Stress Tests....?

It's been reported that the large banks received the results of their stress tests on Friday, and the results will be publicly announced at the end of this week. So far, this exercise, hopefully an important step in some kind of comprehensive reckoning seems like the brightest spot in the otherwise mostly ad hoc, deal-by-deal, approach taken by the Obama administration.

I thought this analysis of our financial crisis was very insightful:

The Quiet Coup, by Simon Johnson (Atlantic Monthly, May 2009).

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

US/Mexico

Apparently Barack Obama is making his first trip as president to Mexico (Hillary Clinton and Janet Napalitaliano have already visited). It seems like there are a few big policy questions of mutual interest.

1. Interdiction of illegal firearms flowing from the US into Mexico for use in the ongoing drug war raging there.

2. Reducing the demand for illegal drugs in the United States

3. Reducing poverty in Mexico

If Barack Obama wanted to propose serious programs on each of these issues, I wonder what he would propose. Especially on numbers two and three, I wonder if good public policy could deliver a lot more results than we're currently getting from our "war on drugs".

Tax Day

I made my yearly trip to the big post office on 34th Street to postmark my modest little 1040 and New York income taxes a few hours before the April 15th deadline.

You can view the Obama's tax returns here and the Biden's here.

The Colorado Gardening Project: blog

Slow Gardening

I enjoyed this article on "slow gardening" in the Times. It reported on a movement or style of gardening that focuses on perennials, serendipity, outsider art, re-purposing, informality, and a certain sort of "wabi-sabi" aesthetic.

I think this approach is very much a kindred what I see in a lot of the gardens of Brooklyn. I've always thought someone should really write a great field guide to the gardens of Brooklyn....!

hmmm

map new york city crime trends?

link

Neighborhood Financial Services Study: An Analysis of Supply and Demand in Two New York City Neighborhoods. From the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs Office of Financial Empowerment.

Barack Obama ReMixed

I listened to this on WAMU in Washington before the inaugration - I found it on the internet, let's see if this link works:

windows media player

realplayer

"Invincible Cities"

images of harlem, richmond, CA, and Camden...... over the years here.

interesting blog

link

academic history of New York housing

interesting - link

A great encyclopedia of New York's Places, from Place Matters, a project of City Lore and the Municipal Arts Society.

NYT's article on the local paper crime blotter

Guerilla Gardening........

Principles of "Engaged Ecology"

1) We have the right to fresh air, clean water and healthy soil.

2. A government that cannot provide them loses legitimacy.

3) The earth is in crisis.

4) Cities are not the problem, the're the solution.

5) Cities are alive and should be treated that way.

6) Biodiversity is the best measure of a healthy place.

7) Humans have evolved to live in harmony with nature.

8) The public creates the best public spaces.

9) People will care for a place they plant themselves.

10) Engaged ecology creates a community.


To survive in prison, one must develop ways to take satisfaction in one's daily life. . . I saw the garden as a metaphor for a certain aspects of my life. A leader must also tend his garden: he, too, plants seeds and then watches, cultivates, and harvests the results. -Nelson Mandela


The experience of being in a place where the forces are resolved together at once is completely restufl and whole. It is like sitting under an oak tree: things in nature reolve all the forces acting on them together; they are, in that sense, whole and balanced.
-Christopher Alexander



From Guerilla Gardening, A Manualfesto, by David Tracey.

Don't Divorce Us

Ever since Election Night, I get choked up really easily. This video totally made me cry. As my sister Hannah said to me in an e-mail, "When there's so much pain in the world, why are people trying so hard to destroy happiness?"


"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

good song...

The water systems of New York....link

Orwell

I read a reference to Orwell's famous essay on politics and the English language, which made me want to go read it. I found a copy here. In fact this site contains searchable versions of all of Orwell's works. Homage to Catalonia is one of my favorite books.

Martha's Table

Wondering about opportunities to volunteer on MLK day, which made me think of Martha's Table. I worked there many times while growing up in Washington DC.

The Writing is On The Wall

This is the most revealing map that I've seen in a while - when the New York Times produced this map, they put it on the front page and I wish there was a way of linking directly to it. Go here, then select "Voting Shifts" in the left hand side bar. The red areas are the only areas of Republican strength in 2008. Party leaders know they've painted themselves into a corner - they are at risk of being limited to no longer national party of southern, white, rural resentment.