Olympics and the Conventions: an Un-shocking Doctrine

Ride of the future. from derfasaurus' flickr photostream

Naomi Klien quite brillianty documents the rise of a disaster industrial complex in her book the Shock Doctrine. The Chicago School of Economics and their hangers on have crafted an ideology that uses political, ecological or military crisis to ram through the creation of a neoliberal-military hybrid state.

Now, the process is continuing with un-shocking events of political stagecraft.

First, there was Miami in 2003, where the Miami PD turned an FTAA meeting into a police riot, funded by millions of dollars in Homeland Security funds, spent on weapons that no doubt remain in the hands of the department today.  Handling of the protests became a “model for Homeland Security,” in the words of Miami’s mayor.  He was right.

Then, there was the 2004 RNC, an event still echoing through New York’s legal system and political consciousness.  The convention and protests surrounding it involved a mind-numbing abuse of police power, and the pretext of convention security provided the excuse to bulk up on security devices still in use today – cameras, riot gear, tasers and more.  More importantly, it provided a pretext to break down convergence points in New York’s activist networks, creating capacity building problems that

More recently, there was the Olympics, where China spent $12 billion on security measures.  That’s about 10 times more than what was spent in Athens, and 20 times more than what was spent in Salt Lake City.  Almost none of that will disappear after the Olympics end – those cameras, weapons, personnel, etc., will become permanent features of China’s police infrastructure.

Now we have the 2008 conventions.  Each will incur about $50 million in security costs.  At Denver, we saw the use of pepper-spray bullets, as well as those shiny new police-truck things pictured above.  At the RNC in the Twin Cities, tactics borrowed from New York have begun – illegal detentions, arrests, and raids have been carried out against the anti-authoritarian and anarchist presence, doubtless using technology bankrolled by the DHS and taxpayers.

I say ‘illegal’ because I think there is a conscious effort on the part of the police to make arrests that they know to be unauthorized: since it remains illegal to resist an illegal arrest, and police accountability is so so broken in this country, police can make arrests without fear of serious retribution.  Any legal ramifications down the road are minuscule compared to the millions in free equipment and more in publicity cities earn from hosting these conventions ‘trouble free.’

The Miami Model and its inheritors risk not only the right to free speech and vital civil rights, but also a severe backlash.  Using overwhelming force to execute the whim of police administrators and politicians leaves no recourse to serious protesters except a violent response.  That’s not a threat: that’s a fact of how people will respond to this strategy.

Take Back NYU! Starts the New School Year

So, this is happening:

NYU STUDENT ACTIVISTS LAUNCH TAKE BACK NYU! CAMPAIGN WITH FORMAL DEMANDS TO UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION

Students demand that NYU disclose its operating budget and endowment, and place a student on the Board of Trustees with press conference on NYU President Sexton’s doorstep; set one-month deadline for response.

New York, NY Sept. 2^nd – A group of NYU student activists will kick off the 2008-2009 school year by launching a campaign called Take Back NYU!, demanding that the NYU Administration increase campus democracy by disclosing the school’s annual budget, endowment investments and by placing a student on the Board of Trustees. The demands include a request for a response within one month.

A diverse coalition of student activists joined together to demand accountability from the NYU administration during its rapid neighborhood expansion and transformation into a global university. Students from the groups Students Creating Radical Change, LUCHA (Latinos Unidos Con Honor y Amistad), the NYU National Organization for Women,  as well as many others have come together to support the campaign.

“The NYU administration needs to open its books to gain the trust of students and community members” said Farah Khimji, a member of NYU Students for a Democratic Society. “This is an issue that affects everyone connected to NYU.”

In the past year, NYU began a series of ambitious and controversial projects, including a branch campus in Abu Dhabi, and a merger with Polytechnic University in Brooklyn. Along with these changes, annual tuition has increased by $15,000 dollars over 20 years. Despite this, few students have spoken out about the changes at their university – something organizers hope to change.

“The administration is changing our school, without ever really talking to students – we need real dialogue to make this University work” said Claire Lewis of Students Creating Radical Change. “Our tuition supports what they do, I think they need to be held accountable to us.”

Other students, upset by the actions and makeup of the Board of Trustees, supported the idea of having a student on the Board. A number of other schools – including Washington University in St. Louis and Rutgers and Cornell, considered ‘peer institutions’ to NYU – allow student representation on their Boards.

“When I look at the Board of Trustees, I don’t see anyone who really represents me,” said Khimji added. “It’s a bunch of lawyers and CEOs – they aren’t in debt, they don’t know what it means to be a student here”

Unlike public schools, private universities like NYU aren’t bound to disclose budget information. The activists gathered on Tuesday are worried that NYU’s reluctance to disclose the budget could mean their school supports animal abuse, the conflict in Darfur or Iraq War profiteers.

