Left Behinds

"Live from Bedford-Stuyvesant, the livest one / Representing BK to the fullest."

2007-03-23T11:18:00.000-05:00

Damon Rich is giving what looks like a cool talk this upcoming Monday at Pratt.

This is what representation looks like

For architects and planners today, what does it mean to represent?
Beginning in the early 1970s, architecture as a discipline entered
into an intense examination of its means of representation. Fueled by
philosophical and semiotic theories, architects reached precipitous
heights of self-consciousness about how they represented
architecture, and even about what architecture was in the first
place. Around the same time, planners, burdened with the discredited
master plan, grew suspicious of images as responsible, or even
useful, tools of planning. In the place of the time-honored "vision,"
they set off in search of more process-oriented and data-driven modes
of operation. Against the background of this historical divergence,
this lecture will present the work of the Center for Urban Pedagogy
(CUP) as an investigation into some possible uses of representation
today.

Monday, March 26, 6 - 8 pm
Higgins Hall Auditorium, Brooklyn Campus
Pratt Institute School of Architecture
61 St. James Place
New York, NY 11205
G to Clinton-Washington
www.pratt.edu/arch

"News ain't just for the white man!"

2007-03-23T10:54:00.001-05:00

Omg the Gore Vidal at the end....

ACT UP at 20

2007-03-22T20:36:00.000-05:00

Richard Kim and Esther Kaplan wrote a great ode to ACT UP in this week's Nation.

Along the way, ACT UP borrowed strategies from other radical movements: antinuke protesters for techniques on civil disobedience, antiapartheid campaigners for bringing political funerals to the streets. Many of its tactics--videotaping demonstrations as protection against police brutality, coordinated but autonomous affinity group actions--have become standard fare in the global justice movement, as has ACT UP's deeply democratic tradition.

ACT UP is now a shadow of its former self, but its alums have gone on to found Health Gap, a driving force for global treatment access; the Treatment Action Group, which continues to push the AIDS research agenda; and Housing Works, which has won housing for thousands of New York City's HIV-positive homeless. And true to form, the organization will mark its twentieth anniversary with a march on Wall Street March 29 to demand single-payer healthcare for all.

Today, anyone who gains access to an experimental drug before it's approved, or takes a life-saving medicine that was fast-tracked through the FDA--indeed, anyone engaged in the struggle for healthcare--is indebted to ACT UP's audacity and vision.

On Monday, there was a good show on OUT FM about ACT UP. The interviews with Tim Murphy, Ann Northrop, and Mackenzie from YES were especially interesting.

And ACT Up and the Queer Justice League are having a huge action March 29th on Wall St. to demand universal health care. I'll be there.

Larry Kramer, Jim "Blowjob Lips" McGreevey, and the Queer Justice League

2007-03-14T21:24:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday night I went to what I hope will turn out to be a historic speech by Larry Kramer. He was commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the speech he gave (in that exact same room, with some of the exact same attendees) that inspired the creation of ACT UP. Despite a $10 charge, the room was packed with 250 people.

I have a few problems with what he said (for one, his snide dismissal of the work of other leftist queer groups, some of which I have been very involved with; for another, his remarks on gay issues in other countries). However, it was a rousing, provocative speech, and the discussion afterwards was exciting. Thank God for Ann Northrup, that's all I have to say. She brilliantly facilitated the discussion, some of which I will broadcast on WBAI on Monday morning (hopefully accompanied by some analysis from a lefty pundit or two).

Ann Northrup

One of the more interesting moments was when the succulently lipped former Gayvornor Jim McGreevey stood up to ask Kramer about his specific policy goals. Kramer demurred, and McGreevey repeated his question.

"What are some organizational steps to move this forward," asked the sexy little Columbia grad in mind-numbing but well-intentioned political jargon. "What are the two policy goals, two benchmarks that you're proposing?"

"I don't know that I think that way," insisted Kramer. An audience member (probably an AIDS activist dignitary, but I didn't recognize him) suggested that it wasn't fair to expect Kramer to come up with all the details. The consensus in the room was that we wanted to plan an immediate action to get the group started.

That action is happening tomorrow, Thursday, at noon in Times Square, to protest the infamously homophobic remarks of General Peter Pace. I liked the suggested theme of "Gays aren't immoral, this war is immoral." I hope that turns up on a lot of the signs.

Once I spotted him, I kept my eye on McGreevey, and he enthusiastically raised his hand at every vote to indicate that he would go to the action (adorably shaking his head vehemently that he wasn't available at any time other than noon). Some in the room gave him grief ("Better late than never," snapped Northrop immediately after he identified himself), but I welcome him into the movement. I remember what it was like being a queer newbie, all excited about your first big gay protest. If you need someone to hold your hand tomorrow, Gov, I moisturize three times a day.

It was such a big deal that I am posting the text of the speech in full. First, the action announcement. Oh, which reminds me, how cute is the name Queer Justice League? I don't know if DC Comics will be too pleased, but I'll totally play Batman to Jim McGreevey's Robin (Ok, have I made it clear enough yet that I found him sexy? CALL ME.).

Who: Members of ACT UP and the newly formed Queer Justice League.
Where: 43rd Street and Broadway, Manhattan.
When: Thursday March 15th, at Noon (12pm).
What: The group will demand General Peter Pace's immediate resignation.
Why: We cannot tolerate top U.S. military officials making public statements of such a
homophobic nature; such statements endanger all LGBT citizens currently serving in the
military. We will not tolerate people in power whose personal hatred and bigotry make
discrimination and prejudice against LGBT people acceptable.

(Thanks to Towlerod for the text.)

WE ARE NOT CRUMBS; WE MUST NOT ACCEPT CRUMBS
Remarks on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of ACT UP,
NY Lesbian and Gay Community Center,
March 13, 9007
By Larry Kramer

Rodger McFarlane, Eric Sawyer, Jim Eigo, Peter Staley, Troy Masters, Mark Harrington, David Webster, Jeremy Waldron, and Hannah Arendt contributed to the following remarks. [NOTE: I love that he credits Hannah Arendt as a collaborator. OK, enough of me. Here's Larry.]

One day AIDS came along. It happened fast. Almost every man I was friendly with died. Eric still talks about his first boyfriend, 180 pounds, 28 years old, former college athlete, who became a 119 pound bag of bones covered in purple splotches in months. Many of us will always have memories like this that we can never escape.

Out of this came ACT UP. We grew to have chapters and affinity groups and spin-offs and affiliations all over the world. Hundreds of men and women once met weekly in New York City alone. Every single treatment against HIV is out there because of activists who forced these drugs out of the system, out of the labs, out of the pharmaceutical companies, out of the government, into the world. It is an achievement unlike any other in the history of the world. All gay men and women must let ourselves feel colossally proud of such an achievement. Hundreds of millions of people will be healthier because of us. Would that they could be grateful to us for saving their lives.

So many people have forgotten, or never knew what it was like. We must never let anyone forget that no one, and I mean no one, wanted to help dying faggots. Sen. Edward Kennedy described it in 2006 as “the appalling indifference to the suffering of so many.” Ronald Reagan had made it very clear that he was “irrevocably opposed” to anything to do with homosexuality. It would be seven years into his reign before he even said the word “AIDS” out loud, by which time almost every gay man in the entire world who’d had sex with another man had been exposed to the virus. During this entire time his government issued not one single health warning, not one single word of caution. Who cares if a faggot dies. I believe that Ronald Reagan is responsible for more deaths than Adolf Hitler. This is not hyperbole. This is fact.

These are just a few of the things ACT UP did to make the world pay attention: We invaded the offices of drug companies and scientific laboratories and chained ourselves to the desks of those in charge. We chained ourselves to the trucks trying to deliver a drug company’s products. We liberally poured buckets of fake blood in public places. We closed the tunnels and bridges of New York and San Francisco. Our Catholic kids stormed St. Patrick’s at Sunday Mass and spit out Cardinal O’Connor’s host. We tossed the ashes from dead bodies from their urns on to the White House lawn. We draped a gigantic condom over Jesse Helms’ house. We infiltrated the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for the first time in its history so we could confetti the place with flyers urging the brokers to “SELL WELLCOME.” We boarded ourselves up inside Burroughs-Wellcome, (now named GlaxoSmithKline), which owns AZT, in Research Triangle so they had to blast us out. We had regular demonstrations, Die-Ins we called them, at the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, at City Halls, at the White House, in the halls of Congress, at government buildings everywhere, starting with our first demonstration on Wall Street, where crowds of us lay flat on the ground with our arms crossed over our chests or holding cardboard tombstones until the cops had to cart us away by the vans-full. We had massive demonstrations at the FDA and the NIH. There was no important meeting anywhere that we did not invade, interrupt, and infiltrate. We threatened Bristol-Myers that if they did not distribute it immediately we would manufacture it ourselves and distribute a promising drug some San Francisco activists had stolen from its Canadian factory and had duplicated. (The drug, now known as Videx, was released. Ironically Videx was discovered at Yale, where I went to school and with whom I am still engaged in annoyingly delicious activist battles to shape them up; they too are a stubborn lot.) We utterly destroyed a Hoffmann-LaRoche luncheon when they delayed a decent drug’s release. And always, we went after the New York Times for their shockingly, tragically, inept reporting of this plague. We plastered this city with tens of thousands of stickers reading, “Gina Kolata of the New York Times is the worst AIDS reporter in America.” We picketed the Fifth Avenue home of the publisher of the Times, one Arthur Sulzberger. We picketed everywhere. You name a gross impediment and we picketed there, from our historic 24-hour round the clock for seven days and nights picket of Sloan Kettering to another hateful murderer, our closeted mayor, Edward I. Koch. 3000 of us picketed that monster at City Hall. And, always we protested against our ignoble presidents: Reagan. We actually booed him at a huge AmFAR benefit in Washington. He was not amused. And Bush. 2500 of us actually tracked him down at his vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine, which did not know what had hit it. And Clinton. I cannot tell you what a disappointment he was for us. He was such a bullshitter, as I fear his wife to be. And Bush again. The newest and most evil emperor in the fullest most repellant plumage. We can no longer summon those kinds of numbers to go after him.

A lot of us got arrested a lot of times. A lot of us. A lot of us. We kept our lawyer members busy. It actually was a wonderful feeling being locked up behind bars in cells with the brothers and sisters you have fought with side by side for what you fervently believe is right.

Slowly we were noticed and even more slowly we were listened to.

Along this journey some of our members taught themselves so much about our illness and the science of it and the politics of it and the bureaucracy of it that we soon knew more than anyone else did. We got ourselves into meetings with drug company scientists who could not believe our people weren’t doctors. I took a group to a meeting with Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom I had called our chief murderer in publications across the land. Dr. Fauci was and still is the government’s chief AIDS person, the Director of Infectious Diseases at NIH. We were able to show him how inferior all his plans and ideas under consideration were compared to the ones that we had figured out in minute detail. We told him what they should be doing and were not doing. We showed him how he and all his staff of doctors and scientists and researchers and statisticians did not understand this patient population and that we did. By then we had located our own doctors and scientists and researchers and statisticians to talk to, some of them even joining us. When our ideas were tried, they worked. We were consistently right. Our “chief murderer” Dr. Fauci became our hero when he opened the doors at NIH and let us in, an historic moment and an historic gesture. Soon we were on the very committees we had picketed, and soon we were making the most important decisions for treating our own bodies. We redesigned the whole system of clinical trials that is in use to this day for every major illness. And of course, we got those drugs out. And the FDA approval for a new drug that once took an average of 7-12 years can now be had in less than one. ACT UP did all this. My children—you must forgive me for coming to think of them as that—most of whom are dead. You must have some idea what it is like when your children die. Most of them did not live to enjoy the benefits of their courage. They were courageous because they knew they might die. They could and were willing to fight because they felt they soon would die and there was nothing to lose, and maybe everything to gain.

And of course funeral after funeral after funeral. We made funerals into an art form, too, just as our demonstrations, our street theater, our graphics, many of which are now in museums and art galleries, were all art forms as well. God, we were so creative as we were dying.

It is important to celebrate. But it is hard to do so when so many of us aren’t here. At least that is the way for me. I know we are twenty years old. It seems impossible to me that it has been so many years. I remember much of it as if it were yesterday. It is difficult to celebrate when one has such potent, painful tragic memories. We held so many of each other in our arms. One never forgets love like that. Make no mistake, AIDS was and is a terrible tragedy that need not have escalated into a worldwide plague. There were 41 cases when I started. There are some 75 million now. It takes a lot of help from a lot of enemies to rack up a tally like that.

Rodger McFarlane made this list of ACT UP’s achievements: accelerated approval of investigational new drugs; expanded compassionate use of experimental drugs and new applications of existing drugs; mathematical alternatives to the deadly double-blind-placebo-controlled studies of old; rigorous statistical methods for community-based research models; accelerated and expanded research in basic immunology, virology, and pharmacology; public exposure of and procedural remedies to sweetheart practices between the NIH and FDA on one hand and pharmaceutical companies on the other (now, with our own decline, unfortunately out of control again); institutionalized consumer oversight and political scrutiny of FDA approvals for all drug classes and for vast NIH appropriations for research in every disease; state drug assistance programs; and vastly expanded consumer oversight of insurance and Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement formularies. Each of these reforms profoundly benefits the health and survival of hundreds of millions of people far, far beyond AIDS and will do so for generations to come.

To this I might add that out of ACT UP came Needle Exchange and Housing Works and AID for AIDS and The AIDS Treatment Data Network and the Global AIDS Action Committee and HealthGAP and TAG, too, the Treatment Action Group.

Perhaps you did not know we did all this. As we know, historians do not include gay anything in their histories. Gays are never included in the history of anything.

Dr. Fauci now tells the world that modern medicine can be divided into two periods. Before us and after us. “ACT UP put medicine back in the hands of the patients, which is where it belongs,” he said to the New Yorker.

How could a population of gay people, call us the survivors, or the descendents, of those who did all this, be so relatively useless now? Maybe useless is too harsh. Ineffectual. Invisible. No, useless is not too harsh. Oh let us just call ourselves underutilized. As long as I live I will never figure this out.

Then, we only had the present. We were freed of the responsibility of thinking of the future. So we were able to act up. Now we only have our future. Imagine thinking that way. Those who had no future now only have a future. That includes not only everyone in this room but gay people everywhere. We are back to worrying about what “they” think about us. It seems we are not so free, most of us, to act up now. Our fear had been turned into energy. We were able to cry out fuck you fuck you fuck you. Troy Masters, the publisher of LGNY, wrote to me: ACT UP recognized evil and confronted it loudly.

Yes, we confronted evil. For a while.

We don’t say fuck you, fuck you, fuck you anymore. At least so anyone can hear.

Well the evil things that made me angry then still make me angry now. I keep asking around, doesn’t anything make you angry, too? Doesn’t anything make anyone angry? Or are we back in 1981, surrounded and suffocated by people as uninterested in saving their lives as so many of us were in 1981. I made a speech and wrote a little book called The Tragedy of Today’s Gays about all this. That was about two years ago. Lots of applause. Lots of thanks. No action.

There was a Danish study a few weeks ago. The life expectancy after infection by HIV is now thirty-five years. Thirty five years. Can you imagine that? That is because of ACT UP. A bunch of kids who learned how to launch street actions and release a propaganda machine and manipulate media masterfully, and use naked coercion, occasional litigations, and adept behind-the-scenes maneuverings that led to sweeping institutional changes with vast ramifications. We drove the creation of hundreds of AIDS service organizations across the country, leveraging hundreds of millions of dollars a year and fielding tens of thousands of volunteers, all the while amassing a huge body of clinical expertise and moral authority unprecedented among any group of patients and advocates in medical history.

We did all this. And we got all those drugs. The NIH didn’t get all those drugs. The FDA didn’t get all those drugs. We got all those drugs. And we rammed them down their fucking throats until they approved them and released them.

It was very useful, old ACT UP.

It is no longer useful. The old ACT UP is no longer useful enough. There are not enough of us. Few people go to meetings. Our chapters have evaporated. Our voice has dimmed in its volume and its luster. Our protests are no longer heard.

We must be heard! We must be.

We are not crumbs! We should not accept crumbs! We must not accept crumbs! There is not one single candidate running for public office anywhere that deserves our support. Not one. Every day they vote against us in increasingly brutal fashion. I will not vote for a one of them and neither should you. To vote for any one of them, to lend any one of them your support, is to collude with them in their utter disdain for us. And we must let every single one of them know that we will not support them. Perhaps it will win them more votes, that faggots won’t support them, but at least we will have our self-respect. And, I predict, the respect of many others who have long wondered why we allow ourselves to be treated so brutally year after year after year, as they take away our manhood, our womanhood, our personhood. There is not one single one of them, candidate or major public figure, that, given half a chance, would not sell us down the river. We have seen this time after time, from Bill Clinton with his Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and his full support of the hideous Defense of Marriage Act (talk about selling us down the river), to Hillary with her unacceptable waffling on all our positions. The woman does not know how to make simple declarative statements that involve definite details. (Read David Mixner on Hillary and Bill. It’s scary. Go to his site: DMixner.com). To Ann Coulter calling people faggots and queers and getting away with it. As Andrew Sullivan responded to her: “The emasculation of men in minority groups is an ancient trope of the vilest bigotry!” To this very morning’s statement to the world by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, that he believes the 65,000 lesbian and gay troops fighting right this very minute for our country are immoral. That our country’s top soldier can say something like this out loud and get away with it is disgusting.

If I am going after Hillary and Bill Clinton it is because I think she just might win, or should I say they might win. Two for the price of one will prove irresistible. Thus it is important to go after the Clintons now, while it still might be possible to negotiate their acceptance and support of our concerns, nay our demands, instead of climbing on their bandwagon that is akin to a juggernaut smashing all in their way as David Mixner describes. Too many gay and lesbians and our organizations are giving her fundraisers and kissing her ass too unreservedly and way way too early. As for Bill, yes, he is at last doing great work for AIDS in Africa but it sure would be nice if we had his generics in America for all those who fall through the cracks of the Ryan White Drug Assistance Program. Have you noticed how fashionable it is for foundations and the two Bills, Gates and Clinton, to do AIDS good deeds in Africa and obviously much too unfashionable to do them in America? I don’t like this woman, but I could, if she wasn’t cockteasing us just like her husband did.

We are not crumbs! We must not accept crumbs!

The CDC says some 300,000 men who had sex with men have died during the past 20 years. If I knew at last 500 of them, I know this CDC figure is a lie. Just as I know the CDC figure of gay people as only several percentage points of the population is a lie, instead of the at least some 20% of the population that the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School calculates it is possible to maintain. Who says that intentional genocide of “us” by “them” isn’t going on? They don’t want us here. When are we going to face up to this?

We are discriminated against at every turn. As we prepare to die the older among us will be taxed beyond belief. That prevents us leaving our estates to our lovers or to gay charities. God forbid the latter should happen, that gays with any money should endow gay organizations with all their gay riches. Do you think I am being too elitist in this concern? Well, you are using this gay and lesbian community center now. How do you think it supports itself? Taxation without representation is what led to our Revolutionary War. Well, way over two hundred years later gay people still have no equality.

Gays are equal to nothing good or acceptable in this country. It is criminal how they treat us. We get further and further from progress and equality with each passing year. George Bush will leave a legacy of hate that will take who knows how many eons to cleanse away. He has packed every court in the land with a conservative judge who serves for life. He has staffed every single government job from high to low with a conservative inhabitant who, under the laws of Civil Service, cannot be removed. So even with the most tolerant of new Presidents we will be unable to break free from this yoke of hate for as long as most of us will live. Congresspersons now call judges to pressure them, which is illegal, and if the President doesn’t like a judge’s record, he fires them, which is also illegal. The Supreme Court is not going to give us our equality in any foreseeable future, and it is from the Supreme Court that it must come. They are the law of this land that will not make us equal. If that is not hate, if what I am talking about does not represent hate, I do not know what hate is. We are crumbs to them, if even that.

This is not just about gay marriage. Political candidates only talk about gay marriage, making nicey-nice maybes. But they are not talking about gay equality. And we are not demanding that they talk about the kind of equality I am talking about, marriage or no marriage. Gay marriage is a useful red herring for them to pretend they are talking about gays when they are not. For some reason our movement has confined its feeble demands to marriage. Well, my lover and I don’t want to get married just yet but we sure want to be equal.

I wish I could make all gay people everywhere accept this one fact I know to be an undisputed truth. We are hated. Haven’t enough of us died for all of us to believe this? Some seventy million cases of HIV were all brewed in a cauldron of hate.

Mark Harrington said to me last week that one of the great things about ACT UP was that it made us proud to be gay. Our activism came out of love. Our activism came out of our love for each other as we tried to take care of each other, and to keep each other alive.

No one is looking out for us anymore the way ACT UP looked out for us once upon a time.

ACT UP is not saving us now. This is not meant as finger-pointing or blame. It just is. No one goes to meetings and our chapters all over the globe have almost disappeared. And we must recognize this, I beg of you.

I don’t want to start another organization. And yet I know we must start another organization. Or at the very least administer major shock therapy to this one.

And I know that if we do go down a new road, we must do it right and just accept this fact that the old ACT UP we knew is no longer useful enough to the needs that we have now and move on to reparative therapy.

I also know that any organization that we start now must be an army. You have resisted this word in the past. Perhaps now that the man in charge of America’s army is calling you immoral you won’t resist it army anymore. We must field an organized army with elected leaders and a chain of command. It must be a gay army with gay leaders fighting for gay people under a gay flag, in gay battle formations against our common enemies, uncontaminated by any fear of offending or by any sense that this might not be the time to say what we really need to say. We must cease our never-ending docile cooperation with a status quo that never changes in its relationship to us. We are cutting our own throats raising money for Hillary or Obama or Kerry or, God forbid, Giuliani, or anyone until they come out in full support of all the things I am talking about, not just some tepid maybe-maybes about second-class partnership pieces of worthless paper. Immigration. Taxation without representation. Safety. Why aren’t they all supporting Hate Crimes bills that include us? Twenty-thousand Christian youths now make an annual pilgrimage to San Francisco to pray for gay souls. I am sorry but this is not free speech. This is another version of hate. If any organization sent 20,000 Christian youths to pray for Jewish souls they would lose their tax-exempt status, or they would have before George Bush. Do we protest? It is very wearying to witness our carrying on so passively year after year, particularly now that all of us—and I mean all of us—have been given the gift of staying alive. I know that young gays don’t think this way, but many of us died to give you this gift of staying alive. You are alive because of us. I wish you would see this. And we all owe it to the dead as well as to ourselves to continue a fight that we have stopped fighting.

We do not seem to realize that the more we become visible, the more that more and more of us come out of the closet, the more vulnerable we become to the more and more increasingly visible hate against us. In other words, the more they see us, the more they hate us. The more new gays they see, the more new ways they find to hate us. We do not seem to realize that the more we urge each other to come out—which indeed we must never stop doing—the more we must protect ourselves for and from our exits from our closet on to the stage of the world that hates us more and more. I don’t think we realize this and we must. We must.

Why do I think we need the word “army”? Because it connotes strength and discipline, which we desperately need to convey. Because it scares people, and God knows nobody is all that scared of us. Which they were for a while. The drug companies were afraid of us. The NIH and FDA were afraid of us. Closeted everybodies were afraid of us. No more. Our days of being democratic to a flaw at those endless meetings must cease. It has been a painful lesson to learn but democracy does not protect us. Unity does. United commitment to confront our many foes.

We never consider the establishment of a gay army, just as in the approach of the Holocaust the Jews did not consider one, even though urged, no begged, no implored to do so by their great philosopher, Hannah Arendt, who had the tragic misfortune to see what was coming and to not have her warnings heeded or even believed. Why only last week Mr. Obama implored his people, albeit with a certain timidity: “Put on your marching shoes! Go do some politics! Change this country!” If all the blacks in this country did all that, he would not only win but they would have the power they never have.

