Self Portrait V

Friday. Britain's national debt, I read, could be reach £2 trillion or £33,000 per man, woman and child. Who can forget the National Debt Clock in Times Square from Reagan? I don't recall the per household liability peak, but the clock removed following Clinton's balanced federal budget. The swings are mind-boggling, really - these numbers should take a generation to shift but here we are again at the bottom of the barrel. No wonder nobody really seems to care or if they do - so what? The stim-u-lator will lower taxes to the middle class, which is at least better than only the top 1%. Many economist so hope we buy ourselves out of this ticket but unlikely: with no savings whatsoever Americans are likely to ... save. En masse. Or at least pay their utility bills. Remember Bush's one-off cash-cheque last year? Neither do I. In fact, I can't even say the amount - six hundred bucks maybe? - and cost the government billions. Straight to the utilities. Or gas. Or the mortgage. The cash-back plan like throwing a deck chair off the Titanic. Bush being the ship's captain. I do think the US recession will turn for the better sometime next year as it has always done since I have been alive. The lingering perception, however, will last perhaps years beyond like 1989-92 when housing prices bottomed in 1995 and some cities like LA, even later. At least we can look forward to spring and happily, daffodils poking themselves into the sun. Life isn't all bad. In fact, it is pretty good.

It's Fashion

New York Fashion Week ends today following a week of summer displays - like pictured, forcing my lament: I'm going to the wrong beaches. 

The Big Show takes place in Bryant Park where it moved in 1993 having before that begun in 1943 as the world's first organized fashion week to attract attention away from the French during World War II, when industry insiders unable to travel to Paris. 

The circus moves to London next week, which has Sonnet in a flutter - the museum and her colleagues are also buzzy about hats, whose display opens around the same time. Sonnet informs me that it is "all about the fantasy" (I think: gay) which is well anticipated in this environment, escapism and all that. It is easy to be dismissive - hats? - until seeing the beauty behind something so simple and every-day. It is not only the garment, you see, but the full expression - the model's oiled hair, bared shoulder and sparkling smile+the accompanying outfit netting a sensation. Fun. 

Sonnet's colleague Oriel has been working (running?) non-stop in preparation these past few months and the pre-marketing seems everywhere. But back to the runways: having been to several many of the catwalks with Sonnet and even back-stage on occassion with the models, the thing that strikes me is: how bored the girls are. And young, generally under 19. The bam! they are on display in front of the most critical eye under a bright spotlight being simply revered, loved. Whom am I to wonder if the affection is for all the wrong reasons? Did you know there is a fashion-week in Columbus, Ohio? Snort!

Madeleine sings: "Here comes the bride, a thousand meters wide!"
(she repeats over and over and over until I scream at her to stop)

Eitan has the giggles so badly right now he cannot speak. And for no apparent reason. I look at him blankly but it is hard not to join his fun. Does one ever feel this good again?

Photo from the web, uncredited.

Ray

Here is Ray with a Kalashnikov rifle in Gilgit in August '97. I met him in graduate school when I was a student in his modern political economy class. When Ray detailed his plans to return to Central Asia I was hooked. Munir, who guided us through our trip, notes today: "things are worrisome in North West Frontier Province of Pakistan that is called NWFP. However Gilgit and Baltistan are safe as they were at the time of your visit. " Here is Ray's bio below. Me, I am just grateful we got to spend a month together exploring the Roof of the World.

"A lawyer and political scientist, Professor Horton teaches the course Modern Political Economy. A member of the Columbia Business School faculty since 1970, he served two years while on leave from the School as Executive Director of the Temporary Commission on City Finances during the New York City fiscal crisis, and later served 15 years as Director of Research and President of the Citizens Budget Commission. His publications on municipal finance and management include 14 books, numerous journal articles and policy studies. In 1983, he founded the Public and Nonprofit Management Program at the School. In 1998, that program morphed into the Social Enterprise Program, which Horton directed until 2009. In 2009, he was named Faculty Director of Social Enterprise programs in the School’s Executive Education division. As part of his executive education responsibilities, Professor Horton directs custom programs for the Center for Curatorial Leadership and the King Khalid Foundation."

