http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/121/greenhome_repair

Web only | posted October 30, 2007

Repair or Replace?

by Amanda MacMillan

As long as you've got electronics and appliances in your home, you're inevitably going to be faced with a choice: Something breaks. Now what?

According to a 2005 Consumer Reports survey, Americans are repairing 16 percent fewer products—including high-cost items like television sets and refrigerators—than in 1997. The number of appliance-repairs shops has declined roughly 37 percent in 15 years while the number of electronics-repair shops has plummeted by 64 percent. So-called "e-waste"--computer monitors, televisions and other electronic waste—is the fastest growing portion of the U.S. waste stream. In 2005, electronics accounted for 2.63 million tons of waste—only 12.5 percent of which was recycled.

If you're lucky enough to find a repair shop, it may seem that the best environmental option would be to hang on to old appliances and electronics for as long as possible. Along with the environmental impact of new-product production, there's another concern: Many electronics contain heavy metals (such as lead and mercury), flame retardants and other toxic chemicals that can wash into waterways and pollute groundwater if sent to a landfill. But older products can be a big drain of household energy. "You need to consider buying a new product—which must be manufactured—or fixing your existing product, which may not be up to the latest energy standards," says Greg Keoleian, Ph.D., co-director of the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan.

From a price perspective, if the cost to repair a household appliance is more than half the price of a new product, advances in energy efficiency will generally make buying a newer model the cheaper choice. Based on these numbers and considering today's more environmentally friendly technologies, here's a guide to when you should repair or replace.

Washers

* Replace all top loaders.

When Keoleian and his colleagues compared the average lifecycle of a washing machine (14 years) with the amount of water and emissions that could be saved by a newer model, they determined that even replacing a 2005 machine could have water-saving benefits. The reason: Water- and energy-saving technology continues to evolve as companies push beyond standards. It's most important to replace top loaders with Energy Star-labeled new front loaders as soon as possible; although they're generally more expensive, these models circulate clothes in a shallower pool of water, using less water and heat, and saving money in the long run. (Getting rid of a pre-1994 washer, for example, can save a family $110 a year on utility bills.) For models, see our Washing Machine Product Report.

Clothes Dryer

* Repair if possible, but line dry clothing whenever you can.

As long as your dryer has a moisture sensor (nearly all models in operation today should), it functions at about the same efficiency as current models, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. A dryer's average life cycle is about 13 years, so if it's possible to fix it during this time, try that first. When it is time to buy a new dryer, look for one with the sensor in the drum, as opposed to in the exhaust vent; it will shut off a little sooner and save slightly more energy. However, since dryers consume large amounts of energy, line drying or hanging your clothes on a rack is a better option. For dryers and drying racks, see Virtuous Cycles.

Refrigerators

* Replace all models manufactured before 2001.

New refrigerators consume 75 percent less energy than those produced in the late 1970s, and are even more efficient than models just six years old, Keoleian's research has found. The newest federal standards went into effect in 2001—so if you need to make repairs on an older fridge, it's worth getting a new one instead. When replacing your refrigerator, opt for a top-freezer configuration rather than a side-by-side, and make sure it's Energy Star-certified. A new refrigerator should then last you about 14 years. And resist the urge to hold on to your old fridge or give it away, since inefficient old models can cost over $100 a year to run. Most communities have specific requirements for disposing of refrigerators and other large appliances; visit www.earth911.org for information in your area. For models, see our Refrigerator Product Report.

Dishwasher

* Replace non-Energy Star models.

Newer, more efficient dishwashers use less hot water, have energy-efficient motors and use sensors to determine the length of the wash cycle—making Energy Star models 25 percent more efficient than the minimum federal standards. This can mean a savings of $25 a year if you replace a pre-1994 machine. When shopping for a new dishwasher, choose one with a "light wash" or "energy saving" cycle—and expect to hang onto it for about 9 years, suggests the National Association of Home Builders. And remember that handwashing dishes is an inefficient alternative, generally wasting more water than dishwashers. For models, see our Dishwasher Product Report.

Air conditioners

* Replace window units older than 10 years and central-air systems older than 10, but consider alternative cooling methods.

Upgrading your window units to a more efficient model can cut energy bills by an average of $14 a year, estimates the Energy Star program. The most efficient room air conditioners have higher-efficiency compressors, fan motors and heat-transfer surfaces than previous models. Central ACs are rated according to their seasonal energy efficiency ratio (SEER)—for which most 1992 to 2005 models score about a 10; older ACs have ratings of only 6 or 7. New minimum standards set in 2006 require current central-air units to have a SEER of at least 13. Because of the coolants used, old room-AC units need to be disposed of in hazardous waste facilities; old central units are usually disposed of by the contractor hired to install the new unit, but always ask ahead of time to ensure proper disposal.

