Blog By Ed Kent: March 2009

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

According to Andrea Mitchell a few minutes ago major outreach messages have been sent to Obama by both Russia and Iran and the U.S. has rushed a major diplomat over to confer in advance of Obama's arrival in London.

Let's hope. All nations are now under economic pressures that make cooperation efforts a likelihood.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]According to Andrea
--http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Monday, March 30, 2009

Walking a Tightrope

President Obama is in for the most delicate (and critical) week of his brief presidency. Persuading a number of resistant powers to join his efforts to restore our global economy and to resist Al Qaeda on the borders of Pakistan/Afghanistan will be no easy task. Our stock has not been lower in world opinion since the era of Wilson in his dotage and there are local pragmatic reasons for many nations not to join our efforts.

Some things to hope for:

1) that Obama will be able to make clear the fact that we are resisting the mad fringe of Islamic terror and not Islam entire. I don't think Hillary's impulse towards nation building on the American model is the way to go. The Middle Eastern nations need to solve their problems in their own ways. We can't hope to succeed in imposing our ours on them. Iraq may have to split up its artificial unity to achieve relative peace there. Our military presence is simply a goad to those supported by Al Qaeda.

2) that some beginnings may be made to restore American financial intentions from our recent global Ponzi game approach to others -- no easy task.

We shall see -- and wish Obama the best. I think the world does view him as decent guy -- some change from what we have had.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Saturday, March 28, 2009

How to Cope with a Scam

We are all bombarded daily with scam operations offering monies, asking info on some bank account, credit card or whatever. We found ourselves being hit with what looked like such with a more aggressive approach: phone calls and a letter from "Finders Keepers." What was particularly gross about the letter was a first page claiming to have found a resource belonging to us which would sent on -- minus a 10% finders fee for Finders Keepers. We need only send in the form with info on a second page which authorized Finders to have sent to it a check for ANY resource it finds belonging to us (which it would forward minus 10%). I suppose that might include a tax refund or whatever?

So I set out to get this off to our Attorney General's office. The NYC information number (311) could not provide it and recommended our local police precinct. They in turn could not steer us to the AG, but said we should come in and report to them. Finally I discovered a number which I did not know existed -- 411 -- and it gave me the AG # for Manhattan which I called and explained my suspicions. They gave me the AG fax # -- 212-416-8787 -- to which I sent Finders Keepers which they promised would be read by a specialist who would call me back. That was late Friday and I have not yet had a response. Will report on it when it
comes.

Ed Kent

P.S. Google produces Finders as such:

Finders Keepers

Not Rated Not Rated | Write a Review
475 Crown Street,
Brooklyn, NY 11225
(718) 774-3913
(718) 504-7631 Fax
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Bad News Again and Again and Again

The news has been so bad of late that I was going to do a category breakdown to distract myself -- disaster, horror, abuse, etc., etc. But it was too depressing to keep it up. Then I began to realize that behind the bad news may lie some positive outcomes. Perhaps the destruction of our economy by the greedies will wake us up to the grim gaps between the super wealthy and the rest of us? Maybe recognition by Israel of the horror of its slaughter and brutal captivity of Gaza may shake Israelis back into humane sanity? Reaching out beyond our various wars to out fellow humanity . . . ?

I generally hate the silver cloud mentality, but perhaps . . . ?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Monday, March 16, 2009

Two Angry Men

I was startled yesterday to hear the anger of Charles Freeman as he spoke on Fareed Zakaria's CNN program to Israel's manipulation of U.S. policy and Ben Bernanke as he expressed his outrage at the gross theft from the public interest of such as AIG on 60 Minutes. It is unusual for people in such positions to speak out let alone as candidly as each did.

I wonder what wider coverage the statements of each will receive? There is a serious risk of them being blocked by our pols and media.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Blowing Things Up #2

I guess we have all had the experience of credit card outfits playing games with us -- particularly raising interest rates for no good reason except that they figure they have us hooked for a time.

The first time that this happened to us we happened to be in the midst of refinancing and paying off a mortgage and some credit cards. We had been using the latter heavily during this process. POW -- just as we paid off the credit cards we got notice from them that they had doubled their interest -- ha, ha to them. As I recall they were MBNA and Bank America. We try now to use only one card and keep in reserve one from my union in case the primary one gets lost and has to be replaced.

POW again. Chase had several weeks ago offered to transfer funds at no cost. We decided to take advantage of this to assist a family member stuck with a massive interest rate -- one of those former college students now wrestling with the college loan residuum.

No sooner than we had set up the arrangement than a notice came that our interest rate had now been doubled -- so much for their good deal.

Will now figure out what to do with this one when we have time.

Ed Kent

........................................

