Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Okay the MTA isn't ALL bad...

Poetry in Motion is one of my favorite things about the subway along with the buskers of course. Yesterday, on my way to Rose's I read the best one yet:



If you want the read the poem in its entirety go to: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/9932/monocle.html

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Censure Bush

Please go to the following links, educate yourselves on how to speak out against Bush's domestic breaches of our liberties and deceptions regarding the Iraqi War. Spread the word and we're gonna get heard!

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/5768
http://johnconyers.com/

Citizen M does it again

Here's another email I sent to the Times and CC'ed to the Mayor's office:

Hello,
Thank you for publishing Diane Cardwell's article on the racial implications within this transit race. Please move the article further into the public view. By keeping it buried from the first page of the newspaper's website and from front view on the NY/Region page you are tacitly confirming the erroneous belief that racism is nonexistent in New York City. You are also demonstrating that the self-righteous 'northerner' mentality, that too profited and gained from slavery in the American South, remains alive and well.

Racism was not created by minorities; nor is race some sort of weapon to be wielded by people of color as Mayor Bloomberg's spokesman Mr. Skyler's quote connotes. ("It's despicable for anyone to inject race into this situation.") In fact, his statement can also be construed as offensive as well. Since racism, sadly, is a factor and a variable to every single transaction in our society it must be addressed as consistently and at every opportunity in order to ascertain how to end it. Even in its subtle or subterfuge manifestations, racism needs to be studied, scrutinized, and critiqued as much as in its most extreme and tragic examples such as during the New Orleans disaster.

Best wishes,

Finally! Someone begins to address race...

From the NY Times:

The Subtext
Race Bubbles to the Surface in Standoff
By DIANE CARDWELL
The standoff between the Transport Workers Union and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, tense and perilous, was already taking a harsh physical and economic toll on New Yorkers.

But now, as representatives of a mostly nonwhite work force trade recriminations publicly with white leaders in government and at the transportation authority, the potentially volatile issue of race, with all its emotional consequences, is bubbling to the surface.

The examples are both blatant and subtle, some open to interpretation, some openly hostile. Regarding the latter sort, the union - representing workers who are largely minority - shut down a Web log where the public could comment on the strike after it became so clogged with messages comparing the workers to monkeys and calling them "you people." (Seventy percent of the employees of New York City Transit are black, Latino or Asian-American.)

And what may have begun inadvertently, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Tuesday that union leaders had "thuggishly turned their backs on New York City," took on a life of its own yesterday as minority leaders and union members attacked the mayor's conduct as objectionable, or worse. "There has been some offensive and insulting language used," said Roger Toussaint, the union leader. "This is regrettable and it is certainly unbecoming for the mayor of the city of New York to be using this type of language."

But others were more extreme in their response. Leroy Bright, 56, a black bus operator who is also a union organizer, saw racial coding in Mr. Bloomberg's choice of words. "The word thug is usually attributed to people of color whenever something negative takes place," he said, adding that the language was "unnecessarily hostile."

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who called an evening news conference to blast Mr. Bloomberg, said in an interview: "How did we become thugs? Because we strike over a pension?"

"I do not think the language would have been used in a union that was not as heavily populated by people of color," he added. "And whether he intentionally did it or not, he offended a lot of people of color and he ought to address that, and come to the bargaining table."

Earlier in the day, the Rev. Herbert D. Daughtry, a Brooklyn pastor, joined elected officials at a City Hall news conference and compared Mr. Bloomberg to Eugene (Bull) Connor, the Alabama police chief who used police dogs and fire hoses on civil rights protesters in the 1960's.

Ed Skyler, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, dismissed those comments, saying, "It's despicable for anyone to inject race into this situation." He noted that when police and fire union members were trailing the mayor during contract negotiations, Mr. Skyler had accused them of "acting like thugs," to little comment.

But for all the accusations and counter-accusations, clues of a simmering racial tension have hovered over the contract negotiations between the union and the transit authority all along.
Mr. Toussaint, for instance, continued yesterday to cast the strike as part of a broader movement for social justice and invoked the civil rights movement, as he often does in his calls to respect the dignity of his workers. "Had Rosa Parks answered the call of the law instead of the higher call of justice, many of us who are driving buses today would instead be at the back of the bus," he said.

Mr. Toussaint added that he was the one who pointed out that the authority did not honor the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The authority, in its offer on Monday night, agreed to create such a holiday, an action estimated to cost $9 million a year. Indeed, the politics of the strike are in some ways embedded in the broader demographic changes in the city. Mr. Toussaint, who is originally from Trinidad, leads a union, now dominated by blacks, Latinos and Asian-Americans, whose members were once mostly of European descent.

"Clearly race is a subtext of much of what has happened in city politics, in the ethnic succession within unions and city agencies," said Douglas A. Muzzio, a professor at the Baruch School of Public Affairs, who said he saw nothing inherently racial in the use of the term thuggish.
Among members of the Transport Workers Union, however, there is a real and bitter sense that city leaders speak of them differently from members of other unions, like those of police officers and firefighters, whose memberships are whiter.