Before you buy, however, consider alternatives such as ceiling fans, evaporative coolers (if you live in a dry climate), whole-house fans and landscaping or decorating changes, all of which can keep your home comfortable for a fraction of the cost (see Keep Your Cool With Less AC). For models, see our Air Conditioner Product Report.

Water heaters

* Replace all electric heaters, and any gas heaters older than 10 years.

If you have an electric heating system, you can achieve a 50 percent energy savings used by switching to a high-efficiency gas model. Gas heating systems can last for about 25 years but will operate for years at very low efficiency before they finally fail [but do they operate at low efficiency because of something that can be repaired?] ; if yours is more than 10 years old, it probably operates at less than 50 percent efficiency and deserves to be replaced. Consider a "demand," or tankless, system, in which water is circulated through a large coil and heated only when needed. Although EnergyStar doesn't certify these models, the government estimates that they can save between 45 and 60 percent of water heating energy and up to $1,800 a year when compared to standard, minimum-efficiency heaters.

Computers

* Repair as long as you can.

"The manufacture of brand new computer models uses more than four times the energy and resources it would take to extend the life of an older machine for another few years, says Sheila Davis, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition—so it's best to always repair it yours if possible. Memory can be added to slow computers (1-gig will run about $100 and you can install it yourself). But it's important to consider the repair process, says Davis: Name brand computers often have proprietary parts and need to be shipped back to the manufacturer—or sometimes even overseas—to be fixed. "White box" computers, that is, generic models without name brand parts, can easily be upgraded at local computer stores, but warranties for them can be tricky. They come without software, and finding technical support may be difficult. White box models are available online or at large computer chains.

If you prefer a name-brand item, choose one with a strong takeback program that will guarantee your computer won't end up in a landfill. Dell takes back all branded products for free; others accept new models or charge a small fee. Visit www.computertakeback.com/docUploads/Using_takeback_programsv7a.pdf for a comparison of most popular brands. As far as desktops versus laptops, it's a toss-up: "Even though laptops are smaller, they often have just as many chemicals to dispose of," says Davis. If you still have a large cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor, replace it with a flat-panel liquid crystal display: A 15-inch LCD screen uses about 18 watts of energy, as opposed to about 200 for CRT's. For models, see our Computers Product Report.

Smaller electronics

* Replace, but recycle.

It's probably not financially practical to repair electronics such as printers, televisions, and digital cameras, but it's best to keep them out of landfills. Before ditching them, always consult the instruction manual and consider contacting the manufacturer; sometimes they'll provide repairs for a small fee. When they do need to be disposed of, visit www.greenerchoices.org for recycling options that won't put toxic chemicals back into the environment. Cell phones, for example, are often reprogrammed and donated to women facing domestic violence (as a 911 lifeline), and chains such as Best Buy and Staples often sponsor collection drives for other broken electronics (see also www.eco-cell.org). Apple will take back iPods (as well as cellphones), offering a 10 percent discount towards your next purchase.

Resources

To recycling appliances, check with your local sanitation department or visit www.Earth911.org.

Repair Clinic: www.repairclinic.com

Point and Click Appliance Repair: www.pcappliancerepair.com

Hey, teachers: Is it really that bad?

Did you see William K. Richardson's rant about violence in the schools this Sunday in the CA's Viewpoints section? "Simply put, the Memphis City Schools has a thug problem," he says, before going on to detail some of the things he's been called by his students ("bald white motherf***er"); he teaches 10th grade English at Frayser High. He says Blue Ribbon, the much-heralded discipline plan MCS put into effect last year, is a joke, and he's not the first teacher we've quoted in the paper saying the same thing.

Reading this column yesterday, which ran right next to a heartbreaking picture of a child holding a picture of her daddy, shot to death in a drive-by shooting, made me wanna holler. Teachers: Is it really this bad? What is actually working for you, in the classroom and in the schools? Anything?

posted on

idiviamemphis.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/weekinreview/07myer.html

GEORGE W. BUSH, embattled at home, tied down in Iraq and watching the clock run out on his presidency, has found a diplomatic crutch in an unlikely place: China.

Last week’s agreement by North Korea to disable its nuclear facilities — announced in Beijing, tellingly — showed just how much Mr. Bush’s foreign policy has come to rely, for better or worse, on the help of the Chinese. They might just be the administration’s best hope for peacefully resolving the next big crisis on the horizon, Iran’s refusal to give up the right to enrich uranium. Or so some in the administration are hoping.