“I want my school to be run ethically, taking into account the interests of the students” said Daniel Weinberg, a recent alumni of NYU. “Right now the administration could be doing anything they wanted, and we’d never know about it.”

Groups endorsing Take Back NYU! (at time of writing) include:

NYU Amnesty International

Asian Cultural Union

NYU Campus Anti-War Network

NYU Community Roots

Gallatone

Latinos Unidos Con Honor y Amistad

Malaysian and Indonesian Students Society

NYU National Organization for Women

Students of Color and Allies

NYU Students for a Democratic Society

Queer Union

Voices for Choice

Transform America

###

WHAT: Press Conference with NYU Student activists, kicking off Take Back NYU! campaign by presenting formal demands to NYU Administration.

WHERE: Southeast corner of Washington Square Park, near the intersection of West 4^th/Washington Square South and Washington Square East.

WHEN: September 2^nd, 11am

About Students Creating Radical Change: SCRC is a group of progressive activists at NYU dedicated to issues of popular education, social justice, anti-war and anti-recruitment and fair labor. SCRC in the last several years has done anti-war work on campus, executed the successful Campaign Against Killer Coke, and led a solidarity campaign during the Graduate Student Organizing Committee (Grad Student Union) strike, which was broken by NYU in 2005.

Barack Wants You to Turn it Up!

from Steve Rhode's flickr photostream

Tonight!  Barack Obama sells an iPod to 75,000 screaming fans!  Thousands more weep in ecstasy as they whip out credit cards to get their own limited edition, personalized Obama personal music devices!  Spectacle leaves thousands in eschatalogical stupor!

Don’t think the yuppie-hipster obsession overlap exhausts the Obama-iPod connection.

1. Will.i.am – “Yes We Can” looks like an Mac ad with a different background color.  Oh wait – there’s another one that IS a Mac ad.

2. my.barakobama.com.  ‘i – my’ the lowercase personalization prefix feels a little played at this point, but Obama exploits it to good effects.  The website has the bubble-gloss/spare feel of an OS X desktop, and the hyper-personalization of Macs works just like his political rhetoric, which has the ability to become all things to all hearers.

3. The fervor.

4.  The Logo.  iPod scroll wheel, anyone?  Also, works like the Apple decal – very iconic, very round, immediately signals inclusion in a cult of sorts.

5. ATT. Apple <3 AT&T – giving them an exclusive hold on the iPhone market – and Barack Obama <3 AT&T.

6.  iPods break.  A lot.  Barack Obama breaks… promises.

NYU Disorientation Update!

2008 Disorientation Guide Cover

The NYU Disorientation Guide – still available online HERE - has made it to print!  I was party to a late-night trip to the printers to render the guides back to Manhattan.  Photographic proof provided below – it only LOOKS like we’re trafficking drugs.

Suprisingly, folks actually LIKE the Guide.  Here’s some ‘quotes’-

“Superb document!” – Rob

“I read this front to back and was really impressed with how well y’all put this together. I am going to do my best to circulate this.” – Mike

” I am absolutely impressed and inspired!! I particularly loved the take NYU back campaign! I would love to get involved anyway that I could!” -Nick

“Wow, are NYU students really that obnoxious? i assumed so just by observing their actions, but i’ve never seen it documented in text format.” – Anon.

“I’m so impressed with this.  It’s a little bit clean for a zine, but the content in this year’s is lightyears ahead of last year’s AND you got it out on schedule.  You guys are such champs.” – Some Guy

THEN, we got love from some blog-types:

“NYU is returning. The very thought fills me with dread. Glad to know some of the thousands aren’t monsters–for them, there’s the Disorientation Guide.” – Jeremiah’ s Vanishing New York

Disguide contributer Washington Square Park Blog linked the Guide, as did real estate porn-blog Curbed.

Here are your photos of the pickup and drop.  Look for the Guide around NYU, as well as at Bluestockings, The Brecht Forum, and the 4th Street Food Co-op.

Under the overpass.

Canyons of paper.

Sketchball pickup.

Clean getaway.

The Pump-Up PR!

A sign like this stands by the side of the highway betwee Atlanta and Athens, Georgia. For most of the time I lived in the area, I was confused about its purpose – I figured that any serious secular/evolution-friendly driver would not be swayed by such a silly appeal, and most folks don’t even take account of roadside distractions. Now, I’m not saying this is exactly a brilliant piece of political propaganda, but a good friend of mine pointed out what it really means, and why it works.