For instance, George McAnanama, a semi-retired union leader and former transit worker said transit employees have received less praise for their contributions during city emergencies like the 2001 terror attack and the 2003 blackout. "Whenever there's praise given out we're always the stepchild if we're mentioned at all," he said.

Now, that sense of injustice has more fully emerged among workers on strike and is being championed by elected officials from the City Council to Congress. Mr. Sharpton made the civil rights connection explicit, noting that when Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, he was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers' strike, a strike also held to be illegal.

Sewell Chan and Mike McIntire contributed reporting for this article.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Citizen Monika to the rescue: My letter to Bloomberg and Pataki

Here's the letter I sent to Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki's emails:

Please advocate on behalf of those who elected you to office (the people of NYC) and demand that the MTA cooperate and negotiate with reasonable offers to its employees. By defending the MTA, you're demonstrating that you are unable to look past your own wealth and represent the interests of the public, the working class--the majority of the city! Subjecting any workers (present or future) to what may seem monetarily insignificant for you may very well take food out of someone's mouth. People are barely making it as is. So every percent does count! New York City residents, including city workers, are working harder and harder with less salaries and benefits to show for it. The MTA must not continue to go unchecked and beyond city law when it is our tax dollars and (overpriced) fares that fund it. A billion dollar surplus thrown away on cash holiday discounts? How about commuter monthly pass discounts? How about buses that accept dollar bills? It's time NYC returned to the residents and stopped being a theme park for tourists and the mega-rich.

"Put the City in the Driver's Seat"


December 20, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor
By HENRY J. STERN

ARE New York's subways and buses running this morning? Is the Transport Workers Union on strike? When this article went to press, New Yorkers did not know the answers to these questions. They did know, however, that the system that got us to this dismal state of affairs is broken and seemingly beyond repair.

And one way to help fix it is to grant New York City greater control over its subways and buses. After all, isn't a city with more than eight million people and a $50 billion budget capable of making decisions about mass transit within its own borders?

As it is, city transit riders pay more of the cost of their rides, while the commuter railroads get higher state subsidies. For example, subway passengers pay 58.9 percent of what the ride costs the authority, whereas Long Island Rail Road commuters pay only 47.1 percent of the cost of their rides. Moreover, revenues from tolls on city bridges and tunnels are disproportionately allocated to the suburbs under an obsolete and unjust formula adopted when revenues were far lower.

The New York State Legislature created the precursor to the authority in 1965, and within a few years, the city's subway and bus lines were transferred to the state, because the city could no longer afford the operating deficits the system incurred.

But times have changed, and the city should now take back control of its own subways and buses. Sure, there are obstacles to total local autonomy. For instance, the city and its suburbs are inexorably geographically linked. Not only do we have Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road coming into the city, but we also have a network of bus lines that carry people from Westchester and Nassau Counties to the five boroughs and back every day. There are also many bond obligations that the authority has incurred both for suburban and railway cars and capital improvements. Untangling these obligations would be difficult if not impossible, and would leave the city with a substantial additional debt burden.

But these issues are small compared with the greater problem, which is that New York City has next to no say in running the authority and does not receive its fair share of transit revenue.
Under state law, of the 23 board members, the governor appoints six, including the chairman. The rest of them are designated by other public officials - the mayor of the City of New York has four spots to fill, the county executives of Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester recommend one voting member each. Recently four exurban counties were added to the mix: Putnam, Dutchess, Rockland and Orange. Each has a representative with one-quarter of a vote. Six nonvoting members are selected by unions and riders councils.

The result is that New York City, the source of most of the authority's revenue, is in the frustrating position of being a permanent minority on the board. Although the city has four votes, it is in no position to make policy on anything, as the city's representatives are easily outvoted. Even the most minor local issues require the chairman's consent to be considered. Rudy Washington, a former deputy mayor and a board member during the Giuliani administration, expressed repeated irritation with the situation, in which city representatives had only minimal influence over the authority's policies.

There are several possible solutions to this problem: One is to require a supermajority for the board to take action. This pattern is followed in the Hudson River Park Trust, a state-city agency (of which I am a board member) that is building and managing a linear park along the Hudson River in Manhattan. Under this formula, consent of the city as well as the state would be required for decisions involving city transit.

Another would be to empower the existing board committee on New York City transit with a majority of members appointed by the mayor, to make decisions on local matters, subject only to being overruled by a supermajority of the board. The committee would have a staff and the power to conduct public hearings. Either approach would require amendment of the Public Authorities Law, which would need legislative approval.

An easier solution lies with Gov. George Pakaki's successor. When the new governor takes office in January 2007, he can appoint a new authority chairman who will agree to enter into a power-sharing arrangement with the mayor and his four representatives.

New York City is entitled to as much self-government as practical. Although cities are by law creatures of the states, it is right and fair for them to be empowered to do all that is reasonable, on the principles of local self-determination and avoiding taxation without representation. Federal laws call for maximum feasible participation by the poor in decisions that affect them. The City of New York deserves no lesser consideration.

Henry J. Stern, a former New York City parks commissioner, is now head of New York Civic, a public interest organization.

Bravo!

Juan Gonzalez's column for the Daily News

Eventful time for the union
Tuesday, December 20th, 2005

The designated strike captains of Transport Workers Union Local 100 streamed quietly into their headquarters on Manhattan's West Side beginning around noon yesterday.