Mr. Bush, who spent most of his presidency with a swaggering, go-it-alone style, has increasingly turned to China on problem after problem: from North Korea to Darfur to the repression of pro-democracy demonstrators in Myanmar.

“China has become the first stop for any American diplomacy,” said Christopher R. Hill, the American negotiator in the North Korea talks.

Could China bring Iran around in a similar way? The two confrontations are different in myriad ways, but there are some signs that the answers could be yes.

White House officials, for example, note that China, which had remained in the background at the United Nations when the United States pressed for more pressure on Iran, has now signed on to two rounds of (mild) sanctions. They say it could support a (tougher) third round if reports expected this fall suggest that Iran is breaking its commitments not to pursue nuclear weapons.

Experts also say China needs Iranian gas and oil for its economic growth — and while this has made it skittish about imposing tough sanctions, it also makes China eager to avert a war in the Persian Gulf that would disrupt energy supplies.

Still, it would be wishful thinking to call China an ally or even a partner, given its historical and political divisions with the United States. China has proved unwilling to go along with much of what the Bush administration has asked of it, especially when it comes to punishing authoritarian regimes. On that score, China’s one-party rulers have always been cautious, calling such measures interference in the internal affairs of others.

Given that history, there are reasons to think that Chinese cooperation on Iran could have its limits. The Korean Peninsula is on China’s border, as is Myanmar, and that alone could explain China’s interest in reducing tensions there. For the United States, fear of Iran’s nuclear capability is linked to fear of Iran’s ties to groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, and to its growing influence in Iraq; those are worries whose urgency the Chinese do not seem to share.

And experts who take a skeptical view of the deal with North Korea point out that for all the help China has given, this agreement is just another step on a long road toward the ultimate American goal, which is stripping that government of the nuclear bombs it has already built. Meanwhile, Americans have had three decades of trying to squeeze Iran economically, while China is counting on retaining Iran as an important economic partner.

“China can be constructive when its interests align with the United States,” Clifford Kupchan of the Eurasia Group, a consultancy in Washington, said. “In Iran, it seems to have a different agenda.”

Nevertheless, Steven Clemons of the New America Foundation, a bipartisan research organization in Washington, said that while some Americans express frustration at what they see as Chinese unwillingness to press Iran, China has already played an active role in trying to resolve tensions that could lead to another military conflict in the Persian Gulf.

He credited what he said were quiet Chinese efforts to win the release of four Iranian-Americans jailed by the authorities in Iran this summer.

With the North Koreans, China’s support proved more crucial than anything else. China, which for decades acted as North Korea’s protector, responded to the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s nuclear test last year by cutting off military aid and joining the Bush administration’s efforts to choke off the country’s bank accounts abroad.

A senior administration official said in an interview that China’s diplomatic push began even before the test, after Mr. Bush assured President Hu Jintao that he wanted a peaceful resolution with North Korea during an outwardly disastrous White House visit in April 2006 in which a protester infiltrated their joint news conference.

Mr. Hu dispatched State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan that week for unannounced talks in North Korea that, after some ups and downs, laid the foundation for last week’s deal, the official said. “What changed was not them,” the official said of the North Koreans, “but the Chinese attitude.”

China, by virtue of its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, has always been an important diplomatic player. But its importance to the Bush administration has grown for two reasons: it has become more assertive around the globe and the administration has exhausted a lot of its options.

“I think we need China almost everywhere in the world because we’ve disengaged from the rest of the world,” Mr. Clemons said, criticizing the administration’s initial disdain for concerted international diplomacy and citing its preoccupation with Iraq.

Meanwhile, China has steadily expanded its diplomatic and economic ties far beyond Asia. Mr. Clemons suggested that that has caused a subtle tectonic shift in how nations view it and, conversely, the United States. “They see China as an ascending power,” Mr. Clemons added, “and they don’t see us that way any more.”

Such ties give China influence. And with influence comes leverage. In Sudan, the Chinese long resisted American-led efforts to stop the killing in Darfur but this summer lifted their objections to a United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force — perhaps in part because a Hollywood human-rights campaign threatened a boycott of the 2008 Olympic Games, to be held in Beijing, if China did not do more.

Supporters of the democracy movement in Myanmar — Burma to those supporters — also hope to use the threat of an Olympic boycott to force China to lean on the military government there.

Mr. Bush, who accepted an invitation to the games in Beijing next year, did not go so far, but he met in the Oval Office with China’s foreign minister, Yang Jeichi, to privately urge China to intervene with the generals.

