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Entrepreneur Defends His Store with Gun

“Anthony Spinelli, outside his store in the Bronx on Thursday, was called brave for shooting a man suspected of trying to rob his shop.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A23) On Arthur Avenue, a group of men piled out of Pasquale’s Rigoletto restaurant onto the sidewalk to pay their respects to a sudden local hero.

“Anthony, we love you,” they shouted across the street.
They summed up the local sentiment about a man, Anthony Spinelli, celebrated for protecting his livelihood. On Wednesday, Mr. Spinelli pulled one of two licensed guns in the store, and shot one of the three people suspected of trying to rob his Arthur Avenue jewelry store at gunpoint.
The Bronx neighborhood seemed energized by the event, which people here saw as a testament to the toughness of one of the last Italian neighborhoods in New York City.
“You don’t come in and try to take a man’s livelihood,” said Nick Lousido, who called himself a neighborhood regular. “His family’s store has 50 years on this block, they’re going to come in and rob him?”
On Thursday, Mr. Spinelli, 49, had returned to his shop and sized up the broken front windows and the mess inside. He said that a man and woman had entered his store, and the man had held a gun to his head while the woman had gone through jewelry drawers and stuffed jewelry into a bag. He said he had feared for his life, and that he was still shaken.
. . .
Next door to Mr. Spinelli’s shop is M & M Painter Supplies, which has photographs of Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa next to a paint color chart on the wall.
“He’s a very brave man,” said the store owner, Ernie Verino. “He had the gun, and it takes guts to use it.”

For the full story, see:
COREY KILGANNON. “Merchant Shooting to Defend His Store Is Celebrated as Hero of Arthur Avenue.” The New York Times (Fri., February 18, 2011): A23.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the article is dated February 17, 2011 and has the title “After Shooting, Merchant Is Hero of Arthur Avenue.”)

The Importance of a Picture

Pictures can be doctored, especially in the days of Photoshop. But a visual image still makes a story more memorable, and maybe sometimes more believable. This was so for Winston Smith, the protagonist of 1984:

(p. 64) Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. Just once in his life he had possessed–after the event: that was what counted–concrete, unmistakable evidence of an act of falsification. He had held it between his fingers for as long as thirty seconds.
. . .
(p. 67) . . . , in 1973, Winston was unrolling a wad of documents which had just flopped out of the pneumatic tube on to his desk when he came on a fragment of paper which had evidently been slipped in among the others and then forgotten. The instant he had flattened it out he saw its significance. It was a half-page torn out of ‘The Times’ of about ten years earlier–the top half of the page, so that it included the date–and it contained a photograph of the delegates at some Party function in New York. Prominent in the middle of the group were Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford. There was no mistaking them, in any case their names were in the caption at the bottom.
The point was that at both trials all three men had confessed that on that date they had been on Eurasian soil. They had flown from a secret airfield in Canada to a rendezvous somewhere in Siberia, and had conferred with members of the Eurasian General Staff, to whom they had betrayed important military secrets. The date had stuck in Winston’s memory because it chanced to be midsummer day; but the whole story must be on record in countless other places as well. There was only one possible conclusion: the confessions were lies.

Source:
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. New York: The New American Library, 1961 [1949].
(Note: ellipses added; italics in original.)

By Canadian law, 1984 is no longer under copyright. The text has been posted on the following Canadian web site: http://wikilivres.info/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

New Jersey Citizens Rebel Against “Ugly” Solar Panels

“Solar panels along Fifth Street in Fair Lawn, N.J. Residents elsewhere were upset they had not been notified before installation.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) ORADELL, N.J. — Nancy and Eric Olsen could not pinpoint exactly when it happened or how. All they knew was one moment they had a pastoral view of a soccer field and the woods from their 1920s colonial-style house; the next all they could see were three solar panels.

“I hate them,” Mr. Olsen, 40, said of the row of panels attached to electrical poles across the street. “It’s just an eyesore.”
. . .
(p. A3) New Jersey is second only to California in solar power capacity thanks to financial incentives and a public policy commitment to renewable energy industries seeded during Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s administration. . . .
Some residents consider the overhanging panels “ugly” and “hideous” and worry aloud about the effect on property values.
Though nearly halfway finished, the company’s crews have encountered some fresh resistance in Bergen County, where cities, villages and boroughs are in varying stages of mortification. Local officials have forced a temporary halt in many towns as they seek assurances that they will not be liable in case of injury, but also to buy time for suggesting alternative sites — like dumps — to spare their tree-lined streets.
And here in Oradell, at least one panel has gone missing.
. . .
The case of the missing panel has been referred to local law enforcement.
“PSE&G takes a very dim view of people tampering with the equipment,” said Francis Sullivan, a company spokesman, “but that’s secondary to the fact that it’s just a dangerous idea.” All the units are connected to high-voltage wires.
Richard Joel Sr., a lawyer in town, said a panel close to his house had been removed, but demurred when asked if he knew details.
“I’m not saying what happened,” he said.

