Happy St. Patrick's Day!

xoxo!

Rail transit and what is physically possible

I have written posts in the past that reflect my admiration for John Kain's work in transportation economics.  He is known, among other things, for training legions of students: "bus good, trains bad."

In general, buses are cheaper and much more flexible to operate than trains.  But a visit to Bangalore made me wonder if it can really thrive as a city without a metro system (which it is currently in the process of building).  Bangalore is very dense and the streets are, for the most part, very narrow.  Congestion is already terrible, and is composed mostly of auto-rickshaws, motorcycles, and scooters. The city already has many buses, that move dreadfully slowly.  To get from the airport into the business district, a distance of 40 kilometers, takes a minimum of 90 minutes.

People who know these things better than I have told me metro systems are never cost effective.  In this particular case, however, I can't help but wonder.

James, Age 2 (A Photo Word Collage)

I used Picasa to edit this photo.  Picasa is a free photo editing software that is very user-friendly.  

After uploading the photo, you click on "Text" 

Then you can chose your font (whatever fonts you have on your computer), move them around, make them bigger or smaller, and choose what color you want to use.  Then just hit "Apply" and save the picture.

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"Green Jobs" will be real, but invisible

John Whitehead quotes Joe Romm:

Last week economist William Nordhaus slammed global warming deniersand explained that the cost of delaying action is $4 Trillion. As I wrote, Nordhaus’s blunt piece — “Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong” – is worth reading because, like most mainstream climate economists, he is no climate hawk. 

Those costs are real.  Those costs shift the supply curve for stuff in.  Those costs reduce employment.  So "Green Jobs" are largely not those building windmills and solar panels (the total number of these jobs will be small relative to the economy).  "Green Jobs" will be the jobs saved from cost reductions associated with reduced greenhouse gases.  This is why good environmental policy is also good economic policy.

(h/t Mark Thoma)

DIY {Paint Chip Art}

What began as a Valentine craft project turned into a broader crafty art idea.  Does that happen to you?  You start out with one goal in mind and then once you get into it, the project takes a different direction?  Originally, I collected paint chip samples in varying shades of pink and used a Martha Stewart heart punch to cut out a bunch of hearts that I planned on attaching to a single square canvas.  Since Valentine's day is all about love, I thought it would be cute to hang some hearts in our kitchen or entryway.

Then I got carried away . . . 

I ended up collecting all colors of the rainbow and punching out hearts in all of them.  The punching is easy (and quite addictive), taking just a few minutes to punch out a gazillion. And since I had more canvases, I spread them out onto four squares.

To give the art dimension, I used adhesive foam circles to affix the hearts to the canvas.  I just eyeballed the placement of the hearts and tried to keep the lines straight.  

There are 90 hearts on each canvas.  It took about 2 hours to stick 360 hearts onto these canvases.  

Then I had to figure out where to put them.  James' room? Too much on the walls already.  The hallway?  No.  But my office happily welcomed them!

Who says hearts are only for Valentine's Day?!

I'm sharing this post at Somewhat Simple.

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Why owning a house may not be the American Dream

Lots of societies outside of America seem to have a preference for home-ownership. I have spoken to policy makers and scholars in several countries--India, Bangladesh, South Africa, Peru--about the importance of a well functioning rental sector.  Rental housing allows for mobility, and for people to use savings to invest in such things as small businesses.  Rental housing is also a way for small entrepreneurs to earn a return on investment.

Yet everywhere I go, I am told that people don't want to rent, they want to own.  The principal reason seems to be security of tenure; in places where enforcement of contracts remains an issue, fear of abuse by landlords sours people on renting as an option.  And so it is that people want to be owners.

Many countries in Western Europe--Germany and Switzerland in particular--do not have fetishes about homeownership.  But tenant protections in these countries are strong (see this piece on Germany and this piece on security of tenure beyond lease terms in Switzerland), so renting is sort of "owning-light" in these countries.  

DIY (Scrabble Word Art)

I think a lot about my home.  As in, "Where can I find the perfectly sized bench to go at the end of our bed?  One that is upholstered in the right colored fabric and has legs, so that it's not too bulky, but isn't as expensive as the Crate & Barrel Colette Bench I've been coveting?  One that isn't too short and fits the size of the bed nicely."  I can get so wrapped up in searching for the perfect item for our home that I have to slow down and remind myself that the main point is,  "How do I want this house to feel?" 

It really doesn't matter how my home looks if it isn't comfortable or doesn't emanate warmth and love.   I want James to recall the home of his youth as a safe, fun place where love was bountiful.  This is also the reason I've been making such an effort to cook more, because cooking and preparing meals to serve to others is a way of showing love.  And I thoroughly enjoy how the house smells when something yummy is brewing.  Those are the smells I want my son to recall.  And hopefully, when he's older, he'll have no memory of a time when mama didn't cook.  He'll just know that mama makes the best _____.  We're still working on that part:)  Even if he only wants to eat rice and beans, night after night, for dinner now. 

I love it when friends drop by for a quick visit and end up lounging around, forgetting about what time it is and sitting and relaxing for a leisurely while.  

I love to watch kids playing and hear them giggling with delight.

I made a simple welcome sign out of Scrabble letters and placed it near our home's entryway, as a message to everyone who enters our home.  I hope you feel welcome and comfortable here. And visit often.   

I used red nail polish to paint the heart. 

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