Windy?

I went out shopping on the Drive today and had trouble making my way against the extraordinary wind.  If you have ever been to Skagway, you’ll understand why I thought I was back there!

Charleston, West Virginia

A skyscraper and the sky in Charleston, WV.

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Palms

In remembrance of summers in Hawai’i.

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Na Pali Coast

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Na Pali Coast

Being Middle Class Bites

Just a few days ago we were discussing the period between the World Wars when the middle class lost their live-in servants.  Now, the economic crunch is forcing the middle class to let go their daily staff, too.

In September, Cathy DeVore, a real estate agent in Larchmont, N.Y., whose business has been at a standstill lately, began taking gradual steps to lay off her longtime nanny and housekeeper … “I was worried about having to cut her back more,” Mrs. DeVore said. “In October I started a no-overtime policy; in November I told her that as of Jan. 1, I am cutting her back to 20 hours a week, and that as of June 30, I probably won’t need her at all.”

Domestic Workers United estimates there are more than 200,000 nannies, housekeepers, personal chefs and other domestic workers employed in the New York metropolitan area alone.

Ai-jen Poo, an organizer at Domestic Workers United, [said] “domestic workers’ wages are often the first thing that gets compromised … Essentially, 10,000 jobs lost at Lehman Brothers means 10,000 domestic workers’ jobs that are in jeopardy.”

If they can find another job, the wages may well have been cut.

Jaime Hochhauser, who runs the Right Staff, an agency that places nannies and housekeepers with families throughout the tri-state area, said the compensation being offered right now is about 20 percent less than it was six months ago, a decrease that’s consistent “even among the wealthiest clients” … Employers are also combining positions, asking for nannies who will watch their children and do the cleaning, for example, or switching from three days a week of help to just one, according to Ms. Hochhauser and several other agency owners.

The New York Times piece stresses just how hard this is for the middle class employer; the angst they suffer, etc.   I think their main anguish is about losing their last tiny grip on the coat-tails of the super-rich — those who, today, really are the only ones who can afford service of any kind.

The Other Side Of Progress

As many of us, regardless of our political stance, cherish the success of Barack Obama and the national mental breakthrough it represents, others have reverted to primitive stereotypes.   The Los Angeles Times reports that just a month after his election,

[N]oose hangings, racist graffiti and death threats have struck dozens of towns across the country. More than 200 such incidents — including cross burnings, assassination betting pools and effigies of President-elect Barack Obama — have been reported, according to law enforcement authorities and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.  Racist websites have been boasting that their servers have been crashing because of an exponential increase in traffic.  And America’s most potent symbol of racial hatred, the Ku Klux Klan, is reasserting itself in a spate of recent violence, after decades of disorganization and obscurity …

“We’ve seen everything from cross burnings on lawns of interracial couples to effigies of Obama hanging from nooses to unpleasant exchanges in schoolyards,” said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Montgomery, Ala. “I think we’re in a worrying situation right now, a perfect storm of conditions coming together that could easily favor the continued growth of these groups.”   Experts attribute the racist activity to factors including the rapidly worsening economic crisis; trends indicating that within a generation whites will not comprise a U.S. majority; and the impending arrival of a black family in the White House …

“The rhetoric right now is just about out of control,” said Brian Levin, director of Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. “When you get this depth of hatred, it usually is the smoke before the fire.”

One white supremacist leader, describing himself as moderate, professes alarm.

“There is a tremendous backlash” to Obama’s election, said Richard Barrett, the leader of the Nationalist Movement in Learned, Miss. “My focus is to try to keep it peaceful. But many people look at the flag of the Republic of New Africa that will be hoisted over the White House as an act of war.”

The reaction is shown in acts both big and small.

In the small Louisiana town of Angie, 58-year-old Judy Robinson put an Obama sign outside her home a few weeks before the Nov. 4 presidential election. The morning after Halloween, she awoke to find the words “KKK” and “white power” spray-painted around her yard …

Late last month, two men with ties to a notoriously violent Klan chapter in Kentucky were charged in a bizarre plot to kill 88 black students and then decapitate an additional 14 students — and then assassinate Obama by shooting him from a speeding car while wearing white tuxedos and top hats.

Let us hope that these kind of acts stay as the drunken antics of a few uneducated bigots.  But I’ve lived through the assasinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, gunned down by people of similar backgrounds, and I really have to wonder if Obama will survive his term.

Hard To Believe …

… in this challenging financial environment that anyone is seriously contemplating spending $65million for an 8,000 square foot condo — even if it does have the finest views in New York.

The penthouse at 25 Columbus Circle atop the Time Warner Center

features 14 ft. ceilings throughout, elegant and dramatic entertaining space and warm and inviting private sanctuaries. A master bedroom suite encompasses an office, his and her dressing rooms, gym and his and her bathrooms. The 41 ft.-long living room with floor to ceiling windows has the most incredible view of Manhattan. The red lacquered corner library/office also commands a special place of solitude in this apartment. A full dining room with views of the Hudson River is a room of understated luxury. A chef’s kitchen and pantry, a full laundry center, four full bedrooms with en-suite baths and a screening room, round out this amazing property.   25 Columbus Circle represents the ultimate in five-star living and dining, pampering its residents with a complete array of luxury amenities: from a white glove concierge service, access to the gym, spa and pool of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, private screening room and a discrete basement garage, to the outdoor roof deck, children’s playroom, board room with Park views, private storage and ballroom.

$65 million for white-gloved concierge service — you got me right there.  My check’s in the mail.

The Wonders of Advertising Technology

This story is from WCBSTV in New York:

New York’s transit agency is testing digital advertising screens on the sides of buses.  The screens can target ads for specific neighborhoods. The ads, which resemble TV commercials, could even advertise coffee in the morning, and beer after work.  Titan Worldwide has a 10-year, $800 million contract to sell ads throughout the city’s bus and commuter-train systems. The company says GPS technology allows it to change the ads based on the buses’ locations.   The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is testing the system on a Manhattan route, with an eye toward 200 buses in the first quarter of next year.

Upwardly Mobile

What image comes to mind when you think of “mobile homes” and “trailer parks”?  I bet it is not this:

Or this:

And I bet the $1 million price tag doesn’t match the sterotype, either.

This is the view from the Paradise Cove mobile home park in Malibu, California.  Pretty neat.

These images come from a fascinating Los Angeles Times slide show study of the Malibu areas of Paradise Cove and Point Dume Club. The areas feature many double-wide and manufactured homes.

And why not?  Every home is manufactured, of course.  Take a look at the cookie cutter houses in the average North American suburban sub-division; and prefab houses were a popular option in the early part of the last century.

Trailer parks on the edge of our cities that look like shanty towns should no more influence our overall opinion of mobile homes than say, inner city slums should influence our views of mansions.  There is no intrinsic difference that I can recognize.

So, it comes down — as it always does — to location, money, money, and location.

Philadelphia I

Larger version available here.

Trees Near Hilo

The Lobby of the Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas