Commentary (and rants) on national and local politics.
Had the pleasure of doing a reading/Q&A at the Riverdale Neighborhood House last night for a group of teens from a workshop run by Corie Feiner (fka Corie Herman) as part of a residency she's had since 2000, thanks to Poets & Writers. One of the coolest gigs I could imagine, teaching kids writing in the Bronx. The RNH is a great setup, too, offering various after-school opportunities for local kids, many of whom aren't from Riverdale but from Marble Hill and Kingsbridge. Hope something like that is available when Isaac and India get older. Got a jar of teen-made…
I can't believe how pissed I am over this whole political thing! Like throw-your-hands-in-the-air kind of fed up and I can't get it off my mind! While I can understand the apathy to some degree, I can't understand how people don't see that apathy is the very reason nothing will change. It's like everyone's waiting for someone else to stand up and do something so they can follow. And when someone DOES stand up, they laugh them off as a dreamer, or unpatriotic, or a wasted vote. That thing I alluded to yesterday, where I said I'd admit to being…
After a promising start, the Rock the Vote debate petered out into yet another convoluted forum where, not unlike slam, cliched soundbites won out over depth and I suspect anybody that is even moderately aware of the candidates walked away not really hearing anything new and, more unfortunately, not seeing enough to sway them in, or away from, any particular direction. Hopefully for anyone tuning in for the first time, it spurred them into getting more information. I agree with Kerry's wife that they're not the ideal way to do it but, at the same time, I think it's too…
From the "Maybe there's hope" file, there's a great Kucinich profile/interview in the latest Rolling Stone: Your candidacy seems to be built on the idea that the people are looking for another New Deal-type program. But the New Deal didn't happen until the country was mired in a depression. Do you think things have really gotten that bad now? When you consider that most Americans are maxed out on their credit cards, when you consider that most Americans are no longer guaranteed employment security, when you consider how many pension funds are going belly up, when you look at the…
From the "No wonder people don't bother" file: Went to vote this morning and realized that it's the first time I'm voting IN New York City. I've voted absentee while in the Army, in New Jersey while living there, and even in Virginia last year, where I was impressed by their hi-tech setup. My polling place for today was a beat-up warehouse of a church manned primarily by what appeared to be beneficiaries of their Meals On Wheels program. Seriously. Other than the three college-age kids helping out, there wasn't a volunteer there under the age of 70. I'm just…
Letter to the Editor, NY Daily News: re: No to #3 In opposing Proposal #3, I find it ironic that the major party leaders on the City Council would stand together to proclaim that non-partisan elections "would make party labels meaningless and, more important, make choices much more difficult for voters." I'd argue that it has been the parties themselves that have made their respective labels meaningless, both on the local and national level. If they were truly interested in making our choices less difficult, as opposed to simply preserving their two-party kingmaker gridlock, they'd abandon their partisan ways and…
Tomorrow's Election Day and I've been hard-pressed to find any pro-"YES to Proposal #3" media coverage. There's a solid, well-reasoned piece in last week's Village Voice that includes this interesting counter to the argument that non-partisan voting harms minorities: Unlike most major American cities with nonwhite and female voting age majorities, New York has elected just one black mayor, and no woman, Latino, or Asian mayor. In fact, Latinos, the city's largest minority, have yet to hold any of the three citywide posts, and Asians, the fastest growing minority with 10 percent of the voting age population, are represented by…
