This was our first Saturday morning back in Chicago since our Wyoming road trip. Our plan was to enjoy our coffee outside on Division Street at Letizia’s. But a morning rain shower put the kabosh on that idea. So we headed indoors at Peets instead.
Anne and I sat at our usual place at the counter. Peets had decided to place some stove-top espresso pots by the fresh bean bins. It was kind of amusing to watch people pick it up as if they had discovered it for the first time. Twisting off the top chamber. Pulling out the basket that holds the espresso grounds. Asking how it worked.
Years ago, when we would go visit Anne’s folks at their summer camp in the Aderondaks on Lake Champlain, there was always an Italian espresso pot on the stove in their small summer kitchen. Nothing fancy about it. A couple of spoonfuls of fine ground coffee in the basket. Fill the bottom chamber with water. Turn up the flame. A couple minutes later you have espresso. Heat up some milk in the microwave and you’re good to go. Buongiorno!
Even now Italian stove-top expresso pots only cost around twenty-five bucks. I saw some fancy espresso machine in the Williams-Sonoma catalog for $2500! Crazy.
As corporate profits rise, workers’ income declines.
“These are the worst of times for workers, and the best of times for companies. At least that is one way to read the newly revised national economic statistics,” says Floyd Norris in this morning’s NY Times. The corporate share of the national income is the highest it has been since 1942 when war-time production resulted in huge revenues. Workers’ share of the national income is at it lowest since 1965.
My friend Ken Libby comments, “If there was only someone standing for children.”
Writes Charles Blow:
As a report issued last week by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out: “Of the 47 states with newly enacted budgets, 38 or more states are making deep, identifiable cuts in K-12 education, higher education, health care, or other key areas in their budgets for fiscal year 2012. Even as states face rising numbers of children enrolled in public schools, students enrolled in universities, and seniors eligible for services, the vast majority of states (37 of 44 states for which data are available) plan to spend less on services in 2012 than they spent in 2008 — in some cases, much less. These cuts will slow the nation’s economic recovery and undermine efforts to create jobs over the next year.”
We risk the creation of an engorged generational underclass born of a culture that has less income equality and fewer prospects for mobility than the previous generation.
It’s hard to see how we emerge from this downturn and its tumult a stronger nation if we allow vast swatches of our children to be lost. My fear is that we may not.
Fred Klonsky 
Sure did miss your blogs Fred! Glad you are back. You took the trip that we are going to take in the Fall, except I will not dare to venture on a horse or in a canoe. Those days are gone me thinks!
My conclusion is: that all the Republican talk about us leaving too much debt to our chlidren, conveniently leaves out the fact that they are actively creating that scenario with these education policies. It’s our job to link the two.
I’d kill for a gas stove so I could have one, they can’t be used on old coil electric stoves. I have a great coffee pot at home, but if I want espresso, I have to still go out. But IKEA has the the little ones for $15!