**Loan Sharks* *

Sanders proposed legislation to cap interest rates on credit cards.
Banks that have taken the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history,
the senator said, should not be allowed to slap consumers with rates
up to 30 percent. To watch him talk about loan sharks in three-piece
suits, click here

*- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Friday, March 13, 2009

Has anyone in Israel asked why the Swedes hate us?

Blowing Things Up?

I can imagine the rage that leads people to seek revenge in terrible ways. I occasionally have the impulse to blow up something in response to such horrors as the abuse of our students by the college loan crooks, a report on which I viewed last night. Needless to say I divert this simplistic attack mode to constructive alternatives such as writing this blog -- as a retired college teacher and parent I am all too aware of the vicious means used to pry monies out of some of our most vulnerable.

However, my thoughts moved on in another direction as I recollected the force of a blast that one has set off -- I was an assistant to a blaster in a construction job once upon a time -- and I am horrified at the thought of such brutal force being directed at persons. Then I realized that our guys at war are facing such things daily and no wonder their breakdowns on returning home to live with such memories.

The only good thing I can say about the the NRA is that it has redirected impulses to kill others or oneself to modest weapons relatively limited in effects (those mass killings that are halted after a dozen or less gun killings and woundings).

If such a person had had the training I had, the damage could be massive -- remember Timothy McVeigh!

But there should be something that we can do with the Sallie Mae and other loan sharks who are ripping off us and our students?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Good Medicine and Bad

Those of us who have have been around long enough have learned that there are good doctors and bad. The former are usually arrogant, incompetent, or learners -- all of whom make mistakes. My original example of the first was a doctor who prescribed a pain medication that was actually inducing pain (stomach) and finally my wife got help from another who went ballistic over the error that had put me in his hospital. I have also suffered a bit at the hands of beginners. Everyone has to learn. But one probably cost me the vision in one eye!

The good news, however, is that there are many able and deeply caring doctors that one can find to handle whatever. Our primary doctor is such and I would mention his name except that he is already overburdened with patients. I am particularly conscious of medicine these days in retirement because we are spending much of our time getting things repaired or keeping them going. I recently reported my pleasure with having my sight restored in my one good eye by a caring and able eye specialist.

My hope is that all Americans and other fellow humans may have the good fortune that is ours. Needless to say we need to catch up with the rest of the developed nations by getting single payer medicine in place and the hands of the greedies out of our pockets. It looks as though Obama is steering us in that direction bit by bit. Let us hope.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Private Money Cannot Provide Affordable Housing!!!

Back in the Truman/Eisenhower era the usual type of debate between Democrats and Republicans was waged over whether affordable housing should be funded by public revenues. Robert A. Taft, Republican Majority Leader of the Senate, supported the basic conservative positions -- with several notable exceptions. Originally opposed to public expenditures for low income housing, Taft tried to prove that private investment could do it by laying out much of the Taft family funds for it -- at a tremendous loss. Taft was converted and threw his weight behind public housing (and also Social Security). A public housing project in upper Harlem is named for him.

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Robert_A._Taft

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/developments/mantaft.shtml

Needless to say today various schemes are put forth as provisions for low cost housing, but are but a drop in the bucket for our increasing housing needs in the face of the legions of our homeless. We need a new Taft to replace our current enemies of public housing such as NYC's Mayor Bloomberg.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Working Six Feet from Queen Elizabeth

In this era of job scarcity I wonder whether college students may benefit as did my generation in the 1950s from the diversity of jobs that we explored both summers and during our academic years -- whether or not we needed to earn monies. I have greatly appreciated the human realities that I learned on these jobs ranging from journalism and building things, working in factories or on railroads, timbering, tutoring, butlering (for unpleasant folks), teaching swimming, sailing, and dumping latrines, sorting military parts and other junk for a major scrap metal firm. And then there were the jobs I did not get -- modeling in an Oxford art school (could not hold a pose for at least 15 minutes as my mind wondered).

The virtues of the range of jobs that we undertook such as tramp steamer treks, oil wells, and the more dangerous ones -- nearly lost it twice in situations that killed fellow workers. Got injured and learned the virtues of other nations' medical systems (e.g. Britain that patched my face and mended a thumb wrenched out of joint when watering down the fish car from London -- no charge and excellent service and a woman doctor who visited us at home with pneumonia and urged us to quit smoking).

Perhaps most valuable were the human links to guys unlike myself -- buddies in the States and mates in Britain. Driving for a noted clergyman introduced me to every thing from notable homes and their residents to the trenches in Belgium which we visited where he had been a chaplain -- the endless fields of grave stones made one aware of the terrible costs of war.

My life would have been far different had I merely been an honors philosophy major and college teacher -- the joys, loves, angers and understandings of so many things as they really are.

And Elizabeth? Periodically in the dark of night her train would rush through Oxford station where I was a heavy freight porter to the north country which she loves. We would be warned a few minutes in advance not to lug one of our heavy wagons across the tracks until she had passed by. This was important. Two of my mates were killed by a late night train a few weeks after I quit that job.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

"The City Does Not Want to Own Housing."