Your Money At Work

Here is a selection of of what California will get under the stim-u-lator focused on infrastructure and education; there are other areas too like tax-cuts, but the below items mission-critical (in my opinion):

• $2.6 billion in highway funding that could also be used rail and port infrastructure
• $1.1 billion for investments in mass transit
• $444.8 million to address the backlog of drinking water and clean water infrastructure needs
• $4.6 billion to local school districts and public colleges and universities
• $82.7 million for Head Start to prepare children to succeed in school
• $1.2 billion for Special Education Part B State Grants to help improve educational outcomes for individuals with disabilities
• $74.2 million in education technology funds to purchase up-to-date computers and software and provide professional development to ensure the technology is used effectively in the classroom
• $1.6 billion for Title I Education for the Disadvantaged to help close the achievement gap and enable disadvantaged students to reach their potential

Go-bama! What do we say about these conservative Governors who threaten not to take funds from the stimulus plan? Imagine their middle-class contituents, worried about a job or family, and told that the rest of the country to benefit from Federal tax-dollars accept you. Hmm... this does not seem like a particularly astute vote-getting strategy. In fact, it sounds plane stupid which, I might suggest, consistent with Republican rich-tax-cut-and-spend-blah-blah-blah agenda these last eight years (note that I say "Republican agenda" and not "Republicans" since I have been warned by several family Republicans whom I respect to curtail any direct attacks. Fair enough.)

1950s post-card from the State of California.

Teenagers And A Deal

After yoga I pick the kids up from football camp - it is their half-term recess and they have a week no school. Eitan has a play date so I take Madeleine for pizza. She is not in an especially talkative mood and my jet-lag does not enliven the conversation either. Sometimes it can be like pulling teeth but the key thing, I remind myself, is the later. My older friend Dale (not to be confused with the other Dale) has lived through two teenagers and I know it has not been easy. His older, beautiful daughter had cancer and thankfully she appears rid of it entirely. Dale on occasion gives me parenting advice and notes that with older children nothing can be forced. Sometimes this nets periods of silence, Dale says, which should not be breached even if otherwise awkward. Teens have to be comfortable sharing their private stuff, and us parents must accept that it may be only a fraction of the whole. And still be fully behind them. So back to today: it is my hope that the trust established over pepporoni pizza goes far when the kids A) get arrested, B) become or get somebody knocked up, or C) caught with dope. It is my aim to react with something other than a good grounding and complete despair and while I don't anticipate such things, a good policy prepares for extremes. We experimented and survived somehow (maybe not A and B). Smart kids in nice neighborhoods get in trouble, for sure. The families I admired from Berkeley always seemed somehow supportive of whatever, and I wish this to be the case with us.

Madeleine, desperate for ten-pounds to buy some faux glasses, negotiates a deal: "If you give me ten pounds now, I will repay you plus you only have to give me one pound allowance this week end." Madeleine's allowance otherwise three quid, so I would pocket the difference, if I understand her correctly. Annualised, these terms worse than Sicily; it does provide a nice value to liquidity though. She gets credit for being creative but otherwise no-go.

London Encore

And here I am - just like that - back in the UK. 


 Eastwards is a tough flight from New York - not quite long enough to sleep on the overnight+wet or grey on arrival and worst of all: rush-hour traffic. But it feels genuinely good to be here and I chat with the taxi-driver about the state of the world and London. You can imagine. Radio 4 and John Humphries in the background and now part of my fabric. By contrast, New York's entrance is dramatic - the Triborough Bridge (great name for a bridge) serves up an endless skyline to the South and a brilliant contrast to everything else belching smoke or going clackity-clack. 


New York's sheer infrastructure dazzles with its neon, steel, poster giants, concrete and cement as far as the eye can see - tune in Gerschwin's Rhapsody as I pass the Lucky Strike billboard and the picture complete (though Lucky now a Discovery Channel). 