For the full story, see:
MIREYA NAVARRO. “Solar Panels Rise Pole by Pole, Followed by Gasps of ‘Eyesore’.” The New York Times (Thurs., April 28, 2011): A1 & A3.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story is dated April 27, 2011.)

Home Decorators Are Stockpiling Incandescent Bulbs to Thwart Feds’ Edict

“David Brooks, of Just Bulbs in Manhattan, has a customer who is secretly ordering thousands of incandescent bulbs. “She doesn’t want her husband to know,” he said.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. D1) BUNNY WILLIAMS, the no-nonsense decorator known for her lush English-style rooms, is laying in light bulbs like canned goods. Incandescent bulbs, that is — 60 and 75 watters — because she likes a double-cluster lamp with a high- and a low-watt bulb, one for reading, one for mood.

“Every time I go to Costco, I buy more wattage,” Ms. Williams said the other day. She is as green as anybody, she added, but she can’t abide the sickly hue of a twisty compact fluorescent bulb, though she’s tried warming it up with shade liners in creams and pinks. Nor does she care for the cool blue of an LED.
It should be noted that, like most decorators, Ms. Williams is extremely precise about light. The other day, she reported, she spent six hours fine-tuning the lighting plan of a project, tweaking the mix of ambient, directional and overhead light she had designed, and returning to the house after dusk to add wattage and switch out lamps like a chef adjusting the flavors in a complicated bouillabaisse.
She is aware that there is legislation that is going to affect the manufacture of incandescent bulbs, but she’s not clear on the details, and she wants to make sure she has what she needs when she needs it.
. . .
(p. D7) Other hoarders are hiding their behavior. David Brooks, who owns Just Bulbs on East 60th Street, said he has a customer in Tennessee who is buying up 60- and 100-watt soft-pink incandescent bulbs from G.E. and Sylvania for her three houses. Initially, she ordered 432 bulbs for each house, he said. Then she ordered another 1,000.
Mr. Brooks said the customer doesn’t want her husband to find out, and wouldn’t agree to speak to this reporter. The last order is destined, he said, “for a friend’s house that she is helping to redecorate in Alabama. She doesn’t want anyone to know her source.”

For the full story, see:
PENELOPE GREEN. “Light Bulb Saving Time.” The New York Times (Thurs., May 26, 2011): D1 & D7.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story is dated May 25, 2011.)

Government Administrators Steal Money, Food and Benefits from Poor in India

(p. A8) NEW DELHI — India spends more on programs for the poor than most developing countries, but it has failed to eradicate poverty because of widespread corruption and faulty government administration, the World Bank said Wednesday.
. . .
One of the primary problems, the World Bank said, was “leakages” — an often-used term in development circles that refers to government administrators and middle men stealing money, food and benefits. The bank said that 59 percent of the grain allotted for public distribution to the poor does not reach those households.

For the full story, see:
“India’s Anti-Poverty Programs Are Big but Troubled.” The New York Times (Thurs., May 19, 2011): A8.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story is dated May 18, 2011, has the title “India’s Anti-Poverty Programs Are Big but Troubled,” is attributed to Heather Timmons, and is considerably more detailed than the published version.)

Chinese Government Created Real Estate Bubble in a Dozen Ghost Towns Like Kangbashi Area of Ordos

“As China’s roaring economy fuels a wild construction boom around the country, critics cite places like Kangbashi as proof of a speculative real estate bubble they warn will eventually burst.” Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below. Source of caption: online version of the NYT slideshow that accompanied the online article quoted and cited below.

The October 19, 2010 New York Times front page story (quoted below) on the Ordos ghost town in China, was finally picked up by the TV media on May 30 in a nice NBC Today Show report.
It should be clear that the Chinese real estate bubble will burst, just as real estate bubbles eventually burst in places like Japan and the United States. What is not clear is what the effects will be on the Chinese and world economies.

(p. A1) Ordos proper has 1.5 million residents. But the tomorrowland version of Ordos — built from scratch on a huge plot of empty land 15 miles south of the old city — is all but deserted.

