In a world where people are hungry for quick fixes and sound bites, for instant gratification, there's no patience for the long, slow rebuilding process: implementing after-school programs, hiring more community workers to act as mentors, adding more job training programs in marginalized areas.
Some solutions are relatively simple and would provide economic benefits: implementing measures to conserve energy, putting a price on carbon through taxes and cap-and-trade and shifting from fossil fuels to clean and renewable energy sources.
I had a lot of really terrible advice early in my writing career and I cheesed off people without even knowing it, all the while thinking I was implementing good advice.
The problem is going to be finding the right words and implementing it in a way that is really dealing with people that are inciting and not preventing honest discussion of the underlying causes of this horrendous political situation the world is in now.
I love cities, and I love city governments in particular. But in politics it would have taken me 8 years from implementing a policy before I would get to see the feedback. With programming I could model the same policies and see the impact immediately. Technology is a far more efficient way to test.
You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.
An expert is somebody who is more than 50 miles from home, has no responsibility for implementing the advice he gives, and shows slides.
While the rest of the country is still talking about welfare reform, Texas is implementing it.
When it comes to setting national priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and implementing foreign and defense policies, the United States and Europe have parted ways.
At the same time the Constitution sets in stone the Stability Pact and risks preventing member States from implementing a policy of growth. So we are not able to do things at the European or the national level.