London, meanwhile, has its elevated M4 which passes 15 meters over the roofline and built in '67 as a necessity to connect the airport to Central London. Mostly the scenery dreary with the the occasional new construction taking advantage of the proximity to the airport. Glaxo-Smith-Kline, for instance, is impossibly modern and bendy whose curves emphasized by the dilapidated, post-war neighbors. 


Closer to the center, we see more glass than brick and London starts to feel cosmopolitan somehow. Since the buildings not high by NY or Big City standards, there is a human scale to the madness - it becomes easy to imagine work-places, homes and whatever. Even more cool to consider the various enthnic groups spread across the city's vast real-estate (180 languages and etc.) My best part is knowing Sonnet and the kids await my return.

Madeleine on a new house: "It would be great if we moved to Chinatown."

Photo of parliament from the London Tourist Board.

On Envy

I change my monkey-photo to Planet Of The Apes. These apes got along afterall.

Monkeys, one observes, are happy to be rewarded for their work with cucumber slices unless one of the group receives grapes. Then they get snarky and no longer do the work. It turns out that envy, or the 6th deadly sin and probably the least acknowledged, is passed along via evolution. More, reports the NYT, the vibe's unpleasant sensation equal to its opposite or schadenfreude - seeing your rival stumble. This measured by brain activity. I read this BTW awaiting Katie's doctor appointment and wonder about the past eight-years: Americans (and Brits), driven to keep up with the Joneses, did stupid things like buy unaffordable houses or Humvees. 


 It's too easy to call these people assholes (and many are) but our system's deep inequalities, accelerated during Bush and hyper-visible in our mythology (90210! Baywatch! The Sopranos!) have turned many citizens into twitching miseries (very different, mind you, than the more socially tolerable jealousy). Personally I have seen MBAs making $millions hateful of their status because it ain't more. 


 Of course envy is not an American phenomenon - in Nairobi I met seven Kenyon runners under 2:15 for the marathon and several unhappy about not making the elite squad. Yet those Africans work together and their comparisons did not seem corrosive. The runners happy to be blessed, alive and... running. Pretty simple. So today Barack signs the stim-u-lator and we will see how the country manages its schadenfreude.

Madeleine and Eitan at the age when they compare everything. It generally effects their happiness - for instance, the other night Madeleine thought Eitan's ice cream more and she could not enjoy her desert. Brother. As a parent, it is my job to cut this off somehow at the quick so it does not dog them the rest of their lives. Oh boy, seen and done that before.

Sheridan Square

This photo where Sheridan and West Fourth Streets join at Seventh Avenue. In my mind the heart of Greenwich Village and around the corner from Waverly Place and Sixth Avenue where I enjoyed - ? - my first apartment. I am pretty sure it was a tenement once and Mark, who found the flat while I was in Africa with my family, lived in a walk-in closet complete with loft. But that is another story and now he lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. I remember my first-time arrival, driving up Sixth Avenue looking for 373 and thinking: this cannot possibly be it - more generally, I think I would have preferred less humid, more friendly Africa thank you very much. So today the only thing to change is the passer-byes; the buildings and my memories fixed circa 1989-90 when everything raw though happily I have a number of dear friends whom keep that epoque alive like Erik, Brad, JD, Todd and Kelly and others - without them, who would share the humour of the mad transition post college?

Washington Square

I take a few hours to myself and head downtown to buy a pair of kicks - which I do: New Balance, blue. The sales clerk has a big afro and I overhear her speak french so I nudge my way in. Turns out she is from Morocco, which she makes me guess. Since I have been there, we bond and again I get to use my French. This never happens in London BTW where I am told over 180 languages spoken. Go figure. I eventually meet Washington Square on a beautiful and clear New York afternoon and snap this photo at MacDougal and Washington Square North. Stately, next to derelict. I am surprised to find several mews blocks which are prevalent in London and never seen by me in New York - these are usually private streets with connected row houses no more than several stories. Here, they are surrounded by the taller mid-century condominiums and NYU. Their isolation from the hustle-bustle makes them kinda interesting I suppose - like being in a zoo, perhaps too since all the street-walkers like me curious. So my house and Wash Square - here is what I learn: it used to be a farm. Then a burial ground until the New York purchased the land around 1800 and turned it into a military parade ground where volunteer militia companies responsible for the nation's defense trained. By the 1830s, the surrounding houses had become the most desirable in the city, and I bet damn nice to live in one today. I can dream if only for a minute strolling by.