Broad boulevards are unimpeded by traffic in the new district, called Kangbashi New Area. Office buildings stand vacant. Pedestrians are in short supply. And weeds are beginning to sprout up in luxury villa developments that are devoid of residents.
. . .
(p. A4) As China’s roaring economy fuels a wild construction boom around the country, critics cite places like Kangbashi as proof of a speculative real estate bubble they warn will eventually pop — sending shock waves through the banking system of a country that for the last two years has been the prime engine of global growth.
. . .
Analysts estimate there could be as many as a dozen other Chinese cities just like Ordos, with sprawling ghost town annexes. In the southern city of Kunming, for example, a nearly 40-square-mile area called Chenggong has raised alarms because of similarly deserted roads, high-rises and government offices. And in Tianjin, in the northeast, the city spent lavishly on a huge district festooned with golf courses, hot springs and thousands of villas that are still empty five years after completion.
. . .
In 2004, with Ordos tax coffers bulging with coal money, city officials drew up a bold expansion plan to create Kangbashi, a 30-minute drive south of the old city center on land adjacent to one of the region’s few reservoirs. . . .
In the ensuing building spree, home buyers could not get enough of Kangbashi and its residential developments with names like Exquisite Silk Village, Kanghe Elysees and Imperial Academic Gardens.
Some buyers were like Zhang Ting, a 26-year-old entrepreneur who is a rare actual resident of Kangbashi, having moved to Ordos this year on an entrepreneurial impulse.
“I bought two places in Kangbashi, one for my own use and one as an investment,” said Mr. Zhang, who paid about $125,000 for his 2,000-square-foot investment apartment. “I bought it because housing prices will definitely go up in such a new town. There is no reason to doubt it. The government has already moved in.”
Asked whether he worried about the lack of other residents, Mr. Zhang shrugged off the question.
“I know people say it’s an empty city, but I don’t find any inconveniences living by myself,” said Mr. Zhang, who borrowed to finance his purchases. . . .

For the full story, see:
DAVID BARBOZA. “A City Born of China’s Boom, Still Unpeopled.” The New York Times (Weds., October 19, 2010): A1 & A4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary is dated October 19, 2010 and has the title “Chinese City Has Many Buildings, but Few People.”)

Source of graph: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

To Teach the Truth, the Best Teachers Must Become “Canny Outlaws”

Source of book image: http://www.swarthmore.edu/Images/news/practical_wisdom.jpg

(p. 170) Walking into Mr. Drew’s economics class, researchers might have interrupted a board meeting of the student-run start-up company that was at the heart of his course. Drawing on his own experience in industry, Mr. Drew taught students economic principles in a way that made sense to them because they were researching
potential products they would actually sell (a mug with the school logo; a T-shirt designed by a student graphics team). They were conducting market surveys, accumulating capital, making decisions about the scale of investment, the risk, the profits.
. . .
In Houston. the magnet schools were forced to reorganize to prepare for the coming White-Perot reforms. McNeil changed her study. The new question was: How would these teachers cope with a curriculum that was test-driven?
. . .
Mr. Drew’s economics class did not conform to the proficiency sequence and he had to drop the course, except as an elective.
. . .
The paperwork required by such new requirements–to assure the bureaucracy that teachers were teaching by the rules–discouraged individualized time spent with students and robbed time previously devoted to planning and assessing lessons. The requirements created the same kind of time bind Wong observed when such requirements were imposed on military trainers. (p. 171) And, as in the case of the new military training model, the new requirements discouraged flexibility, adaptability, and creativity.
McNeil found that many of the experienced teachers fought back. They became canny outlaws, or creative saboteurs, dodging the “law,” finding ways to cover the “proficiencies” with great efficiency and squirreling away time to sneak real education back in at the margins of the standardized system, sometimes even conspiring with their students or teaching them how to “game” the system. Mr. Drew taught his students that economic cycles vary in length and intensity, but in the test prep period, he told them to forget this because the official answer was that each cycle lasts eighteen months. There was a danger that students who learned to look beyond the obvious, to ask “what if,” to look for the exceptions to the rules, would do badly on the tests.
. . .
The ability of wise teachers to operate as canny outlaws is most seriously constrained when a highly scripted curriculum comes riding into town on the heels of high-stakes standardized tests. By prescribing, step by step, what to say and do each day to prepare students for these tests, such lockstep curricula pose a serious challenge to professional discretion. Yet even under these adverse conditions, in many schools there are canny
outlaws who find ways to avoid being channeled.

Source:
Schwartz, Barry, and Kenneth Sharpe. Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing. New York: Riverhead Books, 2010.
(Note: ellipses added.)

The McNeil book mentioned above is:
Linda, McNeil. Contradictions of School Reform: Educational Costs of Standardized Testing, Critical Social Thought. New York: Routledge, 2000.

