Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

The following is the complete text of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s inaugural address, as prepared for delivery.

Thank you, President Clinton, for your kind words. It was an honor to serve in your administration, and we’re all honored by your presence. I have to note that, over 20 years ago, when a conservative philosophy seemed dominant, you broke through – and told us to still believe in a place called Hope.

Thank you, Secretary Clinton. I was inspired by the time I spent on your first campaign. Your groundbreaking commitment to nurturing our children and families manifested itself in a phrase that is now a part of our American culture – and something we believe in deeply in this city. It Takes A Village.

Thank you, Reverend Fred Lucas Jr., Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, Monsignor Robert Romano, and Imam Askia Muhammad for your words of prayer.

Thank you, Governor Cuomo. Working with you at HUD, I saw how big ideas can overcome big obstacles. And it will be my honor to serve shoulder-to-shoulder with you again.

Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg. To say the least, you led our city through some extremely difficult times. And for that, we are all grateful. Your passion on issues such as environmental protection and public health has built a noble legacy. We pledge today to continue that great progress you made in these critically important areas. Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg.

Thank you, Mayor Dinkins, for starting us on the road to a safer city, and for always uplifting our young people – and I must say personally, for giving me my start in New York City government. Thank you. And Mayor Dinkins, you also had the wisdom to hire a strong and beautiful young woman who walked up to me one day in City Hall and changed my life forever.

Continue reading “Reference (2014): Bill de Blasio Inauguration Speech (Mayor, New York City) + Early Transitions Commentaries”

A global parliament of cities

*It’s hard to believe they could be more sclerotic than what we’ve got.

*On the other hand, given the historical behavior of Italian city-states, man, I have to wonder. All I need is some Milanese Sforzas with catapults at the gates of Torino. It took the ultra-wealthy some real effort to completely subvert and own governments, but in Medici Florence that was what it was about from the get-go. Hello, Mayor Bloomberg! Thanks for the public-art!

From: Stewart Brand
Subject: [SALT] City-based global governance (Benjamin Barber talk)

“Sovereign nation states have conspicuously failed to cooperate well enough to deal with increasingly global problems such as climate change, environmental degradation, and organized crime, Barber said. Nations focus on their borders, which are seen as competitive zero-sum games.

Continue reading “Bruce Sterling: Stewart Brand on a global parliament of cities”

Foreign Policy’s Global Conversation Infographic

The images and following text were taken from The Global Conversation on Foreign Policy’s site. The site’s graph is user zoomable and the second image shows President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, and Edward Snowden. I may have to hunt up a print copy and read the full article on this.

What happens when you take six months of news coverage from around the world and compile a list of every person mentioned and the people they were mentioned alongside? You get a network of 3 million nodes connected by 42 million links. Based on the GDELT Global Knowledge Graph — a massive compilation of the world’s people, organizations, locations, themes, emotions, and events — this visualization highlights the 25,000 newsmakers mentioned most frequently from April to October 2013 and the 100,000 connections among them.

Continue reading “Neal Rauhauser: Foreign Policy’s Global Conversation Infographic”

Libraries: A Good Thing

When you cannot locate information on Google, what does one do? Some people just guess? Others use spreadsheets and make up data? Quite a few people go to the library. Well, “quite a few” may be one of those unsupported factoids about modern life.

Navigate to Pew Research and check out the outfit’s most recent report How Americans Value Public Libraries in Their Communities. You can find it at http://bit.ly/1bLMEOt for now.

The report contains good news and bad news. Here’s a positive finding:

91% of Americans who have ever used a public library say it is not difficult to find what they’re looking for, including 35% who say it is “very easy.”

On the other hand, the Pew Report says:

“54% of Americans have used a public library in the past 12 months, and 72% live in a “library house hold.”

If accurate, this statement identifies a Pew sampling issue and underscores the need to reach the 46 percent of folks who don’t use the library more than once in a blue moon.

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Library Intelligence – Another Reason for the Open Source Agency (OSA)”