It’s a pat on the back to the fundies – a pump up to the folks on their daily drive, to tell them they’re under assault, but at the same time that they aren’t alone.

I like it. It’s pithy. And probably effective. More effective than a lot of protests you’ll see at the conventions, for example.

When I was reading Edward Bernays‘ book Propaganda, I came across this quote, which I think remains applicable to left-organizing today:

“The old-fashioned propagandist, using almost exclusively the appeal of the printed word, tried to persuade the individual reader to buy a definite article, immediately. This approach is exemplified in a type of advertisement which used to be considered ideal from the point of view of directness and effectiveness:

‘YOU (perhaps with a finger pointed at the reader) buy O’Leary’s rubber heels- NOW.’

The advertiser sought by means of reiteration and emphasis, to break down or penetrate sales resistance.”

Ahem: “What do we want? O’Leary’s rubber heels! When do we want it? NOW!”

I’ve gone over my beefs with the ’shame! shame!’ tactics previously, but I want to reiterate, perhaps with a little bit of positivity.

The visible conflicts seen on the daily news are only a snippet of the real work of activism, we already know that. Making a press conference, or a protest happen takes many times over the time length of the actual event. It would be foolish to organize an event on short notice, without arming yourself with the days of neccesary prep time.

Which does not mean that public relations strategies should be reduced to those public confrontations – lest you be the folks still trying to sell shoes by the force of will alone. PR should include strategies that pump-up and inspire, as well as confront and shame. Thus, via a good friend – The Super Happy Anarcho Fun Pages! Some of the best shit on earth!

I love SHAFP because it doesn’t have to be all about the struggle – that tends towards exhaustion, or just as bad, towards cliche. Sometimes you just want to feel like someone else is on the right side, and the comics do that, brilliantly. This is in contrast to the more blatant ‘comics as propaganda’ you also see from the Christian right – instead of pretending that people like comics for comics sake, and will be more susceptible to a message because it’s in comic form, SHAFP embraces the levity and easy-going feel of a comic book to inspire love (and rage).

So, the point: use multiple media forms for multiple messages. But don’t pretend that does the trick – embrace each one for it’s unique tools, and make a message that fits each one.

Slow Sunday – Welcome Back to NYU

Man, this weekend was so excellent.

I can’t remember the last time I blew a weekend just reading books. I at least remember doing it often before I came to NYU, but somehow these days just got lost in the shuffle since then.

Today was move in day for NYU new students (not just Freshmen! remember the transfers!) It’s been one year since I moved to New York.

Move-in day was occasion for propaganda:

Favorite exchange of the night was here:

NYU security guard walked up to a chalk-er.

NYU: What do you think you’re doing?

Chalker: Chalking. I have something to say, I’m going to write it.

NYU: Not on our property.

Chalker: This isn’t your property. I’m pretty clearly on the sidewalk.

NYU: *snorting laugh* Don’t get NYUsed? What, you didn’t get in? *walks away*

Ironic because chalker not only got in, but is a pretty good student.

Learn more about the park here

but also an occasion for traffic snarls. Saw surprisingly few, less than I remember creating when I moved in. Here’s one that stuck out in my mind. I’m still a little peeved at the audacity of labeling a private police van with ‘public safety.’

Last:
“The station wagons arrived at noon a long shining line that coursed through the west campus. In single file they eased around the orange I-beam sculpture and moved toward the dormitories. The roofs of the station wagons were loaded down with carefully secured suitcases full of light and heavy clothing; with boxes of blankets, boots and shoes, stationery and books, sheets, pillows, quilts; with rolled-up rugs and sleeping bags, with bicycles, skis, rucksacks, English and Western saddles, inflated rafts. As cars slowed to a crawl and stopped, students sprang out and raced to the rear doors to begin removing the objects inside; the stereo sets, radios, personal computers; small refrigerators and table ranges; the cartons of phonograph records and cassettes; the hairdryers and styling irons; the tennis rackets, soccer balls, hockey and lacrosse sticks, bows and arrows; the controlled substances, the birth control pills and devices; the junk food still in shopping bags- onion-and-garlic chips, nacho thins, peanut creme patties, Waffelos and Kabooms, fruit chews and toffee popcorn; the Dum-Dum pops, the Mystic mints.
I’ve witnessed this spectacle every September for twenty-one years. It is a brilliant event, invariably. The students greet each other with comic cries and gestures of sodden collapse. Their summer has been bloated with criminal pleasures, as always. The parents stand sun-dazed near< their automobiles, seeing images of themselves in every direction. The conscientious suntans. The well-made faces and wry looks. They feel a sense of renewal, of communal recognition. The women crisp and alert, in diet trim, knowing people’s names. Their husbands content to measure out the time, distant but ungrudging, accomplished in parenthood, something about them suggesting massive insurance coverage. This assembly of station wagons, as much as anything they might do in the course of the year, more than formal liturgies or laws, tells the parents they are a collection of the like-minded and the spiritually akin, a people, a nation.”
-Don DeLillo, White Noise

Stupid Ads – Chinatown Ed. + Newspaper Dig

Fish. Barrel.