In One Word: Production

In an attempt to understand this idea of scale when it comes to the stimulus, I turn to Paul Krugman, who has been reporting ahead of the curve. His observation: no wealth created in America during Bush - only artificial pricing drawn from easy-credit. Today's correction consistent with the 1930s and Japan though not yet as deep. Krugman notes that FDR's New Deal started the country towards recovery but we owe are today to World War II. The US government footed war production entirely, borrowing 120% against GDP versus 8% or so today. In return, of course, we helped create the largest market imaginable for our goods and eventually services like accounting and banking... boy, does Europe wish we stopped at the 747s and Microsoft. Krugman concludes that without an equally massive works program it will take a generation or more to pay down our $trillions. What would the Gipper be thinking now?

I imagine that I am the only person, really, who cares about these pithy observations on the economy so why? Well, it helps me boil down the endless chatter to something I understand and I don;t care that my missives selfish or self-serving. There you have it. Also Madeleine and Eitan may read this very blog one day+I wish them to know what was happening inside the dark hole since they will be paying for it.

The photo BTW appeared in 1942 and widely circulated particularly in LIFE Magazine in 17 September 1942 and the Illustrated London News in the next month. It shows 4,500 aircraft models suspended from Chicago’s Union Station. The inspiration derived from FDR's assertion that America would produce 185,000 war-focused aircraft in 1942 and 1943.

KT @ Diner

Another day, another omelet. Here we map out her work-day and discuss strategy. My morning otherwise begins at the Riverbank State Park in Harlem where I head at the crack of dawn to swim laps in their fabulous 50-meter pool (another one - last time it was Asphalt Green on the Upper East Side). The sports center on 28-acres (bigger then Columbia with 21) and 21-meters above the Hudson River from 137th to 145 Street, on the West Side Highway. To get here, I cross one of two connecting bridges over fast moving traffic which is a bit worrisome but once on the island I feel completely free of NYC though the skyline ever-present. I also learn that this the only state park in Manhattan, and since space is dear, dear reader, it is built over the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant, which processes 125 million gallons of wastewater every day when dry and designed to handle up to 340 million gallons a day when the weather is wet. Only in New York. The plant was imagined in the 1950s and completed in 1991 after presumably working its way up the Hudson until it found Harlem, offering (I imagine) the least civic resistance. In return, they got a good park.

So at 7AM I enter the Aquatics Center to find a black receptionist who tells me I must have A) a swim suit and B) a lock. Since I don;t have B, she directs to buy one, which I do. I tell her I need a back-up plan for the combo, which I will surely forget, and ask her to write it down behind her desk. She looks at me warily. I swim 2500 meters and on my way out, tell her: "you can relax." She breaks into a huge grin and "you remembered the combination" and we both crack up and wish each other a good day. There is magic in these little things that make others happy.

Upper West Side

Here are some rocks from 87th and Broadway, not far from where I lived way-back-when and boy has it changed. 

1989, my first year in New York, set the dubious record for most murders - surpassed the following year at over two thousand. It was generally understood that anything above above 90th was dangerous and newly arrived white kids from Ivy League schools whispered about Harlem's beginning and, presumably, civilisation's end. It is hard to imagine today as Katie's 104th and Amsterdam thrives - I love her Korean veggie where I automatically buy papaya, pineapple and mango and sometimes pomegranate along with remarkably fresh produce. 