There, in a sixth-floor conference room bustling with TWU staffers, each captain picked up batches of picket signs, flyers and final orders, then headed for one of the 40 MTA depots around the city that union leaders had marked for total shutdown at 12:01 this morning.

The preparations for the first city transit strike in 25 years were so detailed that they dispelled any doubt that union President Roger Toussaint was serious about a possible walkout - even if the TWU and its leaders risked massive fines and jail under the Taylor Law.

"We have an entire secret leadership in place of nonofficers to carry on the strike if Roger and others are not around," one union leader told me.

The plans even included an alternate command center in case a court order prevented union leaders from operating out of their headquarters.

In the weeks leading up to last Thursday's contract expiration, Toussaint arranged a $5million bank loan to pay for a possible walkout, secured additional money from Local 100's parent union to finance an advertising campaign and persuaded several city unions to reassign some of their paid staff to support his efforts.

Given that few leaders of the union were even around in 1980 during the last transit strike, the level of organization by the TWU has been truly amazing.

While Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg repeatedly warned the union not to even consider a strike, and while many experts predicted a crushing defeat for the union if its members walked out, Toussaint proved to be a more skillful tactician than anyone imagined.

He outflanked the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, for example, by widening the conflict to include other unions in the transit system - those at Metro-North and at the private bus lines - that had gone without a contract for years.

By delaying a systemwide strike for four days and allowing more time for negotiations, Toussaint kept the city on edge. He drew greater press attention to the issues of the strike. And he appeared to be a rational and patient labor leader.

During those four days, Toussaint also managed to rally the city's entire labor movement to his side by depicting the TWU's contract as a possible trendsetter for all other public unions.
At a rally last night outside Pataki's office only hours before the new midnight deadline, Patrick Lynch, head of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, reminded every union member what was at stake.

In a fiery speech, Lynch talked about his own father, a former transit worker who had walked the picket lines in both the 1966 and 1980 strikes and who raised a large family into the middle class on his MTA salary.

"My father was not a criminal in 1966. He was not a criminal in 1980," Lynch said. Then he pointed to the uniformed cops on the other side of the barricade.

"Their hearts are on this side with you," he bellowed as the crowd erupted in cheers.

Then Toussaint came on stage. You saw in his eyes and you heard in his voice the look and the sound of a leader who had no fear.

"If Rosa Parks had obeyed the law, many of us who drive the buses today would still be sitting in the back of the bus," he said as the crowd went wild.

And at that moment, in the frigid cold of Third Ave., it was clear that Pataki, Bloomberg and the bureaucrats of the MTA had made a huge mistake.

Monday, December 19, 2005

cutting it close...

one hour before my Writing Social Justice deadline, 700 more words to go!!!!!!!!

Friday, December 16, 2005

Two down, two more to go and then sayonara semester!

I turned in my final photo essay based on the definitions of the word 'holiday' this morning. I had some technical difficulties at first but it was all good in the end.

I turned in my Interculturality final before Thanksgiving break. Today I got through my final photojournalism critique. By Monday I should be completely finished with the fall semester! Yipeeeeee!!

A woman called me a 'bitch' as she left the subway today. It happened on a downtown W train. I sat beside her but before I did so I scooped her coat, which she'd taken off and kinda sat on it, in order to avoid sitting on it. She got upset with me because she thought I sat on her. We had a quick squabble and as she got off on 49th Street she dropped the b-bomb. Sticks and stones, folks. Sticks and stones...

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Pictures





Here are some of the photos that will comprise my photojournalism class final.

More pictures








These, along with some of the Virgen celebration, will be in final photo essay for photojournalism class.

The cat is mine? A New York Times exclusive...

Two adults fight over the custody of a cat. Ayyy New York. This makes me think of something John Leland wrote in the introduction to Hip: A History, "Poor societies worry about growing enough corn; rich societies can worry about being corny."

I think they should let the cat decide. I mean isn't he about 35 years old in human years? He's a grown cat; he knows what he wants. I say if he's old enough to get another feline pregnant, has a whole court full of idiots wasting taxpayers' money, occupying much needed court time, then why shouldn't we entertain a judge meeting with the cat in question? On the other hand, if the biological mother or siblings turn up and petition as well, then it's a whole new bag of catnip...


"The Furry, 4-Legged Centerpiece of a Custody Battle in Court"

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Published: December 15, 2005

When Chavisa Woods, then an aspiring poet and a college student, found Oliver, he was a 6-month-old kitten and had just been thrown from a car.

Four years later, in September 2004, he walked out of his home, and became the center of a custody battle that has wended its way through State Supreme Court in Manhattan for months.
He has even prompted serious questions about a New York City law on the books for more than 100 years.

Oliver, who Ms. Woods said is a Russian blue, was picked up by a neighborhood animal lover, turned over to an animal rescue agency authorized by the city and almost immediately adopted. But Ms. Woods wants him back.

