Big sigh of relief for NYC. Hope all others in the path do okay.

Borders is gone. Probably fifteen years ago, I gave a glowing recommendation for Bill Haas to get a job at the Borders branch at the World Trade Center. Bill was the Thursday night driver of the Uptown Van for the Coalition for the Homeless Mobile Soup Kitchen. Rail thin, a marathon runner, former rock and roll drummer, at times painfully shy, Bill introduced us all to Jimmy Armstrong’s Saloon and gave me and a lot of other people a wonderful social locus for some of the strongest friendships I still have today. Within months he was a store manager and eventually was transferred to DC and fell precipitously out of our lives. I don’t know what ever happened to him, but I miss him.

I remember learning the difference between potential versus kinetic energy in high school. How a book on the table has more potential energy than one on the floor–because it can fall off the table and release kinetic energy, the energy of action and movement.

Two startlingly interesting recent books are “Community: The Structure of Belonging” by Peter Block and “Deterrence and Crime Prevention: Reconsidering the Prospect of Sanction” by David Kennedy. Though one deals with trying to create the ideal and the other how to avoid the ninth circle, both share common themes and thoughts on how people connect to each other and the power of communities to effect change.