More chicken

-- February 4, 2011

Someone stole her chicken. Stolen from a yard in Bed-Stuy, one of the last neighborhoods in New York to be gentrified. It's still  poor and  black, but with real estate values catching their breath, it, too, will soon be a rich neighborhood. The chicken's owner is an optimistic young urban pioneer, a white woman who keeps some chickens for eggs in her front yard (and knowingly complains about gentrification). She was bereft. But then someone returned the chicken, and she and her neighbors were jubilant. It heart-warming in one way, but ghastly saccarine at the same time. There's a note at the bottom that another version of this story ran earlier, which means that it was rescued from insignificance by some editor somewhere in the organization. No matter what else is happening in the world, this editor had to argue, no solipsism is too small to enchant a yuppie heart.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/garden/03domestic.html

And about the rest of the world, it's maybe, maybe not.

Here's a story from the streets of Cairo where stray observations lead to the conclusion that decentralization may be a strength or may be a liability for the movement.

"For now, supporters say, the decentralized structure is the movement’s great strength, but it may also be a looming liability in the face of a government with deep experience in crushing opposition groups."

Always a fan of facts, I'm always leery of facile conclusions and annoyed by ones that are so heavily hedged.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/world/middleeast/04opposition.html

I started reading the opinion pieces. Kristof and Cohen were on the pavement in Cairo and turning literary, cheering democracy on. Besides being interchangable with each other and with those of countless other reporters running around, they seem hopelessly lost in a forest full of trees.

But it would've been grossly unfair not to point out that Tim Egan, who stays home, sounds smart. American policy does not control world events, and democracy, whatever it means in all the world's cultures, is not the inevitable rainbow to follow the storm. This is perspective. Not fortune telling.  Nice work.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/bonfire-of-american-vanities