What we refuse to see is what is going on around us, believing it is happening to others but not believing that it can happen to us: the use and defense of torture, concentrations of prisoners regarded as threats to America in camps where they languish indefinitely beyond the reach of law; hidden “duplicate” governments existing under the auspices of the homeland security state, shadowing the constitutional government but secret and free of legal constraint.” (Waldron). You don’t think any of this can happen to you. I do. You don’t think that any of those “political” prisoners shipped off to camps are gay? You’re wrong. Much of the Episcopalian church is now aligning itself with Nigeria. Homosexuality is a punishable crime in Nigeria, in Ghana, in Iran, in Saudi Arabia, in a hundred different countires, as is any activism on behalf of it. Punishable means prison. Punishable means death. The Nigerian head archbishop of the Episcopalian church believes we should be put in prison. Episcopalians! Whoever thought we’d have to worry about Episcopalians. Well, whoever thought we’d have to worry about Wyoming. Matthew Shepard was murdered in Wyoming.

When will we acknowledge that we are constantly being lied to? We must have fiercely observant eyes. We must understand and confront the unprecedented, with “attentive facing up to, and resistance of, reality—whatever that might be.”(Arendt) Intelligent people—and gays are certainly that—have proved more than once that we are less capable of judging for ourselves than almost any other social group. When a conservative columnist can get away with calling presidential candidates “a faggot” and “a queer,” without any serious reprisals, than why can’t we see that we are in trouble? When the New York Times does not run an obituary on quite possibly the most famous lesbian in modern times, Barbara Gittings, than we are in trouble. When I can’t get US News and World Report to publish a letter about an insidiously homophobic cover story they wrote on Jamestown, we’re in trouble. When our country’s top military officer can call us immoral, we’re in trouble.

No, ACT UP is not saving us now. No one is saving us now.

We all think we have straight friends. We think if we have straight friends then everything is OK. But these friends are not protesting with us. They aren’t fighting with us. They enjoy the freedoms they have with their marriages and all their fringe benefits. Yes, they like us but are they going to sacrifice any of their freedoms to get us ours? Of course not. And what’s more we should not expect them to. Even though it sure would be nice; we’ve fought for them and theirs often enough.

The old ACT UP model served us well but it is time to take the next step. I am not saying that there are not more fights to be had for AIDS. There are and we must continue to fight them. Infections are up again. Prevention efforts are not good enough. It is still illegal for HIV foreigners to enter America. But these issues no longer appear to excite sufficient participation. Few people come to meetings and our chapters have disappeared. Many of us have tried to figure out what happened to us and why we ceased to be what we were. We all have thoughts about what happened but as I said I think its time to stop trying to figure it out and just move on. Expanding our demands will hopefully not silence our past concerns but invite increased numbers to meld these newer concerns I am talking about into a stronger, total mix.

ACT UP requires a new model to do this. A new model that will allow for different kinds of actions, tactics and issues, not just HIV. I am not asking you if you even want another organization. I am hoping that you are smart enough to realize—eureka!—that the great deeds we once accomplished which changed history can be accomplished again. For we are still facing the same danger, our extermination, and from the same enemy, our own country, our own country’s “democratic process.” Day after day our country declares that we are not equal to anything at all. All the lives we saved are nothing but crumbs if we still aren’t free. And we still aren’t free. Gay people still aren’t free.

Go to Queens, go to Jamaica, go to Iran, go to Wyoming, we still aren’t free. How many places in this country, in this world, can we walk down a street holding a beloved’s hand? I went to my nephew’s wedding in Jamaica twenty years ago. They are out for blood against gay men in Jamaica now. They do it to you the minute you get off the plane. There are men with iron crowbars waiting to maim you at the airport. Does our government protest? Of course not. Who cares if a faggot dies. They are actually beheading gays in Iran. This is progress? The European Parliament which in the past had played a key role in advancing gay rights worldwide, is about to be taken over by conservative delegates that will strengthen their neo-fascist bloc, which will actually call for capital punishment for homosexuals. You don’t think that any of this can’t happen here? I do. Our country’s top soldier said so this morning. We are immoral. The Mayor of Moscow calls us dirt. Polish leaders call us scum. Ann Coulter calls us sissies. General Pace calls us immoral. Who cares if a faggot dies. A gay person murdered in Iraq or Libya or Nigeria or Jamaica or Ghana or Saudi Arabia is the same as a gay person murdered here. Why do I harp so on gay murders in foreign countries. Because gay murders in Iran have a way of becoming gay hate in Paris and London and Chicago and in the highest rank of US Army. Particularly when our own government ignores all attacks against us anywhere. Who cares of a faggot dies. It is all one world now. The disposal of gay people is an equal opportunity employer and hate is a disease that spreads real fast. I repeat: a gay kid murdered anywhere is a gay kid murdered here.
Yes, we have many things to worry about now besides HIV.

You can get married now in New Jersey but New York judges handed down some of the most bigoted “legal” hate outside of Iran, where as I have just said they are now actually decapitating gay men. They are stringing up gay boys and putting masks over their heads and hanging them as Saddam Hussein was hanged. For being gay. Does our government protest? Does any government protest? Of course not. Who cares if a faggot dies. Do you have friends in love with partners forbidden from entering America? To be separated by force from the one you love is one of the saddest things I can think of. What kind of police state do we live in? This is not right. This is wrong. It does not happen for straight lovers. It can only happen to gays who live in a country where we are hated. How many years do we have to endure being treated like this? If countries like Australia and New Zealand recognize relationship residencies for mixed nationalities, why can’t we? There was not one single demonstration against those New York judges, or indeed against any judges who are such dictators of our lives, where they work and live and sleep each night. They cannot be allowed to continue to hate us so legally. America cannot be allowed to continue to hate us so actively. It is not right. It is wrong. Don’t right and wrong mean anything anymore? Why are we not specifically included in Hate Crimes laws in many states? How many Matthew Shepherds must there be before we are specifically included in Hate Crime laws in every state?

We have right on our side and we must make everyone know it. If ACT UP is to stand for anything, let it stand for our Army Corps to Unleash Power.

Think about it. Think about all of this. Please.

We are the only people in America that it is socially acceptable to hate and discriminate against. Indeed so much hate of us exists that it is legally acceptable to pass constitutional amendments to hate us even more. This is democracy? This is how our courts and laws protect us? These are the equal rights for all that America’s Bill of Rights proclaims for all?

The biggest enemy we must fight continues to be our own government. How dare we stop? We cannot stop. We are not crumbs and we must not accept crumbs and we must stop acting like crumbs.

ACT UP is the most successful grass roots organization that ever lived. Period. There never was, never has been one more successful that has achieved as much as we. We did it before. We can do it again. But to be successful, activism must be practiced every day. By a lot of people. It made us proud once. It united us.

I constantly hear in my ears the refrain: “an army of lovers cannot lose.” Then why are we losing so? We must trust each other to an extent we never have, enough to allow the appointment of leaders and a chain of command to stay on top of things and keep some sort of order so that we not only don’t self destruct as we seem to have more or less done, but also, this time, as we did not do before, institutionalize ourselves for longevity.

I am very aware that as I spin this out I am creating reams of unanswered questions. Well, we didn’t know when we first met in this very room twenty years ago what we wanted ACT UP to become. But we figured it out. Bit by bit and piece by piece we put it together. We have a lot to thrash out and codify in a more private fashion. Armies shouldn’t show all their cards to the world. Many parts of the old ACT UP will still serve us: the choices of a variety of issues to obsess us in the detail that we became famous for; the use of affinity groups that develop their own forms of guerilla warfare. Our call for Health Care for All must still be sought. I have a personal bug up my ass that gay history is not taught in the schools. Abraham Lincoln and George Washington were gay. It may be up to activists to ram this truth down the throats of America because gay historians are too timid to. Timidity is so boring, don’t you agree?

Much of what I am calling for involves laws, changing them, getting them. We need to cobble together an omnibus gay rights bill and then hold every politician’s feet to this fire until he or she supports it. We’d find out fast enough who are friends aren’t. TAG and AmFAR once cobbled together a bunch of research priorities into a bill that they got through congress.

How about this: Jim Eigo wrote me: “a full generation after AIDS emerged as a recognizable disease, having sex still poses the same risk for HIV infection or reinfection. Having a sexual encounter with another person—a central, meaningful activity in most people’s lives—has been shadowed by fear, by the prospect of a long-term disease and by a whole new reason for guilt for more than a quarter of a century now. How have we allowed this unnatural state of affairs to persist for so long? Where are the 21st century tools for preventing the sexual transmission of HIV: cheap, effective, and utterly unobtrusive. Lovers deserve nothing less. Instead of sinking time, effort, and money into excavating the fossils of its ancient achievement, ACT UP might consider marking its birthday by mounting a fresh drive to remind government and industry that people have a right to sex without fear, without being forced to make a choice between pleasure and health. It’s an issue that might actually speak across the divides of generation, race, gender and sero-status. And it might regain for the organization some measure of the relevance it once had for the grassroots activists that gave of themselves as if their lives depended on it, because they really did.” Jim is calling for nothing less than the reclamation of our sex lives. What an utterly fantastic notion, or shall I now say goal? Why even raising this issue will find us hated even more. I am so ready for another organized fight.

Are you beginning to see how all this that I am talking about can be streamed into one new ACT UP army?

I have asked Eric to convey the main difference of what is available to us now that we did not have to work with in the past:
“In the age of the internet we can do much of what we did in our meetings and on the streets, on the world wide web.
“The information technology available today could help end the need for those endless meetings.
“Creating a blog could, in fact, incorporate even more voices and varieties of opinions and ideas than any meeting ever could.
“Where ACT UP once had chapters in many cities, we could now involve thousands more via simple list-serves and blogs. We can draw in students and schools and colleges all over the world. It is the young we have to get to once again.
“Creating a blog would allow for expression and refinement of ideas and policies, like a Queer Justice League for denouncing our enemies.
“A well organized website could function as an electronic clearing house for sharing information, for posting problems, for demanding solutions, for developing and communicating action plans.
“List-serves and a website could coordinate grassroots organizing and mobilize phone, e-mail and physical zaps or actions. They could also be used to spotlight homophobic actions, articles, movies and tv, and laws.
“Why aren't we fighting fire with fire? Where is our radical gay left think tank? We need our own "700 Club" and our own talk radio show. Developing such gay content programming for the LOGO or Here Networks or for streaming on-line is completely possible today. Why are all the shows our community is producing about fashion, decorating or just another gay soap?”

Why even Time Magazine is now stating as a fact that websites drive the agendas of political parties.

I know that even without these tools we reordered an entire world’s approach to a disease that would have killed us all. Surely with these tools and with all our creativity we can start to take control of our destinies again.

With these tools, and with a renewed commitment to love and support and to fight to save each other, with a renewed commitment to the anger that saved us once before, with the belief that anger, along with love, are the two most healthy and powerful emotions we are good at, I believe that we could have such a historical success again.

May I conclude these thoughts, these remarks toward the definition of a new ACT UP that will hopefully begin to be discussed forthwith, with this cry from my heart:
Farewell ACT UP.
Long live ACT UP.
Thank you.

--END--

Chris Garneau

2007-01-15T22:16:00.000-05:00

I love this kid. I listen to "Black and Blue" and "Between the Bars" all the time. His album is coming out in a week.

Not Nice (mp3)
Black and Blue (mp3)
Relief (video)

"Not really."

2007-01-15T11:36:00.000-05:00

Brokeback Dreamgirls

2007-01-14T22:53:00.000-05:00

Courtney Love's Resolutions

2007-01-12T22:21:00.000-05:00

In case you missed them, and because, as always, she's singing my life with her words:

new years day resolutions

become a women of limitless selfr esteem
help others with at least 20% of my time and money
get this last song- if needed w LP
sign with one of the two deals on the table , asap, ( after the hols both meetings are set and both deal memos have been negotiated i just have to decide if i want to take a risk or be safe and who knows…..)
be victorious and positive in all actions
have a happ[y satisfied child and family
sell the pony get a new horse
try this “thin” anthropoligical experiment - get to my goal weight healthily and stay there .
improve yoga practice
do gongyo at night - even if i just do the book and 7 minutes of diamoku
attract only positive people to my home an dlife
thank all those who have walked it like theyve talked it and let them know i do not take them for granted.
cahnt for the war in Iraq to cease asap
chant for Hillary to win
take nothing personally.

learn an asian language. dont take “no” for an answer ( if appropriate) and chase after what i want tour tour tour makwe sure Billy feels i have his bac k too and not allow him to go off the rails even if it eans confrontation- because thats what friends do cultivate real and deep relationships with others get cd out within th enext month - arpil latest. listen to Linda and relax and let the people who would see me fail walk in peace dont feed myself any vitriol from them dont peek at tabloids and bad websites, as it absouloutly shatters the Law to make that cause agiants yourself. have fantastic sex with commitment and honour with someone whoo treats me as i deserve and dont give my power away learn about money keep a journal no matter what keep wrioting songs no matter what know that 07 is going to be the very best year of my entire life to date know that Kurts spirit is tended to and tend to it daily help other perforrers and asrtists who are unknown or nknown here in the states. dont go to nightclubs with 19 year olds. be an imnspiration to those around me and remember the mistakes made in the past and take responsibility for them thus not allowing those energies into my life again another year, another year without even wine no matter how hard i try to justify that “wines okay” knw that is the demon voice and put it out of my thoughts chant daimoku for my worst enemies who are not enemies of me persoanlly but whp project thier own insecurities onto me and onto my past drug problem. make any amends that are keft to make. do not allow myself to be a doormat in relationships ever again DO NOT SLLOW MYSELF TO BE A DOORMAT INA RELATIONSHIP EVER EVER AGAIN. learn at least three new skills make a friend a month or reconnect with an old friend a month and be consistent in relationship get Biba collection better get hoous ein UK and Loft in NY or Apt in Cetrakl Park West. do not lose touch with oeiple when scare dto call because i fell “less than” call anyway. have fun in tour an ffind a great touring band, dont care about looks or gender, only quality of musicianishio and energy. rehearse to exhaustion to get it right. mean it when i smile. mean it when i meet a stranger no matter how bnothersome- be sincer and take the damm photo without attitude. stay pissed off at the world for song usage. dont get complacent. keeo a beautiful home and and keep child safe hopefully start another family someday - soon. meet that guy. no more surgery for any reason other than medical until i really need it in my 60s and last b it def not least LEARN TO DRIVE STOP SMOKING GO TO HYPNI THERAPY AND JUST DAMM WELL STOP, LIFE IS MYC HOICE AND I WILL DIE FROM SMOKING UNLESS I CHOOSE TO STOP. stay macro biotic and do the exercise needed to burtn the carbs off that to stay healthiest. undertsnad who my enemeies are since a few exacs and bloggers out there seem to enjoy hirtiung me and using the Law let them find interest in another. rthats it for now. lotsa love Court

Taibbi on Friedman pt. III

2007-01-09T02:53:00.000-05:00

I love it when Matt Taibbi rips into Thomas Friedman. I think he really likes doing it, too.

Doug Rushkoff's Park Slope

2007-01-09T01:52:00.000-05:00

There's a pretty fascinating discussion over on Doug Rushkoff's blog about his Christmas mugging outside his apartment in the outskirts of Park Slope (Click on the jump for the full text). 80some commenters discuss gentrification, race, and class struggle in a candid way we don't read very often.

I got mugged this summer, and my experience uncannily mirrors one of Rushkoff's commenters. Basically, as I was walking home through Gramercy, some shithead tried to put me in a headlock and demand my money. I always thought I was a risk-averse, here's my wallet kind of guy, but in the heat of the moment, with adrenaline rushing, I fought back and I fought back hard. I wrestled him to the ground and started beating his ugly face with my cell phone, all the while hollering obscenities in my best Tony Danza voice. We both emerged bloodied and bruised, with me yelling at the top of my lungs and him without my wallet or anything else.

If there's a transcript of the 911 call, it would make a pretty funny Youtube clip. I was aggro to the max, as well as completely delusional. "You better get the FUCK over here," I screamed at the poor 911 operator, "or I'm gonna fuckin' kill him with my bare hands," etc. Meanwhile I have the upper body strength of an old lady and the only thing I have ever killed with my bare hands is a block of tofu. You really have to see me in dandy person to get the comedy of my Tony Danza/Raging Bull impersonation. The meathead cops afterwards said to me (as I writhed in the back seat of their patrol car, still livid and talking shit about what I was going to do to this guy) "we don't recommend fighting back, but at least you got yours." I was just excited about the fact that with my swollen lower lip I suddenly looked like Ryan Philippe.

I felt good about fighting back. Unlike the last time I was mugged (years ago), this had almost no lingering traumatic effects. I felt like such a machoman. From my first experience with a more harrowing mugging, I can relate to Rushkoff's hangwringing and his impulse to just get the fuck out of Park Slope. It's so violating and disempowering (if I could talk to the guy I'd sincerely recommend counselling).

In my situation, the cops also dissuaded me from filing a report, and I get the impression from the discussion below that a lot of NYC's vaunted crime decrease has to do with a change in reporting policy. Interesting, and fucked up.
Merry Christmas, Gimme Your Money
12/25/2006 09:09:00 AM | Link
I got mugged at knifepoint while taking out the garbage Christmas Eve at 9pm.

I negotiated with him for my health insurance card - not only because it has my Social Security number and was really hard to get, but because I knew that such a request would humanize me in the mind of my attacker, and make it harder for him to stab me. Such are the benefits of studying human behavior. All I lost was my phone, cards, and money.

Getting a knife pushed into your ribcage now and again is just part of the price we pay to live in a city, and New York is supposedly one of the safer of the bunch. But I have to admit, it makes me question working two extra gigs (I won't divulge which ones they are) in order to pay the exorbitant rent this part of Brooklyn - when the streets are less safe than they were in the supposedly bad parts of Manhattan where I used to live.

It may just be the humiliation of not fighting back that's getting me down, but I fear that Brooklyn may be a crock. And with a two-year-old daughter, I feel a strong urge to spend my effort elsewhere.

Merry solstice to all. Things should get brighter, soon.

comment |

Unlucky mate. To be honest, you're just as likely to get a beating wherever you go. I live in a modest town and had my fair share of muggings. If the money is an issue then find somewhere cheaper but don't go because your pride is hurt. You did the right thing.

All the best.
Mr B • 12/25/06 06:48am
Wow, that really sucks. You handled the situation pretty well, I think. I just don't know what the muggers are thinking these days. Don't they realize your phone and credit cards are also pretty worthless once you deactivate them? I would have convinced him just to take the cash.

As for fighting back, it all depends on the situation. You should really only fight back if you're pretty sure you're going to get out without a trip to the hospital. Also, there are lots of crazy laws where you can actually technically get in trouble for fighting back. If you did fight back, I'd definitely be rooting for you.

As for New York, it is most certainly one of the safer cities statistically speaking. At least, the statistics tell a much brighter story than the stereotype.

Let me end with an anecdote. I was walking from GCT to the office one day, and I heard a scream off to the left. I couldn't believe what I saw, a real life purse-snatching in progress on the South side of Bryant Park. My first reaction was, wtf? Then it was, hey, let's stop that guy! Four other people had the same idea before I did, and the crook was dispatched before I could cross the road. New York is pretty good.
Apreche • 12/25/06 07:17am
I'm sorry that happened, I know what you must be feeling,
though I didn't have the humiliation of not fighting back when I was attacked since in my case in Harlem it was 3 guys and they jumped me from behind and hit me on the head with a bat before asking questions. My attack (in Spanish Harlem) really made me think a lot about racial tension and the class-war in the city, that seem to constantly boil under the surface. Do you have any thoughts like that?
By the way, like you I tried to play "business as usual", everything under control (as you might see here: mushon.com/?p=46) it didn't last too long. If I can give you one tip from the violent and graphical experience I had, it would be to allow yourself to deal with it, personally, not only in the scope of "I have to be strong for my family" or it will get you sometime later, when you least expect it...

Have a better new year, see you around...

Mushon
Mushon • 12/25/06 07:51am
Jeez... I'm really glad you're ok. Money is just money, I'm just glad you didn't get stabbed. Good work on the insurance card, but I think too much negotiation could have made things worse. I worry to think what might have happened if you didn't have anything worth stealing on you...

Hope the rest of the year treats you better...
matt g • 12/25/06 08:48am
I got mugged at gun point in the bronx one early morning. i had only 5$ in wallet, i thought that the mugger would shoot me out of spite. it seems to be a rite of passage for many in the city. makes you really question why you are here, at the very least makes you feel low.

However, you are alive. and you ware pretty close to not being, humanized or not, it may sound hollow, but rejoice.

Happy holiday, be well.
Doron • 12/25/06 08:54am
Doug,

Many people have been through similar experiences yet choose unique ways to react and later rationalize their decisions. Do not be ashamed of your reactions since they are really an expression of your self. Perhaps the best reaction would be to use this experience to learn something more about your self.

From a fans point of view, it hurts to hear about this incident because I had always visualized you on a pedestal that was high enough to make you immune to the lower forms of humanity. Seeing that this was not true makes me proud of you and ashamed of my own naivety. Thank you for being a member of the human race and congratulations on a situation well handled!
morgan23 • 12/25/06 08:57am
Holy Canoli. Can almost see the hand outside of the panel pushing this bad thing to happen on a night that's supposed to be gooder than most. Moloch? You supposed to be Job-ish? Anyhoo a lil levity at a yucky time. Sorry you went through that and Happier Holidays to you and your family.
JahFurry • 12/25/06 09:11am
Freaky!

Glad to hear that you made it out without any serious incident. The "humiliation of not fighting back" may be a twinge of the old Circuit 2 / Emotional / Territorial programming [which is also the foundation for Circuit 6 / The Metaprogramming skills that puts the Club Zero-G pencil in your hands].

Despite the danger, it sounds like you were able to use higher brain functions to quickly think through the ways of de-escalating the physical violence.

Circuit 2 is still a tough nut to crack, especially in a culture where regular flavors of "The only thing that terrorists can understand is terror" bombard us. It is rare to find somone who appreciates the difference between "defending oneself" and "fighting back."

Of course, Leary theory may not make you feel any better but it does offer some other options.

I look forward to what you bring to us in 2007. Thanks again for the great work and that to come!

- sean
sean • 12/25/06 09:29am
Yeah - I'm totally aware that the wounded pride is a lower circuit, territorial thing - exacerbated by the fact that this happened in what passes for my front yard. The funny thing is that some other thread on a Jewish site has some young zionist calling me a rich elitest as a way of criticizing my stance on Judaism.

And the weirdest part - what i originally intended to post about, but didn't, was the way the guy ran away at the end. As he was running, I realized that the whole situation had instantly turned on its head: now he was the frightened one, and I was the one with the equivalent of a deadly weapon - cops, the law, class difference - with which to wage a counterattack.

As for the phone - he probably took it so I couldn't snap his photo as he ran.

Thanks all for the well wishes. The cops said I shouldn't feel bad: that Christmas eve is a big "hunting night" in Park Slope.
rushkoff • 12/25/06 10:13am
glad you're safe, intact, and all that. hope today is nicer:)
erik • 12/25/06 12:53pm
Holy Crap, glad you're safe Doug, and similarly impressed at how you've dealt with it and managed to keep a good perspective. Hope you can have a relaxed new year and not get wound up. Take it easy mate.
Jack Henry • 12/25/06 01:06pm
Doug,
very sorry to hear about the incident. Thankfully you are safe. Love to you and your family. Ever think about moving to Bushwick?
Peace friend....
Gabriel • 12/25/06 08:40pm
If it's any comfort, I received a copy of "Get Back in the Box" for Christmas so there's one purchase to help offset the financial loss.
:)
Leonard • 12/25/06 09:58pm
I'm glad you're safe, and glad you have the stones to write about this encounter and the effect it's having on your psyche. Yes, thanks for being human, and for articulating in speech and action a better humanity.
Peace.
Rocky • 12/26/06 07:36am
This is why God invented Queens. It's where people go to hide from the Sarsgaards and the people who want to rob them.
Not Gina • 12/26/06 12:56pm
About a year ago, I was walking home from a studio space shgwing from down the street from where I lived in BROAD daylight on a BUSY street when a guy followed me a few blocks, tackled me, waved his keys in my face and then proceeded to run off with my bag.