Such were the words of NYC's Mayor Bloomberg on a local TV station a few minutes ago and an explanation as to why we have had virtually no affordable city housing made available to those needing it in recent decades.

When we were grad students my wife an I were invited to move into a Harlem public housing project as part of a program to desegregate it. We loved our home -- Apt. 14G, 430 W. 125th St. -- and only departed under the orders of my first academic employer in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

I was at the time working with neighborhood kids and saw the vast difference in the lives of those in the projects and the tenements across the street (subsequently replaced). The former lived safely and could learn in school. The latter faced violence and disruption which made their lives hell.

We earned our place in the project by becoming active on behalf of our neighbors, e.g. learning where to call on a Friday evening to get our elevators repaired in our 21 floor building when both had died -- with repairs previously delayed until the office reopened Monday a.m. Lyn had been overwhelmingly elected to our Democratic County Committee by our building residents by the time we departed.

In contrast today the only "affordable housing" seems to be the product of deals between the city and real estate developers who will offer a few apartments in a building in return for huge tax breaks and city loans behind the scenes. Such is the practice of Bloomberg and buddies and presumably the rationale for his opposition to programs which would put to use the thousands of unsold or rented units accumulating with our current financial bust.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Beware Drug Company Abuses

One of the rare disagreements that I have had with our marvelous primary doctor has been the hazards of Lipitor which is given hard sells on TV and even in medical journal articles sponsored by its producing drug company. The stuff can greatly harm a few people, but apparently also causes deep fatigue in a far wider range of elders.

The article below reports the quandary at the Harvard Medical School over the conflict of interest between teaching there and individuals paid variously by drug companies about whose drugs they are teaching. The New England Journal of Medicine recently announced that it would no longer publish articles sponsored by drug companies. They had just previously published one sponsored by the producers of Lipitor and advised by six employees of the company, Pfizer, which also produces Viagra, its other big money maker.

Hopefully regulation of such drug companies will begin to occur with the Obama new Health Department team. Needless to say under-regulation of health is but one of the many hazards that has been besetting us is so many areas.

Ed Kent

..................

Harvard Medical School in Ethics Quandary
By DUFF WILSON
More than 200 Harvard Medical School students and
sympathetic faculty are intent on exposing and curtailing
the industry influence in their classrooms and laboratories.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/business/03medschool.html?th&emc=th

..................
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Monday, March 02, 2009

Ending Draconian Sentences

Let us hope for the best here. Among other things it costs far more to hold people in prison than a first class college education or job training.

Ed Kent

..................

As Hard Times Loom, Will New York's Streets Get Meaner?
By AL BAKER
With New York City's economy on the decline, one has to
ask: Is the crime rate likely to return to the bad old days?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/nyregion/01crime.html?th&emc=th

..................
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Important Preservation Article on Morningside Heights

Robin Pogrebin (below) has done an excellent NY Times Arts section article today on the struggle between institutions (particularly Columbia) versus residents and preservationists to preserve the historic structures and spaces of Morningside Heights. Lyn (Carolyn) Kent, a founder of the Morningside Heights Historic District Committee, is quoted as is a report that she recently drafted. In the light of its announced intent to take over the north grounds of the Cathedral to build new buildings (blocking views of it), its plan to destroy three of the early residences on 115th St. west of Morningside Drive, and the ugly structure it is rising at the north west corner of its main campus, the claim of a Columbia rep that it can be trusted in such matters, may be taken with a grain of salt. Ed Kent

..................

Fighting On to Preserve Morningside Heights
By ROBIN POGREBIN
The city landmarks agency has yet to be convinced that
Morningside Heights is worthy of protection.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/arts/design/02heights.html?th&emc=th

..................
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Name: Ed Kent

Location: New York, New York, United States

As of 2007, I have ended formal teaching of philosophy -- social/political/legal -- and a couple of courses in religion and one in psychology as well -- at Vassar College, Duchess Community College, Hunter, CCNY, Barnard, Columbia and finally Brooklyn where I spent the bulk of my teaching career. I am now reverting to some careers explored along the way -- journalism (wrote for Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and Architectural Forum as an undergraduate and also Chaired the Yale Daily News). Following studies in Britain as a teen exchange student, I thought of joining the Foreign Service and maintained a lifetime interest in the rule of law and human rights standards. Living in Manhattan, I am enjoying engaging in local politics, too. Currently I am assisting my wife in challenging a Columbia University extension into lower West Harlem -- we have both lived and worked in Harlem and have many friends there. I manage several Yahoo groups that are listed in my signature which reflect some of my other active interests. Have many wonderful email friends scattered around the globe with whom I communicate daily.

View my complete profile

Blog By Ed Kent