Last week, Myanmar’s rulers relented and allowed a United Nations envoy to visit — a diplomatic accomplishment that the Chinese touted, but hardly a breakthrough given reports of continued arrests. “If China is claiming credit for this, they have to show results,” said Jeremy Woodrum of the U.S. Campaign for Burma.

Still, in the Iran negotiations as elsewhere, the United States seems to be betting that China’s interest in global stability will continue to rise, so that it coincides more often than not with American interests.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/weekinreview/30moore.html?ref=weekinreview&pagewanted=print

September 30, 2007

Ideas & Trends

Reporting While Black

By SOLOMON MOORE

THE police officer had not asked my name or my business before grabbing my wrists, jerking my hands high behind my back and slamming my head into the hood of his cruiser.

“You have no right to put your hands on me!” I shouted lamely.

“This is a high-crime area,” said the officer as he expertly handcuffed me. “You were loitering. We have ordinances against loitering.”

Last month, while talking to a group of young black men standing on a sidewalk in Salisbury, N.C., about harsh antigang law enforcement tactics some states are using, I had discovered the main challenge to such measures: the police have great difficulty determining who is, and who is not, a gangster.

My reporting, however, was going well. I had gone to Salisbury to find someone who had firsthand experience with North Carolina’s tough antigang stance, and I had found that someone: me.

Except that I didn’t quite fit the type of person I was seeking. I am African-American, like the subjects of my reporting, but I’m not really cut out for the thug life. At 37 years old, I’m beyond the street-tough years. I suppose I could be taken for an “O.G.,” or “original gangster,” except that I don’t roll like that — I drive a Volvo station wagon and have two young homeys enrolled in youth soccer leagues.

As Patrick L. McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte and an advocate of tougher antigang measures in the state, told me a couple of days before my Salisbury encounter: “This ganglike culture is tough to separate out. Whether that’s fair or not, that’s the truth.”

Tough indeed. Street gangs rarely keep banker’s hours, rent office space or have exclusive dress codes. A gang member might hang out on a particular corner, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, but one is just as likely to be standing on that corner because he lives nearby and his shirt might be blue, not because he’s a member of the Crips, but because he’s a Dodgers fan.

The problem is that when the police focus on gangs rather than the crimes they commit, they are apt to sweep up innocent bystanders, who may dress like a gang member, talk like a gang member and even live in a gang neighborhood, but are not gang members.

In Charlotte’s Hidden Valley neighborhood, a predominately African-American community that is home to some of the state’s most notorious gangs, Jamal Reid, 20, conceded that he associates with gangsters. Mr. Reid, who has tattoos and wears dreadlocks and the obligatory sports shirts and baggy jeans, said gangsters are, after all, his neighbors, and it’s better to be their friend than their enemy.

Sheriff’s records for Charlotte-Mecklenburg County show that Mr. Reid has been arrested several times since 2004 for misdemeanors including driving without a license, trespassing and marijuana possession. Despite his run-ins with the law, Mr. Reid said he had never been in a gang and complained that the police had sometimes harassed him without a good reason.

“A police officer stopped in front of my house and told me to come to his car,” he told me. “I said, no. They got out and ran me down. They did the usual face-in-the-dirt thing.”

Maj. Eddie Levins of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said that officers are allocated to different areas based on the number of service calls they receive, so high-crime areas are likely to get more police attention.

“Where there are more police, expect more police action,” Major Levins said. “Some people think ‘I can just hang out with this gang member as long as I don’t do any crime.’ Well, expect to be talked to. We can’t ignore them. In fact, we kind of want to figure out the relationship between all these gang members and their associates.”

Major Levins said that his fellow officers aren’t perfect and that he was aware of occasional complaints of harassment, but he said that most residents would like to see more police officers on the streets, not fewer.

Even Cairo Guest, a 26-year-old who complained he was handcuffed in his backyard, acknowledged that gang members in his neighborhood were “out of control.”

“There are a lot of guys out here doing stuff they shouldn’t have been doing,” Mr. Guest said.

Still, some civil rights advocates complain that the definition of a gang member is vague. Gang researchers find that most active members usually cycle out of their gangs within about a year. Even active participants might only be marginal members, drifting in and out of gangs, said Kevin Pranis, a co-author of “Gang Wars,” a recent report on antigang tactics written by the Justice Police Institute, a nonprofit research group.

Harsh penalties could actually reinforce gang membership by locking peripheral gangsters in jail with more hardened criminals, he said.

Suburban Salisbury, population 30,000, is about as far from the traditional ganglands of Los Angeles, Chicago or even Durham as you can get. But it has had an outsize voice in pushing for tougher antigang measures since a 13-year-old black girl was inadvertently killed there in a gang shootout after a dance party in March.

