus shuttles: that which runs between the Tempe and Downtown Phoenix campuses. In the beginning of this service, the buses were old transit buses that could barely withstand the 100°-heat of the Phoenix summer. It was a rare treat where we would ride on a motorcoach.

It was at the beginning of the Spring 2007 semester when they decided to venture with the radio. The first stations that were played were music stations. Most of the time, it was Phoenix smooth-jazz KYOT-FM 95.5; at other times, classic rock KSLX-FM 100.7. It was only at the start of this semester, the Spring 2008 semester, where the shuttle drivers started playing KTAR. Now, I’m not sure what the directive was: if I were to fathom a guess, I would say that it was a Coach America decision. (ASU charters the intercampus shuttle buses through Coach America, an independent company.)

KTAR-FM 92.3 is now a talk radio station. For many years, this was my main source for news, because it was an all-news station. Any commentary was kept to a minimum because it was the station’s goal to present an objective look into the news. Since its move to the FM side of the radio spectrum, it has shifted to a talk format. By ‘talk’ I mean more commentary and opinion than news. For some, this is okay, and I am all for people listening to commentary and opinion. For me, however, I prefer objective news over commentary and opinion. I’ll explore on this more in a moment.

In the interest of fairness to all sides, I believe that this problem would have been averted had Coach America not chosen to venture into playing KTAR. But now that ASU has gotten itself stuck in between that proverbial ‘rock’ and ‘hard place’, I’m not sure what can be done. The only thing of which I can think is to resume KTAR being played. If the bus company does not resume playing KTAR, then there are cries of violations of First Amendment rights and so on and so forth.

When I am on the shuttle, Glenn Beck is on KTAR. I fundamentally disagree with his positions, but rather than complain to the bus driver demanding a different station be played over the bus’s PA system, I simply bring my own music player and listen to my own music. Other times, I listen my personal radio that only I can hear. I think this is something that all shuttle riders can do. Radios are becoming more and more inexpensive and I think all shuttle riders can afford one.

For Coach America and ASU, this is truly the intersection of Rock Street and Hard Place Lane.

-Edward Jensen

Here’s some food for thought:

Just because you are going to college/university doesn’t mean that you can’t start getting ahead in the world financially. I see that prospective students are sent lots of information about Taylor Place (I am, too!); this isn’t different from when I entered ASU in Fall 2006 and I received information on living at ASU Tempe on a weekly basis. So when people say that living on campus is awesome and that we really would like to you, you don’t have to do that.

I live in a condominium north of ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus along the light rail line. Come the spring semester of 2009, getting to ASU Downtown Phoenix Campus will be incredibly easy: this is because of the light rail. I board a train outside of where I live, and in 10 minutes or so, I’m at ASU. If I need to get to Tempe, add on 23 minutes. All this is regardless of traffic, because light rail is not affected by traffic since it is its own right-of-way!

Anyway, maybe now is the time for you to buy a place to live and start building a portfolio. Plus, this assuages a key requirement for the Fall 2008 semester: College of Public Programs students who choose to live on campus must live in downtown Phoenix. Well, you’re not living on campus but instead you can live on the light rail line, which extends from west Mesa to Christown/Spectrum Mall in north-central Phoenix. Getting from both termini of the light rail to downtown Phoenix is no more than 30 minutes, so it is as if you are living on campus.

Of course, you shouldn’t take financial advice from me. Talk to your financial planner and REALTOR and get information from them. It is, as I have said, food for thought.

-Edward Jensen

Without getting political over the whole climate change issue, I think we can all agree to “go green”. I’m adding a sustainability major, and contrary to popular belief, sustainability is not just about being better stewards of the environment, it is about living our lives so that we can continue to do so in the future while minimizing our impact on the planet. A large part of that is “going green.”

Tonight, I found a website dedicated to going green. It is Green Living Online, available at http://www.greenlivingonline.com/. (For you who use RSS readers, that address is here.) The website is the online arm of the magazine by the same name.

ASU has pledged to go green in its future purchases. The new Nursing & Healthcare Innovation building will be LEED certified for sustainable building practices. So join me in going green! You’ll save money and help the environment.

Edward Jensen

Check out the StARs’ video debut! (I’m not in it.)

EJ