Because my notebook was in there (for my writing...retrospective ly, a story I end up canning), I ran after the guy, screamed help and somebody got out of the car and chased him down. When he realized a guy was chasing after him, instead of a girl, he turned around, gave me my bag back and then I called the cops and he ran off, got caught and was thrown in jail for (I think) 9 months.

If your guy didn't have a knife, I would have suggested fighting back, but you did the right thing. I carry mace with me now. And the original call into the police before I called was, "frantic white girl in a pink jacket is chasing a black man."
Kaet • 12/26/06 01:23pm
Oh, Doug, I'm so so sorry about that - what a horrible thing to happen. Very glad you're safe and hope you're feeling better. xo
Elyse • 12/26/06 01:30pm
I got mugged once in Williamsburg, walking home late late at night. I was wasted out of my mind, and kind of asking for it, to be honest. White boy, 5 AM, wasted in hipsterville. He jumped me from behind in an elbow strangle hold, and well, it was interesting: my first instinct, despite and maybe because of, I started screaming, slammed him backwards into the ground and began kicking the guy. He ran, I ran, no harm done. Except that fighting back was probably the dumbest thing to do, if he had possessed a weapon, who knows what would have happened. Adrenalin is a funny thing, I didn't know I was capable of defending myself against something like that until I had to.
Evbogue • 12/26/06 02:03pm
The cops said you shouldn't worry? That sounds reassuring.

Glad you are okay though, and good job on negotiating your insurance card. It's hard to keep cool under those circumstances.

Sometimes it seems like the criminal element in bad neighborhoods are wiser and the worse stuff happens in nice areas. I lived in downtown Cincinnati during our race riots and nothing happened to me, but when I lived in trashy suburbs my house got broken into. And nothing, so far, has ever happened to me in any part of inner Los Angeles whether walking around Hollywood late or taking the train through south central with the Compton stop and all. Yet the only problem I've had in California was ironically in suburban Costa Mesa, OC a drunk ass wanted to start a fight with me in the street for no discernible reason.

One trick it seems is to walk around with an angry look on your face and generally people leave you alone, but its tricky.
ray • 12/26/06 02:27pm
Doug, sorry to hear about your mugging, but your comment that sounds weirdest is your resentment/anger at having to pay premium prices to live in a Brooklyn that still has pockets of crime in it.

Seems to me you have no problem arbitraging Brooklyn's supposedly "cheaper" rents when it suits you. After all, why live in Bklyn in the first place? I'll tell you why: You get more space for less dough. You still pay a lot to live in the cushy confines of prime Slope, but comparatively speaking, you pay less than frere Manhattanites for the same amount of turf. And with better public schools (aren't you in the 321 district?)

Brooklyn is demonstrably, statistically safer than it has ever been. That was part of what lured you in the first place. But the statistics know no names, and so coincidentally, you became one (for violent crime). I'm glad you weren't hurt, but at the moment you sound a little like those scared suburbanites who moved to Levittown in the first flush of badass urban violence. Truth is, this time ain't nothing like that one.

Thus it looks like an aberattion bit you in the wallet. But do us all a favor: Don't take it out on your adopted borough.
strongorbit • 12/26/06 02:41pm
Your wife blogs that it was a gun?
If you want to live in any metoproplis you're going to have to deal with the threat of violent crime, no matter what your neighborhood. It happens everywhere. I think the only ones immune are the super-rich who can insulate themselves from the street with drivers and doormen.
Take precautions, but relax, you handled it like a pro: you have something to live for and that degenerate doesn't. So just hand over everything and hold onto your life.
BUT CALL THE DAMN COPS RIGHT AWAY! They could have canvassed the neighborhood with you; this works often and may save the next victim.
Curious • 12/26/06 04:40pm
strongorbit: yes, brooklyn is safer than it used to be, but it still ain't great. we see bad things happening A LOT here. we're not in 321 and the prices, jeez, they are crazy high to live in a broke down brownstone (1.5 million for an apartment where you can hear and feel the subway? and not even 321! who is paying these prices? we can't afford that.) this incident alone isn't making us want to leave -- it's many things. mostly we want to be able to be creative people while providing an enriching environment for our kid. we so wanted to do that here, we really did. but it just ain't working out. believe me, we wanted it to.
the mrs. • 12/26/06 04:58pm
Hey all, and thanks again for well wishes. I'm fine, really.

Ev - I used to be like you. I was mugged twice before - back in the good ol' days before Giuliani and all - and was stupid enough to fight them off both times. Just instinct. If I didn't have a wife and daughter, I might have taken my chances this time, too.

Yeah, Curious - it's weird. I remembered it as a knife, but when the detectives questioned me we realized it was a gun. The mind does weird things when you're really feeling threatened. I used the word "knife" with them, but described a gun. Then I realized it *was* a gun. They said it happens a lot. As for not calling the cops right away, you're right. Weird thing was I felt I owed the guy for not kiling me. Like we had made some kind of deal.

As for the Brooklyn arbitrage, the Mrs. pretty well explained it. And it has nothing to do with getting bit in the wallet! It's having a weapon shoved against my gut in front of my home at 9pm. It's about *not* feeling adopted, but rather priced out.

We came out here to the Slope less for space than community. And while there's certainly fun friends here, sometimes it seems as if that community spirit wears thin under pressure.

People are friends and leftie and cool - I mean, it's almost Berkeley or something - until they decide they're competing against you to get their kids into the Beth Elohim "two's" program. Then all of a sudden they're pissed off that you posted the details of the application procedure to a Park Slope Parents list, because they were counting on the process remaining opaque. Yes: I got two emails chiding me for clarifiying the process, because it made the whole thing more fair. It's still New York.

And even on getting mugged, while I find great support online, no one in my own building even rang the bell or asked how I was or what happaned (I posted the basics near the front door, so that people would know to be careful). I mean, if I found out someone in my building got mugged, I'd give a knock and see if they needed anything. To borrow some cash, maybe? Someone down the street told me to take down the blog post because they're trying to sell their house and this could hurt their property values.

I guess it was the cops who got me thinking about it as a Brooklyn thing. Not the first cops who said I should have fought back, but the detectives who said the Slope is getting progressively worse - that they've got real problems patroling with such budget cuts, and that violent crime has been rising quite steadily for the past year or so. Not in the whole of Brooklyn - but here. Especially against women in the park. And then they drew the circle around Park Slope, and showed me how by being just inside the circle, I end up being the easiest target because they don't have to go too far into the rich white area. It's the edges where the most action happens - the edges of gentification, that is.

There are great and terrible inconsistencies here in Brooklyn, as in many places. I had a little bit of a debate with Steven Johnson about it at a "Habitats" conference a couple of months ago. He argued that the Slope offers a great inter-racial co-mingling. That he can walk through the park and see people of all races barbecuing. That it's a society at its best. And I offered that we white authors represent the force of gentification. And that we are part of what makes the neighborhood unaffordable for those who lived here before us.

But I hear you Strongorbit (even though you don't tell us your name, but feel fine to list what you think is my daughter's future school district) it's not fair to blame Brooklyn. And I wish you were on my block to push the community spirit. It's not Brooklyn that's a crock - it's the mindset that got me to *consider* the kind of mortgage that would make an apartment in this part of Brooklyn possible. And that doesn't mean going to Levittown. Turns out, there are choices in this world other than 'cool' parts of the city and the burbs.
rushkoff • 12/26/06 05:42pm
White flight anyone? I feel sorry for all you put upon white people having your whiteness placed in danger in this big bag dangerous city filled with murderous nonwhites. At least you didn't have 50 bullets pumped into you by the police.
Droptruf • 12/26/06 05:48pm
When someone gets shot, they don't just lose their whiteness. Didn't you know that? Getting shot doesn't make you turn black. It makes you die.

I guess you're saying the whites should keep gentifrying your areas, then? What an idiot you are. If you see the post or convesation here as some example of white flight then you really don't know who your friends are.

Besides, _you're_ the racist asshole. Why do you think the mugger was black?
ray • 12/26/06 06:03pm
Interesting idea, but white flight was actually a way to keep poor people in the cities while the wealthy fled to the suburbs.

In my case, I'd be leaving the neighborhood to the wealthy, so that I could move somewhere more affordable. Probably with more black people, not less.

And I do not believe I divulged the race of the Chinese guy who mugged me. oops. ;)

Seriously, I'm one of the only guys you'll find in this neighborhood trying to wake people up to the fact that the blacks and hispanics being forced to move out (in order to make room for condos) aren't benefiting by getting to sell their homes. No, the market is not taking care of them. People around here seem to think that things getting more expensive just make it good for everyone.

But you are certainly correct in that the police gunning down innocent black kids is a bigger problem than me getting mugged. Still, the rampant racism and segregation in these toney neighborhoods - what I'm attempting to address - may actually be connected to that problem. Criticizing me as a racist for bringing it up doesn't make sense.
rushkoff • 12/26/06 06:10pm
Douglas, very sorry to hear this. I am glad you weren't harmed. It's sobering to us all, however.
Heidi MacDonald • 12/26/06 06:43pm
I know. It'll get better. i was mugged at gunpoint one week before Christmas two years ago, in Brooklyn. I left New York that week to spend the holidays with my family and I didn't really want to go back. I questioned if this was the Eden I was looking for. But, it did get better and I feel safe again. I am a bit more cautious and I wonder if this is where I want to raise children. It's not a matter of race. I was mugged by a young white male.
Sal • 12/26/06 08:18pm
bastards. nevermind the threat of physical harm -- that kind of thing gets in your head. I wish telling you to think of it as little as possible was helpful.
Geoff Klock • 12/26/06 08:25pm
Sorry to hear that. I was attacked a few years ago in a crowded subway platform in Soho on a wondefully sunny February afternoon...so...someti mes it's not just the environment, but rather the randomness of things. Glad to hear you are alright.
Matteo • 12/26/06 08:50pm
As a fellow Park Slope resident and a female who often gets home at later hours, I'm curious which block you live on? I'm on Dean Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues -- just inside that circle the cops drew on the map. We've had a couple of muggings on this block just in the past few months -- both involving weapons, I believe. I thought it was coincidence, but from what the cops told you it sounds like it could be more widespread. Interestingly, I remember coming home on Christmas Eve and thinking how much more desolate the streets seemed!
Mina • 12/26/06 08:56pm
I'll email you offlist, Mina. And I'll send something to Park Slope Parents.

Honestly, there's not a crime level here that concerns me so much as a guy. But the violence to women troubles me as a husband and father of a girl. And, of course, as a member of a community.
rushkoff • 12/27/06 03:57am
I grew up in Brooklyn in the 50s and 60s and lived here in the dangerous 70s and was never mugged (once in Manhattan). I am now living back in Brooklyn, and it is much safer than it used to be. At a recent bat mitzvah reception with some college friends, I mentioned that I go to the Starbucks at Atlantic Center on Flatbush and the stores there, and every person at the table from the old days had a story about being mugged at Atlantic and Flatbush in the 70s. I remember as a kid being reminded by my parents to take "mugger money" when I went out so they wouldn't kill me if they found out I had only a dollar or two. This was very common.

Still, Brooklyn was safe for me. I have lived in South Florida, North Florida, Northern California, L.A., and a bunch of other places and the only time I was mugged (at gunpoint) was in a very suburban Mesa, Arizona, neighborhood (as I was putting the key into the door of my apartment).
Richard Grayson • 12/27/06 09:01am
"And even on getting mugged, while I find great support online, no one in my own building even rang the bell or asked how I was or what happaned (I posted the basics near the front door, so that people would know to be careful). "

I had the same experience in my building when I was attacked a few months ago (around 8 pm, in summer, on a tuesday, acouple hundred feet from the exit of a populated park, ) in Greenpoint. While freinds and other neighborhood people were very supportive (guys at the deli gave me a bottle of disinfectant when I had realixed I had cut myself in the slight skuffle and freinds rallied to point out a number of attacks that had happened to people we knew in recent proximity and offer to look better after each other), my actual neighbors said nothing. Not even a note of or anything on the note i left on the table in the downstairs hall.

I called the police, knowing full well how little use it would be, because I live in a nice-ish, quiet, community-ish neighborhood. There are children and older people in that park all the time (and a lot has been done to clean it up in a variety of ways over the last 5 years) and those of us who live there have a right to feel safe. They acted like they were doing me a big favor by humoring me, then got annoyed when I asked for their cards. I knew they wouldnt file a report and had to hobble (I was actually hurt more than I first noticed) to the precinct later to make sure one was filed and included the piss-poor attitude of the two unercover guys that "helped" me. I got to wondering if it benefits the precint to report less incidents.
bb • 12/27/06 09:15am
What a bummer; glad to hear you survived unharmed and with your insurance card intact. Hopefully the Chinese guy who mugged you is hanging upside-down somewhere with a fork up his ass right now.
Cosmo Kramer • 12/27/06 10:15am
I'm just going to say it: Brooklyn ain't so great. This is coming from a black woman who left there long ago for Manhattan. I grew up in Bed Sty and it was tough. Still is. But I never felt safe there I mean, come on, even Spike Lee moved from Fort Greene to the Upper East Side!
Wedgie Jones • 12/27/06 11:28am
Sorry to hear about this. We just moved to President Street off of Seventh Ave with our six month old baby girl, and I'm very creeped out to think this happened just a few steps away.
danny hellman • 12/27/06 12:07pm
Wow, Danny, your comic art is great. We lived nearer to where you are before we moved here. It really is safer over there - better lit, and more central. I wouldn't worry, but don't be like me and stop to stare at your garbage at night. Do your business in the street, and keep moving.

It's really just a matter of remembering that no matter how much all those townhouses cost, this is still the city for better and for worse. I think I forgot that, and made myself into more of a target. As long as I'm here, I'm going to remain aware of the fact that anyone could be a potential attacker - and continue to do my best to alleviate the kinds of social and economic injustices that lead people to become attackers in the first place.

Remember: there was a neighborhood here in Park Slope even before the first "cool" people came to colonize it. When the market is the only force of nature in urban 'development,' nasty things happen to lots of people. And the cycle just continues from there.
rushkoff • 12/27/06 12:23pm
sorry to hear that happened to you - unfortunately that sort of stuff can happen anywhere - 15 years ago when I was 12-14 yrs of age and lived in that very area we did similar shameful things - its not bklyn, it hormones, bordem, etc.
me • 12/28/06 06:29am
And poverty, a bad penal system...the guy who mugged me was in his 30's or so.
rushkoff • 12/28/06 08:22am
Actually it could happen "anywhere" but it is less likely to happen in many places like Park Slope (despite what the cops told you, armed robberies are DOWN in 2006) - and it was MUCH more likely to have occured years ago before the area was gentrified.
Oh and BTW please dont say poverty=crime because by that logic Black and Hispanic=crime too.
David • 12/29/06 11:08am
Rushkoff wrote: "I'm sorry that you were mugged - that must have been terrifying. However, I do take issue with a comment you posted above...Especially against women in the park. And then they drew the circle around Park Slope, and showed me how by being just inside the circle, I end up being the easiest target because THEY don't have to go too far into the RICH WHITE AREA. It's the edges where the most action happens - the edges of gentification, that is."

As a black woman residing in Park Slope, I just think your comment smacks of smugness and stereotyping. It assumes that all muggers must be non-white and that the "rich white" areas are all-white - they're not - I live there and so do people just like me (ie black professionals). Try to remember that not all muggers are black, not all nice neighborhoods are populated by whites only and not all blacks are poor and/or criminally-minded. Oh and shock! horror! - plenty of muggers and disadvantaged people are white.

Stereotypes are dangerous. Whites continue to assume that all muggers are black. Black muggers continue to assume that whites will be easy targets with fat wallets...
Precious Williams • 12/29/06 11:16am
While I agree with your post completely, please look at the sentence you're critiquing, and who said it.

I'm telling you what the cops told me, and why it upset me. Elsewhere, on Park Slope Parents, I refused at first to describe the mugger because of precisely my concern that people not stereotype. But it was the cops who drew the circle, and called this a "rich white area," not me.

I've been the one all over the net this week explaining that muggers need not be black, and victims need not be white.
rushkoff • 12/29/06 02:07pm
Nevertheless, it's an interesting and important issue you bring up. And I wonder if this is the place (or if there's any place) where the real impact of gentrification as well as its racial component and misconceptions can be discussed in an open fashion.

The suggestion that poverty or the penal system (I did not suggest poverty=crime) may have had anything to do with this 30-something's criminal actions was itself criticized. So then, it's nothing at all that leads to these behaviors? Or, as another poster suggests, raging hormones (even of middle-aged men)? Drug abuse? I suppose if there are no causative factors for crime, then we needn't discuss it. It's just a random emergent phenomenon beyond anyone's control.

I do believe Brooklyn suffers from racial segregation - and I've been in discussions about this with black and whites and hispanics, wealthier and poorer than I am. We live in microcommunities with very little integration. I know wealthy blacks who bought on one side of Flatbush because they felt the other side was "too white," as well as whites who have done the opposite. Kids who go to 321 don't go to the junior high school or high school in this district. Why is that?

And I feel sure that the same price escalation that makes Park Slope almost impossible for someone like me must make it difficult for others - the people who were here before the wealthy came - to stay. If they're renters, anyway. And this, in itself, could lead to some resentment.

The "circle" those cops drew was meant to indicate race and class, true enough. I think what it really represents - as I've said above - is the perimeter of extreme gentrification. It's where the housing prices jump from insane to exorbitant. It's where the renovations are complete and the earlier occupants have been completely eliminated.

Now the fact that the incomers have a much higher percentage of whites than "other," and that the outgoers have a larger percentage of "other" than whites, could be easily documented by census if it's true. But even then, the drop in crime associated with gentrification needn't become evidence that the incomers *do* less crime than the previous residents - whether because of poverty or race. It would have just as much to do with higher street traffic due to the opening of more businesses catering to the new clientele.

Still, the street crime that remains tends not to be committed by the new resident milionaires (of either race) on one another, but by people living outside the millionaire district, traveling to the spots they believe will be wealthier or easier pickings, and then commiting the crimes.

The cops' perception - which may indeed be incorrect - is that the majority of muggers are not Park Slope residents, or at least not residents of the wealthiest section. This, of course, plays into the assumption I made earlier (which also might be wrong) that poverty and crime have any connection.

But before engaging with any of these questions, I think we'd have to determine whether or not there's any tactic at all that can reduce crime. Did Giuliani do it - or did he push it somewhere else? If enough rich people fill up enough of Brooklyn, do the criminals get better educations or smarter and less criminal as a result? Or just further away? And then does the cops' "perimeter" simply move further out from the center of wealth?

Is there any policy, any change in penal code or corrections, zoning, education, drug education and rehabilitation, health? Or does exploring any of these issues lead inevitably to some conversation about race that we're still not ready to have?

I'll stop now. I'm not qualified to lead the discussion on zoning, race, gentrification and policy. I'm just a writer and a media theorist who happened to get mugged. But I'm certain such a conversation needs to be convened.
rushkoff • 12/29/06 05:24pm
Thank you Douglas for your words. I appreciate your utter calm in all of this madness. People posting here: remember he just got mugged on his doorstep a few nights ago. Give the man a break.
Wedgie Jones • 12/29/06 05:33pm
I'm curious - where do you live in Park Slope? I'm in the northern part, close to 5th Avenue and my block and the neighboring blocks are really quite mixed with a mixture of Hispanics, Black and White home-owners all living happily enough. I do have African-American friends who could afford to live here but choose not to because they want to live in neighborhoods where blacks are in the majority.
JLo • 12/29/06 08:04pm
Doug,

First and foremost, I'm very sad and sorry that this trauma was forced on you. Although you seem from a distance to be handling it with grace, I can only imagine the levels (and waves) of anger and anxiety rolling around your home. Or maybe that's just my projection: I know I would have been far more cowardly in the moment of attack, and I can't imagine being anything but pissed-off, confused and ultra-protective of my family in the days that followed. In fact, that's the way I'm feeling right now just as your friend and Park Slope neighbor -- I'd selfishly like to learn more about this increase in violent crime and what can be done about it.

I think you know that we adore Park Slope. I think it's a pretty special place, although I am upset about the insane wealth pouring in. I'm not sure that gentrification in itself is a bad thing -- a neighborhood attracting investment and care. And I don't even think displacement in itself is all bad. After all, some of those being displaced are taking some wealth with them. Isn't the problem much more rooted in our economy and politics, with this extraordinary cleavage between the well-off (us included) and the working poor? To me, Park Slope, while still pretty wonderful, does seem to be in danger of becoming a gross symbol of this divergence in wealth. But that to me is not our fault or the neighborhood's fault -- it's a national systemic thing. I don't say this to absolve myself of responsibility -- just to try to clarify what action is needed.

Rebut me, correct me, educate me. I count myself as pretty naive in the ways of gentrification, and want to learn more. I'd also like to second all the praise on this list for all your outreach efforts, and to volunteer to assist you whatever neighborhood or urban discussion events you'd like to put together.

Best to your family and happy new year, and can you come over for tea next week and tell me how you convinced a man with a gun to negotiate?

David Shenk
David Shenk • 12/29/06 08:14pm
I'm with you David, and share the same concerns. I never meant to blame a particular group - not even the wealthiest and most recent 2-million-dollar condo buyers - for Park Slope or the world's ills.

I agree that what we're looking at in microcosm here is systemic and inherited. Again, to have a discussion about would require going as far back as forced slavery, and as far wide as economic policy, urban planning, and the role of media both in using race and poverty as over-determined excuses, while burying the genuine issues of race and poverty even deeper.

I also fear Park Slope in danger of becoming both a symbol and an expression of the divergence in wealth suffered by most of America today. I don't know whether the community, itself, has the leverage to reverse this process on a local level. (I do know that I can't afford to live in the famed 321 school district without changing what I do for a living.)

But whether or not I can live in Park Slope, I'm still ready and willing to engage in the discussion about it, and to *do* whatever might help. I'm thinking that not investing in the real estate market balloon is one way of neutralizing some of the grosser effects? Maybe Aaron Naparstek could help us out, here?

And yes - I'd love to come over for tea! Thanks for the invitation.
rushkoff • 12/30/06 06:29am
You acted exactly right during that mugging, as measured by my personal metric. My sweetheart and I rent on Montgomery Place, and she's been here since 1982. She fought off a purse snatching in 1990 on our street, and I had a gun stuck in my neck in 1985, albeit under the Manhattan Bridge adjacent the Sands Street housing projects. In every case, anything you do during a mugging, literally anything you do, is best whenever it results in no physical injury. Everything else is gravy. Don't second-guess your intuitive reactions during a mugging, just hope that they'll never again be needed and that, if they are, that they'll result in physical safety. And notice, please, that the real anxiety comes shortly after the mugging is over.
Walter Dufresne • 12/30/06 07:57am
I totally appreciate that. Indeed, the headache didn't start until 48 hours after the mugging was over (and it hasn't let up a bit, yet). And yes - I think our spontaneous responses to situations of grave threat are almsot always the best ones. I mean, there are parts of our nervous system that know what they're doing, and it's very often best to leave them to their business of protecting us.

It's learning when and how to govern those instincts that we sometimes run into trouble.
rushkoff • 12/30/06 11:14am
There were some facts debated/contested earlier. This might clear some of that up. According to this FBI research, covered on NPR this week, violent crime is up dramatically over the last few months.

www.npr.org/templates/s tory/story.php?storyId= 6697362
------------
The FBI report, which compiled numbers from almost 12,000 police departments, found violent crime was up almost 4 percent from 2005 -- a year which already saw an increase from the year before. Blumstein finds the robbery numbers especially troubling, because they've always served as a warning of what's to come.