Found at Canal and Mulberry.

Folks really need to think about where they place their ads.  This one, in the middle of Chinatown only makes a little bit of sense because it happens to be overrun with tourists, but it still seems a bit ham-fisted.

Leaving the Ikea Good-Bad debate aside, we can agree the company aims for a pricey demographic – which, to the degree that it remains a working class immigrant community, Chinatown doesn’t really offer.  In fact, with an average income around 20-25k a year, “weaning yourself off takeout Chinese” would take roughly a tenth of a Chinatown resident’s yearly income. That also assumes they have access to housing they can remodel, which probably isn’t true considering rising rents and vast illegal housing set-ups in the first place.

Second – “Chinese delivery” I’m not even sure what to make of this line.  But considering the location in the middle of a historic Chinese enclave, it might have been better to dodge the ethnic-food bullet entirely and just kept it at ‘delivery.’  I don’t know why ‘Chinese’ has become the quintessential delivery-greasy-pathetic food of note, but I’m pretty sure the reasons aren’t exactly complementary.

Speaking of fish in barrels:

I forgot these “no sharing used newspapers’ bins existed.

Bins in Grand Central.

Attention newspapers: when your business model relies on preventing sharing between your readers, prepare for the end.

Cameras, Police – How Much is Enough?

What is this world coming to.

I’m not normally an AMNY-er, but the front page today caught my attention: two reporters counted surveillance cameras on the south side of Union Square and found 170 cameras on one block, and used that as a prop to discuss the proliferation of cameras in the city, primarily Manhattan.

I wonder where it stops – how many cameras is enough? Getting to JFK for my flight last week, I counted 15 (visible) cameras in the Air Train station alone. NYU’s Kimmel Center is slathered in them.

The invisible surveillance creeps me out the most. I was sitting with a friend in Riverside Park one night earlier this summer and saw a Parks SUV drive right up to a couple drinking some beers and issued an open-container summons. Clearly, the Parks Police had no means to spot their containers from the other end of the park by mere eyesight, and used some sort of camera to find them. I looked around: I couldn’t see any cameras on poles, in trees, etc. I got up and looked a bit more. Still nothing. Then, the friend got up and just asked the police: where are the cameras? Of course, they laughingly refused to answer, but the incident set me to mild paranoia about who is watching where – clearly there are surveillance tools you can’t just casually count on the street like AMNY did.

Similarly, when do we have enough police? One thing I noticed about being in Austin was the lack of a visible police presence. Whenever I go anywhere in New York, I see the NYPD. The APD keeps a lower profile, even at big events – on 6th Street on Saturday (what amounts to an open air street festival), I saw maybe 4 cops, whereas at a similar event in New York, I might see 20. New York has 37,000 Police Officers. That’s a shit ton (and I don’t know if that count includes Corrections or Parks officers). When do we stop? 50,000? 60,000? That’s a terrible drain on resources, for what may be a lost cause in the first place.

My real point is this: what is the real goal of such heavy policing? Do we really want to live in a world where all of our activities are under review by employees of the state (who, ultimately, are just people with flaws and human problems like everyone else)? I think a tightly policed social space necessarily undermines democracy because it creates a one-way ratchet towards fascism: once repressive laws are passed, organizing (in a real sense, not just in a ‘write your congressperson’ bullshit sense) to stop those laws becomes more difficult if not impossible, and we have to rely on the benevolent will of our elected officials to check the Po’.

And don’t give me that ‘If you don’t commit a crime you have nothing to fear’ bullshit. You don’t decide whether you commit a crime, the police, a judge and lawmakers do. If ever you were to disagree with a cop in a court of law, you would lose the argument, simply by their badge and uniform. Also, there are plenty of things that probably shouldn’t be illegal that are – and I think we should preserve some space for active civil disobedience outside the law, as a check on immoral law making and enforcement, lest we be stuck with contesting terrifying bullshit via the arcane, corrupt and biased legal system.

Where does it stop? It should be up to you – not Ray Kelly, not Congress, not the Dept. of Homeland Security – to decide.

NYU Disorientation Guide 2008!

