Category Archives: politics

Downtown Manhattan: Guts on View

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Downtown Manhattan has been under invasion for three weeks now. I’m not talking about the wind and tidal surge…but rather the vehicles and machines that followed. It started sensibly, almost innocently, with the official Disaster Response vehicles in tandem with the water pumping trucks and fuel tankers. There were also the portable generators and tractor trailers.  But then, the vehicles became ominous and strange.The streets began to look less like Manhattan and more like Terry Gilliam’s dystopic film Brazil. And so I began to ask myself: Just what are these daemonic vehicles and contraptions? Are they taking over? The answer wasn’t as mysterious as I had imagined. After a pittance of research, I learned that these imposing, brooding machines are generally one of three things. They are either mobile – albeit massive – generators, mobile – albeit massive – boilers,

Go Giants!

or mobile – albeit massive – dehumidifiers. In other words, the guts of the buildings are no longer hidden in the basements but outside, naked, for everyone to see. Yeah, I think you get the picture.

New York City: Buildings Above Us

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New York City has been called The Capitol of the World – albeit mostly by New Yorkers – and is iconically loved. It’s a great city, overwhelming in its needs and offerings, inhabited by peoples of all nationalities and faiths, many of whom live and work well with each other – as symbolized by their recent action and compassion to those devastated by Hurricane Sandy.

Volunteers at Occupy Sandy Hub in Brooklyn

But what New York is really known for is its money, its business and its buildings.

World Trade One

The unrelenting canyons stretch out, the sun barely there, the sounds and smells swirling within. And while there is a dynamic aesthetic to the steel and asphalt, there is something else, something sinister and unfeeling. As I blogged last week, many of these buildings remained fully lit through the blackout caused by Hurricane Sandy, buildings such as 222 Broadway (Bank of America)

222 Broadway on left

and 140 Broadway (Brown Brothers Harriman). There was no one in these buildings during the blackout, no one working, no one moving, no one. The assumption is that the employees simply couldn’t get to work and the buildings were kept lit and heated by generators, but it is an ominous image. It seems that these buildings just might aim to carry on without us…leaving us to wonder: “Who are they here for?”

Hurricane Sandy: Coping with the aftermath

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One of the neighborhoods subjected to the most devastation by Hurricane Sandy is the Rockaways, in southern Queens. I rented a car and went to the Occupy Sandy Hub in Brooklyn to ferry supplies and volunteers. We loaded the car with food, diapers, cleaning supplies before heading out through the traffic and confusion. The Rockaways is a very long peninsula, spanning some 180 streets; many of the houses have been badly damaged by flooding; power remains out at most intersections; and the sand and detritus is everywhere. We drove slowly through the streets – slowed by emergency vehicles and construction equipment everywhere – and made our delivery at Inglesia Pentacostal Rehoboth.There was a gas station with no lines across the street, however I had rented a car with a license plate ending in zero (which counts as an even number in the current gas rationing system) and therefore was not supposed to have access to gas today. (The rule is odd number plates on odd number days). I thought about this and the fact there were not only no lines, but there were absolutely no cars either. It seemed like a good rule to break. I left my volunteers at the St. Gertrude Parish.

Directions from St. Gertrude Church

I returned to the Occupy Sandy hub for more supplies. I re-stocked with blankets, batteries and volunteers – three moderately hip 20-somethings from Brooklyn – and was directed out to Coney Island.

Coney Island’s iconic Wonder Wheel

Coney Island, a geographical neighbor to the Rockaways and yet separated by many miles of roads and traffic, appears to be doing better than the Rockaways, but is still struggling with a lack of power and an excess of sand

Neptune and Surf

and muck. We delivered food to a small apartment building, climbing the cold dark staircase, knocking on doors and doing our best to communicate with the mostly Russian inhabitants. I was brought into the apartment of an elderly Russian lady who showed me how she has cleaned up after the six inches of flood water. She didn’t need food or water. She had been provided with those. She needed her power to be turned back on. I couldn’t do that. We hugged instead.

Remembering: Wodiczko’s Lincoln

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Today is a day of contemplation, a day to remember those we have lost, who we are and what we may become. More Art’s presentation of Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection asks us to do just that. The work, now on display in New York’s Union Square Park (at 16th Street), is a 24-minute projection loop of war veterans expressing their feelings on the damaging effects of war. Faces, projected onto the statue of Abraham Lincoln, bring the spirit of this icon to life. And they speak:

I know a veteran that committed suicide because he had nobody to talk to. He couldn’t talk to anyone and he lived on the streets. He died alone.

It came from not being able to sleep for a day to an entire week.

The daydreams, they sneak up upon you.

I couldn’t live alone and at the same time I couldn’t live with anyone else.

When I came back, the worst thing that happened to me was the rejection of the people.

We can do so much more when we put the gun down.

Wake up, people! Help the veterans. Do something for the veterans. The installation, on display 6-10pm from now until December 9, is a great work of public art. Accessible, powerful and relevant, the work reaches deep inside the viewer and really does ask who are in this world today. Krzysztof Wodiczko should be thanked for this. More Art should be thanked for this. And most of all the veterans should be thanked for this.

Words V: Compromise

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Compromise (verb): Settle a dispute by mutual concession.