I arrived in Salisbury at midnight, figuring that gang members would be more visible after dark, and found a local hangout with the help of a cabdriver.

Striking up a conversation with young gang members in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar town is always a tricky proposition, but the one advantage I figured I had was that I am African-American. Brown skin can be a kind of camouflage in my profession, especially if you do a lot of reporting in minority neighborhoods, as I do. Blending in visually sometimes helps me observe without being observed.

But even when my appearance has been helpful, the benefits rarely survive the first words out of my mouth, which usually signal — by accent or content — that I’m not from around wherever I am.

“What’s The New York Times doing down here?” asked an incredulous black man. He and about a dozen other men were standing in front of a clapboard house in Salisbury. I observed several drug sales there within minutes of arriving.

“Man, you a cop,” said another. “Hey, this guy’s a cop!”

“You’ve got me wrong,” I said trying to sound casual as the men looked at me warily. I started to pull my press identification out of my wallet. “I’m a reporter. I’m just trying to talk to you about your neighborhood.”

In the distance I heard neighborhood lookouts calling: “Five-O! Five-O!” — a universal code in American ghettos for the approaching police. I thought they were talking about me, but thought again as three police cars skidded to a stop in front of us.

A tall white police officer got out of his car and ordered me toward him. Two other police officers, a white woman and a black man, stood outside of their cars nearby. I complied. Without so much as a question, the officer shoved my face down on the sheet metal and cuffed me so tightly that my fingertips tingled.

“They’re on too tight!” I protested.

“They’re not meant for comfort,” he replied.

While it is true that I, like many of today’s gang members, shave my head bald, in my case it’s less about urban style and more about letting nature take its course. Apart from my complexion, the only thing I had in common with the young men watching me smooch the hood of the black-and-white was that they too had been in that position — some of them, they would tell me later, with just as little provocation.

But here again I failed to live up to the “street cred” these forceful police officers had granted me. As the female officer delved into my back pocket for my wallet she found no cash from illicit corner sales, in fact no cash at all, though she did find evidence of my New York crew — my corporate identification card.

After a quick check for outstanding warrants, the handcuffs were unlocked and my wallet returned without apology or explanation beyond their implication that my approaching young black men on a public sidewalk was somehow flouting the law.

“This is a dangerous area,” the officer told me. “You can’t just stand out here. We have ordinances.”

“This is America,” I said angrily, in that moment supremely unconcerned about whether this was standard police procedure or a useful law enforcement tool or whatever anybody else wanted to call it. “I have a right to talk to anyone I like, wherever I like.”

The female officer trumped my naïve soliloquy, though: “Sir, this is the South. We have different laws down here.”

I tried to appeal to the African-American officer out of some sense of solidarity.

“This is bad area,” he told me. “We have to protect ourselves out here.”

As the police drove away, I turned again to my would-be interview subjects. Surely now they believed I was a reporter.

I found their skepticism had only deepened.

“Man, you know what would have happened to one of us if we talked to them that way?” said one disbelieving man as he walked away from me and my blank notebook. “We’d be in jail right now.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/weekinreview/30bruni.html?em&ex=1191384000&en=3b39f56b5393509b&ei=5087%0A

September 30, 2007

Curbside, We’ll Never Have Paris

By FRANK BRUNI

AMONG the many reasons to suspect that Europeans are more gifted than Americans at enjoying urban life is this: they eat outdoors because it’s pretty. We eat outdoors even though it’s not.

By we I mean New Yorkers, and I specifically mean the New Yorkers who, from the first rumor of spring to the dying gasps of an Indian summer, insist on restaurants with sidewalk cafes, apparently believing that nothing sauces roasted chicken like the exhaust from an M104 bus and there’s no music more relaxing than the eek-eek-eek of a delivery truck in reverse.

On the narrow and sometimes cobbled byways of Paris, Rome or Barcelona, a sidewalk cafe most likely has a view, a mood, a purpose beyond fresh air. (To be fair, it isn’t so fresh there, either.)

On Broadway, Columbus or Lexington, a sidewalk cafe has traffic — pedestrian and vehicular — so dense and close that a diner has to learn not to flinch. Wine helps. For me just three and a half glasses do the trick.

Of course I’m generalizing, and perhaps I’m exaggerating, but I’m nonetheless wondering: are the ranks of New Yorkers who like these seating arrangements really so large?

On the evidence of last week’s news, they are. And they’re growing.

And they’re a neat window into the peculiar character of this city’s denizens, although some open-air epicures are really just looking for a place to smoke. Thanks to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, they get a double dose of carbon monoxide — some from Marlboro, some from Mercedes — for the price of one entree of braised short ribs. The man knows how to cull the herd.