We go to a fancy Thai on 111th and then there are the diners - not like I knew them with their 24 hour earnesty and working man's toast - no, these places are chic and offer goat-cheese omelets, caramelised onions and Italian sausage. What is surprising about this neighborhood is why it has taken so long? 

Columbia U. begins at 114th and is one of the world's most prestigious institutions - it is shocking to think that in 1990 the business school considered re-locating to Westchester. Today, it is expanding to "SoHa" (South of Harlem) or North of 125th Street up to 140th where new students promised a dorm and state-of-the-art facilities. By 1995 and my return for graduate school, gentrification well on the march. 

Riverside Drive, always proper, now serviced by upscale Fairway while sushi restaurants popping up left-and-right in Morningside Heights. Harlem now a sweet-spot of rustic brown-stones, compelling Americana, ethnic mixture and affordable. By recently, many of my friends talking about fixer-uppers with multiple floors for only a million dollars (cheap when compared to the same price for a down-scale two-bedroom apartment farther South). Anybody who wants to catch the area's nadir should watch De Niro's "Taxi Driver" whose final bloody shoot-out inside a derelict on 87th and Columbus - Scorcese was afraid of the ceiling collapsing underneath his filming equipment.

For some reason New Yorkers and everybody loves to romanticise the city in the 1970s - its grittiness, grime and deserted spaces somehow a cool backdrop for Popeye Doyle. I think also viewed as a decade of artistic freedom, sex and unity - James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison and all that. Me, I am glad there is no graffiti on the subways and the place as safe as anywhere- safer than London, in fact. I hope we are not going back to those bad-days given the recession which will hit any city harder than average and the Big Apple worse. I have enjoyed dinner-party discussion re NY's wealthful "sterility" somehow being oppressive. Well to them I say: find yourself in the Bronx. I was around in '90 when every day was a killing.

Empire Diner

Katie and I lunch at 3:30PM and discuss the media collapse, which has happened in the last twelve months and continues downward. I renewed my subscription, for instance, to the International Herald Tribune last week and thought for the first time: why? I get the same, and in fact more news from NYT.com or their RSS then from the paper. And a year's subscription not cheap at £350. I proceed because I like sitting at breakfast surrounded by kids and cereal and disappear in the newsprint. This a luxury which may be gone in several years I appreciate but where does it go? Katie thinks readership will fragment into extremes between professional and for-pay sources and extremist wackos driven by their passions and not caring particularly about writing for free; in the process, we lose a national identity. For me, I imagine a number of national titles, perhaps the NYT and WSJ or USA Today and everything else gone, like the sad case of the Chicago Tribune (though Sam Zell proves himself not the genius but fool). These entities likely become non-profit and receive foundation or grant support. What is for sure is that journalists and researches leaving in droves reducing coverage and probably quality. Accelerating the motion, bloggers "borrow" stories while stealing readers. Ultimately media brands mean something - accuracy, at the minimum. Once we are all online swapping, sharing and editing feeds who ensures we view the truth? As Katie says, we are sub-priming the news.

Katie buys a bunch of computer crap and I go to H&H bagels to pass the time and avoid the, ahem, negotiations. Unable to get a cab on Saturday late afternoon we must bus it to the Upper West. Groan.