Last week, Justice Marylin G. Diamond decided to hold a full trial in the case to determine whether Oliver, who is now known as Gatsby, should be returned to his earlier home or be allowed to stay with a woman identified, as many adoptive parents are, only as Jane Doe.
Although the case might seem trivial in an austere stone courthouse where weighty issues are decided every day, it could be important to the vast system in New York that handles tens of thousands of stray and lost pets, mostly dogs and cats, every year.

Ms. Woods is challenging a 111-year-old city law that terminates the rights of pet owners 48 hours after an animal disappears. In a victory for Ms. Woods, Justice Diamond has ruled that the 48-hour clock should not be started until a lost pet has been listed in a city registry of lost animals. Whether Oliver/Gatsby was ever listed in the registry is in dispute, and remains to be determined during the trial, which could take place in January.

The ruling has alarmed animal rights advocates, who fear that it will overturn thousands of adoptions that have already taken place, and that it may make animal rights groups vulnerable to lawsuits.

Michael Goldberg, Jane Doe's lawyer, protested yesterday that the judge was going beyond the scope of the 1894 law by requiring pets to be registered in a database.

Referring to rescue agencies, he said: "They will be scared out of their minds. God forbid they don't register someone on the registry; if they put the pet up for adoption maybe they're liable. And even worse, if it's euthanized maybe they're liable."

If Ms. Woods wins her case, he said, people might hesitate to adopt animals for fear of having to return them if the original owners surface.

The 1894 law, called the New York City Dog License Law, says that a pet owner's right to reclaim a lost pet is terminated if the animal is not claimed within 48 hours of being seized by an authorized city agency.

"It was very simple," Mr. Goldberg said. "If you lost your pet and Animal Care and Control got them, the owner's rights were terminated unless the owner made a claim within 48 hours. It didn't spell out how you could make a claim."

But Donald N. David, a lawyer for Ms. Woods, said the judge's ruling recognized that his client had a right to be notified before her pet was taken. "The statute remains exactly the same," he said. "They now have some definitive point when the clock starts to tick. It sounds horrible, but our society treats animals as if they are chattel, so there is a due process requirement for taking the animal."

Ms. Woods is not impressed by the legal issues. "The fact that it's become a seminal case kind of infuriates me," she said yesterday, "because it's taking so much longer and all I want is my cat back."

Ms. Woods, 23, said she thought about Oliver every day. "He was like my shadow cat, constantly around me," she said. "I see other people's cats, it hurts." She is now living upstate, in Hudson, struggling to make it as a poet while working in a wine store.

Oliver/Gatsby's new owner declined, through her lawyer, to be interviewed. All that is known about Jane Doe is that she is a lawyer, according to Ms. Woods's lawyer, and that she adopted Oliver/Gatsby through Kitty Kind, a nonprofit animal shelter that operates in the Petco store in Union Square.

But her lawyer said that Jane Doe was a cat lover, and that Oliver/Gatsby has never been happier. "She provides for the cat," he said. "The cat is thrilled with her."

Through an exchange of photographs ordered by the court last spring, Ms. Doe and Ms. Woods confirmed that Oliver and Gatsby are indeed the same cat. But Ms. Doe has said in court papers that she bonded with the cat and did not want to part with him. Besides, her lawyer said, she believes that Oliver/Gatsby was not well cared for by Ms. Woods, and that the cat's escape was proof of that.

Ms. Woods said she was not home when the cat walked out. Oliver slipped out, she said, because her roommate at the time, a blind poet, had not noticed that a visitor had left the door open.
When she returned home, she said, she began looking for the cat right away. "I was gone for one night," she said.

Something's wrong with Poopy...


Jupiter's limping and I don't know what's wrong... My cat needs a home attendant. Maybe even a physical therapist. Ahhh, what's a mum to do? He's elderly now. Is there such a thing as feline osteoperosis?

Anyway, I hope he feels better because a visit to the vet is what I need like I need another pelvic exam. Is it just me but doesn't pelvic exam sound like a bellydancer's SATs?

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Things to do tomorrow...

1) Submit Latin Alternative paper
2) Work on other finals
3) See George Clooney for NYU's j-school students--5pm sharp!

What da hell am I talkin' about, you ask? Lemme get ya some ketchup...

12/07/05: Hi, Faculty and Students, If you have already sent me an e-mail saying you would like to hear George Clooney discuss his excellent Edward Murrow movie, please do so ASAP. If you have sent me an e-mail, that's fine. I have them all. The problem is that we have an auditorium that seats 125, plus some 70 seats in a horseshoe area outside the auditorium that can seat 70 who can watch on tv. And, while I have not counted, I have some 350 requests for tickets. I have a committee of two undergrad and two grad students who will help me decide how we distribute the tickets, but it will be something like this: xxx reserved for broadcast students. xxx reserved for students who regularly or often have attended Brown Bag gatherings and other friends of the Brown Bag program. xxx others to be determined through a lottery that the four students mentioned above will conduct.. I will have the tickets, and you must have a ticket to get in. May I ask this: No autographs and no photographs. We don't do that in journalism. Mr. Clooney asked that those who come have seen "Good Night...And Good Luck."I hope you have or will do this.
Prof. Serrin
Graduate Director)

Cut to now, a week later...

Subject
Re: Congrats, You've Got Clooney
Mistake - you guys get BLUE TICKETS which are for INSIDE the auditorium; my apologies.
Cheers.

