Apartment Watch: A Single Tick Up

In these alliterative economic times, with the "credit crunch" and the "mortgage mess" blanketing the news, prices in Manhattan are finally coming down. Slowly. Very slowly.

It took an "economic earthquake" and a "bank bust" to make it happen. Yet in these "terrible times," there is a little "buyer's bright spot."

The Little Studio That Could increased its asking price from $275K to $300K. That little studio is in 96 Schermerhorn in Downtown Brooklyn, a building that I have a soft spot for.

Bravo, seller, bravo! As the only price increase in any of the apartments I have been watching, I must applaud the move. I mentioned the apartment was underpriced in my post a few weeks ago.

If it were any other apartment, I would be shocked at the gall, my perpetual state since 2005. Since Brooklyn has more gall than Manhattan, the ride down might be even slower on the other side of the bridge.

Pundits are calling this a buyer's market, but I don't know too many people buying. And what is going to happen to the New York market when there ain't no money to be borrowed?

The Amazing Race 13 Debut

The makeup of the eleven teams vying for the million dollar prize on this season's The Amazing Race offered few surprises. Notable exception: the long-maned, white-haired, hippie beekeepers.

Filling some of the predictable roles are the bickering couple (Ken and Tina), the Blondes (Marisa and Brooke), the newly-dating couple (Terence and Sarah), and the long-distance dating couple (Aja and Ty).

Ken and Tina, the bickering couple, are married but separated due to Ken's infidelity. I shifted my sympathies to Ken as Tina blamed him for everything and gave him credit for nothing on this race's first leg where teams should be the least tense.

This season's blondes don't have the energy or personality of previous blonde teams. The geeks (Mark and Bill) are going to be stronger competitors than you think. The frat boys (Andrew and Dan) are less fratty than you expect.

Terence and Sarah promise the most unpredictability of the racing teams. They seemed nice and normal in the intro; their opposite personality types acknowledged. But they have something major in common--they are both pyscho, but in opposite ways. Sarah tries to make friends with everyone, (sounds normal, right?) but then is instantly angry when one of the racers doesn't acknowledge a comment she made. The comment didn't appear to be aimed at anyone. Terence, who wears a faux-hawk and was id'd as a free spirit is wound tighter than a bedspring.

The beekeepers were the first to be eliminated, before I got a chance to see their faces. Their sweet farewell made me sorry to see them go so soon.

Oh, did I mention the racers went to Brazil?

Jane Goodall's Harvest for Hope

In her 2005 book subtitled "A Guide for Mindful Eating", Jane Goodall proves she is more than just the chimp lady.

Goodall's lifelong study of chimpanzee behavior naturally led to her concern about their habitat and their dwindling population. The logging trade and the raising of cattle are causing the disappearance of the chimp's forest habitat. The bushmeat trade is causing the chimp's potential extinction. Chimpanzee meat is a delicacy in parts of the world. Imagine browsing in an African market and pawing through severed chimpanzee hands to find your dinner.

Gentle Jane's early chapters start with easy talk about animal diets and differences in human diets around the world. The reader is lulled by a seemingly basic primer on animals and diet. Chapter 2, "A Celebration of Cultures," is a happy chapter indeed.

Then Jane packs her punch.

Our happy, indulgent cultures encourage businesses to pesticide-proof crops with chemicals. As added bonus, we eat the chemicals too. Plus, we get bigger, stronger crop-eating pests. So now, companies like Monsanto, are modifying the DNA of the crops themselves.

Our lifestyles have also brought about the horrors of factory farms, the modern-day replacement of family farms. You don't need to accept that animals have souls, just that they suffer, to recoil at the treatment of the cows, pigs and chickens in these assembly-line hell-houses.

Chickens are crammed together so they can't stretch their wings, starved and denied water when egg production is down. Cows are branded, castrated, wallow in feces. Tailless pigs are shot up with growth hormones and weakened by lack of exercise. Sometimes their tiny legs break trying to carry their own weight off to slaughter.

If you are callous enough to not care about the animals' suffering, you might care that you and your family eat all the hormones and antibiotics the animals are injected with. (We've learned the consequences of too much antibiotics: super-bugs.)

Jane recalls the farms she knew as a child, where animals were loved and roamed free. Crops were rotated so that the soil remains fertile. These farms were compact ecosystems that worked without wearing out the land.

Jane's message: if you are going to eat meat, eat small-farm, local and organic. Better yet, don't eat meat and let people eat the grain that feeds the livestock.

Can you handle that? If not, then you won't know what hit you when the water crisis lurking around the corner appears.