Monthly Archives: January 2013

(Community Matters) A stunning statistic – half of Medicare beneficiaries live with three chronic conditions and 20 percent live with five or more.

NYT, David Bornstein: When Paying It Forward Pays Us Back

(Community Matters) ughh, Moody’s and Fitch warning European banks they need more reserves against bad loans. The volatility could remain a drag on markets

(Community Matters) The University of Notre Dame has launched a research effort on the Science of Generosity. It was established in 2009 with a $5 million grant and grew out of Smith’s work on Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More Money

Generosity – the virtue of giving good things to others freely and abundantly.

some of their research:

In a September 2012 paper in Nature, Harvard University researchers David Rand, Joshua Greene, and Martin Nowak conclude that when given the choice, our innate first responder–intuition–is pretty generous. But in a span of just 10 seconds, a stingier impulse arises, and the cooperative impulse decreases dramatically.

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(Community Matters) Yair Lapid, founder of Israel’s Yesh Atid (There Is a Future) party emerged from this week’s election as one of Israel’s most important political leaders. Nice to have a new centrist party wielding such clout.

(Community Matters) This is super, a push in NYC for thoughtful design of properties offering smaller foot prints in a way to achieve greater affordability.

Years ago sitting around a Madrid plaza with new acquaintances, they explained to me how the plazas and other public spaces are where they and their friends met since everyone had such tiny apartments. Not only is it good for affordability but for community building too.

I’d be even more excited about a new affordable housing bond initiative if I knew it was also driving this sort of innovation.

Politico Playbook: “New York City extols virtues of tiny apartments,” by AP’s Ula Ilnytzky: “With the population and rents expected to keep climbing, New York City planners are challenging architects to design ways to make it tolerable – even comfortable – to live in dwellings from 350 square feet to as small as 250 square feet. The city wants to incorporate those designs into an apartment complex to be built on Manhattan’s east side next year featuring mostly ‘micro units.’ The aim is to offer more such tiny apartments throughout the city as affordable options for the young singles, cash-poor and empty nesters who are increasingly edged out of the nation’s most expensive real-estate market. If the pilot program is successful, New York could ultimately overturn a requirement established in 1987 that all new apartments be at least 400 square feet. … San Francisco recently approved construction of apartments as small as 220 square feet. And Tokyo and Hong Kong have long offered tiny units.

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(Community Matters) Very pleased to see my friend Henry is being named national DNC Finance Chair. With Andy reupping for Treasurer, that’s two in the top finance roles for the party.

EXCLUSIVE – ONE OF OBAMA’S FIRST APPOINTMENTS IN TERM II : Henry R. Muñoz III of San Antonio — an Obama bundler and a national chairman of the Futuro Fund, a group of Latino leaders who raised money for the president’s reelection — is expected to be named DNC Finance Chair, the first Latino to hold the title: “He is Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of Kell Muñoz Architects, Inc., the largest minority-owned architectural firm in Texas. … Muñoz has designed prolific architectural works in the United States/Mexico Border Region for 15 years; he has shaped the skylines of Texas and is an original and innovative leader in the pursuit of a blended cultural expression through the built environment.”

(Community Matters) I too thought the President’s inauguration address was an inspiring, bold and a defining speech. When the other side is being held hostage by extremist views which aren’t even rational, you don’t compromise and negotiate to the middle – too bad, moderate & conservative perspectives are important.

“Obama . . . . announcing his progressive intentions for a second term: to defend the aims of the entitlement state, to take on climate-change deniers, to promote gay rights and equal pay for women, to extract the country from ‘perpetual war’ and instead refashion America’s reputation at home and overseas as a ‘source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice.” – JOHN F. HARRIS and JONATHAN MARTIN

David Remnick describes the speech well too . . .

DAVID REMNICK, editor of The New Yorker : “Obama’s speech was infinitely better, more self-assured, more politically precise than his first. This was Barack Obama without apology — a liberal emboldened by political victory and a desire to enter the history books with a progressive agenda. … Gone is the primacy of compromise, which marked Obama’s days as president of the Harvard Law Review and even his first years in office. He no longer seems determined to transcend ideology or partisanship; experience has led him toward an engagement with politics in a tougher, clearer way. … There were countless touchstones of this clear liberal agenda: the association of the 1969 Stonewall demonstrations with the 1965 black-freedom march in Selma and the 1848 women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York …

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(Community Matters)

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50139454n

(Community Matters) “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.” – Pres Obama

“Mentioning Stonewall in the same breath as Selma moves us beyond the era of gay rights as special pleading and into the era of full gay integration,” says Jonathan Rauch, a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and author of a book about gay marriage. “The fact that he made the theme so prominent tells me that he sees gay equality as a major legacy item, which it will be. He’s gays’ LBJ.”

(Community Matters)

Happy Birthday, Tana

good gosh, just realizing Molly is her spitting image

(Community Matters) Absolutely no corroboration, nevertheless concerning: reports Marine General James Mattis being rushed out of position for challenging civilian national security leadership in Iran scenario planning

The White House view, apparently, is that Mattis was too hawkish, which is not something I believe, having seen him in the field over the years. I’d call him a tough-minded realist, someone who’d rather have tea with you than shoot you, but is happy to end the conversation either way.

CIVIL-MILITARY SIGNALS: The message the Obama Administration is sending, intentionally or not, is that it doesn’t like tough, smart, skeptical generals who speak candidly to their civilian superiors. In fact, that is exactly what it (and every administration) should want. Had we had more back in 2003, we might not have made the colossal mistake of invading Iraq.

Follow up from Foreign Policy

(Community Matters) Good wishes to all our dear friends at the inauguration. I’m going to enjoy it from the warmth of home, while someone new gets to have the spectacular experience in our places.

Remembering 4 years ago when it was way too cold and still such great fun. Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, the inauguration, a unique view. Sending best wishes to our President, his family and the entire administration.