"There's clearly a growing number of people who have no future in our economy," Blumstein says. "There are basically three modes of earning income: One is to have a job, the other is welfare. The third is theft."

The last time robbery jumped so dramatically was in the early 1990s, at the height of crack-cocaine use. Criminologists believe drug addiction was behind most of the robberies then. But the crack markets stabilized in the 10 years since, and so has drug use in general.
-------

The article goes on to site the main contributing factors I guessed at: bad penal system, inmates being released with no job prospects, insufficient funds for police patrols...

The good news is that non-violent crime is down, and that rape is down 2.5% in the northeast over the first six months of 2006. Violent robbery over the same period in the Northeast, however, is up 5.8%
rushkoff • 12/31/06 04:53am
I'm glad that everything turned out well!

Have a happy new year!
taimur • 01/01/07 01:12am
Gah, I look away for a couple weeks and this bullshit happens. Sorry about this, Doug. I've been lucky enough to rarely be the target of street crime, perhaps because in less savory areas, I stay hyperaware of my surroundings, but when it happens there's an anger that doesn't easily dissipate. Oddly enough, or maybe not enough so, I seem to usually be targeted by pretty young kids; I find either ignoring them or standing up to them usually takes them by surprise enough that it takes them out of that headspace. Obviously, had I seen a gun my tactics would have likely been different (read: crying, prostration).

Was it MacLuhan that said something to the effect that crime was the medium of the economically and societally disenfranchised, because it seems to them to be the only thing that validates their existence? There's a rap group called The Marginal Prophets, half of which is made up by editorial cartoonist Keith Knight, who have a song called "Gunz N' Money," with lyrics that go:

I hate myself and I wish I was dead
But I think I'll kill you instead
See, if I kill myself, hardly anyone will notice
But I'll get much press just as soon as I pull this
Trigger that I got at the shop last week
Don't it look nice, all shiny and sleek

(If it's not obvious, they're not championing that mindset.)

A point? I'm sure I had one. Just glad you came away from the experience relatively unharmed. Don't let it harden you; we love you for your generally sunny perspective on humanity. There's violent crime even in Salt Lake City. You're not the invader; they're not Robin Hood. Stay safe.
Ken A. • 01/01/07 11:33am
Well this was an interesting read. I thought you said he were mugged by someone with a GUN. Crock is right!
Hmmm..... • 01/01/07 01:47pm
I had a guy climb in the window on E. 12st St in the late 1980s.
I was sleeping in the other room with my girlfriend. Somehow we woke up and I went through the door and there he was with a knife acting edgy as hell. And there I was with a t-shirt on and my privates exposed. He took some money and a boombox we had which was no big deal. We didn't call the cop and report it because we didn't want more big goony guys in the apartment that night. I don't think much of crime statistics because I think a lot of times people say, "Why bother reporting it. It's not like they are going to catch the guy."
Then sometime later I wrote a song about it called Love Your City.
"Gotta love your city
even if it kills you"
I don't wish to go through that again. It creeps me out to think about it even now.
You can click on me to hear the song if you want, not that it would help.
Steve • 01/01/07 06:22pm
First of all, sorry to hear about the mugging incident. Second, I've lived in and around Park Slope for about 15 years. Though I've witnessed some street incidents during that time, I do believe what happened to you could have happened just about anywhere in NYC. You just happen to live in or near Park Slope. What made your comments irresponsible was that you then extrapolated that into sound bites regarding rising crime in Park Slope. While, your reaction to what happened to you is understandable, the fact is that you are an author, celebrity, and blogger. And whatever you put on the net gets picked up and repeated. So, IMO you have some obligation to a measure of journalistic standards or at least some caution in what you put out there. The implication that Park Slope is somehow more dangerous than the rest of NYC was irresponsible to say the least and wildly inaccurate. As you pointed out in later posts, Park Slope proper is a very safe area, it's the fringes that are seeing a pick-up in activity. It's nice that you've clarified your words some 20 posts later, but would have been even nicer if you had initially given more thought to what you were writing.
BB • 01/02/07 04:39pm
Nowhere did I suggest that Park Slope had higher crime than the rest of NYC or Brooklyn. Only that Park Slope is more expensive than the rest of Brooklyn. And, actually, the original post makes no mention whatsoever of Park Slope. The only comparison it makes is that the streets are less safe than they were in the supposedly bad parts of Manhattan where I used to live.

So I think you have to read the thing I wrote again, and decide whether or not it does any of what you think it may have done.

Here it is, for easy reference:
----------
I got mugged at knifepoint while taking out the garbage Christmas Eve at 9pm.

I negotiated with him for my health insurance card - not only because it has my Social Security number and was really hard to get, but because I knew that such a request would humanize me in the mind of my attacker, and make it harder for him to stab me. Such are the benefits of studying human behavior. All I lost was my phone, cards, and money.

Getting a knife pushed into your ribcage now and again is just part of the price we pay to live in a city, and New York is supposedly one of the safer of the bunch. But I have to admit, it makes me question working two extra gigs (I won't divulge which ones they are) in order to pay the exorbitant rent this part of Brooklyn - when the streets are less safe than they were in the supposedly bad parts of Manhattan where I used to live.

It may just be the humiliation of not fighting back that's getting me down, but I fear that Brooklyn may be a crock. And with a two-year-old daughter, I feel a strong urge to spend my effort elsewhere.

Merry solstice to all. Things should get brighter, soon.
------------

I stand by that. I don't see any sound bites about rising crime in Park Slope. That kind of discussion only came after the more lunatic fringe entered the conversation, saying they knew which school district I was in.

But where you're right is that there's probably little sense in my keeping a blog at all. It's a lot of work, and makes too many people unhappy. And it's a forum where everybody else gets to be an asshole but me, even if I'm mugged or pissed off. Like this is supposed to be the fucking NYTimes.

You may be right in that a professional writer just can't engage with people in a normal spontaneous fashion, in any venue, unless he does so incognito. But I do it more responsibly and with greater thought to the impact of my words than pretty much anybody out there. Even so far as to share my response to getting mugged - and the inaccuracy of my recollections as to what happened.

But you're right. This whole thing was an unfortunate error. Do I leave it up? Sure. Do I engage like this in public again? No. I'll use my private online spaces from now on.

-----

Now, to the heart of the matter: is Park Slope more dangerous than other areas of Brooklyn? It depends exactly what you mean.

I have no reason to believe Park Slope is a very safe area, or a very dangerous one. If I said that we all know it is safe, or that we all know it is dangerous, I take it back. Safe compared to what? Dangerous compared to what? To Rwanda? To Helsinki? To Soho?

On the surface, it certainly seems safer than some other parts of Brooklyn I've walked in. But I have learned as a result of this comments section that the signs I may be reading as "dangerous" may be inaccurate. The streets are cleaner, and there are certainly fewer murders per capita than in a part of Brooklyn such as Brownsville. (This, according to the data the cops showed me - so we don't know if it is accurate.)

Then again, there are certain parts of Park Slope that are well-known mugging strips. Sorry, but that's true. We need to determine whether the mugging areas of Park Slope (such as Prospect Park West) have higher incidence of mugging than, say, the Windsor equivalent, or Prospect Park South, or Prospect Park East.

Do you know where the records for block-by-block incidents are kept?

None of this has much to do with what I was blogging or commenting on - I was merely pointing out that it wasn't worth spending life savings I don't have on this place. That I think it's gotten out of hand, and that I believe the rising prices and hyper-gentrification are part of the problem.
rushkoff • 01/02/07 06:30pm
I just read this today and I'm glad you're still alive and healthy.

My girlfriend and I live in a pretty rough neighbourhood, and I once got hit in the head with a bottle on the street for no apparent reason, it wasn't even a mugging, just a frustrated guy on cokaine. Surprisingly to myself and spectators I ran after him and cornered him, and the police was nearby and arrested him, and I was taken to the hospital.

We consider moving to the country as things are getting more and more insane in the city.
Martin • 01/03/07 05:46am
Doug (and Barbara)

I've said it before in private to Doug, but I'll start by saying in publicly: I'm so sorry you had to go through this ordeal, and you've both done an amazing job trying to work through all these issues in public. It's precisely the kind of conversation that should be happening in venues like this, because it's all about the clash between our public and private lives.

You guys sound like you've already made up your mind to leave, which is completely understandable, and some of the towns you're talking about are wonderful places to live. But I wanted to make the case for Brooklyn, if only because some of the reasons you cite for leaving are central to why we've decided to raise our kids here. If we can't persuade you not to leave, maybe we can persuade you that Brooklyn is not "a crock."

First, the crime issue. There's no question that Park Slope -- and Brooklyn more generally -- is more dangerous than living in a small town upstate, though of course you're likely to be more endangered by the extra driving you'd do in a small town, even one where you can walk to the downtown. But if you're going to live in an economically diverse urban area, you're not likely to find a safer place to live than Park Slope. In one of your posts, you said: "Getting a knife pushed into your ribcage now and again is just part of the price we pay to live in a city, and New York is supposedly one of the safer of the bunch." That's seriously understating the current crime scene here: it is THE safest city in the country, by a fair margin. You cited an NPR report about a recent surge in violent crime in the Northeast, but in fact, once again NY bucked the national trend: crime here was down 5 percent in 2006.
Barbara talked on her blog about feeling much safer in the east village in the 1980s. If you look at the precinct data on the NYPD site, you can see that the there were literally four times as many crimes committed in the east village in 1990 than in the Park Slope precinct in 2005, even though the east village has only about 20% more people in the precinct. (Exact numbers: 5,991 crimes in the east village in 1990 vs. 1,138 in the Slope in 2005.) Interestingly, the east village in 2005 had slightly more crime per capita than Park Slope.

As I said, there are obviously places to live that have lower crime rates. But none of those places has anywhere near the economic and cultural diversity that Brooklyn has (at least in the U.S.) Which leads to the gentrification problem you raised as well. And this is the more complicated point I think -- one we discussed at that Gowanus event last year.

Let's start with the fact that the overall wealth distribution problem in the U.S. is not a problem neighborhoods can solve. There are going to be rich people, for better or for worse, and while I think we both agree that the high-low wage ratios in this country are seriously out of whack, that's a whole other question. The question for us is: given that there are going to be rich people, where should they go? Is it better to have them all leave the cities for the suburbs the way they did in the sixties and seventies and live in gated isolation from everyone else? Or is better for them to live -- they way they do even in the fanciest blocks of the North Slope -- within walking distance of housing projects in two directions, and pressed up against a public park that is shared by an amazingly diverse -- and amazing peaceful -- population from every major ethnic/religious/econom ic group imaginable. Yes, when movie stars and famous writers and people like you and me move into the neighborhood, prices go up and some folks get squeezed out. That's not reason to give up on figuring out ways to preserve economic diversity in city neighborhoods. But I'd rather have the movie stars and bankers taking their kids to the 9th street playground on a summer weekend than having them play in their private backyard pool in Westchester.
And this is why I think Brooklyn is such an extraordinary place right now. Take a walk from the North Slope across Grand Army, then down Eastern Parkway. Where else in the country can you go from the houses of world-famous authors and movie stars to Hasidic Jews and working-class African-Americans all in the space of about twenty blocks? And all with the lowest crime rate of any big city in the country.

Yes, I suppose if the current trends continue it could all look like the Upper East Side in thirty years. But that's not what it looks like now, by any measure.
Steven Johnson • 01/03/07 08:05am
Sorry to hear about the mugging Doug.

But I think the decision is pretty easy, isn't it? Get out of the city. Show your two year old some fields and trees and fresh air. Take them back for visits to the city whenever you need to. Gone are the days when location was crucial. The kind of work that you do means that you don't have to be bound by geography.

And although it's honourable that you are using this experience to try to figure out why we're wedded to cities, and to work through some of the issues that create social unrest on our streets, when it comes down to it, your family is the thing that matters, and is the one social unit that your knowledge and behaviour can have a serious impact upon.

Cities are great for a while, but they're cramped and stifling at certain times in one's life. Get out for a while and give your kid a chance to stretch.

[Disclaimer - I am currently leaving London for somewhere a lot more peaceful.]
dan • 01/03/07 08:45am
Again, thanks all for the kind words. It certainly beats mean ones and accusations. I'm doing my best under difficult circumstances - wife and baby sick, haven't gotten to do any work in weeks, and am behind on numerous deadlines.

The pressure is magnified, of course, by the requirements of making rent every month - which is actually a chore, here in Park Slope.

I hear you about the greatness of the neighborhood. But even if I admit extreme and wonderful perfect greatness, let me ask you: would you buy your house for what it would cost now? Or would you live in an outlying area of Park Slope? If you didn't live in Park Slope or even if you did, would you send your kids to private school? If so, why?

I don't mean to be confrontational, but a three-bedroom apartment is easily 1.5 million here. A small house is 1.8 - and that's not even in the so-called 'prime' 321 area. If we were to send our kid to private instead of public (depending on which non Park Slope area we ended up in) that would be an additional 20,000+ per year. Then we have to save for college, too?

So the mugging really shouldn't have elicited such strong emotion from me, but I have spent the last few months banging my head against a price ceiling I can't penetrate. As an old GenXer, (a true, 40-something GenXer) I still have issues about rich v poor and virtue and general anti-yuppieness. That's my personal problem, I understand.

But the bigger and much more tangible issue is not having that 1.5 million dollars to spend on an apartment. And getting the gun in my belly made me feel like an idiot for trying.

There's absolutely no need at all to generalize anything else from this!!!! Please! Nobody should attempt to extrapolate researched journalism from these personal feelings I have had, resulting from my inability to afford an apartment here, and my growing sense that the money (or time required to make that money) could be spent better in other ways. T

I don't think Brooklyn is a crock. But neither do I believe that an apartment here is worth 1.5 million bucks. So, when I said crock, I probably should have said "the Park Slope and environs real estate market is a crock." And it is because with so many million-dollar Wall Street bonuses being handed out, there are many people from Manhattan who want to take advantage of all those fine features you're talking about. I don't blame them, and if I was a millionaire, I might be right there with them.

I'm glad there's a place for bankers and movie stars to take their kids to a real playground; it's just a luxury I can't afford. And while I would be hard-pressed to call myself the "commonfolk," most of my friends from the 9th St playground are moving out because they can't afford to make enough room for their kids. So no, the mugging isn't sending me away. Not by a longshot. It just makes it feel a bit less like getting priced out of heaven. It feels like a sign. A shove. The cops the next day made me feel like a rich weak white person who should know better than to think of Brooklyn as "safe." And again, that is their problem and my problem. No one else's. They said "open your eyes! This is still Brooklyn!" That had an impact.

Yes, Park Slope was great - truly great - while it lasted for us. And I hope something happens to make it possible for its great racial, economic, and cultural diversity to continue. If I come by an extra million bucks, or if the market crashes, I might just stay or come back. Otherwise, there are areas from Kew Gardens and Astoria to Hastings and Pelham that would offer more value for less money.
rushkoff • 01/03/07 11:56am
I may have missed this in earlier comments, but why were you carrying your wallet to take out the trash? I realize it's sort of beside the point, but I'm just curious.

PS I was mugged at the 7th Ave. subway station in Park Slope at 6AM on December 2, 1988. Notice how I remember the date? These things do make an impact. In my case, I screamed like a girl, flailed my arms, and scared the two muggers away. They got nothing, and when I told that to the cops who came to take my statement, they just folded up their pads and walked away.
DW • 01/03/07 12:49pm
sorry doug, that really sucks. but you did the right thing, and didn't get hurt, and that's the important part. happy new year
manlio • 01/03/07 01:37pm
It's not always the neighborhood. Bad things can happen anywhere at any time, especially when you're talking about random crime like robbery as opposed to drug or gang-related violence. Three years ago I watched one of two thugs we were passing on the sidewalk whip out a pistol and shoot my friend, without hesitation, in the head - - in one of Chicago's nicer neighborhoods. No robbery attempt. No words or dirty looks exchanged. No motive. My friend died. He was 27, a good and peaceful guy who never hurt a fly. The bad guys were never caught. I don't know why the sociopath didn't shoot me too. Bad guys can go wherever they want. I'm glad you are OK. Remember: most criminals don't stay in jail forever. They're kicked back to the curb, usually worse off than they were going in. We need better education and jobs programs in this country. Real estate will not protect us.
Mike • 01/03/07 02:01pm
On our friends' street in Philly, a man was recently mugged at gunpoint. The mugger demanded the man's wallet, and the man resisted. He was shot to death.
The best advice I've been told to survive a mugging is to throw your wallet in one direction and run the other way.
tip • 01/03/07 02:03pm
I keep my wallet in my pants. That way I know where it is in the morning, and the baby doesn't chew on my Metrocard. Frankly, I'm glad i had it with me, or I could have found myself escorted right back into my home - which may have been his plan. I consider the wallet and its contents the least important aspect of the event, though.

Like Manlio and so many have said - it's avoiding bloodshed that matters most. If anything, I'll be sure to keep my wallet with me when I go to throw out the trash from now on.

And really - the mugging and my disenchantment with real estate here are two different, and only personally related, issues.
rushkoff • 01/03/07 05:37pm
while I dont agree that this happening makes ParkSlope or Bklyn less desireable to live - if you add in the cost of housing, the traffic, the parking, pollution and this on top of that well then I can see how this makes you think..ok Brooklyn is nice but people are taking it too far by paying a million dollars for a crappy frame house when you have to put up with all this other stuff.

I loved Greenpoint when it was a rundown cheap neighborhood - now its a slightly less rundown area thats 5 times as expensive and its not worth the cost of living there anymore - maybe PS and lots of parts of bklyn are the same way
me • 01/04/07 06:51am
I'd also like to know where in Park Slope you live, since I live in the Slope, too. And if anyone has figured out where to get block-by-block crime statistics for the neighborhood (assuming they even exist), I'd really like to hear about it.

Doug, I really am sorry to hear that you had to go through this awful experience. No one should have to, and yet many of us have or will.

I'm lucky - I've lived in Brooklyn all my life, and have never yet been mugged. I figure it's got to happen sooner or later, and I'm not looking forward to popping that particular cherry.
Danielle • 01/04/07 07:20am
Doug, what you say makes complete sense. it's true if we were buying now, we'd probably have to make a different decision. in a way, we went through this back in 2000-2001 when we were looking -- we'd assumed that we'd be in the North Slope, but that got so pricey that we started looking at the South Slope, which was quite different then in terms of restaurants, shops, etc. (It's changed a lot in just five years, as you know.) And so that's where we ended up. Now we'd probably end up looking at Prospect Heights or Clinton Hill.

But still, as I've said before, I completely hear the argument that a million bucks gets you so much more in some great smaller towns in the Northeast, and as I get older, I appreciate the virtues of those places more and more. So why not give it a try, particularly when you're daughter is young enough not to be sad about leaving her peer group, etc. You can always come back...

Part of this is just me being selfish about not seeing you at the 9th street playground anymore!
steven Johnson • 01/04/07 07:21am
"Yeah - I'm totally aware that the wounded pride is a lower circuit, territorial thing - exacerbated by the fact that this happened in what passes for my front yard. The funny thing is that some other thread on a Jewish site has some young zionist calling me a rich elitest as a way of criticizing my stance on Judaism."

Just a question. What is a "Jewish site"?
Did it have a Bris? A Bar Mitzvah? Does the site keep kosher? What exactly is your stance on Judaism and how does it relate to you getting mugged? Do you have a "stance" on Catholicism, Buddism, Islam?
M.J. Nance • 01/04/07 07:33am
A Jewish site, for example, is myjewishlearning.com
A Catholic site might be a site about the Catholic religion.

The site I was referring to was myjewishlearning.com, where the blogs section was involved in a discussion about Judaism that had devolved into an attack on my supposed class status. I have written a book on Judaism, which is a religion. In that book, I pose certain arguments. Together, these would comprise a stance.

What's your problem?
rushkoff • 01/04/07 09:49am
Re: M.J. Nance. I think he was *trying* to be funny. Ha Ha. Right.
Wedgie Jones • 01/04/07 10:10am
I see my error, though. In my haste, I wrote "jewish site" when I should have written "a Judaism site." I see how "Jewish site" implies that the site itself accepted the Covenant, which might be difficult - though perhaps not impossible.

And thanks, Steven, for voicing what I would hope is the general community's sense that "if you think something else might work better for you, please try it and report back!"

I remember a couple of years ago, Mark Frauenfelder and his wife took their two daughters to Raratonga - a remote South Seas island - in the hopes of leading an uncomplicated life. Well, we got to read about their progress and eventual return to the Los Angeles area, and somehow their having tried it and failed made it okay to strike that fantasy life off the list.

As for us, a decision of which borough or near-NYC town to live in is really no big deal to anyone else. And the last thing I've meant to do is say that this place sucks; yet my grief and frustration at the combination of being mugged, having a sick baby, and not being able to afford the space we'd like to have here in this neighborhood is probably what led to my voicing too much of it.

But I've learned another lesson too, thanks to the other blogs that have picked up some of this, made fun of our baby's name, and more. It's that this is a public space. I'm going to treat it as such, take more time before I post, and use it more as a place to discuss the ideas in my books and articles than to share anything about my life.

As many of you know, I'm not a fan of "personal narrative," and explained that when I guest-blogged at Smith. And I think it ends up too distracting to what I can actually contribute.

Just as I'm moving to a cheaper residence to spend more time contributing the conversations I can really contribute to, I'll be steering clear of the subject of my own life and choices. They may inform my work, but they're not the value I have to share.

And, just as I behaved differently with a mugger because I have a family, I'm going to behave differently online.

Best to you all, and I really do appreciate the support and well wishes you all posted here. They far outweigh the effect of the other stuff.
rushkoff • 01/04/07 11:19am
Thanks for posting this. My crime history:
I've lived in the East Village from 1987-1989, New Haven from 19889-1992, and then NYC, 1992-present. Had my bag snatched twice in NYC (1989 and 1994) and got mugged at gunpoint in New Haven. Three young black men every time.
First one was a poor kid with a really apologetic look on his face, and I let him have the bag because there was nothing but a book of poetry in it... my wallet and keys were in my pockets! Second bagsnatching was another stupid kid who got caught (thanks to all the people who tried to stop him). The New Haven mugger was so scared that his hand holding the gun was shaking. I talked him out of it, and got him to tell me his whole sorry life story, and then pretended to feel so sorry for him that I wanted to give him money, so I begged him to walk with me to the bank so I could give him cash -- he fell for it, we went to the bank branch, I told him he should stay outside so his face wouldn't be on the bank cameras, and then I went in and called the cops from the ATM phone, who arrested him ten minutes later, poor fool. I'm sure in his mind I've joined the long list of people who've done him wrong.
The rule, as Rushkoff observes, is to behave differently from the script when you're mugged.
That said, I'd like to add that I find that some of the poor have a weird sense of entitlement, reflected in one of the posts above that "the market doesn't take care" the poor being pushed out by gentrification. Well, the market doesn't take care of anyone! We're all supposed to work for a living, and anybody who thinks they deserve housing just by virtue of existing should ask themselves if they ever provided housing for anyone else... if you never built or maintained a home for someone else, who and where is the person who owes a home to you?
Diana • 01/04/07 12:29pm
You've got a two-year old daughter, Doug. It would have been more humiliating had you been stabbed over some cash, credit cards and a cellphone.

I live in Williamsburg and remember the old days, when muggings were somewhat common.

Late one night/early one morning, a couple of guys pulled up next to me in a car. One guy got out and asked for directions. He went back to the car, opened the door, said something to his buddy, and then started walking back towards me. His buddy, meanwhile, got out of the car with something in his hand and starting coming towards me.

What did I do?

I picked up a metal trashcan lid and a piece of wood off the ground, starting banging it together, and moved towards them menacingly. They backed up as I inched my way away from them. Then I ran as fast as I effing could, eventually scaling a fence because the guys had gotten back into the car to give chase. I ended up hiding behind a burnt out car in an abandoned lot for an hour. Luckily I had a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers one me, plus plenty of room to piss without being seen.

