A big part of inner city life – or any happy social life – is getting to know your neighbors. We all live near people that are different from ourselves in many ways, and in the city we live a bit closer than people in suburbs. That can cause conflicts from time to time and there is some sense that these conflicts are on the rise. There are many reasons for this and there is always something that can be done about it. But it always starts and ends with the spirit of the neighborhood itself, which can only be found by getting to know each other.
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Yearly Archives: 2010
The Streets of Lowertown
Anytime the streets of an old city are disturbed, the past bubbles up to the surface. That’s definitely true of Saint Paul. The heavy construction Downtown has ripped up many of the ancient streets of Lowertown and secrets are bound to see the light of day. Something has been found there, however, that no one wants to talk about just yet. When will the truth be revealed?
The Nightmare Before Christmas
A crisp fall day greets us with a crunchy carpet of leaves as my dog and I make our way out first thing in the morning. August, a Westie, is restless and excited by all the new smells and feelings that hang in the air. But he’s not the only one. This is a season of restlessness and change, a time when we’re moving on to something else that isn’t quite in front of us yet.
I find myself singing songs from one of my favorite movies, a wonderfully crafted musical about restlessness, missing the point – and ultimately love. The kids and I watched Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” as we do every year just as the spooky season starts to sink in and change everything around us, and we all sing along. It’s a wonderful stop-action animated movie with intricate songs passionately written and sung by the great Danny Elfman.
Quantitative Easing
The actions of the Federal Reserve have an air of dark wizardry about them – they are mysterious, powerful, and use forces that appear to be a kind of magic. The most powerful incantation is the often-muttered “Quantitative Easing”, a spell that has moved from the dark recesses of economics into the popular press. What it means, in the end, is that the Fed literally conjures money from thin air and gives it to the US government to go out and spur some kind of economic growth. Though this handy li’l charm is now being openly discussed the reasons why it has become so useful have not.
You want to see a magic act? This is one helluva trick. It’s showtime at the Fed.
Those Who Show Up
Polling has a strong allure in an election for many reasons. It appears to make it possible to call the “horse race” before the steeds come through the home stretch. It also has the appearance of objectivity, since it is supposedly based on a dark science that few people know enough to question. Polls are a story that falls into the laps of reporters, allowing them to write a piece on an election without any more work than reading a column of numbers.
Yet polls are nowhere near adequate for describing an election, even without getting into the difficulties of the math. Like so many things in our world today, polling fails because of a flawed assumption at the heart of it long before the technical stuff that jazzes it into what appears to be irrefutable facts. It’s not simply a matter of who is included in the poll, either – it’s the simple fact that democracy belongs to those who show up, not a percentage of a population.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 