I think those of us who identify as members of a “creative class” or knowledge workers, tend to approach many things as problems to be solved. Creating a solution, coming up with new ideas, making things better…it is exciting and compelling to us. Sometimes our enthusiasm comes across as arrogance as we presume to solve [...]
From the category archives:
Politics
Despite news reports and media obsession, there is very little chance the Democratic party’s nomination will rest in the hands of the so-called superdelegates. If neither Obama nor Clinton has a majority, as the convention begins, it will instead become a state-by-state free-for-all. Delegates are not bound to vote for the candidate they were elected [...]
It is discouraging to see how impossible it remains to have an honest political dialog on trade. Clinton and Obama are now beating the anti-NAFTA drums because they are in Ohio. Obama criticizes Clinton for supporting NAFTA; she says she was always “critical” of it. Both candidates are intelligent, highly-educated people who probably understand the [...]
This blog is likely to be interrupted for awhile as we are having our 3rd baby next week. Maybe I’ll write something at 3am, but I doubt it. In the meantime, check out my review of Paul Lukez’s Suburban Transformations over at All About Cities. Also, I’ve started the Selectman candidates talking on WestwoodBlog; now [...]
In a sense, I know I have too many projects half going on. This morning on the train, I sketched out some of the stuff I’d like to do over the next few months. It was interesting to see how I now have no shortage of ideas–a very different state of affairs than about a [...]
Rather than write a long, thoughtful analysis, I’ll just percolate up my conclusions… I’m a progressive, Democratic type person. The Democrats have their own set of problems and ineffectiveness issues, but from my perspective, the Republicans aren’t even trying to do good anymore. There’s nothing for me there. Among Democrats, I like Bill Richardson as [...]
My guest blog today on All About Cities is a book review of: The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America by Katherine S. Newman, Victor Tan Chen I’ve blogged about poverty issues before from a more global perspective, but this book is a very anecdotal, specific account of real people’s lives, addressing [...]
If anyone out there “follows” this blog, you can probably sense that what I write about parallels the right hand sidebar display of books I’ve read recently. The whole blog began after I read Richard Florida‘s Rise of the Creative Class and got the idea for writing about economic development from talking to Penelope Trunk. [...]
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their work raising awareness about global warming. Anyone who has seen the movie An Inconvenient Truth cannot help but come away with a feeling for the depth of committment Gore has to promoting [...]