What would I do now?

More likely than not, I would cooperate, hand over my wallet, phone, etc., make up a story about having a newborn baby depending on me, and tell them to have a nice day.

I'm too old now to get into a fight, I've got some money in the bank to replace the cash, and I have the phone numbers for all of my credit card companies stowed safely somewhere.

Of course, if I was drunk and this happened today, I may just kick some ass, or end up dead. Even odds.
BrooklynBS • 01/04/07 03:06pm
Thanks for those. Truly.

And I should also thank all the people who have emailed me, lately. They're sending private communications because they're not as stupid as I am to go post what happened to me. Their stories are really sad, some of them. Getting doors broken down in the middle of the night in Park Slope, and not being believed by the cops, tales of underreporting by NYC cops to keep the stats looking good, and, more relevant, a dozen-or-so ex-ParkSlopers who got priced out even earlier than we did, writing to say there's terrific alternatives.

I wouldn't want to end my participation in this thread on anything but the positive note of thanks for the support and understanding both for what happened, and my own personal, and flawed, reaction to it.
rushkoff • 01/04/07 05:48pm

Doug:

I stumbled here through another blog and have always looked up to you since Media Virus. I am a filmmaker/writer living in the Slope for no other reason that the City pushed me out. I thought I saw you going to Staples a couple of weeks ago. Was that you? Anyway, I was literally evicted from my midtown apartment, landlord liked going through legal routes rather than conversational. I got to the Slope and hated the locals sense of rent-controlled entitlement; this idea that since they pay $250 a month rent and you pay 1.5 million for an apartment, they have the right to hate you. Worth a read of a social-environment psych book, I'm sure there's tons written on this but again, I'm a visual guy (filmmaker) so why a people are the way they are is not as important as how it looks.

I have some words of wisdom about the local hoodrats and their parents. This is going to hurt some of the more passive readers so I give a disclaimer to all sloper's reading. You must be confrontational with them and demand a level of interaction. An impassive approach, that I imagine most Slopers to have, does not work with a local group of socially imprisoned kids who perceive us/you as someone to be mugged. I understand a knife to your ribcage is not a time to be confrontational but chances are you would not have been stabbed and he would of gotten caught and tossed in jail for a long time. Statistically, these locals are very scared. They are scared of you, of me, of the loss of their 30+ years in the same 2 bedroom apartment, scared of the writers and bloggers and families that decorate 7th avenue and now 5th avenue. It's scary to watch your hood go from compton to Pleasantville. It's scarier when you don't have a computer, have a tiny vocabulary and a crackhead dad. I know it sounds like Im assuming but even if its 25% true, that's the impression the locals give off and I don't tolerate it. Some kids were pissing on my front door and I engaged them in conversation with my video camera running. They said some threatening things but 2 days later I ran into them at Pizza by the Park and they all looked down, having thought about we have to live in the same hood and I will not be scared away.

I'm confrontational with them specifically because I know characters that are older than them who are more dangerous and grew up in Bensonhurst in 80s when every friday Vinny and the local goombas would publically humiliate any Black or Hispanic walking down Bay Parkway. I've seen what your revenge fantasies would like to see These hazings were sights to see and I'll stop there because after Bensonhurst I would get robbed a total of 3 times, all times violently and the muggers being African-Americans working in groups. Usually one guy gets you from the back, another comes in front and knocks you around while a third takes stuff off your person. This is not a racial rant, as I was required to "rip a chinese kids ear off" when I lived in Sheepshead Bay, in order to be part of the Avenue U boys. It's a Brooklyn thing. The Italians hate the Blacks and the Hispanics/Blacks hate the whites. My puertoriccan neighbor sits in front of the building picking on white folks as they walk by but is scared to her roots when I stare her down because the real issue is not her hatred of me or my hatred of her but who is crazier and who is willing to go to the final degree. In the end, I will also move out of the Slope for my own reasons (Brooklyn lays it on thick for me), but not because I was scared away.

By the way, chances are the guy who mugged you lives around 9th to 15th street and hangs out in any number of places, partcularly 2 I know of. You would be suprised how much you learn talking to the hoodrats, that is if you dare cross that line.
Cihan K. • 01/04/07 06:14pm I appreciate that. And it was precisely the point I was trying to make in my all-too-many posts above. I do not believe this is an integrated community, in that the tension between races/classes here - to me - seems real.

(As far as interaction, you're right about that, too. While my mugger was close to my own old age, he did respond immediately to my request for my health insurance card. Still, I didn't feel in a position to speak with him as I do with others on the corners you're talking about, in the light of day.)

I am no longer sharing any personal information, but my wife and I are both deeply involved and committed to bridging that divide, tutoring and/or hiring these kids whenever possible, and I feel (although it has been refuted here) that the rapid gentrification here has made this problem worse. That's why refusing to "buy in" at exorobitant prices is actually good for the neighborhood, in that it slows down this process a bit.

But you can sit in comments and say "it's a Brooklyn thing," and as a lifelong NewYorker I know what you mean. But I can't say "it's a Brookyn thing" or the readers get upset. Because they don't want to recognize- as the cops repeatedly told me - that "this is still Brooklyn."

I'm down with living in Brooklyn - it's just a matter of not wanting to pretend it's millionaire's row. One can live in Brooklyn (or Queens) a lot cheaper than in Park Slolpe and, I'd argue, without significantly greater risk to person.
rushkoff • 01/05/07 03:49am I got mugged @ 6th and Lincoln a couple months back. I just gave they guy everything and told him I didn't want to see his face and it was over. Maybe we're just different kinds of people, but I don't associate mugging with getting killed/beaten, etc.

Muggers want your money and they don't want to go to jail. Coupling armed robbery with assault potentially changes their jailtime if cought by 5 or more years. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but when it does it is because you're dealing with someone who wants to hurt people.

In any case your chances of being killed in a car accident living in 'normal' suburban America are significantly higher than being killed by violence here in PS.
robb monn • 01/05/07 04:20am Robb Monn - 6th and Lincoln is particularly bad. It is right around the corner from one of the last blocks to be gentrified in PS, St. Johns' between 5th and 6th. Not that you should have been mugged, but PS is not the safe haven it pretends to be.
Charlen • 01/05/07 06:00am Charlen, I actually live on the block you are talking about (St John btw 5 & 6.) There is a rent controlled apt complex there, true, but I'm a little worried about what you mean by it's being ungentrified (and that being a bad thing.) Do you mean not predominately white/professional? That I am less safe where I live because there are middle income black families living near me?

The violent crime rate on that block is as low as any in the area. I just find it odd that someone would say that an area is 'particularly bad' because it is two blocks from a row of middle class minority occupied apartments.

FWIW my mugger was identified as one of three guys from (suburban) Georgia that were visiting Brooklyn and holding up people and bodegas.
robb • 01/05/07 08:04am Robb -- Oh my. I meant not gentrified as in it seems to be one of the only blocks that hasn't had a new hirise or mega renovation going on (which is a good thing). Whenever I walk down that block (and I always find myself doing that for some reason, forgetting to go to up to Sterling to at least check out the store on that street), I always feel like I'm being checked out and it bugs me out a little. I shouldn't have blamed it on that particular block but I am paranoid these days.
Charlen • 01/05/07 08:28am Robb, I'm not surprised that your mugger was from Georgia. I've been robbed twice, by Russians one time and by Ukranians the second. The people who grew up in the Soviet Union are brutal. And wasn't Stalin a Georgian?
Barbara • 01/05/07 03:24pm You should move to Toronto. To be exact, the West End, Broken Social Scene land.

You'd have to learn Canadian spelling though. That can be hard. Oh, and the last letter in the alphabet is pronounced Zed, not Zee.
wsam • 01/05/07 10:05pm Cops don't read much sociology, but they socialize a lot. They see the world in simpler terms for this reason, and perhaps to ther benefit. The people buying the condos and brownstones are overwhelmingly white and affluent. The people who victims desribe as their robbers, shooters, etc., are overwhelmingly minority and, if they are apprehended, are usually found to live outside Park Slope's central circle of affluence but still right nearby. When they think about the crime model in Park Slope, it takes on these reliable features for them. It also passes the correspondence test because it accurately corresponds to a state of affairs in the world. Cops and detectives see their job as deterring and apprehending criminals. They do not to pretend to be able to address the root causes of crime and inequality, even if they are unfair at heart or even exacerbated by certain aspects of the criminal justice system. They literally drew Doug a picture that relates the facts they have come to learn, as they are relevant to their job of law enforcement. They presented him with an ecological model.
BdP • 01/06/07 03:27am Doug,

My friend Jason (you may remember him as Balagan from OSJ) alerted me to the events of Erev Chag HaJesus. I'm sorry that you had to go through such an experience, and I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to say anything to you about it.

And now, my opinion:

I've lived in Brooklyn my whole life. I grew up on the other side of the park from the slope... the "not as nice as Park Slope" part of Brooklyn, off Flatbush Avenue near Empire Boulevard. My parents both grew up in suburbs (my dad in South Jersey and my mom in Westchester) and they made the conscious decision to live and raise their children in a city for a whole host of reasons... mostly the same reasons they insisted on sending us to public schools. Though as a young child I was not as aware as I am now of things like crime rate trends in the city, I do remember enough to know that over the last 20 years the difference in the security of the city is truly remarkable. I remember enough too, to know that it didn't happen by magic... that it was a conscious effort in the face of much lamentation of many naysayers insisting that it couldn't be done.

So the city is very safe, it is true. Is it enough? Not by a long shot. That we are the safest large city in America is absolutely wonderful and it is a fact of which I, as a native New Yorker and Brooklynite, am quite proud. But why should anyone think that this means that we can sit back and proclaim "...eh, whaddya expect?"

If you feel that you need to leave Brooklyn, obviously it is up to you and your family... you do what you have to do. But personally, I am of the mind that Brooklyn NEEDS those of us who feel within rights to DEMAND BETTER of the city. It is precisely this plateau mentality that will send us sliding back if no one is to step up and say "No, we need more cops on the street, we need better lighting, we need accountability on the part of those whom we pay to help keep us safe."

I will be very sorry to see you leave if you do. You can be sure that I will stay behind and fight for my borough. All the best to you and the fam in whatever road you take from here.
Gella • 01/07/07 02:41pm Like I say, my reasons for leaving Park Slope - if I do - have less to do with relative security here than the price explosion, and not wanting to be a part of it. But I'll check out other neighborhoods in Brooklyn and throughout NYC.

Yes, we must demand bettter; most of all, of ourselves. I've learned that, too.
rushkoff • 01/07/07 03:01pm

NYC Benefit this Saturday for Develop Don't Destroy

2007-01-09T01:48:00.000-05:00

The good folks at DDD are having a benefit this Saturday.

What? Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Benefit
Where? 409 Park Place (3 story brownstowne. All three floors. dancing on one) (walking distance from prospect park)
When? this saturday the 13th from 9:59 until 2am (dj from 10-2am)

why? high rent sucks and the atlantic yards project is a misuse of funds
price? suggested donation only. no one turned away for lack of funds!

there will be a live dj!bar! info station! friends and fun!. drinks are 3 dollars!

WTO Announces Formalized Slavery Model for Africa

2007-01-06T00:52:00.000-05:00

This is absolutely brilliant. And a long overdue clarification of official WTO policy.

At a Wharton Business School conference on business in Africa, World Trade Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt announced the creation of a WTO initiative for "full private stewardry of labor" for the parts of Africa that have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the West.

Hiatus

2007-01-05T20:44:00.000-05:00

I'm going on leave from Left Behinds to take advantage of opportunities in the private sector. I need to spend more time with my family. I will be taking time off to deal with personal medical issues which does not necessarily mean rehab. I did not have sex with any pages while they were technically underage.

You can just put my Medal of Freedom in the mail.

One Evil Queen Can Ruin Your Whole Day

2007-01-05T14:28:00.000-05:00

That's the tagline for posters for the film Happily N'ever After. It's an Andy Dick joint, so it's definitely intentional niche marketing. I've seen it at the Bedford Ave subway stop and the 23rd St. ACE, but there's no record of it online (the official tagline is apparently "Happy Endings Aren't What They Used To Be," which is also cute).

If any readers have a camera phone or something, I'd love a pic...

Bo-De-Ga

2007-01-05T12:54:00.000-05:00

hat tip: onNYTurf

These two guys are making a series of videos about life in the Bronx. It's funny, although I'd have liked them to have included something more explicit about how damn unhealthy that diet is. Maybe too obvious? Even one line about how living on Ghetto Big Macs will turn you into fat fucks like us, or something like that, would have helped. Cuz I remember eating that food when I was a fat ghetto child, and it is fucking disgusting.

Late Pass

2007-01-05T12:35:00.000-05:00

Apparently this was a huge phenomenon a few months ago, but for whatever reason I'm only now discovering Text Message Breakup and Shoes.

I especially like Margaret Cho's bits in Text Message Breakup ("I'm gonna send that guy a douchebag in the mail!").

It's in the grand tradition of Divine, Sophia Lamar and other trannies whose biting critiques of contemporary -- er, what am I talking about? Either you'll giggle or you won't.

The United Colors of Mapuche

2007-01-03T20:00:00.000-05:00

It's refreshing to read about semi-successful movements resisting globalization run amok. A repost:

Demonstration in Solidarity with the Mapuche Indians

Thursday, January 4, 2007
5 pm meet at the Astor Place Cube if you're late go directly to the United Colors of Benetton store 753 Broadway between 8th and Astor.

Join us Thursday to demonstrate in solidarity with the Mapuche, an indigenous people in Chile struggling to defend their traditional lands. While they have heroically resisted the colonizers for the past five hundred years, in the last decades they have had to face new threats particularly from corporate timber plantations and from enclosure by the "progressive" Italian clothing company Benetton, which is stealing for sheep-raising.

Thursday's demonstration and picket will be against Benetton, in order to help unmask their role in attacking the Mapuche. The Mapuche people in resisting Benetton and other multinationals have refused to be co-opted into the political process and instead have militantly defended their homeland. In retaliation, the Chilean state has imprisoned many of their militants and elders. This demonstration will also be to support these imprisoned insurgents and with the Lecce 5, Italian anarchists accused of taking direct action in solidarity with Mapuche struggles.

Please tell your friends and bring signs and drums.

For more information:

United Colors of Land Grab

The Unconquered Mapuche (from wii'nimkiikaa/it will be thundering):

Strangers Everywhere (article on the Lecce 5)

Do we care that Ben Smith is leaving the Daily News?

2007-01-03T18:33:00.000-05:00

In a couple weeks, apparently. I only read his Daily News blog occasionally. Half the fun of Politicker was its community, and the community proved that it will not follow BS any old place.

I mean, he still has some fun scoops and stuff, but he seems a lot less relevant than a year ago. On his own I find him something less than inspirational. Perhaps I lost my enthusiasm when I read his father's asinine gay marriage decision. Yes, I would be mortified if anyone ever judged me by something one of my parents wrote. But then again my parents would never deny a class of people their rights, and for really, really retarded reasons.

Ben, seated

(God I really do love burning bridges, don't I?)

The Muppets Take Prospect Heights

2007-01-03T18:26:00.000-05:00

This Saturday. Among other stuff.

MISS PIGGY IS MY HERO.

No to 2007

2007-01-02T12:36:00.000-05:00

So apparently hundreds of French people staged a mock protest against the advent of 2007.

Parodying the French readiness to say "non", the demonstrators in the western city of Nantes waved banners reading: "No to 2007" and "Now is better!"

The marchers called on governments and the UN to stop time's "mad race" and declare a moratorium on the future.

I wanted to enjoy this story, but there were a couple problems.

1) The fundamental joke is cuteish but not really very funny.
2) The politics behind it are reactionary to the extreme.

Anyhow, happy new year. Sorry we've been on hiatus. The holidays and all that.

Is a pro athlete crying ever not funny?

2007-01-02T11:57:00.000-05:00

Pull your panties out of your asscrack, Mike. You're retiring before 40 as a multigazillionaire and all you did with your life was throw a ball around. Jesus.

Also, he looks disturbingly like Will Farrell doing a crybaby George Bush.

Merry Christmas from the Jew

2006-12-24T18:50:00.000-05:00

...
...
What the heck, how about the original, too?

Dumb Republican criminal story

2006-12-22T16:12:00.000-05:00

This may just be the funniest shit ever. Full email correspondence here.
...
...
...
Okay, this shit is also pretty funny. The Editors announces his break from the CFL Party:

"Oh, you went to the London School of Economics? I've read about that recently."

2006-12-21T18:47:00.000-05:00

Thanks for making my degree as valuable as one of Bill's old cumrags, Monica.

Well, at least she wasn't in my program.

Shelly the Fat Lady sings

2006-12-20T13:47:00.000-05:00

Or rather, no one paid him off to say no and he never really cared.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver today is set to give the nearly $4 billion Atlantic Yards project for Brooklyn a green light.

The Manhattan Democrat told the Post he'll likely have his appointee vote in favor of the controversial project at today's Public Authorities Control Board meeting, with one caveat: that Gov. Pataki not link it to "pork barrel" projects Silver opposes.

...

"If [Pataki] puts it on the PACB agenda as an individual item, not one item that is contained in a big package of pork and everything, it's a good bet that I would support it," he said.

Via NoLandGrab.

I think the simplest summation of what's wrong with the whole AY proposal and process --and really what's wrong with New York government as a whole--comes from BrooklynSpeaks.net: No Brooklyn official will get to vote on the project. A huge project in the middle of Brooklyn involving lots of public land, the exercise of eminent domain, and outright public subsidy, and no one from the affected county gets a vote. Fucking Robert Moses 2006.

Reprieve

2006-12-19T17:00:00.000-05:00

NY1 reports:

According to a source briefed on the matter, as of now, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will not give final approval to the project before January 1st. There's word he still has financial questions about Atlantic Yards, which includes office and apartment towers and a sports arena for the Nets basketball team.

Officially, a Silver spokesperson says the speaker hasn't decided. But Silver is said to be ready to either vote no or not vote at all if the projects are put before him at a meeting of the Public Authorities Control Board this week.

Via NoLandGrab, which also links to an appraisal by Streetsblog that suggests the reporting of Atlantic Yards Report's Norman Oder may be responsible. Which, if true, is pretty cool.

UPDATE: Sigh. Or not.

Just hours after New York 1 reported that Silver — who has already killed two big development projects with his vote on the Public Authorities Control Board — would block Ratner’s Prospect Heights Xanadu before its expected approval Wednesday, Empire State Development Corporation project planners arrived in his office.

“We are in the process of being briefed on the project,” Silver spokeswoman Eileen Larrabee said.

As a result, it now appears that the PACB vote will indeed happen Wednesday. The other two men on the board — Gov. Pataki and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R–Rensselaer) — support the project, making Silver the target of project opponents’ last-minute hopes.

How Many Members of NYC's Top 29 Have You Slept With?

2006-12-18T17:45:00.000-05:00

Leave it to the New York Observer to write an unironic profile of New York's "29 Power Families."

In answer to the title's question: zero, but I've socialized with three. And by 'socialized with,' yes, Antid Oto, I am referring to that party where a certain elderly scion was drooling slack-jawed in an armchair with a drink falling out of his hand, prevented from slumping to the ground only by the efforts of his erstwhile trophy wife, she of the chunky jewelry and surged out visage. Truly, truly the very best New York has to offer.

3/29 is like 10%. Could be worse.

And at least now I have 29 New Year's resolutions.

TIIIIIINNNSSSLLLEEEEEYYYY!

Hat tip: Nearista, cuz G-d knows I wouldn't be reading the NYO on my own)

Does the MSM really have nothing to write about other than the latest meaningless poll about Hillary's presidential run?

2006-12-18T16:22:00.000-05:00

Well, she's finally beating potential Republican opponents.

That's all I have to say about that.

Chickenhawks of the Sea

2006-12-18T15:54:00.000-05:00

The US military, in a move reminiscent of this scheme, is turning sharks into spies, training them to explore waterways scouting for explosives and terrorist Snorks.

From Jim:

shark spies!!!

dolphin subject up to no good again STOP swimming suspiciously STOP recommend eating of subject STOP

and

i bought a shark in a jar this weekend. at first i was like "whoa neat looking" but now i feel displaying a dead shark in a jar may be disrespectful to our troops.

Freedom of Assembly and Andy Samberg's Penis

2006-12-18T14:07:00.000-05:00

There was a cool show on WBAI this morning about the parade permitting rules (you can listen to it here, click on Out FM at 11 am today). They interviewed Councilmember Rosie Mendez, Leslie Cagan from UFPJ, Chris Dunn from the NYCLU, and Mark Taylor from Assemble for Rights.

The most newsworthy moment comes about 35 minutes in, when Chris Dunn reveals a bit of insider knowledge: According to Dunn, Chris Quinn has been working hard on this behind the scenes even though she has been completely silent since the November hearings. She and the NYPD have been so evasive that everybody has been left wondering what the hell is up with her, so it's very good to hear that she's prioritizing it.

Also, Mark Taylor from Assemble for Rights rather strongly resembles Andy Samberg.

(Well, a bit, at least. Just looking for an excuse to post that, really)

It's funny because it's true......

2006-12-18T02:15:00.000-05:00

Torture

2006-12-18T00:04:00.000-05:00

We already knew our country was torturing people. But basically no one cared, because it was just a bunch of nonhuman brown Muslims. Well, now it's happened to a white Christian American. Who was arrested by accident and smuggled out notes on his torture by writing them in his Bible. That makes it real.

The first step to getting people to care about torture is to get them to see the victims as human beings. If that means using racism against itself--white Americans' identification only with white people, for example--then that's what you do. Of course it would be better if we could all see the humanity of those brown people with the funny names, but I'll settle for closing the torture rooms.

Mr. Vance is what we call a "poster boy," kids. If he's willing, he should be the first person called to testify before Congress.

The baiji is extinct

2006-12-17T16:29:00.000-05:00

Sad, but more or less predicted. One of the great objections to the Three Gorges Dam, in fact, was that it would finish off the species. It has.

The Baiji is the first large mammal brought to extinction as a result of human destruction to their natural habitat and resources.

It won't be the last.

UPDATE:

(from Solomon)

I just wanted to put a photo up, because I like photos. Also, you can hear one baiji's whistle here. It's a very sad song, though. A lament.

UPDATE II:
Correction (from Gristmill):

Correction, 19 Dec 2006: This summary originally stated that the baiji was the first large aquatic mammal to be killed off by human activity. The Stellar's Sea Cow was actually the first.

Every single picture of cats on the internet

2006-12-17T14:41:00.000-05:00

No need to keep looking. They are all here and here.

This week's lies from Bruce

2006-12-16T15:56:00.000-05:00

As The Brooklyn Papers reports this week, buried — not announced, but buried! — in a 2,000-page state document is the news that Ratner’s much-touted “economic engine for Downtown Brooklyn” is now projected to create $944 million in city and state tax revenues over the next 30 years.

Do the math: That means that the city and state — whose annual budgets are tens of billions of dollars — will see just $15 million a year in new revenues from Atlantic Yards.

And at what cost? The city and state each coughed up $100 million this summer to boost Ratner’s project — a tiny down-payment on the billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies that will help Ratner acquire land cheaply, finance his project with low-interest bonds, and make a nice profit thanks to deferred taxes.

Three years ago, when Mayor Bloomberg and Borough President Markowitz signed onto this bad investment, Ratner was promising $6 billion in public benefit from the project. That dropped to $1.4 billion this summer and is now $944 million.

The state says that the revenue shortfall is a result of a trim in Atlantic Yards’ overall square-footage. But that, too, is a lie: the Atlantic Yards approved last week by the Empire State Development Corporation is the same size as the original project (which later grew so that Ratner could then “downsize” it and say he was “listening” to the “community”— only the New York Times, which put the “news” of the Ratner “downsizing” on its front page, bought that lie).