-----Original Message-----

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 15:38:12 -0500
Subject: Congrats, You've Got Clooney
Hey everyone - I *just* finished the raffle, and you guys have been picked for seats at the Clooney shindig. Professor Serrin will be in his office on the FIFTH FLOOR after 10 a.m. TOMORROW, THURSDAY. In the afternoon, however, he will be either in his office or in ROOM 101 of the J-School. You are receiving BLUE TICKETS, which encompasses the horseshoe-shaped area around the main auditorium.We are starting at 5 PM SHARP on Thursday, so make sure you get there early. You will need to bring your TICKET and your STUDENT ID to check off the list of people who have been drawn to attend. I'm sorry, but friends husbands and moms cannot be scootched in with you; there is extremely limited space. Thanks for your patience, guys. I repeat Serrin's plea that we've done the best we could.

4) Then attend...

Event:
Transatlantic Dialogues
Moderator:
The Honorable Judge Baltasar Garzón (Of taking Pinochet to trial fame)

Description:
Closing Panel: New Political Policies for the Americas
Participants: Felipe Gonzlez, former President of Spain; Henry A. Kissinger, Ex-Secretary of State of the United States; Alvaro Uribe, President of Colombia; Ernesto Zedillo, Ex-President of Mexico;
Location:
Tishman Auditorium, NYU School of Law (entrance on MacDougal Street between West 4th and 3rd St)
Date:
Thu, December 15th
Time:
6:00 PM-8:00 PM

Daaamnnn I haven't seen this many thieves, murderers, and charlatans since the GOP convention came to town last year!

5) Countdown to the strike and the MAYHEM! Muhahahahaaaa

I betcha it'll be Y2K all over again. Y-two-bother, right? I dunno, maybe because it'll spare me a little of my fleeting sanity. Mind you, the actual chaos will totally make me regret that statement. Nevertheless, at this moment I view this strike as a potential "snow day." A subway day. An MTA day? Shiiiiiiiit... Armageddon could happen outside and I could give two shits. As long as they don't mess with my corner store, my heat, and my hard drive, I'm straight.

All I know is that there's gonna be some dramaaa tonight on the Top Model reunion. I can't wait. I hope Tyra(nt) leaves them alone and let's them do their thing instead of hogging all of the attention or smothering them. Dude they're so phony when she's around it's sickening. It's probably just gonna be a clips show anyway. And btw considering how much slack Tyra(nt) gives the models about flubbing lines, how come there are so many times during the show that she has voiceovers cover up what I can only assume are mistakes? I'll tell you, I'll even spell it out for you: Conspiracy. C-O-N-spiracy (An old In Living Color joke).

Friday, December 09, 2005

The abduction of Tom Fox and the others members of the Christian peacemaker team

I don't know Tom Fox personally but news of his abduction has affected me more than any other. During last Sunday's Meeting For Worship, many spoke about him and his courage through the quicksand that is this Middle East conflict. Sadly a happy ending to this episode is unlikely, but it is more feasible than a peaceful reconciliation for all sides--I think we're too late for that. CNN has reported that the Christian Peacemaker Team's captors have extended the deadline for release of all Middle Eastern political prisoners in the U.S. and the U.K. until Saturday in order to save the men's lives and that's something to be hopeful about. Below are links to Fox's blog and a quaker.org link about him:
http://www.quaker.org/langleyhill/tomfox.html
http://waitinginthelight.blogspot.com/

SNOW DAY! On a Friday to boot!

Yaaay! My photojournalism class got cancelled at 7 a.m. Instead of miserably shlepping in the snow and squeezing into a cramped subway train car, I'm listening to some Howard Stern and watching some Judge Mathis. I just put on a mud mask and am basking in a petit Sunnyside snow-day spa!

I do plan on getting some work done today. It's all about the three P's baby: Positivity, Productivity, and Patience. One mo' week to go...

Thursday, December 08, 2005

a kudos to Bloomie... but just one.

December 8, 2005

STATEMENT FROM MAYOR BLOOMBERG ON APPELLATE DIVISION'S RULING IN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE CASE

"As I have said, this issue should be decided by the State's highest court and I assume today's decision will be appealed. If today's decision is affirmed by the Court of Appeals, I will urge the Legislature to change the State's Domestic Relations Law to permit gay marriage."

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

December's photodiary so far











Some of these are "Holiday" related because their going to be a part of my final photojournalism project.

Journalism school these days

Yesterday I met with one of my journalism professors and it was a positive and constructive time for all. He was relieved I didn't cancel at the last minute, like two of my classmates had, and I was happy to get direction on my final article.

Thinking about how much work is still left undone did kinda overwhelm me though. I felt like I when was at Teotihuacan in Mexico City again. After walking up ten minutes worth of steps in the hottest, smoggiest air, I looked up and realized that I had not reached its peak. I hadn't even done enough to see the sun.

I was happy to learn that I made a good choice in opting not to take his course on reporting in New York City and instead choosing an investigative reporting course. Judging from his description of the course, it sounded like a lot of human interest "best pizza in the city"-type of work. That sort of writing sounds unappealing these days.