Katie's Cat

Katie and I have a New York evening in the West Village, starting at MacDougal Street and a gin bar where we meet one of her pals Michelle, who may become the chair of Katie's Board. Katie knows Michelle from the Woodhull think-tank - she is also a VP, business development, for PR News Wire, owned by United Business News, where my old boss John Botts a Board Member. Six degrees? Michelle remarks on Katie: "there is an enormous market for what she does and nobody addressing it." and further, "[Katie] can make a ton of money." We like Michellle.Similar to Mary yesterday, she gives a strong validation for The Op-Ed Project and no surprise - it is a nifty endeavor. From Michelle, we enter the Lower West Side to visit David who opens his fourth restaurant on Carmine Street. The evening buzzes and I see Katie's über-cool friends including Nicole who I was last with in '95 at her and Katie's graduation from Columbia's International Affairs program. We squeal. From CIPA, Nicole got a law degree then The Hague where she persecuted International War Criminals and met her husband James; she is now pregnant for the first-time. At the table is Michael who exposed NYT's reporter Judith Miller for sourcing-errors regarding the Bush administration’s conclusions about Iraq’s alleged WMD Program in 2003 and Miller's involvement in the Valery Plame Affair - all of which eventually netted Michael an apology from The Times who otherwise resisted him. Another former, and Senior NYT writer next to me indites the whole newspaper for its support of the Iraq war. Phil is now a successful blogger and we discuss media and its changing business model. Various others include Zac, a PhD Historian who has published ten books most recently on the US-China affair and now considers a green-fund. Missing is New Yorker writer Sondro who is in Italy with his son. I enjoy my London status, which gives me some street-cred, and even use my french with Deborah who is back from three-weeks in Paris where her gay boyfriend takes her on retreat in the 7th arrondisement (Le Marais). I cannot think of a better thing to do. We part: "a plus." Fun.

Eitan, to Sonnet, back of car: "I cannot believe Katie is 40. She looks twenty or something."
Katie, next to me replies: "Aww, tell him this is what I tell Sam (Sondro's toddler) who reports my age to everyone!"

Madeleine names her gold-fish "Bubbles" and "Flippers."

Stimulator

So the $787 billion stim-u-lus passes the House - despite lacking one Republican vote. And here is the scary thing: the Japanese are criticising us for not enough. Let us not forget their "lost decade" when Japanese banks crippled with toxic debt from a real estate collapse following their easy-credit bubble. Sound familiar? The fall-out: 15 consecutive years of real estate price-declines ending in 2002 (source: Financial Services Agency via T Hoshi and A.K. Kashyap). In their socieity, as ours, the house a family's largest investment and its value-decline ensures the worsening of their standard of living. Ouch. I was in college when the Japanese economy went tits up (there is that expression again). Timid government under-funding of half-measures meant the financial system lost trillions and only until 2002 began a recovery. It is estimated that the public will recoup less than 50c on a dollar committed. So to us and so far: Obama's plan avoids the hardest decisions like nationalising banks, wiping out shareholders or allowing banks to collapse under the weight of their own bad debts. In the end, Japan had to do all these things: from 1992-05, Japanese banks wrote off 96 trillion yen or 19% of the country's annual GDP. Surely this has been studied by somebody in the White House? Probably not Republican Judd Gregg, who withdraws his bid to run the Commerce Department, and fails his country along with the rest of his party who got us here these last eight years.

Japanese women eating sushi from Japan Newsgroup Jucee.

Deja Vu

And here it is Friday again. I fly into NYC yesterday to join Katie and her business plan and, as always, life is a goof in the Big Apple. As though I need an excuse to be here. As I write Katie plugs away - same as it ever was, and a good thing as her business growing. My plugging away can be done from anywhere with this notebook and my mobile - in outer-space, nobody can hear you scream. And besides this year there ain't much plugging going on in privé equité though I do make sure I am with the people that count. Like Mary - who we see this morning. As ever, she is inspiring and half-way through I begin considering ongoing business education but then I come to my senses: I've not touched a trades book since '97 and Columbia Business School. Mary has a unique talent anyways that comes from within and I can't touch that, though I admire. No wonder she advises the CEOs of the world's biggest companies and despite the recession is more in demand than ever - three all-nighters this week+world travel (we saw her in London several weeks ago for dinner). And today she turns her great attention on Katie's Op-Ed project before dashing into a waiting limosine to take a conference call on route to Midtown. Her time is valuable. Switching to London, Madeleine asks about war which is so everywhere that I filter it gone but for the kids it is shocking. And needs to be explained, which Sonnet does without me. Later she receives a call from the constable concerned about fraudulent frocks sold at Sotheby's - the criminal apprehended, you see, and Sonnet to provide the comparable evidence. Meanwhile the V&A's next exhibition this month (though not Sonnet's): hats. Oooo it is going to be swe-et.