Ratner has trimmed the commercial component of his project — which means fewer new jobs and, therefore, less tax revenue — but that was his plan all along. From Metrotech to Atlantic Center to Atlantic Terminal, Ratner has a track record of promising lots of new office jobs and then not delivering. His three office complexes are filled with public, taxpayer-funded offices — the ESDC itself is housed in Atlantic Center! — guaranteeing Ratner’s profit.

I don't know what to add to that, except to note that thanks to New York's lovely three-men-in-a-room system of governance, the entire decision basically comes down to Shelly Silver.

The state’s Public Authorities Control Board is expected to consider the project on Wednesday. That obscure body is controlled by just three men: Gov. Pataki, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Rensselaer) and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan).

Silver did vote against the West Side Stadium project, but it's generally believed he was pissed that his downtown backers weren't getting their slice of the graft. Which means the essential hope here is that Ratner didn't learn anything from the Jets. Which seems to me unlikely. Bruce is pretty good at payoffs.

One last lie: Just last week Charlie Gargano (ESDC Chair) said there were no plans to use eminent domain within the project's footprint. This week?

More than 30 property owners within the footprint of the developer’s Atlantic Yards project were told this week that state officials had commenced eminent domain proceedings — beginning the condemnation of private property for the $4-billion residential, office and arena project before it even wins final approval.

The jargon-heavy letter — whose salutation was “Dear interested party” — told owners they had until only Jan. 11 to seek “judicial review” of the “determination” that the state could take their property and turn it over to Ratner.

You know what frustrates me the most about this whole sad parade of obvious lies and their inevitable exposure met with shrugs? That Brooklyn/New York politics are so goddamn corrupt that ultimately, I don't believe anyone will pay the price. Every palm will get to keep its grease, no one will lose his office, and we will all pay exorbitantly so Bruce Ratner can get even richer.

UPDATE: (via NoLandGrab)

Mike Lupica points out one more lie:

You know what else was in the new plan approved by the ESDC?

Language that wasn't in there before about what happens to the project if Ratner sells the Nets.

According to Ratner and Markowitz of Brooklyn, head cheerleader for the project from the start, this was supposed to be all about sports.

Sports was just a way to get Ratner's foot in the door.

This was always about the real estate.

Irony.

2006-12-15T20:26:00.000-05:00

Border Fence Firm Snared for Hiring Illegal Workers

h/t Shakespeare's Sister

Probably insane.

2006-12-15T13:20:00.000-05:00

So now we're supposed to listen to the guy who dreamed up Star Wars?

Actually, if it works... I would love to believe this country will apply itself, Manhattan Project–style, to reducing carbon emissions, but let's be brutally honest: we probably won't do it in time. It's 50 degrees here in Brooklyn today, in the middle of December, and it's been this warm all week. Weather is getting way too freaky. If we can buy ourselves more time by spreading sulfur particles in the upper atmosphere (and by the way, more time at this point means more than 10 years—we only have 10 years or so to avert total catastrophe), we may need to do it.

Meanwhile, Grist has been running an interesting series on biofuels. More information than you could ever digest (haws! digest! corn! get it?), all in one place.

Sean Bell protest

2006-12-15T13:05:00.000-05:00

From mole333:

Start: 2006-12-16 11:30
Timezone: US/Eastern
description:

March for Justice with DFNYC, Community Leaders and Sean Bell's Family - Sat. Dec 16, 11:30am

-Meet at 59th Street & 5th Avenue

Community leaders from all over the City have planned a citywide call to action for prompt and decisive action to protest misconduct in the shootings of three young men by the NYPD on November 25. A massive "March for Justice," will take place this Saturday, December 16th, beginning at 11:30 am at 59th Street & 5th Avenue.

Democracy for NYC along with Community Free Democrats and Three Parks Independent Democrats are joining our elected officials, civic and community leaders, and union members in a show of unity. Please join us Saturday. Let us know if you're coming.

To join our group, email Bernadette at bevangelist@dfnyc.org.

For more information about the march, contact 212-408-8416.

NOTES: I should note that Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats is also spreading the word about this. I also should note that I have been told that this is not a permitted march, but that the police will not interfere. Joy and I will try to be there.
Location:
Meet at 59th Street & 5th Avenue in Manhattan
Sponsor:
DFNYC, CBID, Community Free Democrats and Three Parks Independent Democrats
RSVP:
bevangelist@dfnyc.org

I've read elsewhere on local blogs that not getting a permit for a march heading down Fifth Avenue during Christmas season was a deliberate provocation. Fifth Ave. businesses are not going to be happy. I really hope the police don't interfere. It could get ugly.

Suck it.

2006-12-15T12:58:00.000-05:00

I knew I was smarter. You know how I knew? Cause I'm smart.

Coco again.

The Pope is gay.

2006-12-14T20:06:00.000-05:00

You thought America was the only place to find gay-bashing right-wing closet cases? Think again.

BAAAAASTAAAAAAAARDS!

2006-12-13T00:11:00.000-05:00

Republican City Council members James S. Oddo, Dennis P. Gallagher, and Andrew J. Lanz have just earned Left Behinds' eternal enmity. No, not for their weak, half-assed attempt to pander to those few with nothing better to be outraged about than the New York Daily News's ginned-up scandal of the slow news day. For this:

They added, “The fact that CUNY employees would attempt to defend this outrage begs the question: ‘What is going on over at CUNY?’ ”

You'd almost think they weren't listening. Left Behinds has issued an official ban on that particular abuse of English. Fortunately, at least two of the abusers, Councilmen Oddo and Gallagher, have taken strong stands against the dilution of our precious language. So I'm sure they'll fire the underling(s) responsible very soon.

Bro-Back Mountain

2006-12-11T15:46:00.000-05:00

"Horrifying and delicious"

2006-12-10T03:13:00.000-05:00

From Coco.

How do you like Houston St. these days?

2006-12-09T12:41:00.000-05:00

In under ten years it's been transformed from a big thoroughfare with lots of little shops to a glittering, soulless arcade lined with giant billboards. A smaller version of Times Square.

Well hellooooooooo, Brooklyn!

[N]ew state renderings ... show 15-story illuminated advertising billboards on either side of the development’s main building.
[...]
Two 150-foot-tall illuminated billboards on either side of the “Urban Room” atrium at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues would constantly bathe “Brooklyn’s famed brownstones ... in the light from 15-story beer ads,” said Kevin Fry, [Scenic America's] president.

The billboards only came to light last week, as part of the state’s hurriedly prepared final environmental impact statement for the $4.2-billion project...

Such billboards are illegal under New York City zoning — but that law is one of many local codes being superceded by the state in its approval of Atlantic Yards.

It's not so bad, though. Bruce promises.

Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner has said that light from the signs would only be turned up to maximum settings on game nights.

And if you believe that makes a difference, I've got a bridge a dozen blocks away I'd like to sell you.

In further silly Ratner news:

Ratner stoop really blows

State officials revealed this week that the large outdoor flight of stairs — central feature of Bruce Ratner’s mega-development — will be too windy for sitting or dining 61 percent of the time.

The state wind impact report shows that gusts would frequently exceed seven miles per hour —the threshold for comfortable “leisure sitting” or “dining,” as the report defines it — thanks to new wind patterns resulting from Ratner’s $4.2-billion, 16-tower arena, hotel, residential and office complex.

The front stoop, the report said, is only suitable for standing and walking — despite Gehry’s renderings that show people sitting and dining at outdoor cafe tables at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.

“[The stoop area has] the highest predicted wind speeds as a result of the canyon effect caused by the buildings on either side,” the report said.

Okay, make that a cross between Times Square and the UN complex. Best. Urban Renewal project. EVAR!

UPDATE: In other news, Norman Oder reports that In 15 minutes, four ESDC board members approve AY project:

Yes, it was rubberstamped. Even though Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) Chairman Charles Gargano had said in a radio interview Thursday that “it’ll be up to the board members to vote yes or no” on the Atlantic Yards project, the press release had already been prepared when the 3:30 pm board meeting began yesterday.

My precious illusions, they are dashed.

Anniversary Post: World of Hip-Hop

2006-12-08T18:06:00.000-05:00

I was going to do a music recommendation post, but sadly I don't have time and Solomon seems to have been felled by some horrible infection, so you're going to have to make do with a hip-hop sampling from around the globe. Six below the fold. Feel free to recommend music anyway, we can start a whole discussion thing.

Uganda: Saba Saba

Hong Kong: LMF

Germany: Azad

UK: Roll Deep

Senegal: Daara J

Uganda: Rah P

Anniversary Post: Why I am a Liberal, or the Individual-Choice Fallacy

2006-12-08T03:50:00.000-05:00

The post directly below this one represents a consumer, nonliberal model of responding to a liberal concern. I don’t say that to denigrate the Fair Trade Fair: given a nation bent on unfair trade policies, individual consumer choice is a way for each of us individually to lessen his or her moral culpability, if only a little. As Gandhi admonished, “You must be the change you seek in the world.” That is necessary. But of course it is not sufficient.

Last spring Solomon and I attended a lecture given by a friend of mine, Damon Rich (co-founder of the Center for Urban Pedagogy). I’ve been pestering him to send me a copy ever since, and finally he did. The talk touched on a few topics; one of them was the transformation of Soho from light industrial space to artists’ lofts and then finally to high-end apartments and retail. It’s a transformation that has been repeated, as this article by Mike Muller describes (h/t Phoebe), in the East Village, Williamsburg, and now the Fulton Mall and Bushwick.

From Soho to the Lower East Side to Williamsburg, the story has been more or less the same – artists move in, eventually helping to cause the neighborhood to go through sweeping changes, which results in hardship for local families and businesses -- as well as for the artists themselves.

In his speech (that post of his PDF will work only for 7 days, so if anyone knows a better way to host a file please let me know), Rich summarizes the narrative as it pertains to Soho this way:

In her book Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change, Sharon Zukin has written a careful and detailed story about the transformation of Soho in New York City from manufacturing district to chic residential neighborhood, the origin story of contemporary gentrification. In her narrative of urban change, she emphatically claims to depart from “the usual account of the rise of loft living.” She summarizes this usual and incorrect account as follows:

…loft living is the spontaneous result of “market forces.” The presence or supply of underused loft buildings supposedly inspired an inventive adaptation. Demand for lofts emerged among worthy, though unworldly, artists and performers. They settled bravely in the urban tundras and carved neighborhoods out of the wilderness. Just when they had succeeded in taming their castiron environment, a band of new arrivals – who were interested in domesticating an industrial aesthetic – moved in on their territory. Recognizing neither claims nor conventions, this wave of loft tenants bid up property values, started boutiques, and crowded the original settlers with their purely residential ethos. (Zukin, 174)

This story, according to Zukin, “is mythology, not urban history.”

There’s a hidden assumption in this familiar story: that these changes are brought about primarily by collections of renters’ individual choices. From Rich’s speech again:

I'm the reason that your block is vacant/
Malicious will hit ya just to make a statement.
–“What Happened to That Boy”

Spelled out over a lopsided videogame beat, Malice of hip-hop duo the Clipse offers one explanation for the boarded-up, grown over, and graffiti-covered block on the cover of his album. While a policy analyst might attribute abandonment in US cities to deindustrialization, white flight, or government funding of superhighways, our boastful narrator takes personal credit for a devastated streetscape. What could be construed as a diffuse, natural, or inevitable process of change becomes a product of individual will.

For many, the word “gentrification” has come to serve the same function, putting an agent – the “gentrifier” – in the driver’s seat of urban change. It draws a clear image of a complex process. More urbanites know and talk about gentrification than about zoning, tax credits, or other more direct causes of urban change. While activists have shifted away from it, “gentrification” has become generalized shorthand in Friendster culture. Gentrification receives so much attention from this group in particular – young, upwardly mobile students and culture workers – because, as with the epigraph, the claim to agency is self-referential; it could be written “I’m the reason your block has a Starbuck’s!”

Taken to its extreme, this attitude leads to the nonsensical solution offered by a guest at a summer party of mine. She said she had a pair of friends who had decided, as a matter of principle, to pay as much in rent as they could possibly afford. And she looked genuinely confused when I laughed and said that was absolutely ridiculous. Attachment to the consumer model of self-empowerment runs deep.

In fact, as Rich details, Soho’s transformation occurred as the result of a deliberate alliance between advocates for artists and farseeing property owners interested in ousting their light-manufacturing tenants and turning their space to more lucrative purposes. To property owners, artists were always a temporary means to an end.

The point is that the self-interest of the artists – living in lofts – strategically aligned with long-term elite plans for creating higher economic uses – getting small manufacturers out of the lofts as part of the deindustrialization of lower Manhattan. At the time, the artists’ movement was happy to receive elite support voiced in terms of the importance of the arts, even though the larger goal was the reorganization of the economy.

Returning to that Gotham Gazette story, we can see the exact same thing happening again.

Greenpoint and Williamsburg are famous internationally as artistic communities, but they weren’t always so popular, and their zoning reflected that. To address the new attraction of the area, it was rezoned last year to allow for larger developments and more residential buildings. The rezoning was heralded by officials as a model of gentrification that would benefit everyone. Thirty-three percent of the housing units to be created were estimated to be affordably priced, there was money set aside to assist tenants in relocating and for legal aid, and anti harassment laws were strengthened.
[…]
Artists are not necessarily in direct competition with industrial businesses: Artist work/live space is allowed within many manufacturing zones, and expanding the number of these in Greenpoint was proposed as part of that community's rezoning plan, though ultimately rejected in the city's 2005 rezoning plan. Adam Friedman, executive director of the New York Industrial Retention Network , an advocacy group, likes to note that many of the industrial jobs still in the city are artisans.

But many landlords illegally convert their warehouses for much more lucrative residential use under the guise of creating work space for artists.

A New York Industrial Retention Network report, published in 2004, found that 27 buildings in East Williamsburg alone have carried out illegal conversions, which is estimated to equal 500,000 square feet. Another building in the area, 255 McKibbin St., was issued $6,150 in fines for such violations, of which only $1,150 was paid, yet was still approved in 2003 to begin legally offering work/live space for artists in the building, the report shows.

(Incidentally, I think I know that building on McKibbin.)

Rich:

Those upset by the implication of the arts in urban upscaling are understandably less organized, but some of the most upset start groups. A few years ago some people in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn founded Gentrifiers against Gentrification (GAG). The April 9, 2001 issue of Inner City Press (www.innercitypress.org), the newsletter of an economic justice organization based in the Bronx, reported on a forum held at New York University about gentrification.

During the question-and-answer period, some NYU students who have moved to Bushwick [Brooklyn] (as the first wave of gentrification) stated that they were trying to be "socially responsible" -- they've even formed a group, called "Gentrifiers Against Gentrification." The problem is, their willingness to pay more money than the neighborhood's current residents, for lofts and other space, speaks for itself, and has its own implications. Why not Jamaica, Queens, they were asked? Or Ozone Park?

Despite their best intentions, the aspiring practitioners of social responsibility are reduced to economic actors making life difficult for others with less money.

Ultimately, problems created by markets cannot be countered solely through collections of more enlightened individual choices, nor even through the creation of well-meaning nonprofit organizations. Only collective action can equal the power of major property-owners in this city—and that means government action. It is true that our governments are too often captured by private power, and it is also true that they will always be captured by private power to some extent. Unless you want to get revolutionary, there is nothing to be done about that. Government is the only tool ordinary people have to match those more powerful than them—and make no mistake, ownership is power.

That idea—that government should be used to defend the interests of average people against the powerful few—is a distinctive feature of liberalism, and I rarely see it described explicitly as such.

Left Behinds is exactly one year old today.

First Annual Fair Trade Fair

2006-12-06T17:44:00.000-05:00

For your Christmas, Holiday, or Festival-of-Satan's-Blood shopping needs.

First Annual Fair Trade Fair: Saturday 12/9, 11am - 4pm

The New York City Fair Trade Coalition co-hosts:

the FIRST ANNUAL FAIR TRADE FAIR
in partnership with Oxfam@NYU and Judson Memorial Church

Buy fair trade for the holidays and shop your conscience
-Artisanal Goods
-Clothing & Accessories
-Coffee & Chocolate
-Bake Sale

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9th 11 am – 4 pm
JUDSON MEMORIAL CHURCH ASSEMBLY HALL
239 Thompson Street (South of Washington Square Park between 3rd and 4th Streets)
NO ENTRANCE FEE

The Results Are In: The Adam Green Party Surges in a Groundswell of Brooklyn Support

2006-12-05T16:55:00.000-05:00

The coverup has been defeated. Adam Green, the official Left Behinds and Gatemouth candidate for New York State Comptroller, made an electoral sweep across large swaths of Brooklyn. He came in a resounding seventh in Kings County, ahead of such political heavyweights as Donald Trump, Harriet Tubman, Mickey Mouse, and "Neither Asshole" (all actual write-in candidates). I feel almost as proud of my influence as when I was on the staff of Mark Green's mayoral campaign!

In further shocking news, careful analysis of BoE data suggests that loyal followers of Left Behinds and Gatemouth reside primarily in Williamsburg and Park Slope.

How Cocaine Is Made

2006-12-05T15:20:00.000-05:00

This is pretty fascinating. It's sort of gross how unsanitary the process is (is that a snot rag they're using as a filter?), but then again this is only half the process. A lot more chemical reactions happen that result in pure cocaine minus the Colombian foot grease, etc.

But I was surprised by how a whole room full of coca leaves produces a little ball of crack goo the size of an apple (which is then further refines to produced market-ready cocaine the size of, I'm guessing, a crabapple. The plants must not have very much of the alkaloid in them.

Plus the conditions of the workers is disturbing. Notice the guy's big smile at the end when he describes what his employers do if they catch any of the workers sampling the product.

Fundraiser Tonight

2006-12-05T15:16:00.000-05:00

I don't have a good sense of the demographics of our readers, but there are probably a couple queer people living in NYC, so for them I repost the following (and QEJ is a great group).

PRIDE AT WORK

invites you to the

New York City Chapter
FUND RAISER

for
QUEERS FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE’s
Immigrant Rights Project

Drinks, snacks, raffle, and socialize!

PLACE: BARRAGE - 401 W 47TH (BETWEEN 9TH & 10TH)
DATE: DECEMBER 5, 2006
TIME: 6:30 PM TO 8:00 PM
COST: $35.00 ($25 P@W MEMBERSHIP + $10 DONATION to QEJ)

BRING FRIENDS

SOCIALIZE

DONATE

The Immigrant Rights Project (IRP)is a project of Queers for Economic Justice.

The project works to advocate for the rights of LGBT immigrants and has been organizing to put immigrant rights at the center of the LGBT movement and queer rights at the center of the immigrant rights movement.
IRP has organized a coalition of LGBT immigrant rights organizations across the country to put together the first national queer vision statement on immigration. Currently the project is also engaged in advocacy efforts to lift the HIV Ban on Immigrants, and in the State of New York, advocating with Eliot Spitzer to reduce discriminatory drivers’ license requirements and for New York to opt out of the harsh federal proof of identification laws.

Left Behinds Stocking Stuffers

2006-12-05T14:41:00.000-05:00

Left Behind: The Game. Can you say whoah?

Plot introduction

Taking as its premise a Rapture which takes from the earth all believers in Jesus Christ, the story is from the viewpoint of those who are not taken. The initial group have family or friends that believe, and they experience the dramatic events that follow having been "Left Behind".

Basically, various characters fight the non-believers on the streets of New York City.

# Command your forces through intense battles across a breathtaking, authentic depiction of New York City.

# Control more than 30 units types - from Prayer Warrior and Hellraiser to Spies, Special Forces and Battle Tanks!

# Enjoy a robust single player experience across dozens of New York City maps in Story Mode – fighting in China Town , SoHo , Uptown and more!

Could we coordinate a field trip to Circuit City or somewhere to play it?

There is also, of course, the movie series (starring Kirk Cameron, no less!). You can watch the whole thing on Youtube, but I like this Johnny Cash version.

RNC Aftermath

2006-12-05T14:30:00.000-05:00

It looks like a recent court decision in three RNC cases was huge and could lead to massive damages awarded to the many people fucked over by the City during the RNC protests two years ago.

From OnNYTurf,

Last week a court ruled that the NYPD has admitted it has no evidence for arresting 23 out of 24 people in a mass roundup during the RNC. This ruling is a likely forecast of things to come in thousands of RNC false arrest lawsuits the city is facing for NYPD mass arrests made during the Republican National Convention period in NYC in 2004. The NYPD admission is hugely significant in that it basically means the NYPD had no grounds for having arrested and detained 23 out of 24 plaintiffs in these cases.

Legal experts predict this admission just about guarantees that the city will pay millions of dollars to these people in damages for being falsely arrested. And these are just some of the first RNC cases among thousands winding their way through NY courts.

In Washington DC, a very similar lawsuit was just settled a few weeks ago, in which 7 people were awarded damages of $635,000 after the DC police admitted to sweeping people off the streets on erroneous charges and detaining them for prolonged periods of time during 2001 Bush inauguration protests.

It almost makes me wish I had gotten arrested.

False Needs

2006-12-05T14:10:00.000-05:00

In One-Dimensional Man, Herbert Marcuse elaborated on Marx's distinction between true and false needs.

“False” are those which are superimposed upon the individual by particular social interests in his repression: the needs which perpetuate toil, aggressiveness, misery, and injustice. Their satisfaction might be most gratifying to the individual, but this happiness is not a condition which has to be maintained and protected if it serves to arrest the development of the ability (his own and others) to recognize the disease of the whole and grasp the chances of curing the disease. The result then is euphoria in unhappiness. Most of the prevailing needs to relax, to have fun, to behave and consume in accordance with the advertisements, to love and hate what others love and hate, belong to this category of false needs.
...
In the last analysis, the question of what are true and false needs must be answered by the individuals themselves, but only in the last analysis; that is, if and when they are free to give their own answer.
...
The optimal goal is the replacement of false needs by true ones, the abandonment of repressive satisfaction.

This discussion of euphoria in unhappiness was brought to mind when I was recently sent this video (not safe for work, btw, or school or home or anywhere, really).

Where does this sort of need come from? Whose social interest is served by creating the scenario in which this particular desire must be urgently tended to? What diabolical coterie came up with the idea of manufacturing this particular pursuit? Wasn't it Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams who said, "if you build the fannyless pterodactyl costume, they will cum?"

Free software

2006-12-05T03:18:00.000-05:00

Fight the man.

Unacceptable

2006-12-05T03:00:00.000-05:00

Remember when Matt Taibbi asked when Joe Biden would become fair game?

[L]istening to Joe Biden sound self-righteous about anything makes me want to puke my guts out. I don't know what it is about him.

Maybe it's that creepy poof of blow-dried gray pubic fuzz he has now covering up that dime-store plug job on his head. Maybe it's the fact that he's been ponderously wondering aloud about his chances for the White House for 18 straight years, his painfully obvious hard-on for power straining against his suit-slacks, ever since a plagiarism scandal and an aneurysm knocked him out of his first run. Maybe it's that his idea of outflanking the Republican Party is outspending them on the War on Drugs.

Or maybe it's just that Biden, more than almost anyone in American public life, will do or say anything that he thinks will secure him even the most temporary electoral advantage.

Well, he's about to become fair game in a big way, because he just pandered in the wrong way to the wrong people.

The senator then pounced on a member’s announcement that the club would hold its annual Christmas party at the state Department of Archives and History where members could view the original copy of the state’s Articles of Secession.

Biden asked, “Where else could I go to a Rotary Club where (for a) Christmas party the highlight is looking at the Articles?”

Biden was on a roll.

Delaware, he noted, was a “slave state that fought beside the North. That’s only because we couldn’t figure out how to get to the South. There were a couple of states in the way.”

Bye bye, Joe.

ht CorrenteWire

Just fucking pathetic and tragic

2006-12-04T03:56:00.000-05:00

The lead sentence says it all.

More than 15 months after Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin is ready to open a city office to direct New Orleans' recovery.