I'm also taking Covering Latino and Caribbean Communities in New York City with the Daily News' Latino columnist Albor Ruiz next semester. None of my journalism professors have heard of him. He may be good after all...

To-do today:
Email/call more sources for the foster care policy story

" " people for the Latin Alternative music paper; review the library books for background info and add them to the bibliography

Finish the small policy paper

Friday, December 02, 2005

ho, ho, ho's and the homeless...


Forget the terrorists, can we please get rid of all the dumb-ass idiots in this city?

Evento interesante: 12/10 Santa Con!!!

The following write-up was originally posted on the great Gothamist.com:

SantaCon

Happy December! It wouldn't be the holidays if there weren't a troupe of drunk Santa's tripping down the sidewalks and groping innocent bystanders. We're not talking about the streetcorner Santa's, we're talking about SantaCon!

We wanted to give you plenty of time to put together your Santa costume for this years event.

If you can't find a legit costume, just put on some red comfy pants and a beard. The point of Santacon is to get really really really drunk (or in North Pole terms...to get your name moved from the "nice" to the "naughty" list.) At least, that's how we understand it.

From the Santacon HQ (which we're imagining is at the Magician):

Ho-Ho-Ho! Hey all you bad Santas! After much tinkering in the toy shop with assorted social calendars, Santa is thrilled to announce his annual spreading of good beer, er, cheer. Febreze your smelly Santa suits, sanitize those Pine-Sol bottles, whip up a few offensive toys for not-so-tots and make sure you're in shape for a non-stop scenic stroll through the streets of New York City.
This year the event is on December 10th. So fill your flasks with egg nog and rum and stay tuned to the
SantaCon site for meeting place info.

Sad & Strange: "1,000th Person Executed in U.S. Since 1977"

Why would this be a Yahoo.com headline? I guess its worth reminding...

By ESTES THOMPSON,
Associated Press Writer

A double murderer who said he didn't want to be known as a number became the 1,000th person executed in the United States since capital punishment resumed 28 years ago.
Kenneth Lee Boyd, who brazenly gunned down his estranged wife and father-in-law 17 years earlier, died at 2:15 a.m. Friday after receiving a lethal injection.

After watching Boyd die, Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page said the victims should be remembered. "Tonight, justice has been served for Mr. Kenneth Boyd," Page said.
Boyd's death rallied death penalty opponents, and about 150 protesters gathered outside the prison.

"Maybe Kenneth Boyd won't have died in vain, in a way, because I believe the more people think about the death penalty and are exposed to it, the more they don't like it," said Stephen Dear, executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty.

"Any attention to the death penalty is good because it's a filthy, rotten system," he said.
Boyd, 57, did not deny killing Julie Curry Boyd, 36, and her father, 57-year-old Thomas Dillard Curry. But he said he thought he should be sentenced to life in prison, and he didn't like the milestone his death would mark.

"I'd hate to be remembered as that," Boyd told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "I don't like the idea of being picked as a number."

The Supreme Court in 1976 ruled that capital punishment could resume after a 10-year moratorium. The first execution took place the following year, when Gary Gilmore went before a firing squad in Utah.

During the 1988 slayings, Boyd's son Christopher was pinned under his mother's body as Boyd unloaded a .357-caliber Magnum into her. The boy pushed his way under a bed to escape the barrage. Another son grabbed the pistol while Boyd tried to reload.

The evidence, said prosecutor Belinda Foster, clearly supported a death sentence.

"He went out and reloaded and came back and called 911 and said 'I've shot my wife and her father, come on and get me.' And then we heard more gunshots. It was on the 911 tape," Foster said.

In the execution chamber, Boyd smiled at daughter-in-law Kathy Smith — wife of a son from Boyd's first marriage — and a minister from his home county. He asked Smith to take care of his son and two grandchildren and she mouthed through the thick glass panes separating execution and witness rooms that her husband was waiting outside.

In his final words, Boyd said: "God bless everybody in here."

Boyd's attorney Thomas Maher, said the "execution of Kenneth Boyd has not made this a better or safer world. If this 1,000th execution is a milestone, it's a milestone we should all be ashamed of.

In Boyd's pleas for clemency, his attorneys said he served in Vietnam where he operated a bulldozer and was shot at by snipers daily, which contributed to his crimes.

Both Gov. Mike Easley and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.

Execution No. 1,001 was scheduled for Friday night at 6 p.m., when South Carolina planned to put Shawn Humphries to death for the 1994 murder of a store clerk.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

On your mark...get set...go!

The race to finish the semester is on and I'm still on the bathroom line.

No scratch that I'm on the Queensboro Plaza platform freezing my ass off and in the middle of total agitation because of the countless detours the MTA (or the Might Take All-day) has me take in order not to be that late to class.

A year and a half ago I moved from the second to last 4 train stop to Queensboro Plz area in order to be close to campus and today it took me longer to get to campus than it ever did in the Bronx. Ain't that a bitch? I gotta figure out a more environmentally-sound, efficient mode of transport or this girl's gonna get real wild.