2008 Disorientation Guide Cover

The 2008 edition of NYU inc.’s Disorientation Guide is finished! The Disorientation Guide is a growing tradition at NYU – the first one was published at the beginning of the 2002 school year, and students have published a new edition annually since. A dozen or so undergrads, grad students and community members worked to make this year’s guide – the first to be published online as well as in print. A link for downloading the guide is below, the print version will be available starting the first day of school.

Here’s a few choice quotes from the 2008 Guide:

“The Board of Trustees have no clue what it feels like to take a full course load and work 30 hours a week. Or to be in debt. Or how it feels to have someone tell them no.” – from NYU’s Student Government is a Sham. So Why am I a Senator?

“NYU’s growth in 2007-8 was a series of firsts (and hopefully lasts).” – from NYU’s Year of Struggles – Looking Back on 2007-2008

“John Sexton is not about to go down in the books as the president of an almost-Ivy. So, instead of measuring figurative dicks in endowment dollars, NYU wants to change the rules of the game and be sized up by its global prowess.” from Exchange Students for Dollars – NYU’s Global Ambitions

“Secrecy only protects corruption and incompetence; democracy can only build NYU into a stronger, more successful and just university.” – from Taking NYU Back! Disclosure, Student Democracy and the Future of NYU

“It is difficult to speak about white privilege in NYU. In an institution which prides itself on being “in and of the city,” complaints of white privilege are often looked at skeptically, if not outright disregarded.” – from Daily Battles: NYU and White Privilege

“Reynolds has made a fortune off of putting students like you in debt – and she helps call the shots on NYU’s tuition hikes.” From Meet the Trustees!

“Two days earlier, President Sexton had emailed every striker, threatening to fire them from
their jobs and blacklist them from future work for as many as three semesters if they did not return by
a set date. These threats were ultimately successful in creating a climate of fear and frustration that
led many to stop striking.” – from NYU Works Because We Do

Download the 2008 Disorientation Guide here

(right click “Save as” to download, Left Click to view in browser)

Full Table of Contents after the cut!

Where Did My City Go? Gentrification on the Creek and the NYC Connection

I love Austin Texas. In ways I can’t quite say. Perhaps my favorite part of Austin is the Shoal Creek bike path, which runs North-South through Central Austin from the river to 38th street or so, meandering along the creekbed through parks and nature areas.

Every time I go home, I find another change: last year condos began rising next to the creek as the waters rose during a wet summer; in the winter I returned to taller but still visibly incomplete buildings, and a creekbed filled with trash and dams blocking the browning water to allow access to construction vehicles. When I went back this time, the trash was gone, but the condos stood complete, lording over the downtown skyline they now dominated.

Unlike New York, Austin has never had serious residential density in downtown. Austin has always been a low-rise city, with the exception of State Government buildings and the occasional glossy business tower. In the last 3-5 years, luxury condos filled into downtown and nearby neighborhoods: driving from the airport, I counted at least 6 new high rise condo developments – a big number considering the total lack of residential infrastructure downtown (schools, laundromats, parking, etc. etc.), and groundbreaking nature of the developments, pioneering an previously totally commercial area.

Generally, I’d like to applaud badly needed high-density development in a sprawling city (Austin and San Antonio – 100+ miles away – increasingly look like a single city), but everything about these developments make me uncomfortable. For one, they sell the urban fabric of Austin as a nightlife city of artists and musicians, but sell-out the people that make that fabric possible. Artists moved to Austin because cheap rents allowed a critical mass of people to agglomerate and make a self-sufficient ‘industry’ out of themselves. Austin could have continued to support that industry, while remaining a center for government (ATX THE CAPITAL CITYYYY) and a home to the University of Texas, and done just fine for itself – there’s a solid tax base for social services, a sense of community, all is well.

Instead, the music and alt-hip-bohemia became a selling point to non-creative industries, primarily high-tech and chip manufacturing. City government got fancy new digs and started heavily promoting the moniker “Live Music Capital of the World,” even to the point of theming the city’s new airport on the slogan.

The problem is that these new industries have been gradually leaching out the people and places that made Austin feel like home. Downtown, the center for bars and shows, feels increasingly like the West Village – bohemia under glass, reliving its glory days in cruel simulacra of an authentic creative environment. The city has flooded with high-tech yuppies that raise the cost of living, and eventually rents, for everyone else.

Equally pressing, chip manufacturing is particularly dangerous in a place like Austin. The city sits on the recharge zone for the immense Edwards Aquifer, which provides excellent drinking water for about half of Texas. Silicon chip manufacture requires immense amounts of water and creates ungodly amounts of acidic waste. AMD, Samsung and Motorola have sucked water from the aquifer at the cost of lower-flowing springs (including Barton Springs, perhaps the best place in the world – see picture above), and ever-drier creeks that used to be all-access swimming pools in the hot summer months.