Someone went to an awful lot of trouble to make this

2006-12-03T03:18:00.000-05:00

h/t The Editors

Trevor Paglen

2006-12-03T02:46:00.000-05:00

If you get a chance in the next couple of weeks, check out Trevor Paglen's show BLACK WORLD at Bellwether Gallery (10th Ave. between 18th and 19th). Paglen photographs and videotapes secret government bases through telescopes from around 20 miles away; the videos in particular shimmer like the surface of a scrying pool. More recently, Paglen has gotten interested in the CIA's use of shell companies and clandestine flights to transport suspects to unacknowledged prisons in Eastern Europe. He had an article on the subject in the Village Voice and has a book coming out in a few days. His main website is here, and here's a 10 minute video about his work.

Perhaps my favorite piece is a simple 2-minute video taken at a distance of a mile, showing commuters at McCarran airport in Las Vegas getting on the 737 to either Area 51 or the Tonopah Test Range. They're ordinary fat Americans and they waddle, which tickles me. His photo of the "Salt Pit" CIA interrogation facility outside Kabul is also quite moving, in the hell-looks-like-an-ordinary-building sense.

It's hard being me

2006-12-02T16:42:00.000-05:00

h/t Shakespeare's Sister

Matt Taibbi breaks down the Litvinenko murder theories

2006-12-01T20:20:00.000-05:00

Oh shit.

So cute

2006-12-01T17:54:00.000-05:00

h/t: Jesus's General

Hating on Obama, Sirota edition

2006-12-01T14:58:00.000-05:00

Solomon and I have been saying for a while now that Obama has no real substance to him. Reread his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention. It was pretty good but not amazing, a mix of impressive turns of phrase and pablum. Even when it sounds its best it's utterly contentless, demanding no decisions or commitments. I understand why: the speech was intended to pump up John Kerry, and it's very difficult if not impossible to make decisions or commitments on behalf of someone who refuses to make any. (Compare it to Bill Clinton's speech at the same convention, where he lays out a clear philosophy of government.) But since then, whenever we've seen him on TV he's been the epitome of a difference-splitting Senator. What's more, he's taken no strong public stands on anything despite being one of the Democrats' biggest stars.

David Sirota describes clearly the danger for liberals (as distinct from Democrats) of embracing a pretty face with no substance just now:

[D]on't fool yourself: a movement that rushes to embrace a candidate without demanding that candidate actually lead on the issues that the movement is supposed to be about - well, that could be a death blow for what we are working toward. Movements move because leaders lead and because they wield power by forcing politicians to stand up for people. Movements are killed by false prophets, cults of personality and by the unwillingness of those in the movement to wield their power for their agenda.

Look, I'm willing to admit that maybe it's true: maybe in this age of cynicism where people have completely given up on the idea that government can do anything, all the country really wants is a great orator who nebulously "connects" - a talk show host President who makes us feel good when he's on TV, even as he refuses to use his power to actually change anything. But I think now, more than ever, people are looking for a conviction politician - someone who has either done something, or at least used their platform to try to do something through raising taboo issues.

There's no way we should even be discussing Obama as a presidential possibility in 2008.

50 Shots

2006-12-01T14:24:00.000-05:00

Here's the new song by mixtape rapper Papoose about the Sean Bell NYPD shooting.

I like the sentiment, like in this line about Bloomberg:

"Some say he spoke illogically. / He got some better manners, / but let's see if we get some better policy. / Don't fall for it, it's all tricknology."

But that has to be the most awkward flow I've heard in a long, long time.

Sometimes the exigencies of the revolution necessitate the advancement of praxis over theory

2006-12-01T03:47:00.000-05:00

Sexual Abuse in Africa

2006-12-01T01:52:00.000-05:00

Dear god. That's just...I don't even know what to say.

On a side note, can we all just agree that today's feminism is about this sort of problem and not, for example, one's proper position vis-a-vis "Girls Gone Wild culture"? (Yes, for the 99.9% of you who don't get it, that's an inside joke. Sometimes I'm like that.)

Do You Suffer From Neurotypical Disorder?

2006-11-30T22:51:00.000-05:00

Whenever I get sick I sincerely convince myself that everything is wrong with me (from AIDS to autism). In the course of my self pity party I stumbled upon this documentary.

My mother, a clinical psychologist whose 35-year field of expertise is developmental disorders, did not hesitate in dismissing the fundamental premise of the documentary, that the narration reflected Sue's true thoughts.

"Facilitated communication has been thoroughly debunked. It's almost always a fraud. This is so typical. Notice how the facilitated communication sounds suspiciously like some cheezy, flowery social worker, with that self help language that's so typical of social workers and so atypical of autistics who can communicate without facilitation. Not that the facilitators necessarily do it on purpose. It's like a ouija board, or if I made a documentary all about my cat in which I completely anthropomorphized her interior life. It's sad and desperate, really."

She hedged that it was impossible to be certain without interviewing Sue directly, but "the chances are maybe 1 in 1000 that that narration is actually mostly hers." She also thought that Sue almost definitely was a relatively high-functioning developmentally disabled person with some sort of chromosomal syndrome.

Assuming that diagnosis is correct, the film is really tragic for everyone involved.

Anyhow, in my research, I also found this very amusing site.

What Is NT?
Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity.

Neurotypical individuals often assume that their experience of the world is either the only one, or the only correct one. NTs find it difficult to be alone. NTs are often intolerant of seemingly minor differences in others. When in groups NTs are socially and behaviorally rigid, and frequently insist upon the performance of dysfunctional, destructive, and even impossible rituals as a way of maintaining group identity. NTs find it difficult to communicate directly, and have a much higher incidence of lying as compared to persons on the autistic spectrum.
NT is believed to be genetic in origin. Autopsies have shown the brain of the neurotypical is typically smaller than that of an autistic individual and may have overdeveloped areas related to social behavior.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Normal Disorders: 666.00 Neurotypic Disorder
How Common Is It?
Tragically, as many as 9625 out of every 10,000 individuals may be neurotypical.
Are There Any Treatments For NT?
There is no known cure for Neurotypical Syndrome.

Sick

2006-11-30T22:50:00.000-05:00

Sorry for my silence, but I've been really sick this week. Getting better so will resume posting.

I forgot about this guy

2006-11-29T01:12:00.000-05:00

Solomon and I had a lot of fun with Christopher X. Brodeur's 2005 campaign for mayor. Unfortunately, it was in the days before we had a blog and I forgot all about him. Bouldin just mentioned him, though, so here it is, enjoy, Brodeur for Mayor 2005.

A few tastes from "100 INNOVATIONS FOR NYC":

1.

FREE SUBWAYS, AND THE DEATH OF THE MTA

The MTA must be shut down.

Period.

Any candidate who says otherwise isn’t qualified to scrub the few public toilets in town.

We’ll either fold the agency into the Governor’s office (so politicians can no longer escape the voters’ wrath) or we’ll consider making the head of the MTA an elected position, so the agency is no longer immune from angry voters. Unfortunately, I can write over 900,000 words outlining endless scandals of the MTA (which the media kept secret) and my specific details to clean it all up (and “it’s not a CITY agency” is a lame excuse) but you already know it needs to be put to sleep.

My first plan, is to make the subways free, saving us over $300,000,000 of your taxdollars a year (which is wasted simply collecting the fare!) INSTANTLY.

Few people seem to be aware that taxdollars---not the stupid subway fare---- pay for most of the subway anyhow, making fare-collection brilliantly counter-productive.

[....this one goes on for quite a while....]

36.

BATHROOM DOORS MUST OPEN OUT----NOT IN

Whoever the genius was who made most bathroom doors open IN (so I have to touch the filthiest doorknobs on earth to get out) didn’t know what he was doing.

My plan is simple:

all future bathroom doors must open OUT so you do not have to touch it with your hand. This will not only be more convenient, it will reduce the number of colds and other bacteria you catch from other people.

There is no problem too big or too small for me to fix.

Because I actually care about your quality-of-life.

Crazy, hm?

88.

BALCONY LAW

My apartment has a balcony and it's fantastic.

Everybody should have one, and as mayor I would require all new buildings to hava them. (Developers can't complain too much because it's a one-time-cost, which will bring 50 - 100 years of pleasure to the tenants.)

Wham! I just improved the quality-of-life of another million people!

(Should I even point out how much safer I just made NYC in case of fires? Freddy Bloomberg’s plan is to ignore the issue---just like all other issues. He believes that in the event of a fire, you should find the key to the window gate that leads to your fire escape, [Don’t forget to hold your breath, and use a flashlight in case the power’s out!] and then struggle to open it while your home fills with toxic smoke, then climb thru the window out onto the fire escape! Great plan! My plan is a LITTLE more simple and intelligent: in the event of a fire, you walk over to the balcony door, turn the handle, and step out into fresh air! Crazy, hm?)

Just go try and read the whole thing. It's AMAZING.

Whose fault is racism?

2006-11-29T00:46:00.000-05:00

I'm working out of town this week, in a hotel that delivers USA Today with breakfast. Lucky thing, because I never ordinarily read USA Today and might never have learned who's really responsible for white racism:

Black people.

In fact, in the days before rap music and BET white people never, ever mimicked black people in derogatory ways.

Energy through charcoal

2006-11-27T02:52:00.000-05:00

Via John, a umpteen-thousand-word article on how to meet most if not all of our energy needs (and cut CO2 emissions) by burning biomass for charcoal. There's a lot of detail, but to me the most impressive element is the political awareness: we're wasting a lot of time subsidizing corn-based ethanol because farmers need it (and because ADM wants it). ADM has money; corn farmers have Iowa. Fuck ADM (seriously, fuck ADM with a golf club), but we're never going to get around farmers as a political force, not with our primary system.

Farm income depends a lot on subsidies, but we're paying for things that don't do us much (if any) good. It's time to stop wasting that money and get something useful for it. So what can farmers make that they ought to get paid for?

Rather, what problems can they solve, above and beyond keeping folks fed? The obvious issues are:

1. Too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and
2. A dearth of storable, renewable energy.

#1 is the big global-warming issue. Farmers can help solve it, but they didn't make it; the problem was created by others. Since CO2 reduction is a public good, it looks like the ideal farm price-support program for the next half-century: we can tax greenhouse-gas creators to pay farmers to offset the damage, and pay farmers some extra to return the atmosphere to a stable state. Just pulling the atmospheric CO2 level from today's 379 ppm down to 350 ppm (a level which would probably stabilize Greenland and Antarctica) requires the net capture of about 230 billion tons2 of carbon dioxide. If we can get 1.72 billion dry tons of biomass per year (720 million tons of waste and another billion dry tons of biomass crops), about 770 million tons would be carbon3; even if we took it all, released nothing back to the atmosphere, and added twice again as much effort from the rest of the world, we'd still be at the job for around a century. Paying farmers to take carbon out of the air and put it in the ground, out of reach (e.g. as charcoal mixed with earth) could be the ultimate price backstop for anything they grew. The risk of price collapses due to bumper harvests would be a thing of the past; sequestration would be the ultimate backup "market" able to absorb anything beyond marketable quantities.

#2 favors products which can be stockpiled. Light gases such as methane can be stored in underground formations, but liquids can be stored in tanks most anywhere and many solids can just be heaped. And to solve the greenhouse problem, the fuels must be able to deliver sufficient energy to the user to replace what we'd otherwise require from fossil fuels. Ideally, much of the carbon leaving the system should be produced in a form which can be stored indefinitely. Charcoal certainly meets that requirement (it is used to carbon-date campfires up to 10,000 years old, and perhaps older).

When all is said and done, here's the bullet-point program:

If Congress decided that this was a desirable future, what policy initiatives should we have? I'd suggest this program for the nation:

* Finance the fastest practical development and pilot test programs for solid-oxide fuel cells, molten-carbonate fuel cells and especially direct-carbon fuel cells. Processing systems for biomass carbonizer off-gas to feed SOFC's should be a priority.
* Block the issuance of permits for any coal-burning powerplants without plans for full carbon sequestration.
* Require most new vehicles to be PHEV's.
* Promote or require plug-in facilities for new or renovated construction.
* Some sort of net metering or other feed-in law is required for the grid.
* Get rid of all preferences and mandates for alternative fuels; incentives should be created by taxes on oil, coal and natural gas.

Points 2, 3, and 6 would take a hell of a political fight, but that fight has to come anyway.

One takeaway lesson: don't take any politician seriously if he or she mentions ethanol in remarks about global warming or energy independence (unless he/she is talking specifically about developing better cellulosic [non-corn] ethanol technology, which could be legit, maybe). Such a politician is full of shit.

Last minute protest notification

2006-11-26T20:00:00.000-05:00

ASSEMBLE FOR RIGHTS NYC OPPOSES NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly Restrictions on Political Speech in the Public Spaces

WHAT: Rally to voice opposition to recent New York Police Department proposals that would restrict public gatherings

WHO: Assemble for Rights NYC

DATE: Monday, November 27, 2006

TIME: 10AM to 11AM

WHERE: NYPD Headquarters, One Police Plaza

More details here.

Usually it takes more than a month to be proved right

2006-11-26T18:30:00.000-05:00

Okay, half right. I said there would be no quick treaty action to halt the disappearance of the world's fish, that part I got.

United Nations negotiations on fisheries have ended without a global ban on trawling methods which destroy coral reefs and fish nurseries.

Conservation groups and some governments had argued for a ban on bottom-trawling, which drags heavy nets and crushing rollers on the sea floor.

Negotiators could only agree on a limited set of precautionary measures.

Last month, leading scientists warned there would be no sea fish left in 50 years if current practices continued.
...
In 2004, a report compiled for the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and other environmental groups concluded that bottom-trawling was "...highly destructive to the biodiversity associated with seamounts and deep-sea coral ecosystems and... likely to pose significant risks to this biodiversity, including the risk of species extinction."

In the same year, 1,100 scientists put their names to a petition supporting the demand for a moratorium.

All this scientific evidence could not convince enough UN delegates that a moratorium was needed.

The eventual deal which goes forward to the General Assembly mandates governments to adopt unilateral "precautionary measures" to ensure their bottom-trawlers do not cause significant damage to marine ecosystems.

On the other hand I said it would be the fault of the United States, and that part I didn't get.

Conservation groups accused Iceland in particular of blocking further protection. Iceland is already under fire from the conservation lobby over its recent decision to resume commercial whaling.

"The international community should be outraged that Iceland could almost single-handedly sink deep-sea protection and the food security of future generations," said Ms Sack.

Not that the fish care whose fault it is.

This year, be thankful you're not in this family.

2006-11-25T14:03:00.000-05:00

I don't even know what to think.

As Devin K. Hoerauf's robbery trial in Rockville was wrapping up Tuesday afternoon, the 19-year-old accidentally dropped a bag of marijuana on the floor when he stood up at the defense table.

The judge's assistant noticed a plastic bag containing "a green, leafy substance" and pointed it out to a Montgomery County deputy sheriff, who picked it up and added two misdemeanor charges -- possession of a controlled substance and possession of paraphernalia -- to Hoerauf's criminal history.

To make matters worse, his mother, a defense lawyer, was by his side at the time -- representing him.
...
Hoerauf first appeared before Boynton years ago on juvenile charges. He pleaded guilty this summer to second-degree assault after an incident in Silver Spring. He was charged with robbery in June after he and some friends were suspected of stealing bikes from a group of younger teenagers near the MARC train station in Germantown.

Yikes. Quite the record for the child of a defense lawyer. He must really, really hate her, right?

Wait.

According to the recording, Gwyn Hoerauf, his mother, said jail was not the answer to her son's problems.

"I'm going to say it in a very crass way, and I hope he forgives me," she said.

"He is brain-damaged, your honor. I don't mean he's just a defendant who does dumb stuff. This is a boy with an IQ in triple digits. His brain is glued together with Silly Putty. He can't think his way out of a paper bag, but he can do physics."

Rumsfeld also personally authorized torture.

2006-11-25T12:37:00.001-05:00

In writing.

MADRID (Reuters) - Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prison's former U.S. commander said in an interview on Saturday.

Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain's El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.

Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.

"The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: "Make sure this is accomplished"," she told Saturday's El Pais.

You're all shocked, I know.

Have A Very Left Behinds Turkey Day

2006-11-23T09:46:00.000-05:00

PS Pepsi Challenge

2006-11-21T14:36:00.000-05:00

I'm posting today's Lunchbox partly because it's funny, but mostly because does anyone else find his "turkey gobble" strangely erotic, like some secret lesbian siren song? Now that I think about it, his sex appeal is a bit lesbionic (which is not a dig).

Also, I love Rangel's draft bill. He's definitely there to keep us progressives happy, in a meaningless sort of way.

UPDATE:
After checking out the Blue Tiger Dems site, it seems more like the Blue-Haired Tiger Dems (oh snap!). Seriously, it's very senior-oriented. Which is cool by me. Everybody knows seniors disproportionately vote.

A Different Different Class

2006-11-21T14:12:00.000-05:00

This has been my jam for the past few days. He has now written the two best pop songs ever written about class.

There are two versions on Youtube, a mock-karaoke and a live version. The live performance is probably only for die-hard fans.

I wish all pop music were like this, seriously.

UPDATE:

What the hell, here are the lyrics.

Well did you hear, there's a natural order?
Those most deserving will end up with the most?
That the cream cannot help but always rise up to the top,

Well I say, “Shit floats”.

If you thought things had changed,
Friend, you'd better think again,
Bluntly put, in the fewest of words:

Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world.

Now the working classes are obsolete,
They are surplus to society's needs,
So let 'em all kill each other,
And get it made overseas.
That's the word don't you know,
From the guys that's running the show,
Lets be perfectly clear boys and girls,

Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world.

Oh feed your children on crayfish and lobster tails,
Find a school near the top of the league,
In theory I respect your right to exist,
I will kill you if you move in next to me,

Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust,
Oh but the takings are up by a third,
Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world.
(Cunts are still running the world)
(Cunts are still running the world)

The free market is perfectly natural,
Do you think that I'm some kind of dummy?
It's the ideal way to order the world;
“Fuck the morals, does it make any money?”

And if you don't like it? Then leave.
Or use your right to protest on the street,
Yeah, use your right but don't imagine that it's heard,

Not whilst cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world,
Cunts are still running the world,

Cunts are still running... the world.

Can One Single Politician Live on the Minimum Wage For a Month?

2006-11-20T20:40:00.000-05:00

I love the idea of the Union rep in the second of these videos.

I'd love to see how much the heating bill is for the White House for one day. Let's see if the President could get by for one week on $5.15 an hour.

That's a brilliant idea. I am upping the ante and throwing down the gauntlet. If one single Dem or Republican candidate for any office can live for one month strictly on the minimum wage, I will donate a zillion dollars to their campaign.

John Edwards, I'm looking at you.

UPDATE
Based on offensive drivel like this and this, I also encourage every staff member at the New York Times and New York Magazine to live on minimum wage for a month. Even a week. Including income-appropriate housing and services. However, I won't make the same pledge, since my antipathy for them trumps my commitment to the greater good.

Union fun

2006-11-20T16:16:00.000-05:00

Why is it that union representatives inevitably seem more prepared for the camera and more genuine than Democratic politicians putatively trying to represent the same values? Screw media training; recruit these guys as candidates. You talk about what you stand for and why. Is that so fucking hard?

Via Ezra.

I'm looking at you, Barack.

The Adam Green Coverup

2006-11-20T15:06:00.000-05:00

Has anyone actually seen Adam Green's final numbers for his bid to unseat Hevesi?

The Board of Elections is really dragging its feet. Now I'm not one to call out 'conspiracy,' but isn't it possible, just possible, that this concession speechwas premature?

Zak Smith's Gravity's Rainbow Illustrations

2006-11-20T14:15:00.000-05:00

As I just mentioned, I'm writing a little something about them. This post is not that, it's just my free associations about his project.

Basically, he made little tiny postcard illustrations for every single page of that little book by Thomas Pynchon (whose new novel, by the way, Michiko Kakutani pretty much trashed). I remember seeing them at the 2004 Whitney Biennial and thinking they were hilariously pretentious, but after reading this interview I'm warming to Mr. Smith. I hate to think it's for as shallow a reason as the fact that he's adorable and clever and sarcastic, but knowing myself, that's very possible.

Don't you guys think that Emma B should date him? Now that I think about it, does she know him?

Anyhow, my first impression was that the illustrations were slapdash sketches for a half-baked comic, artworld opportunism banking on punk/comicgeek street cred. In the context of the Biennial, can you blame me? But after spending more than ten minutes with them, I don't think that's fair. Smith spent a year making three or so little postcard illustrations a day. The illustrations themselves are unabashedly earnest in a way that only a 30-year-old still sporting his adolescent green mohawk would ever try to be. But some of them really work, like this

There are 3 big shoes in the illustrations, all of which were based on observation of actual shoes and all of which get a lot of attention. I think they're kind of a good example of a time when the subject was kind of mundane but the picture nailed it.

As for shoes and fate--well in the South they say if you meet a stranger, look at their shoes.

Ok, why? Well, the theory is, your clothes change all the time, but your shoes don't change as much, so they've been through what you've been through and show the signs of it.

Not that I imagined any of this at the time, but a big thing in the book is Slothrop trying to hold onto his sense of himself despite being rootless and changing clothes and roles all the time. So maybe when we think of Slothrop's shoes we're thinking more about trying to remember everything he's been through as opposed to how when we see his Hawaiian shirt or his zoot suit or his pig suit or his moustache we just think about what role he's playing at the moment. Ok, that's my Shoe Theory.

That's actually, like, insightful.

And then some of the pics are just cool-looking, like this illustration for this passage:

based on

He knew there were six carbon atoms with a hydrogen attached to each one - but he could not see the shape. Not until the dream... Kekule dreams the Great Serpent holding its own tail in its mouth...

And because I like comics and I like pretty boys, I like moments like this

based on

...your blood spurting from the flaccid stub of artery, the snowy roofslates fallen across half your bed...

As Zak says,

my project was to draw my understanding of the scenes as written. The sentence says "you"--when I read the word "you" then I understand it as referring to Zak Smith. If Alan Greenspan were doing the illustrations we would then have a picture of Alan Greenspan being ushered into the Volkswagen.

There's actually one other place where Pynchon uses second-person--near the beginning he says something about "you" getting your arm blown off--so there's me with my arm blown off--but I'm facing left so people didn't recognize me from my haircut.

Cool.

So why did I think it was slapdash? It was partly just the fact that there were so many jumbled together in a little room, and they were so cluttered and tiny. And it was partly because some of them look like this.

As Zak pretty accurately says,

I think a lot of the best stuff I did on GR comes at the intersection of Pynchon's ideas about death and my own sort of punk/metal thing. The Angel of Death in the center of the last page is pretty nice--I might get a tattoo of that--and page 748--the "ravens of death have now tasted of the poison of god" is pretty fuckin' sweet if I do say so myself.

and

I trashed at least a hundred, I should've trashed about a hundred more.

Anyhow, here's the whole project.

p.s. This is to give Emma B. that extra incentive to pursue him when she's in NYC next month:

Zizek Tonight

2006-11-20T14:08:00.000-05:00

LECTURE
Slavoj Zizek

when: Mon 11.20 (7pm)
where: Tilton Gallery (8 E 76th St, 212.737.2221)
(RSVP required) info@jacktiltongallery.com

Though when Neda Cole and I saw Alain Badiou there on Friday, nobody was checking RSVPs. But Alain Badiou, Alain Badiou who maybe five people in NYC have actually read, was thronged. We had to push our way through the crowd yet were among the last people let up, and as we were walking up, some geeky little grad-student-looking man actually tried to pull Neda down the stairs in order to get her seat. It was the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. And then it was so crowded in the actual room that some old man who was essentially giving Neda a lap dance kept rubbing his scalp absentmindedly, so that dandruff chunks big enough for my myopic eyes to spot cascaded down her blouse.

Which is all to say, i recommend standing in the back.

I can't go because i have to finish this Pynchon/Zak Smith review. But if you have a penchant for geekyhot, Badiou at least was a smorgasborg, like a critical theory Jdate. I spent most of the lecture making eyes at a sublimely pouty-lipped young man across the room.