On a another note, I got a new copy of my library card. And a little keychain barcode card. It's very exciting. I paid off a ten-year-old outstanding balance (that's right kids, I was this short to getting a segment on America's Most Wanted) for copies of Edward Scissorhands and the first Charlie and the Chocalate Factory that I never returned to a library up by my middle school.

Friday, November 25, 2005

hirarious



This picture is from my new favorite site: www.engrish.com

And for more funny times and pretty Japanese pictures, here's a link to my friend Andres's pictures on flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/andreszd

Ay, Kate Moss

Since I'm writing this blog as if isn't read by anyone, which it probably isn't, I have to put this link up even though it is in poor taste and in all reality sad as hell. But for a girl who was singing the research paper blues there's nothing like a video clip of a topless Kate Moss simulating punk dancing alone, falling, and hitting her head on a fan to make the sun shine again.

http://s38.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2P9C3QYCXNJ9E3E56BGQENWSF3

eskul estatus: NYC Latin Alternative music paper

A few days ago I gave a sweet schpiel about learning and procrastinating and while I still agree with it, as I sit here working on a year-old paper I feel like I rather be cutting off my left pinky. This Latin alternative music paper me tiene una teta hinchada, as Mami would say. It was due at the end of the fall 2004 semester but after months of anxiety-filled days and nights, and two computer crashes (one a night before the paper was due) here I am. I really truly do care about submitting something worthwhile that does more than just fulfull the minimum page length but sometimes I get so frustrated and stuck.

My old shrink would say that during these times I should "pedal faster and harder," beyond the frustration and try to concentrate on something else. But it isn't that easy. Right now I feel like I'm in a locked revolving door and schoolwork stuff, friend stuff, and my own stuff are surrounding me and I can't seem to access any of it. And any definitive action is inevitably the wrong one kinda like a faulty Jenga that'll always fall.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Time to give thanks


I'm thankful for my self: for enduring all of my self-abuse and still allowing me to be well and continue to realize my worth. I'm thankful for of my beautiful friends, family, and city. For Sunnyside and PS 150. For the 15th Street Meeting House. For silence. For Bustelo coffee and oven toasted toast. For Howard Stern and Big-Foot, the dog I walk last night (pictured right with Fox 5's Penny Crone). For my hands and my feet. For water. For Professor Serrin, Patty, and Maritza and every other dedicated person that makes NYU actually be home. For music. For public libraries and give-away piles. I'm thankful for my Dominican niece and my Harlem nephew. I'm thankful for that moment right after I think things could never be better and something happens that proves me wrong. For all of the amazing NY Cares volunteers. For honesty and truth. For my parents, teachers, mentors, and fellow humans. For amazing conversation. And all-night dancing. For nice people. And new friends, old friends, new old friends, and old new friends. For watching infomercials and Univision at 5:00 a.m. with Mexican rockstars. For the Bulgarian bar. For the awareness of how rich I am. For ugly beauty and beautiful ugliness. For Jupiter's OCD. And Dannyboy's huge feet. For the sun setting on the Seine. For Evelyn's attention. Frank's stories and his listening. For Mami.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

'Black tax' -- the tithe that binds (LA Times 11/20/05)

I'm probably not the first person to say so but Hurricane Katrina's most valuable impact was removing the discussion about racism in the United States from the periphery into a mainstream topic of concern.

Last night's Independent Lens (PBS) on race was well-done. The views and analyses presented in the program were by poets, visual and performing artists, our true cultural mirrors. There were no talking heads in suits like in every other news program.

The following article was forwarded to me on the NYU graduate student of color listserv:


'Black tax' -- the tithe that binds
By Jody Armour
JODY ARMOUR is a professor at USC School of Law.
November 20, 2005

THE TAX MAN recently paid me a nighttime visit on a public street in South L.A. His levy came as I sat in my parked car on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near Crenshaw. King runs between where I live in View Park and where I work at the USC School of Law. I had legally curbed my German car to search my navigation system for a point of interest when a police cruiser pulled alongside and flooded my passenger compartment with a searchlight.

What followed was a scenario common nearly to the point of banality in this aggressively policed community: brusque questions, testy answers, brinkmanship. Because my tags, insurance and license passed muster, I avoided eating any fines but nevertheless had to swallow the indignities that come with once again being called on to pay the "black tax."

The black tax is the price blacks (and other minorities) pay in our daily lives because of racial stereotypes. Like a tax, racial discrimination is persistent, pervasive and seemingly inevitable ­ as in "Nothing in life is certain save death and taxes." And just as the state collects general taxes, blacks often regard state representatives such as police and judges as IRS agents for the black tax.

But while tax regimes are typically either regressive (falling mainly on the poor) or progressive (falling mainly on the privileged), the black tax falls on both as indifferently as rain.

It falls on poor minorities in the redlining ­ charging higher prices ­ in their neighborhoods by services ranging from banking to pizza delivery; in the greater exposure to environmental toxins, and in the greater concentration of crumbling schools and hospitals.

The black tax also falls on privileged minorities ­ those who parlay diplomas, athletic ability or big box office into impressive portfolios, "desirable" ZIP Codes and pricey schools ­ in the profiling that their pedigrees won't ward off. Neither my Harvard and Berkeley degrees nor chaired law school professorship gained me a tax exemption. The face of crime for most Americans is black.