With every urban overhaul, someone benefits. Without a doubt, real estate interests have cashed in to huge payoffs, as the city dons its new, glossier finish. The point I’d like to make is that the changes occurring in Austin closely follow those in New York, and elsewhere: economic elites are filling out city centers, at the cost of lower class folks that make the city run in the first place. (A service-economy driven urban core in Austin would be particularly unsustainable for the folks working in it, considering the city’s shiiity public transit and rising gas costs)

Found in Austin. A sign of the times.

These changes are happening everywhere. They also feed off each other – the advertising-entertainment of shows like Sex in the City in New York become the model for urban living elsewhere. The surest sign that my old home has become an over-priced yuppie urban oasis? Realtors have started naming themselves after the swankiest of the swanky neighborhoods in New York, with the hope of that New York glitter rubbing off on their new downtown developments:

Back!

Been back from Texas for a few days now; my trip was just right – not too hot, not too cold, and got to walk in the woods.  Going home I always get a sense of moving old muscles I forgot I had, finding that word that has been on the tip of your tongue for days.  I think this trip back sealed the deal for me: I know I don’t live in Austin any more.  I felt like someone getting dumped by their cool ex; lots of interesting stuff was happening around town, but I really didn’t play a part in it any more – I felt a little bit ignored.  Still, I saw good friends, plenty of trees, and the fam.

Being in Austin, brushing up against my past, I realized I’ve lost track of where I’m going, involuntarily resigning myself to ideological wandering.  I also realized that this next year will bowl me over into places I don’t want to be if I continue without the solid footing of knowing where I want to be in the future.  These next two weeks are the lull before the storm, and I want to take advantage of them to get some serious thinking done.

But I also have posts.  Lots, in fact.  Some of these will be contemplative ramblings, others will be more political.  Get ready.

Hiatus until Monday

Stepping out for a few days for a trip home. Then back into full gear come Monday. Get some sleep until then.

Edit: JetBlue is the Windows Vista of airlines: derivative, flashy, useless.  Their free internet is their only redeeming quality, but only because it let me book a flight on another airline while waiting in a 3 hour customer service line.  And even then it didn’t work that well.

Totally drained.

Against my expectations, this summer became an exhausting affair.  I ended the school year teetering on a blowout of sorts, and looked forward to a break.  After classes ended my summer never quite resolved itself into a real break: I had class daily for 3 weeks in a May intensive; family affairs for a week or so after that; orientation following not far after that.

While none of my myriad engagements quite took over my life (save orientation, but that was among friends) lingering obligations that trailed on from the Spring kept me from really stepping back from everything and making mental peace with myself.  I had to look for a job (and got led on by a few employers, making the whole process even more frustrating), had to do debate work, had to begin working on the Disorientation Guide, etc. etc.

The point being that I never quite got into the groove of summer, never quite shook that feeling of being busy.  Like, really busy. I don’t think people give credit to the labor that goes into being a student.  All last semester, I worked the equivalent of 15 hour days, 6 days a week.  10 am to at least 1am, daily – and the last few weeks during finals, I often worked more than that.

After meandering through half the summer, I wandered into being over-committed again.  I started freelancing with whatever free time I had; took up one internship, then another.  Now, I’m back to working 12 hour days again, with only 2 weeks of summer left.

Last summer I read 33 books.  That’s a lot.  This summer I read much less, I’m not even sure I could reach double digits.

I began this break with some vague goals – meet lots of people, read some books… really get to know New York.  For better or worse, I missed out on some of those, but succeeded in another way:  I feel like I live here.  It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way.

More Urban Foraging.

I found more food by the side of the road.

Total madness.

80 or so of these.

Not even stale.

Stale, but vegan.

last: found in Central Park.

Apples. From a tree.

Impending Failure at NYU Abu Dhabi?

Something mediocre, at best

What if NYU threw a party in the desert and no one came? Precedent shows it might happen: according to an article in the UAE newspaper The National, other US institutions in Abu Dhabi have only managed to attract something between a quarter and half as many students as projected. George Mason University has a mere 83 students in its Abu Dhabi campus.

Anyone familiar with the NYU expansion into Abu Dhabi recognizes the project as combination public relations gimmick and cash cow. NYU will choose to build the cheapest campus possible, and funnel the rest of the Emirate’s cash back to its building plans at Washington Square. The long term sustainability of this strategy – pimping the brand name to lower cost locations to bring money to the US campus – relies on the ability to draw new students to the abroad campus. If NYUAD falls flat on enrollment, students at home could feel the costs for years to come.