We've come a long way since the Pullman Strike

2006-11-18T20:59:00.000-05:00

Or not.

UPDATE: I've never had warmer congratulations to offer. SEIU deserves all the credit in the world for an incredibly tough victory.

That does remind me, though, of a query for our union-connected readers: What happened with the UNITE HERE action we commented on about eight months ago? A couple of months ago I saw (and neglected to mention) that a lot of those locals did negotiate contracts, but did they include the nationwide card-check agreements that were supposedly the heart of the whole thing?

I've had this song on the brain all week

2006-11-17T21:30:00.000-05:00

For the weekend.

So what do you think you're supposed to do?

2006-11-17T14:13:00.000-05:00

And for 12 years, the media didn't call a duck a duck, because that's not something we're supposed to do.

There's your dysfunctional Fourth Estate right there.

Patch 'em up. Ship 'em back.

2006-11-16T19:45:00.000-05:00

It's great that prosthetics have advanced so far. But this part gives me nightmare visions:

Once, a soldier who had lost a limb in battle would have been pensioned off or transferred to a desk job. Now, though, some are being passed as fit for duty and are being allowed to return to the frontline.

"The mindset, even as early as five years ago, was if a soldier had impairments such as an amputation, they are unfit and they may be at risk to others around them if put in a combat situation. That has changed," says Colonel Daniel Garvey, Deputy Commander of the US Army Physical Disability Agency.

"If a soldier wants to remain on active duty, we are going to find a job for him. That is a cultural change for us."

When the other leg goes, fuck it, slap another prosthetic on that one and send him back again. Better yet, if the hand goes replace it with a chainsaw. That would be AWESOME.

Rockin'.

2006-11-16T19:25:00.000-05:00

(ht: Liza)

Where do they keep finding these guys? Is there a batshit registry?

After a while, you run out of ways to say "the fix is in"

2006-11-16T18:47:00.000-05:00

Racing to give their approval to Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-development before Gov. George Pataki leaves office Dec. 31, state officials have approved the project’s final environmental impact statement.

The document approved on Wednesday by the Empire State Development Corporation outlined an eight-million-square-foot development — a project that is the same size as the first plan unveiled by Forest City Ratner in 2004, but 8-percent smaller than the plan put forth in a draft impact study this summer.

The changes made nearly mirror those recommended by the City Planning Commission at the close of the public comment period in September.

“The state heard the voice of [city officials],” said Jasper Goldman, a spokesman for the Municipal Arts Society. “But no one else seems to have been listened to — especially not the communities that called for better-designed open space, a workable traffic plan, a bigger reduction in scale and more affordable housing.”

I mean, once it's in it's hardly ever taken back out again.

More from Norman Oder, who follows this stuff closer than almost anyone, here, here, and here.

As Eustacia says, now I feel bad for laughing

2006-11-15T11:12:00.000-05:00

I've prepared a little chart to illustrate what it's okay to make fun of:

The racism of American frat boys	OKAY!
The poverty of Rumanian peasants (while not paying them shit)	NOT OKAY
The homophobia of rodeo performers	OKAY!
The disability of a one-armed man	NOT OKAY

It's kind of surprising that Sacha Baron Cohen didn't get that.

(I know I objected to PC criticism of this very film's humor within the last week. Whatever. Call me a hypocrite. I just think there's a difference between embarrassing people by showing what they actually said and outright misrepresenting them. I honestly thought that village was a Hollywood set. And how hard would it have been to find a village A) with the right look and B) desperate enough to accept being distorted--with full consent--in exchange for, I don't know, a little more than six bucks a head? How about $50 each? For a village of 1,000 that's $50,000, a quarter of a percent of the movie's $18 million budget.)

Bush personally authorized torture

2006-11-15T10:51:00.000-05:00

In advance of looming Congressional hearings, the CIA covers its ass:

The Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged for the first time the existence of two classified documents, including a directive signed by President Bush, that have guided the agency’s interrogation and detention of terror suspects.
...
The contents of the documents were not revealed, but one of them is “a directive signed by President Bush granting the C.I.A. the authority to set up detention facilities outside the United States and outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees,” the A.C.L.U. said, based on its review of published accounts.

Now Chris Dodd "regrets" not filibustering the Military Commissions Act? Now he and Pat Leahy want to draft a bill to restore habeas corpus? Too bad Bush will simply veto such a bill. Too bad, you fucking weak little cowards, that when you actually had your only chance of stopping the thing you were too scared of the electoral consequences to stand up for the principles you now admit you have. Now Bush can simply stick anyone he chooses down a hole forever, and we may never know what he's done or be able to dismantle the gulag he's established outside the law.

I'm getting a little tired of this

2006-11-14T01:27:00.000-05:00

This CW annoys me.

Ask thy father, and he will show thee: advice that, at long last, George W. Bush seems to be taking. ... The American people, as politicians like to say, spoke last week—and spoke in no uncertain terms. The 2006 vote does not suggest an eagerness for a sharp left turn. It seems, rather, to be a plea for a shift from the hard right of the neoconservatives to the center represented by the old man in Houston. The re-emergence of Iraq Study Group voices such as Baker, Gates and Alan Simpson—all longtime friends of Bush Senior—is not unlike the entrance of Fortinbras at the conclusion of "Hamlet." These are 41's men, and the removal of Rumsfeld—an ancient rival of Bush Senior's from the Ford days—is a move toward the broad middle. The apparent triumph of pragmatism over ideology on Iraq was welcome news, at least to the public. In the new NEWSWEEK Poll, 67 percent favor Bush Senior's internationalist approach to foreign policy over his son's more unilateral course.
...
As the war has gone badly and the years have ticked by—2003, 2004, 2005 and now much of 2006—the senior President Bush, the man who managed to capture just 37 percent of the vote in 1992, has grown in stature. Raising taxes and capping domestic spending in 1990, refusing to exceed the United Nations mandate after expelling Saddam from Kuwait, and deftly managing the end of the cold war and the reunification of Germany loom ever larger.

Ugh. There's lots to make you vomit there. But perhaps worst of all is the fantasy that George Herbert Walker Bush believed in restrained foreign policy. Just read the shit the CIA pulled in Latin America during a span of time that includes his year as its director. He was a board member of the Committee on the Present Danger, for crap's sake. The whole fucking family thinks meddling in the affairs of other countries is our absolute right as Americans. Robert Gates, the new apparatchik brought back from the dead, was hip-deep in Iran-Contra, the entire purpose of which was to meddle in Nicaragua. James Baker (along with Poppy) is, as part of the Carlyle Group, an open war profiteer, most recently seen using his position as Special Presidential Envoy supposedly charged with getting nations to forgive Iraqi debt to try and coax a $1 billion investment out of Kuwait. He's been futzing with Iraq since before the first Gulf War.

This is not a shift from neoconservativism to moderation. This is a shift from a foreign policy that straddles the line between deluded Wilsonianism and corporatism to one that's 100% about global capital. I suppose you could call that a change from "ideology" to "pragmatism," but only because at this point "pragmatically smoother for certain corporations" couldn't possibly be any worse than "completely and utterly bugfuck insane." I have this vision of Dick Cheney painting the walls of his undisclosed bunker with his own feces and insisting the irregular shapes he creates are his new counterinsurgency plans for Iraq. Toning everything down to the Dirty War/black ops level would have to be an improvement, at least for Americans--but that doesn't mean it's in any way a return to "moderation."

UPDATE:

It occurs to me that the difference between Poppy and Junior is perhaps best understood as one not of philosophy but of tactics: a question of how many Americans' hands to dirty. Poppy preferred proxy wars and deniable torture; Junior, the petulant little autocrat, wants everything done under his direct control. Poppy's method does have the advantage of killing fewer brown people in aggregate (compare 80,000 dead in Operation Condor in the entire southern cone of South America to 650,000 dead in Iraq alone) and far fewer Americans. It also allows for more interference in more places at once. Junior's method, however, is arguably more honest and transparent, probably because although Junior likes secrecy and lying as much as the next would-be despot, he is too stupid for real guile. Maybe Newsweek just prefers Poppy's professionalism.

Thanks to an anonymous commenter for additional poop on Gates.

The Hills Have Penises

2006-11-14T01:16:00.000-05:00

I have conservatives in my life who periodically forward me the latest conservative funnies, usually involving Hillary. For example, I just got sent this deeply, embarrassingly unfunny animation called "You ain't woman enough to run this land."

My favorite, from a couple years ago, was probably

It's kind of brilliant how it so succinctly encapsulates the punch line of all the jokes, i.e., "HILLARY HAS A PENIS."

What is with that? Why does this one joke in infinite iteration endlessly delight fans of Rush Limbaugh? Hillary is not even a particularly manly woman. I mean, Will Ferrell's impersonation of Janet Reno always got me giggling because he looked exactly like her (the real Reno's surprise guest appearance on SNL, breaking through a cinderblock wall to confront her doppelganger, just about sent me to the hospital), but Hillary's a perfectly feminine woman. Perhaps less so in her college days, but c'mon.

Goddamnit I like Charlie Rangel

2006-11-13T14:26:00.000-05:00

I've said it before, I know. But he's genuinely funny. I'm sure everyone's heard this already:

Mississippi gets more than their fair share back in federal money, but who in the hell wants to live in Mississippi?

His first apology didn't really fly:

I just love New York so much that I can't understand why everyone wouldn't want to live here.

So here's this morning's stab at it:

For all of you from Mississippi, I'd like to extend my deepest apologies. I promise I'll visit as soon as I find a food taster. My brother David Dinkins isn't available.

Thank you, folks! He'll be here for the next two years.

It's going to be fun having him in a position of real power.

Creepiest. Global Warming Story. EVAR.

2006-11-13T12:17:00.000-05:00

Okay, the article doesn't tie this to global warming explicitly. But what else can you think about freakiness that appears to be caused by unusually mild winters? Remember how the beetles formerly held in check by cold winters are eating through Canada's forests? Well check this out:

To the bafflement of insect experts, gigantic yellow jacket nests have started turning up in old barns, unoccupied houses, cars and underground cavities across the southern two-thirds of Alabama.

Specialists say it could be the result of a mild winter and drought conditions, or multiple queens forcing worker yellow jackets to enlarge their quarters so the queens will be in separate areas.
...
At one site in Barbour County, the nest was as large as a Volkswagen Beetle...The largest nest Ray has inspected this year filled the interior of a weathered 1955 Chevrolet parked in a rural Elmore County barn. That nest was about the size of a tire in the rear floor seven weeks ago, but quickly spread to fill the entire vehicle, the property owner, Harry Coker, said.

...In previous years, a yellow jacket nest was no larger than a basketball, Ray said. It would contain about 3,000 workers and one queen. These gigantic nests may have as many as 100,000 workers and multiple queens.

There are certainly plausible reasons other than global warming, I suppose, and a good scientist never prejudges. But in any case, CREEPY.

Hearings on Proposed Voting Machines: More Heckling?

2006-11-12T23:31:00.000-05:00

Here's your chance to see the vaunted Diebolds in action.

1) Avante: VOTE-TRAKKER™ EVC308-FF (Touch Screen DRE)
2) ES&S: Model 100 (Optical Scan) and ES&S AutoMARK (Ballot Marking Device)
3) Diebold: AccuVote-OS (Optical Scan) and AutoMARK VAT (Ballot Marking
Device)
4) Sequoia: AVC Advantage Plus (Touch Screen DRE)
5) Sequoia: Optech Insight (Optical Scan)
Each vendor will conduct a half hour presentation followed by audience questions & answers. The demonstrations will be conducted from 5-10 PM on Nov. 15th and 17th. The locations are as follows:

Wednesday, November 15, 2006
LaGuardia Community College
Little Theater
31-10 Thomson Avenue
Long Island City, NY
(718) 482-7200
Friday, November 17, 2006
Hostos Community College
Savoy Multipurpose Room
120 Walton Avenue
Bronx, NY
(718) 518-4444
PUBLIC HEARING:
On November 21, 2006 at 4 PM, the BOE in NYC will hold a Public Hearing on the proposed voting systems. The hearing is open to all members of the public to enable them to provide their thoughts and feedback to the Board’s Commissioners regarding the proposed voting systems.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Board of Elections in NYC
42 Broadway, 6th Floor
New York, New York 10004

The only thing motivating me to cast votes in the general elections is the decrepit, 19th century mechanical systems, with their giant levers and flickable switches. They's so satisfyingly archaic. I imagine Bella Abzug rolling her eyes in my exact same voting booth 40 years ago.

And beyond nostalgia, these machines are less vulnerable to right wing tampering than, say, the Diebold demons.

More prognostication II: Democrats

2006-11-12T16:03:00.000-05:00

For once, I agree with the CW. Hillary Clinton has a big lead. Unlike McCain, or Lieberman in 2002, she actually has grassroots support outside of the Washington chatterati, and she can suck up more money than anyone else. Plus she's got the party's one true rock star backing her. On the other hand, a whole lot of people, including me, would really prefer anyone else.

Barack Obama: Dull as already-dry paint. I really don't know who it is who hears his contentless bromides as inspiring rhetoric, and I really don't know who out there outside the list of bored Washington talk-show bookers is desperate for an Obama run. I'm sure there's someone.

John Edwards: Has spent the last two years building relationships with unions, especially UNITE HERE. UNITE HERE is very strong in Nevada, the second caucus on the primary calendar. Has a strong operation still in place in Iowa. Could therefore come out with the first two wins of the primary season. I'm guessing he's the most likely alternative to Hillary.

Wesley Clark: Meh. Maybe. He has lots of support online, but I have no idea how that will translate to the field. He still hasn't convinced me or anyone else that he cares much about domestic policy. My feeling is that he'd make a better VP candidate than presidential nominee.

No other sitting Senator has even the ghost of a chance. I'm not going to run through specific reasons why for Bayh, Biden, Kerry, and whoever else I'm forgetting.

GOVERNORS:

Governors win presidential elections; senators lose.

Tom Vilsack: Even Iowans aren't convinced. If Edwards beats him in Iowa, he's toast.

Bill Richardson: Incredibly experienced. Good record in a wide variety of high-powered assignments. Probably the most qualified to be President of anyone considering a run. Great feeling for TV-friendly gestures. Kind of a Droopy-Dog face. Not sure why he's not getting more respect. Kind of pro-business for my taste, and I'm not all that thrilled about a return to DLC-ism, but probably not terrible. Could be hurt by the Los Alamos security breach that happened while he was Energy Secretary, but to me that seems like a stretch, especially since it turned out Wen Ho Lee was not a spy.

NOT ANNOUNCED, BUT INTERESTING POSSIBILITIES:

Janet Napolitano (AZ), Kathleen Sibelius (KS), and Brian Schweitzer (MT). These three are popular in strongly Republican states because they have excellent records. Napolitano and Sibelius were picked by Time in 2005 as two of America's five best best governors. Any would probably have a tough time putting together the fundraising and organization to take on Clinton in the early days, which could be why they're more often mentioned as VP possibilities. If one of them runs, though, and can somehow survive long enough to get a hearing, she/he could be interesting.

By the way, this is also why I'm not counting either Vilsack or Richardson out entirely, especially Richardson.

NOT RUNNING:

Al Gore swears he's not running, and although I can't find the reference, I read that he's directed his donors to back other candidates, so you know he means it. I'm sure you all already know Russ Feingold announced he's not running either.

More prognostication

2006-11-10T15:08:00.000-05:00

Since I did so well on my last set of predictions, I'm going to pick up a subject BooMan started: who will get the Republican presidential nomination in 2008? Three early favorites--Santorum, Allen, and Frist--are now sunk. Giuliani is not going to happen, and neither is McCain (too scandal-plagued and too hated, respectively). Newt Gingrich is a pick of the Washington chatterers, but he hasn't held office in a long time, he has a lot of negative baggage, and just forget about it. Honestly, I don't think Republican primary voters are going to want any Washington insider by 2008, so except for Sam Brownback (Santorum with better hair and without the weirdly pointy chin), forget the usual suspects.

I'm guessing a governor. In that BooMan thread TarheelDem runs down the list of R governors with adequate experience:

Riley (AL) - National appeal? Really?
Schwarzenegger (CA) - Prohibited by the Constitution - foreign-born
Rell (CT) - Too moderate?
Perdue (GA) - Interesting possibility for motivating the base
Lingle (HI) - Unlikely - unlikely as AR (wait a minute)
Barbour (MS) - Could move the big money
Blount (MO) - Daddy's boy - not after W
Heineman (NE) - A dark horse
Hoeven (ND) - Another dark horse
Carcieri (RI) - Could he stand the scrutiny of a campaign
Sanford (SC) - Almost too crazy for SC - not electable on national ticket
Rounds (SD) - Failed to deliver on abortion referendum
Perry (TX) - Another Texas governor? Not for a generation
Huntsman (UT) - Probably has the negatives that Romney has without the charm
Douglas (VT) - Another dark horse

Another commenter adds Tim Pawlenty, recently reelected governor of Minnesota. Also add recent ex-governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney. Both are relatively charming, have decent conservative credentials, and could win states outside the South. Both dangerous. Mike Huckabee is generally considered a good contender, and I also think Haley Barbour has a strong chance, based in part on an obvious contrast he can draw to George W. Bush: he responded with relative competence to Katrina. In other words, your Republican presidential nominee will probably be one of these ~~five~~ four fresh faces:

Mitt Romney (former governor of Massachusetts):

Tim Pawlenty (current governor of MN):

Sam Brownback (Kansas Senator):

Mike Huckabee (governor of Arkansas)

~~Haley Barbour (governor of Mississippi)~~ (see Update IV)

These guys are all waaaaaay to the right (except for Romney, who's only mostly to the right), untouched by the scandals that just took out the Republican Congress, and used to the cameras. Don't be fooled by Tuesday: voters didn't reject conservatism with a friendly face. They rejected a bunch of corrupt incompetents who lost us a war. If a smiley right-winger comes along who promises to be halfway competent and who bears no responsibility for Iraq, he'll have the same advantages George W. Bush had: nothing fundamental has changed about the conservative-friendly media environment. (For a dissection of the media's continuing failure, see, as always, Matt Taibbi. If that's not enough, here's more from Jamison Foser.)

In the next couple of days I may do one of these for the Democrats. My gut feeling is that our pool of talent is weaker, in part because until Tuesday we had fewer governorships and Senators never win.

UPDATE:

Bouldin argues that Romney suffers the George Pataki problem minus the policy failure: he led his state party to utter humiliating defeat. I probably also should have mentioned BooMan's argument against Romney in that post I initially linked to: 17 percent of Americans say they would have reservations about voting for a Mormon. Romney is out.

UPDATE II:

Jay's enthusiasm convinced me Romney can generate some. He's back in. I'm keeping the possible hurdles up, though.

UPDATE III:

Ok, on McCain, because Solomon asked: Polls at this point are meaningless. All they reflect is name recognition and general media deep-throatage. Think back to 2002. Lieberman was crushing the polls for the Democratic nomination and everyone just knew he would be the nominee. There's a lot of distrust of McCain among conservative Republicans, and that's not going to go away just because he makes nice with a few leaders. Meanwhile, if Democrats play their cards right over the next few years (a big if, I know), they should be able to force him into votes that wedge him away from either moderates or conservatives.

Now, a version of the following argument seems to be a kind of CW among lefty bloggers. Here it is expressed by rwallnerny:

The republicans are an orderly bunch. They don't nominate insurgents or outsiders. They usually nominate whoever it is that is seen as next in line. This time McCain will get support based on the idea that its "his turn."

Here's another version:

The Republicans are the party of primogeniture. They always nominate the next one in line.

With the unique break-through exception of Barry Goldwater in 1964, the Republicans have followed this rule rigorously since the Second World War. And there is no Barry Goldwater available in 2008.

Even when it will be an obvious disaster (Ford in '76, Dole in '96) the R's hold tight and follow their eminent successor.

If Jeb runs (which looks unlikely), then he will be the nominee. If Jeb doesn't run, you should start keeping fluffy indoors because it'll be Dr. Frist.

I don't know how people square that with the noises many conservatives have been making that Republicans lost Congress because they didn't adhere to conservative principles (a version of the "Communism-has-never-been-tried" of die-hard Trots). I'm also not sure where the "Republicans go for the next in line" idea came from in the first place. Looking back over the last 40 or so years of Republican presidential candidates, I only see four elections where there wasn't an overwhelming, dominating Republican favorite: 1964, 1980, 1996, and 2000. In 1964, Barry Goldwater wasn't obviously "next in line." In 1968, Nixon ran more or less unopposed for the Republican nomination. In 1976, an insurgent Ronald Reagan almost took out a sitting president. In 1980, George H.W. Bush won Iowa but then Reagan destroyed him--probably the best example of the "next in line" theory I can find. In 1996 there was no obvious "next in line," and Bob Dole emerged from a very strange field where Colin Powell was the dream candidate, and Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes racked up some early primary wins. In 2000, George W. Bush won because he had the most money and the backing of other governors--frankly, it was more McCain, Orrin Hatch, or Lamar Alexander's "turn" in that election than it was GWB's.

Put yourself in the shoes of a Republican primary voter. Are you going to vote for your party's version of Joe Lieberman (self-involved, making a big show of principle but basically lacking any, and beloved mainly by media elitists) if you suddenly see viable alternatives? Especially viable, young, energetic alternatives? One or more anti-McCains will emerge over the course of 2007, and by the end of the year he'll find himself in Lieberman's three-way tie for third.

On a different note: someone with knowledge of Republican politics told me Haley Barbour has announced he won't seek the nomination. I can't find any confirmation of that online, but I will keep looking.

And on Huckabee:

He's got that overcoming obesity thing going for him--people love a story about personally triumphing over a weight problem. Almost anyone can relate to that. He's got that non-political book about it, and he wisely stayed away from a lot of conservative rhetoric while he was doing his book tour. As a result, he seems like a great, hard-working guy to millions of people who don't know anything about his scary beliefs.
The media will not take on that guy. We won't be able to tie him to the DC Republican corruption either. He would be a very tough candidate.

Democrats shouldn't delude themselves that McCain is the most formidable candidate they could face in a general. It will be easier, in some ways, for a non-Washington Republican candidate to pull a Richard Nixon and claim a secret plan to get us out of Iraq, without having to face the media's indulgence of "cut and run" rhetoric, since everyone knows Republicans are tough, real men on issues of war.

UPDATE IV:

Ok, duhh. Barbour ruled out a presidential run way back in February.

It's Giuliani Time Tonight

2006-11-09T13:23:00.000-05:00

At the New School, where they're screening Giuliani Time

Thurs., Nov. 9, 6:00 p.m. $5.

Wollman Hall, 65 West 13th Street, 5th floor (enter at 66 West 12th Street).

The Wolfson Center for National Affairs presents a showing of Kevin Keating's documentary film Giuliani Time: The Man Who Would Be King. After 9/11, Giuliani became knows as "America's Mayor," but what policies and practices did his several terms in office actually produce? Giuliani Time is an examination of those years, told through the eyes of a diverse group of New Yorkers. The film is followed by a discussion about the former mayor and his present role in American politics with the director, Kevin Keating, Fred Siegel, author of The Prince of The City: Giuliani, New York, and the Genius of American Life, and others to be announced.

Back to the important stuff

2006-11-08T23:12:00.000-05:00

(Tip: Amanda)

Kevin asks: Michael Jackson or Prince?

That's easy. Prince. Michael was a great pop singer, but Prince was a gold-plated genius.

Oh, plus there's this.

Single best win

2006-11-08T17:23:00.000-05:00

Jerry McNerny over Richard Pombo. Pombo is an anti-environmental ideologue whose life's mission was to gut the Endangered Species Act and give away as much of the public's land and resources to private industry as possible. Jerry McNerny works in wind power and says he will make clean energy his signature issue in Congress. You couldn't have asked for a clearer case of Good defeating Evil. I love it.

UPDATE:

Grist pays tribute as the door hits Pombo in the ass.