What happened last week was an announcement by city officials that restaurants with sidewalk cafes could henceforth install portable natural-gas heaters and thus extend the weeks or months when a diner might comfortably — in terms of temperature, that is — lunch or sup outside.

And part of what fueled that decision, apparently, is the increased popularity of sidewalk cafes in New York, the number of which has grown by 25 percent over the last four years, according to city officials. There are now 900 of them.

Some are really lovely.

I bet 875 aren’t.

I should be clear: I’m talking about cafes that are actually on sidewalks — that jut into public space — because exposed areas or patios that are set back from the sidewalk, and exist within the bounds of a restaurant, aren’t part of the aforementioned count. They’ve been using portable heaters for a while.

And I’m not talking about back gardens. Who doesn’t love a back garden? It’s often quieter than the rest of the restaurant — trees and clouds are effective mufflers — and sometimes it’s even surrounded by vine-covered brick walls or a painted wood fence.

What surrounds many a sidewalk cafe are waist-high metal dividers that recall crowd-control barricades as much as anything else. The tables are a pinkie’s width apart. I look at the diners gorging themselves in these pens and wonder if they’re actors rehearsing to play veal in the movie version of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”

They’re on awkward display, not so much people watching as people watched, letting all the world see whether they chew with closed mouths and what kind of crumb management they’ve mastered. It has to be nerve-racking.

So why go through it?

Theory 1: It lets them pretend they’re in Europe. While many Americans outside New York get excited about “freedom fries” and dismiss Europeans as too-thin scolds with too-small cars, New Yorkers envy their fuel efficiency, their monuments, their cheese, their eyewear.

And their cafes. Never mind that eating outside in Rome means a Bernini statue and a Baroque church while eating outside in uptown Manhattan means an unobstructed panorama of Bed, Bath & Beyond. New Yorkers are fantastic at make-believe, which leads me to ...

Theory 2: New Yorkers have a highly evolved, unrivaled knack for glossing over the limitations, absurdities and dubious habitability of an unforgiving metropolis.

They walk into a friend’s 545-square-foot two-bedroom (one bath, no tub) and stammer: “Just $4,965 a month for this?” They walk into the Spotted Pig at 5:55 p.m. on a Tuesday night and exult: “Only a 90-minute wait?”

And they sit in a sidewalk cafe — sirens blaring, vagrants swearing and jackhammers jittering all around them — and sigh: “It’s so relaxing to soak up the street life.”

Theory 3: If something is in limited supply, New Yorkers want it, period.

Most restaurants don’t have sidewalk cafes. If they do, there are fewer seats outdoors than indoors. So these seats take on an exclusive aura, and once all of them are occupied, they become more exclusive still. In New York, the only thing better than something there’s not enough of is something there’s absolutely none of.

At the restaurant L’Impero on a recent night, most of the precious few tables in front of the entrance were taken. Most of the dozens of tables inside weren’t. When I turned down the hostess’s offer of one of the remaining perches outside, she just about went pale with shock. I explained that while I was fond of fresh air, what I was really gaga about was air-conditioning.

On the Upper West Side, when scaffolding went up around the sidewalk cafe in front of the Ocean Grill this year, the restaurant’s owner, Stephen Hanson, wasn’t about to let the lure and luster of those seats be dimmed. He had chandeliers and potted plants hung from the top of the scaffolding and leafy vines wrapped around the poles.

Mr. Hanson operates a dozen restaurants in Manhattan. Seven have outdoor seating; four have actual sidewalk cafes. He was a big proponent of the new portable-heater rule. He said he thought it could extend sidewalk season from the first day of April to the last day of October.

I think it could be the death of sidewalk cafes.

If they’re around for only four or five months every year, they’re exceptions, digressions, reminders of warm weather that won’t last. As Mr. Hanson said when I asked him for his own theories about why New Yorkers embrace these enclosures: “It’s the seasonality of it. It’s something you can’t have all the time.”

But if sidewalk cafes start to operate for six or seven months, they’re standard, and eating in one isn’t a celebration of summer. It’s a celebration of man’s talent for climate control, even on the pavement in front of Circuit City.

New Yorkers, of course, might find some other, rosier way to see it. I’d ponder the possibilities, but I’m late for a picnic someone’s having in the Holland Tunnel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/weekinreview/23kershaw.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=0f09ffc021b0c0db&ex=1190779200&pagewanted=print

September 23, 2007

Ideas & Trends

Don’t Even Think of Touching That Cupcake

By SARAH KERSHAW

THE cupcake is at something of a crossroads. Edible icon of Americana, frosted symbol of comfort and innocence, it may not have faced such an identity crisis since first appearing in cookbooks sometime in the 18th century.