Compromise can be a noble action. It is something that leads one from an extremist position and actively helps in avoiding acts of conflict and war. It’s an action to which we should aspire, and yet an action that evokes terror to those in power. When asked to compromise to avoid the upcoming fiscal crisis, House Speaker John Boehner, balks, insisting that Obama intention to raise taxes on the wealthy “will destroy jobs in America.”Boehner, like many other in the Republican Party, are wedded to a pledge of not raising taxes and believe that to compromise is to sully this position, or, as the dictionary says: to weaken a reputation or principle by accepting standards that are lower than is desirable. A good example of this is what happened to New York when it was compromised by the tidal surge of Hurricane Sandy or what has happened to the public reputation of David Petraeus in admitting to his extra-marital affair.

Mr. Petraeus and Ms. Broadwell

But this not the understanding of the word when opposing groups are asked to seek compromise. As absurd as it is to think, even those negotiating the current dispute for the National Hockey League believe this as well. Players’ representative Donald Fehr and League Commissioner Gary Bettman remain entrenched in their positions, 56 days into the lockout and only a short time from potentially cancelling yet another season. They don’t seem to understand that if there is no hockey, there is no revenue…and leads us to another interesting word: extinction. 

Serial Sexism

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The word misogyny has recently been redefined in Australia as “entrenched prejudice against women”. This switch from the more commonly accepted definition of “hatred of women” is partially thanks to the now-famous speech delivered by Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in October 2012.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard

Her angry words against Opposition Leader Tony Abbott have been commended by many, supporting Gillard’s fury against the representation of women as inferior to men, homemakers and bitches. And yet, this support comes across as sadly superficial. (Add Like or Smiley here.) The rampant sexism in our world is insidiously real and, on the whole, completely accepted. The female faces of Fox News say it all. Young and blond would appear to be the only requirement to deliver the categorical truths at Fox. And it’s not just the weird world of Fox; it’s ingrained in today’s stories and entertainment. I recently noted this in two films last week. Flight opens with Nadine Velazquez  walking naked back and forth past the camera.

Nadine Velazquez plays Katerina Marquez

Her nudity is aimed to establish a night of debauchery, even though Denzel Washington isn’t measured by the same standard, staying in bed, unexposed. Later in the film, Washington also meets a lovely addict (Kelly Reilly) who the viewer previously saw begging for heroin on a porn set. While the atmosphere of a self-indulged and self-medicated world is the point of these characters and scenes, the manner in which they are portrayed is baldly gratuitous. The same can be said of Looper, a science fiction film in which women are either sex workers

Piper Perabo

or sexy and fiercely independent.

Emily Blunt

It’s not that either Looper or Flight – or for that matter Fox News – are the epitome of art or expression. Actually it’s more the fact that they aren’t that make it all the more insidious. This is what is accepted in our culture. Women equals sex. It’s not equality. It’s an equation.

Manhattan – After the storms

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It was cold and ugly last night: a mix of freezing rain, snow and wind, all in all, utterly lousy.

7th Avenue and 20th Street, Manhattan

Fulton and Gold Streets, Manhattan

It was just a storm like so many others, not that bad, but I went to sleep with a feeling of dread, thinking about the people in Staten Island, the Rockaways, along the Jersey shore, everyone hit so hard. This was anything but just another storm for them.

It was cold this morning, but the wind and rain were no more. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected. Battery Park was quiet and peaceful. And people were pouring back into the city. The tourists were here too.

At the Stock Exchange

Everything seemed the same, like this storm had never happened, like it was just another hyped event, just more news to cover. But it did happen. It really did. And so now what? What do we actually do? There’s a mountain ahead, overwhelming, almost impossible…but perhaps we might follow Governor Christie‘s advice (via his mother): “Do the job you have in front of you and the rest will follow.” I know that I’ve got to get back to my book. It’s time for the final edit.

Post-Sandy, Post-Election, Pre-Nor’Easter

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Okay, Obama won.  And that’s good.But there’s another storm coming to New York today, a powerful Nor’easter, and that’s bad. Winds are expected to be 25 to 35 mph with gusts up to 60 mph. There are warnings of coastal flooding and more rain and snow. Much of the Hurricane Sandy cleanup operations have been put on hold. Parks are closed. People are being urged to stay inside. And so we wait…again.

Looking southeast from Battery Park

It’s a good time to think. What can be done? Can the melting of the ice caps be slowed? What about the release of methane from the polar tundra? And the rising seas? Indeed, can we really do something that will address this climate change? I have my doubts. It’s depressing to think about how badly we have behaved as stewards of this planet. However if President Obama is looking for a legacy, this is it. Or not and we can just ride out this storm and the one after that and the next…just remember that you can never have enough candles.

Election Day – Eight Days After Hurricane Sandy

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The problem with us humans is that we tend to forget. And most of what we like to forget is all the bad things that we’ve done. This planet is in trouble and we are to blame. There is no doubt about any of that.

Con Edison truck acting as temporary barrier to the Stock Exchange

Sadly, we have stacked the cards badly against ourselves and it doesn’t look good…but at least we can try. And today there is a choice for American voters. Barack Obama on climate change: “The issue of climate change is one that we ignore at our own peril. There may still be disputes about exactly how much we’re contributing to the warming of the earth’s atmosphere and how much is naturally occurring, but what we can be scientifically certain of is that our continued use of fossil fuels is pushing us to a point of no return.”

Mitt Romney on climate change: “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.”

Kepler 22b …and only seven hundred light years away!

It is true that Obama has a long way to go on this issue, but he is the only option…unless we’re thinking of taking a starship to another planet so we can fuck that one up too.