Trouble in Old Town

 Several shops in Old Town have been seriously vandalized.  

Security cameras have been installed and the APD has promised to step up patrols in the area.  That will likely cut down on some of the vandalism and burglaries.  Mostly, though, those measures along with locking up a few more miscreants will just move the problem to some other neighborhood.

The old car guys who display their creations on Friday mornings are unfazed by the crime wave.  Their assets are on wheels and they are taken home at noon.

Worthwhile Reading

The prices of most magazines has soared over the past few years.  I never buy any from newsstands or bookstores.  I am, however, able to follow a couple I like through online access provided by the Albuquerque Public Library.  One of those is The New York Review of Books.  The January 18, 2024 issue had a particularly good review by sociologist, Matthew Desmond, of three books about Tools to End the Poverty Pandemic.

Desmond describes some pretty amazing economic outcomes that accompanied the Covid pandemic which were overlooked by many of us who were focused on our own vulnerabilities at the time, and which have now been largely swept aside by other concerns of the moment.  The opening lines of the review provide a good summary of the messages of the three books:

"In normal times, the United States stands out among advanced democracies for its high levels of poverty and its low levels of aid. In 2019, right before Covid struck, America’s relative child poverty rate resembled that of Mexico or Bulgaria. Then, during the pandemic, the federal government enacted three enormous and historic relief bills. These reduced child poverty by an astonishing 57.5 percent, more than doubling the government’s typical impact and suddenly placing the United States alongside Germany and Switzerland on this score..."