As we know, cupcakes have had a whopping resurgence: they are retro-food chic, the thing to eat for people in the know.

But cupcakes have also recently been marched to the front lines of the fat wars, banned from a growing number of classroom birthday parties because of their sugar, fat and “empty calories,” a poster food of the child obesity crisis. This was clear when children returned to school this month to a tightening of regulations, federal and state, on what can be served up between the bells.

And it has led some to wonder whether emotional value, on occasion, might legitimately outweigh nutritional value.

Schools trying to bring parents to the table in efforts to root out fat and sugar have faced what Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University who strongly supports limiting sweets in schools, calls “the cupcake problem.”

When included on lists of treats that parents are discouraged or forbidden to send to school — and when those policies are, say, put to a vote at the P.T.A. — “cupcakes are deal breakers,” Professor Nestle said. “It sounds like a joke, but it’s a very serious problem on a number of levels. You have to control it.”

While the merits of banning goodie bags filled with Reese’s and Skittles seem obvious — especially at a time when the risk of childhood diabetes is high for American children — many parents draw the line at cupcakes.

This could have something to do with the fact that in the modern age, the cupcake may be more American than apple pie — “because nobody is baking apple pies,” Professor Nestle explained.

The confection is so powerfully embedded in the national consciousness — and palate — that its future is quite possibly the only cause to unite Texas Republicans and at least some left-wing foodies behind a singular mission: keep the cupcake safe from harm.

“I think the wholesale banning of parents’ bringing cupcakes as a legal issue is over the top,” said Rachel Kramer Bussel, a former sex columnist for The Village Voice who founded the Web site “Cupcakes Take the Cake” three years ago.

The Texas Legislature agreed, in spirit, when it passed the “Safe Cupcake Amendment,” in 2005, in response to new federal child nutrition guidelines and lobbying from parents outraged by the schoolroom siege on cupcakes.

After the amendment passed, a blogger on Homesick Texan wrote: “i don’t think it necessarily warrants all the hubbub, or the intervention of legislature to intervene on behalf of the cupcake. ... but then, another part of me is screaming ‘CUPCAKES!!!’ because they just make people happy.”

Hillary Clinton perhaps was aware of this when on David Letterman’s show recently she listed as No. 9 of her Top 10 campaign promises, “Each year on my birthday everyone gets a cupcake.”

As Ms. Kramer Bussel, who organizes monthly cupcake meet-ups in New York City, said, “If you bring cupcakes to a party, you are so popular.”

Until the late 1990s, the cupcake often shared the mental dessert pantry with canned peaches and ambrosia; it was nostalgia food, mom-in-an-apron food, happy food.

But then cupcakes took a very chic turn. Trend-setting bakeries like Magnolia, the Greenwich Village cupcake empire, arrived on the scene; by 2005, a parody music video on “Saturday Night Live,” which was later viewed more than five million times on YouTube, included the lyrics, “Let’s hit up Magnolia and mack on some cupcakes.”

And now the new cupcake, having drifted so far from Betty Crocker, is facing fierce competition from the retro cupcake, which is the new, new cupcake that is really the old cupcake.

Americans still find time to whip up some batter and slide a tray in the oven. It’s easy, and the appeal is multifaceted. Cupcakes are portable, cute and relatively inexpensive. They are also “feminine and girlie,” Ms. Kramer Bussel said, so the majority of cupcake bakers and fans are women.

Cupcake is a term of endearment, but it can also be a rather mean-spirited word. “Cupcake teams” in sports are said to be soft and easily crushed. As food, though, cupcakes are democratic; everyone gets one. And they are libertarian; individual and independent compared with communal cakes, which may not have enough slices for everyone.

Across the Atlantic, where cupcakes have become increasingly popular in the last few years, some bakers said they were perplexed by word of an American cupcake crackdown.

“Over here people think it’s a bit like this innocent cake,” said Jemma Wilson, owner of Crumbs and Doilies, a new cupcake bakery in London. “And it seems more dignified and civilized to eat one portion, unless you kind of eat 10, which obviously happens a lot.”

A sub-debate within the cupcake debate has revolved around whether the meaning of cupcakes has been lost — and it’s not pretty.

Can the cupcake loyalist support the sale of a chocolate Guinness cupcake with green-tea cream-cheese frosting? Has the cupcake been stolen from the people by the baking aristocracy?

For a sense of how charged the subject is, consider what happened in July, when Magnolia Bakery, having vaulted to fad status by an appearance on “Sex and the City,” was briefly shut down by the city health department for not having enough sinks at its Greenwich Village establishment.