Of course, in response NYU Vice Chancellor for Abu Dhabi Mariet Westermen expressed some blind faith that NYU will pull through with some students when the chips are down, but I think that NYU-folks might have to face up to the possibility of NYUAD becoming a financial failure, as well as the moral failure and potential public relations failure it has developed into.

Twittering Your Thumbs

This is hillarious.

But what really makes it (and attached post from Radar) interesting is how it contrasts with the writing of people like Jeff Jarvis or NYC blogger Lisa Sabater that make Twittering a cornerstone of their online presence, alongside blogging and social networking.

I’m still trying to decide on how or if to use social networks – I consider them to have limited utility at best as organizing tools, as danah boyd explained in her essay in the anthology Personal Democracy. I think her argument about the online echo-chamber very simply explains why techno-phillia seems so prevalent: social networking sites, twitter, etc. only put you in contact with people who also like and use those technologies.  And if you write about media or technology, that necessarily skews your perception of how many people use that technology, and its relevance – your sense of what matters on a large scale leans towards their world view constructed through the lens of the people they know in (ultimately) local, small scale communities.

In terms of building organizations and effective social change, nothing beats feet on the ground.  The internet only functions as a useful device for social change if people already seek out other people pursuing social change, and already want to use it as such.  (Not to say that there’s an impossible gap between political types and non-, but it’s safe to say that folks use the internet in regular, enclaved ways)  Being ‘in the streets’ shouldn’t be fetishized – I’ve seen enough ineffective face-to-face preachings to know that you can alienate and  frustrate in person – but I think it’s a pipe dream to see social networking, or blogging (ha) as a cure to what ails organizers.

As a caveat, I think Facebook as some advantages, in particular contexts.  What drove Facebook’s early growth was its connection to specific places – colleges.  It built directly on the activity of daily networking students engage in for whatever reason, and made an online presence around that physical interaction, amplifying it in unique ways.  I think social networking can solidify certain types of relationships in ways useful to organizers, but those begin from local, physical interactions.

Writing the New ‘Virtuous’ Newspaper

The virtuous circle from Digitaldickinson on Vimeo.

Andy Dickenson made an interesting post on the idea of a ‘virtuous circle’ that animates contemporary news writing – the thesis is that journalists should become better members of a media-community by writing in ways that listen to and benefit the people they write about. Per an amendement from another blogger, this includes making links and engaging the bloggers you write about conversationally, on a personal level.

When I try to tell people about the work I do, I often have to resort to a series of vague or endlessly complex descriptors – I usually say something like: “Well, I’m a journalist/blogger/activist/PR type” or just “Web shit.” For me, the ‘link economy’ means that writers have to become part-time savants, writing as members of a movement or industry, while journalists primarily act as sorters and assemblers of information, with the time to put feet on the ground and pursue official sources.

I think there are two points:

First, that in a world with so much writing done by so many people, creating a fragmented viewership, writers have to become PR agents as well. Writing doesn’t mean anything as such, because it gets lost in the wash of information available on the internet. That means that writers have to do their own promotion – and the best way to do promotion is through ‘loose ties’ and folks that know your relationship yields mutual benefits. Thus the importance of active participation in social movements, and mutual linking – both of these generate loose ties and create connections where both people can benefit from an interaction.

Second, the idea of ‘journalistic magic.’ I’m sure this has a more specific, fleshed out meaning, but I’d like to propose one way to think about the ‘magic’ that might be useful for people designing new media-products. What people lack more than anything is time, and it is time that makes good writing possible – editing, revisions, pursuing sources, etc. The difference between original, effective content and the wash of blather is a division of labor, where some writers can afford to make the time to take their writing seriously, and others can’t. The best way to make original content that stands out from the mileu is to pay people enough that they take their writing seriously – it doesn’t have to be a huge sum, but just enough for them to take a few hours to work over a post, make some phone calls, etc.

So, in my mind, an effective ‘new newspaper’ would be based around a specific location or institution, making small payments to part time writers that engage that place/institution as something other than merely writers. A motley crew of writers, bloggers, and editors that build a brand around one idea or place, rather than around the idea of news as such.

Summer Streets – a NYC Bike Safari

I liked the first Summer Streets – lots of conspicuously first time riders, which I think was the point, and I always support car free space. I thought the 7 am to 1pm hours were a bit absurd – I think New York has enough of a night life to expect that folks will spend most of Saturday mornings asleep – moving back the time might bump participation, and make a bigger statement against car-driving.  Overall, an excellent idea, I hope this becomes a jumping off point for car-free streets designed for, you know, transportation rather than recreation.  I believe I was misled, however on one major point: my ride did not once feature Lance Armstrong, David Byrne or Jay-Z, and for that I blame Mayor Bloomberg and his fleet of lies.