The reservoir of resentment and distrust that has accumulated in the black community because of police practices such as racial profiling can be seen in the fate of Measure A, the 2004 ballot initiative that would have provided funding for an additional 1,260 officers by boosting local sales taxes. According to analyses by The Times, Measure A failed because precincts with a high concentration of black voters (along with the anti-tax votes of the west San Fernando Valley) didn't support it. Largely Latino neighborhoods on the Eastside with crime problems similar to those of the heavily black precincts, however, did overwhelmingly back the additional tax.

Paradoxically, then, one of the communities that most desperately needed more effective policing helped sink it. But many blacks did not ­ do not ­ want to trade more public safety for less personal dignity. We hesitate to apply the black tax to ourselves.

Even though inherently unjust, the black tax has one silver lining ­ it keeps the fate of black "haves" indissolubly wedded to that of black "have-nots." In "Rage of a Privileged Class," Ellis Cose chronicles the frustration, resentment and anger that being racially profiled stirs in privileged blacks.

In this view, the indignities that respectable blacks suffer because of profiling can be blamed on black criminals, most of whom are poor. If only poor blacks would stop behaving badly, they would stop fueling the stereotypes that keep the black bourgeoisie from enjoying its full measure of respectability.

This logic lies behind much of the vitriol Bill Cosby ­ a black Brahmin icon ­ levels at low-income blacks; it lies also behind the call of neoconservative blacks for the black community to pursue politics of respectability whereby we distinguish between "good Negroes" (law-abiding blacks) and "bad Negroes" (those who commit crimes), then clearly condemn and distance ourselves from the bad ones. Some will protest that they are not damning all poor people when they condemn criminals; they are merely blaming people who make bad choices. But this account fails to recognize that when people have only bad choices, they tend to make bad choices.

Until the conditions that breed bad choices are changed, the statistical justifications for the black tax will persist. We in the black middle class must focus our energies on improving those conditions rather than on vainly trying to distinguish ourselves from them.

Evento interesante: 12/10 @ 12-3p

Please Join Us For a Roundtable Discussion:


Coming Home

job placement ▪ housing issues ▪ reuniting with families ▪ parole ▪ employment policies



Addressing the Issues Faced by Prisoners as

They Re-enter the Community

With Special Guest Speaker

Peter Wagner, Prison Policy Initiative

Hosted by The Community Service Society of New York

December 10, 2005 12 ˜ 3 p.m.

105 East 22nd Street at the corner of Park Avenue South, Conference Room 4A

Take the 6 or W/R trains to 23rd Street


Admission is Free. Lunch will be provided.


Kindly RSVP to Gabriel Torres-Rivera at grivera@cssny.org or 212.614.5306 by November 30th

The Community Service Society of New York is an independent, nonprofit organization that for more than 150 years has helped New Yorkers in need to defeat the problems of poverty and strengthen community life for all.

Evento interesante: 11/28 @ 6-8pm

The King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center of New York University Cordially invites you to attend the sixth of eight seminars: Transatlantic Dialogues

Panel: Education in a Globalized Society
Given the formative role public education has with citizens of modern societies, the panelists will explore the implications and consequences of increased globalization and migration on the very definition of public education in Spain, the United States and Latin America. Participants: Carmen Fariña, Deputy Chancellor, Board of Education, City of New York; Lorenzo Gómez Morin, Sub secretary of Education, Mxico; Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, Profesor de Globalización y Educacin, Universidad de Nueva York; Dr. Félix Gonzlez Jiménez, Chair of the Department of Didactics and Educational Organization, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain Director: Judge Baltasar Garzón

MONDAY, 28 NOVEMBER 2005
6 to 8 pm
Hemmerdinger Hall
100 Washington Square East
RSVP for this event For further information, contact:John J. Healeyemail: kjc.spain.today@nyu.eduphone: 212-998-3657

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

thoughts on procrastination

Sometimes it shocks me just how much time procrastinating takes up (ironically as I stop working to write this entry). It just took me ten minutes to complete a course evaluation for a seminar from LAST fall! What is it that I was waiting for?

I think procrastination is my way of prolonging school. I think there's some buried part of me that believes: "if I can't get the work in, then I'll be in school forever." I mean there's no social promotion in grad school. Well, then again there is Resident Bush...

I think my love of school is like the omnipotent UNO game Pick-4/Choose a Color card--it'll always trump my better judgement. School's sustained my interest for as long as I can remember. It's been the thing I've been good at. At home, I should clarify, just in case some current or former professors happen to read this. =)

Beginning this final year of graduate school with the prospect of never returning to an institution as an enrolled student is strange. It's like your passport expiring for good. Although this time it doesn't feel as sudden or unexpected as graduating from college. That sort of felt like skydiving without a parachute or doggy-paddling down the Niagara Falls. Okay, maybe a little too much. But it was bad.

I'm movin' on up... to the b-side!

Yep, I've staked a piece of cyberland, planted my flag into a turf made of zeros and ones... I don't know why I've been so resistent on joining this part of the internet world. It's not like I write letters and hand them off to Mister McFeeley.

So here I am. Slightly sleep-deprived and very, very optimistic.