The Wong report mentioned above is:
Wong, Leonard. “Stifled Innovation? Developing Tomorrow’s Leaders Today.” Strategic Studies Institute Monograph, April 1, 2002.

contradictions-school-reform-educational-costs-standardized-testing-linda-m-mcneil-paperback-cover-art.jpg

Source of book image: http://i43.tower.com/images/mm101682007/contradictions-school-reform-educational-costs-standardized-testing-linda-m-mcneil-paperback-cover-art.jpg

Denmark (Yes, Sanctimoniously ‘Green’ Denmark) Seeks to Exploit the BENEFITS of Global Warming

(p. A7) Denmark plans to lay claim to parts of the North Pole and other areas in the Arctic, where melting ice is uncovering new shipping routes, fishing grounds and drilling opportunities for oil and gas, a leaked government document showed Tuesday.

For the full story, see:
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. “WORLD BRIEFING | EUROPE; Denmark: Leaked Document Reveals Plans to Claim Parts of the North Pole.” The New York Times (Weds., May 18, 2011): A7.
(Note: the online version of the story is dated May 17, 2011.)

Georgia Taxpayers Pay for “Go Fish” Museum in Former Governor’s Home Town

“A largemouth bass dominates the hatchery display at Go Fish Georgia Educational Center, a museum financed partly by the state and approved when the economy was more robust.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A14) PERRY, Ga. — Every weekend, Michael Morris and his 2-year-old son, Jacob, visit this small town’s enormous new $14 million fishing museum. They watch bream and bass swim in aquarium-size tanks. They play with an interactive model of a fishing boat and try to catch fish on a computer simulation using a rod and reel connected to a video screen.

And because the museum, the Go Fish Georgia Educational Center, is primarily financed by the state, their father-and-son outings cost only $5.
. . .
But not all Georgia taxpayers are so thrilled. Even before the museum opened in October, “Go Fish” had become shorthand in state political circles for wasteful spending. Republicans and Democrats alike groaned over $1.6 million a year in bond payments and operating costs. And even supporters concede that the museum would never have gotten financed in 2007 if the legislature knew where the economy was headed.
. . .
And then there is the controversy over the museum’s location — in the home county of its main supporter, former Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican who left office this month after two terms.

For the full story, see:
ROBBIE BROWN. “New Fishing Museum Becomes Symbol of Waste in Georgia.” The New York Times (Tues., January 18, 2011): A14.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article is dated January 17, 2011 and has the title “Fishing Museum Is Symbol of Waste in Georgia.”)

Government Finally Allows Steve Jobs to Creatively Destroy His Own House

(p. A18) WOODSIDE, Calif. — There may not be an app for it, but Steve Jobs did have a permit. And with that, his epic battle to tear down his own house is finally over.
For the better part of the last decade, Mr. Jobs, the co-founder and chief executive of Apple, has been trying to demolish a sprawling, Spanish-style mansion he owns here in Woodside, a tony and techie enclave some 30 miles south of San Francisco, in hopes of building a new, smaller home on the lot. His efforts, however, had been delayed by legal challenges and cries for preservation of the so-called Jackling House, which was built in the 1920s for another successful industrialist: Daniel Jackling, whose money was in copper, not silicon.
. . .
“Steve Jobs knew about the historic significance of the house,” Mr. Turner said. “And unfortunately he disregarded it.”
Mr. Turner said the mansion, which had 35 rooms in nearly 15,000 square feet of interior space, was significant in part because it was built by George Washington Smith, an architect who is known for his work in California. But Mr. Jobs had been dismissive of Mr. Smith’s talents, calling the house “one of the biggest abominations” he had ever seen.

For the full story, see:
JESSE McKINLEY. “With Demolition, Apple Chief Makes Way for House 2.0.” The New York Times (Fri., February 16, 2011): A18.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the article is dated February 15, 2011.)

Corruption, Inefficiency, Inflation and Bad Policies Lead to Decline in Foreign Investment in India

Source of graph: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. B1) While inefficiency and bureaucracy are nothing new in India, analysts and executives say foreign investors have lately been spooked by a highly publicized government corruption scandal over the awarding of wireless communications licenses. Another reason for thinking twice is a corporate tax battle between Indian officials and the British company Vodafone now before India’s Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the inflation rate — 8.2 percent and rising — seems beyond the control of India’s central bank and has done nothing to reassure foreign investors.

And multinationals initially lured by India’s growth narrative may find that the realities of the Indian marketplace tell a more vexing story. Some companies, including the insurer MetLife and the retailing giant Wal-Mart, for example, are eager to invest and expand here but have been waiting years for policy makers to let them.

For the full story, see:
VIKAS BAJAJ. “Foreign Investment Ebbs in India.” The New York Times (Fri., February 25, 2011): B1 & B6.

(Note: the online version of the article is dated February 24, 2011.)