Academic Rants

 It has been a while since I've written.  Last time I was excited by the prospects of Congestion Pricing. This is no longer true. As the plans have developed, they have revealed a great deal of financial inequities for the residents of New Jersey and may create environmental problems for those living in Bergen County, Harlem, Washington Heights and University Heights in the Bronx. At the same time, I've been saddened by the global events. Actually traumatized. I feel that the world is upside down. I'm frustrated by the politics of war. Most notably those in Gaza and Israel. Too many innocent people have been killed. Any hope for peace have been dashed, and the dreams of a two-state solution fade further from our imaginations.   And while the rules of war have not been observed in the Middle East or Ukraine, they have also not been observed in the African conflicts that the mainstream press has ignored. Thousands have also been killed in Congo and South Sudan. Additio...

 Once again America is rocked by a Supreme Court decision, one that isn't really a decision based on legal precedents. The politics of race and class as well as personal agendas encouraged six members of the court to vote against the policies of the University of North Carolina and Harvard University.  Since its introduction Affirmative Action has been problematic. However, if equality had been achieved, it would not have been needed. Sadly, we are rehashing an old story. American history was not on trial. But it should be. Centuries of discrimination, attempts at remedies and then backlashes failed to convince the Court that a better solution was needed. The United States refused to blame itself for crafting weak or faulty judgements since the Regents of the University of California v. Allan Bakke in 1978. In contrast to the previous cases, especially the 2003 University of Michigan cases, when the court attempted to define Affirmative Action, this has been a watershed moment...

New York City is the nation's most populated city. However, it is not regarded as a "car city", but rather the American standard of "working mass transit." Unfortunately working mass transit, or at least the American model, has numerous flaws that have been exposed by COVID-19. Currently, the consumer-based models of mass transit are hemorrhaging as many Americans have not returned to work on a regular or daily basis. Center cities now deserted due to remote plans fail to have the numbers needed to keep transit systems out of the red. And as mass transit fails, other parts of the urban economy will also fail. Occupancy in malls, offices and other retail spaces will continue to decrease unless people are pushed back to center city business districts. While San Francisco represents one extreme of the failure of the center city, Manhattan represents another.  Although the density of New York City, particularly Manhattan, will not turn mid-town into a ghost town, an...

 A year ago, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars and instantly set the world on fire. Since then lots of people have weighed in with their opinions on the actions of both men and how it affected intra-racial race relations, gender relations, and the state of American politics. Months later Kanye West engaged in a series of actions and statements that equally launched more opinions than the global population. In both cases, questions ultimately focused on traditional American behaviors, the things that your parents taught you never to do or say in public. True to form, it did not take long for someone to respond to defend the offender. And suddenly, the person lending a hand to the offender was subject to the same or even greater levels of scrutiny.  Lessons learned from these two incidents is that American society can be forgiving or unforgiving, not depending on the offense, but on the manipulation of the offense. I can say or do the most heinous things and get away w...