“At last!” said a blogger posting on Eater.com. “We neighbors get relief from cupcakistas who don’t realize Duncan Hines makes better-tasting cupcakes.”

After a long debate thread, another blogger wrote, “You people need to go back to the suburbs ... Seriously, bunch of grown up New York City residents obsessing over a cupcake shop. I miss the gunfire and crackheads.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/weekinreview/23bajaj.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=weekinreview&pagewanted=print

September 23, 2007

The Nation

They Cried Wolf. They Were Right.

By VIKAS BAJAJ

IN May of 2004, Dean Baker, an economist in Washington who had been warning about excesses in the housing market, sold his two-bedroom condo after concluding that the market had lost its moorings from reality.

In a way, he was two years too early. Had he waited until May 2006 when home prices in the Washington area peaked, his home would likely have appreciated by roughly 38 percent from its 2004 value, according to an index that tracks home prices in the metropolitan region.

The case of Mr. Baker, who now happily rents a similar condominium a few blocks away, serves as a useful illustration about the perils of calling and timing financial bubbles. It may be easy to spot an out-of-control market, as Mr. Baker and others did, but quite another to predict when one has truly gotten out of hand.

In a replay of the years before the tech-stock bubble burst in 2000, housing market skeptics have spent much of this decade being tarred as the boys who cried wolf. Their predictions were proved wrong year after year as people continued to bid up the price of condos in Miami and new houses in suburban Phoenix.

Academics and economists like Mr. Baker came across as gloomy sourpusses who did not want Americans to have fun and grow rich by flipping second homes on the New Jersey or Florida coasts.

“The naysayers simply look silly at the end of the bubble,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com who was among the experts raising questions about the underpinnings of the housing boom. “They are completely discounted and discredited because they have been saying things are askew for a year or two. It’s when the naysayers’ views have been completely discarded and discredited that the bubble inflates to its apex.”

Mr. Baker said he knew he would never be able to call the top of the real estate market precisely, either as a home seller or an economist. He noted that he was also too early in calling the tech bubble in 1997. “Sure it could go somewhat higher,” he said of the real estate market. But, he added, “I felt the need to talk about it, and do anything I could to bring attention to it.”

Some in the real estate industry say the early cries of bubble should be called to account on the grounds of intellectual fairness. If the boosters have to acknowledge they were wrong when they provided justifications for prices that were, well, unjustifiable, then the doubters should also own up to the fact that they were too negative, too early.

“Even the people that were talking about booms busting, my goodness they were talking about it in 2001 and 2002,” said David Lereah, the former chief economist with the National Association of Realtors. “And they were wrong for four years and they only became right at the end of 2004.” He and his former employer had been criticized for the optimistic forecasts they made during the boom.

Economists, even the famous ones, mostly see the to and fro between the housing bulls and bears as an academic debate. Their influence over markets and the behavior of consumers, they say, was and is at best marginal.

Robert J. Shiller, the Yale economist whose book “Irrational Exuberance” became required reading for bubble watchers, has said that there is a long tradition of naysaying in the face of soaring markets to little effect.

Newspapers during the boom in the 1990s and in the early years of this decade expressed warnings about the housing market, along with more upbeat sentiments. But the critical voices often did not register above the din of the frenzied market.

“You got some of us sitting there in a distance saying that this is a bubble, we don’t know when its going to end,” said Christopher F. Thornberg, an independent economist who is based in Los Angeles. “And then you have mortgage brokers and real estate agents who are much closer to the buyer who are whispering in their ear that, well, yeah, there are some markets that are out of line but not this neighborhood.”

Almost everyone would agree that of far greater import to the timing and performance of bubbles are interest rates and the availability of credit. Both are set by the market, but regulators at the Federal Reserve exert significant influence over them. The main discussion now, with the benefit of hindsight, is whether the central bank should have taken a more muscular approach in regulating mortgage lending and raised interest rates sooner. (After the tech bubble burst, the Fed cut its benchmark rate sharply and left it at 1 percent from the summer of 2003 to the summer of 2004.)

In recent interviews, Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chairman, has argued he did not realize the extent of reckless lending practices in 2005 and 2006. He also defended the central bank’s decision to keep short-term interest rates low early in this decade to avert the risk of deflation.

Last week, the Fed cut rates sharply to ease conditions in the credit market, kindling some fears of inflation.

“We have had two bubbles in the last 10 years,” noted Allen L. Sinai, the president and chief economist at Decision Economics, a consulting firm based in New York. “The only way I would say it won’t happen — and this is arguable — is for the central bank to do something about it before it gets too far, and right now the central bank’s religion is not to interfere.”