Summer Streets was a veritable zoo, representing almost every variety of New York’s diverse cycling biosphere.

The Commuter on their steel beater – An important species, usually the most curmudgeonly of cyclists, because they’ve spent years doing this and god damn it this world just needs less cars and more cyclists that follow the rules. Ride conservatively, but like cycling and make up the vanguard of folks making cycling easier in New York City:

The Folding Bike Commuter – Typically seen toddling through city streets trying to make bikes with 10 inch wheels do things they probably shouldn’t. Note basket and earnest desire for people to take them seriously, despite their clownish bikes. Typically Manhattan based.

The Middle Age Recumbent – another commuter variety, likely to express similar grumpiness, but while reclined. Like the commuter in most ways, except with higher disposable income to spend on a bike that puts the rider’s face at about bumper-level. I don’t understand it, but more power to them, I guess.

The Twinkie – I’m not sure on the origins of the name, but I’m more than familiar with this particular species. Note the matching bike-spandex-helmet combo and shaved legs. Potentially rides competitively, but in the mean time spends time most of their time riding circles around Central Park looking focused.

The Fixie – Among the most polarizing of cyclists, the fixie rider eschews brakes and traffic laws with equal zeal. Some descriptions call them ‘reckless’ ‘absurd’ ‘dangerous’, etc. etc. I once agreed, but now, alas I am a ‘fixie’ myself. Typical identifying marks include tattoos, u-locks, attitude, and a penchant for trendiness.

The Fashionista Cruiser – tending to be feminine, but with increasing numbers of masculine riders spotted. An outgrowth of the ‘bikes as fashion’ trend, identifying marks include sunglasses, a slow but assertive riding style, and summer dresses.

Other fauna spotted at Summer Streets incldued:

The ever-present ‘Person going the wrong way‘:

‘Person with bike very poorly suited for its use‘ (see center – hard to make out, but this is a full suspension mountain bike):

and the parasitic “NYPD Motorbike” which was unable to leave its host even when the streets are closed. It seems the NYPD was worried that TimesUp! might turn its Clown Parade into a spontaneous Critical Mass, and so posted one of the iconic scooterbikes next to the TimesUp! tent:

Missing from this safari expedition are the working class of cycling: messengers and delivery people.  Their conspicuous absence from the event shows the basic flaw of Summer Streets – it was designed for people who bike in their free time, not for people who ride daily as employment.  I’d like to see more large-scale pro-bike events designed for people who may not have free time on Saturday, and don’t live in Manhattan.

The greatest discovery of Summer Streets was an event unheard of on Manhattan streets. No, not just 7 miles of car-free space, but this:

Cyclists actually stopping for red lights at intersections

The Whole Foods-NYU Pincer Move!

View Larger Map

Whole Foods has encircled NYU and is trying to push it into the sea. Or at least, that’s what it looks like based on this snazzy Google Map I worked up. (I like Google because it makes totally frivolous stuff like this possible to do in 5 minutes)

The point is this: the Whole Foods phenomena in Lower Manhattan seems driven by NYU students with disposable income (to spend on a store that disposes a lot of food – see previous post re: dumpstering food – Whole Foods is a serious perp of unneeded disposal). The Union Square and Houston Whole Foods are both within 2 blocks of NYU dorms. The Tribeca location isn’t terribly far from the Lafayette dorm. Clearly NYU didn’t trigger the gentrification of Tribecca, but the Union Square-Houston locations sandwich the NYU ‘3rd avenue housing corridor’ as NYU calls it, and I suspect students make up a bulk of the clientèle.

I’m sure there’s another point here about NYU’s role in gentrification – even when they’re not pushing out low price grocers (Met Foods), the school carts in upper-middle class students by the plane-full, and inadvertently raising rents and cost of living for everyone else.

But really, I just liked the image of Whole Foods as a secret paramilitary invasion of Lower Manhattan, battling it out with NYU for yuppie/yupre supremacy.

Bike Locks and Threats – More Fun!

In the spirit of Curbed’s Bowery Bike Brouhaha – a pleasant interaction I witnessed between a bi-cyclist and one of NYC’s motor-cyclist at 3rd and 12th earlier this week.

The note:

"Attention careless asshole - You locked my bike to your stupid motorcycle. I had to cut your rear brakelight to get it out. Please be more careful next time.

and the reply, left on the bike rack when I walked by the next day:

Dear cock sucker - if I ever find you I will cut your Dick off for cutting my breaklights (sic)