Published in The Lo-Down
August 2014
“A Human being is a part of the whole called by us the universe. We can experience ourselves as something separate, a kind of separation delusion. This delusion can be a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion.” — Albert Einstein
The Holy Name Center for Homeless Men on Bleecker and Elizabeth Street used to be a place to shower, to get cleaned up to look for work, or just to retain a bit of dignity. Recently, The Archdiocese of New York closed it and revamped the space as a shiny new evangelizing cultural center for the Catholic Church. Now, homeless men go to Sara D Roosevelt Park to shower in broad daylight, behind the Stanton Park building near the children’s playground, much to the dismay of parents with young children, nearby residents and the schools across the street.
A row of people sleep nightly on the doorstep where poet John Giorno lives on the Bowery, while the adjacent restaurant, Pearl and Ash, seeks an outdoor café for their upscale bar – inviting an almost surreal visual of today’s disjointed economy.
According to the Coalition for the Homeless, city policies played a major role in causing an historic homeless crisis; record levels – 53,615 adults and 22,712 children sleeping in shelters as of January 2014. And “the widening gap between apartment rents and the incomes of poor New Yorkers also fueled the current crisis. Housing costs soared during the [last administration]– while wages and incomes for most New Yorkers fell or stagnated.”
The rising use of synthetic marijuana and heroin is evident on the streets around us. Hopelessness tied with poverty can be soul destroying.
We may long to be compassionate but it’s hard to stay generous in a dog-eat-dog culture. When we do harm to others, we soothe our conscience with lies, ice cream, the internet, alcohol or other drugs of choice … Financial wizards who ruined entire countries heap “donations” onto parks, charter schools and museums while skillfully avoiding paying the taxes that would fund our city outright.
We fear for our own survival and grow insular: hunting for private solutions to global problems. We love our children. We want good futures for them. The fates of other children, beyond our reach, can leave us paralyzed or defensive, making arms-length or, even worse, profiteering offers.
And what of the institutions we rely on to guide us toward braver possibilities? They are too often dragged down by irrelevancies, or succumb to overwhelming bureaucracy. Education systems sacrifice learning to testing– or privatization. Media filters out vital news or encourages aimless polarization. Libraries are sold. Arts institutions sell “radical” art while their hedge fund board’s efforts insure that inequalities deepen. Many politicians are forced to govern less by their constituent’s needs and more by Citizen’s United’s dictates.
My own St. Patrick’s Church ran an investment guru’s series last year, while closing their school to sell to luxury condo developers.
David Simon, author of “The Wire,” posits that if human relevance is measured only by money we will get a society that is based on that metric – “and it’s going to be a brutal one.”
Through all this, however, there is a growing consensus that narrow self-interest isn’t working. We don’t want brutality. We want a generous, sustainable and interesting world. We reject racism and all divisions used as tools to keep the status quo. We want to refuse, along with Father Boyle of Homeboy Industries, to abide by “a lethal absence of hope” for all of us, and especially for our children.
Refreshingly, our newest pope, Pope Francis “…prefer[s] a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is …confined and clinging to its own security.”
Bowery Mission’s pews turn into beds at night. In Sara Roosevelt Park several homeless volunteers build gardens for the blind. De Blasio gets elected on the basis of his stand against rising inequity; Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson takes a public stand with his neighbors, the protesters of Fergusan, MO. And local poverty advocates propose mobile shower units to bring a bit of dignity back to the neighborhood.
Much of this affirms Nelson Mandela’s insistence that “poverty, like apartheid and slavery, is man-made…it can be eradicated by the actions of human beings.”
With the news at the end of July that Rivington House, NYC’s only nursing home dedicated to AIDs patients, will shut down in November, comes the question: Is it possible that the state funded non-profit building could be reborn as an assisted living facility for elders and others in need? Could we redeem the loss of Bialystoker and Cabrini, sold out from under that vulnerable population?
“Profit at any cost” has put our entire ecosystem in jeopardy. No one is truly secure unless everyone is. It’s the flaw of an economic system that fails to insure basic protections for its people. It has rumbled forward with its advantages and defects but we’ve allowed it to determine too much. It’s no longer working – for anyone actually. Tinkering won’t work – it requires us to challenge the ethos utterly.
If the observations of Albert Einstein aren’t enough to convince us of our immutable bonds with one another, the universe (and George Dvorsky) reminds us that it’s really just physics:
“As the universe cooled after the Big Bang…its matter …congealed into a network of filaments that spanned the cosmos. … resulting in the formation of stars, galaxies, and galactic clusters. … though the Big Bang happened long ago …virtually everything’s still connected within this web of vestigial matter.”
Everything.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Of Parks, Inequity and the Flinging of Coins…
At the “Talking Transitions Tent” New Yorkers for Parks hosted a panel entitled “Four Immediate Ways to Equitably Improve NYC's Parks”. The panel consisted of committed and hard-working park advocates.
One of the panelists, State Senator Squadron, proposed that “marquee parks” (such as Central Park) share a percentage of funds raised in the private sector with parks that do not have private financial backers. He reminded us that all city parks exist within the same network. That any individual park’s situation affects all parks. It was an impassioned and intelligent plea.
Squadron’s proposal was hammered. The audience was warned of the chilling effect on marquee park supporters, of government interfering with the “democratic tradition” of philanthropy, of distracting from the real issues, and, that city parks were not in such bad shape anyway.
It was disheartening.
Here we were sitting in an enormous “tent” constructed by the wealth of billionaires, hoping to influence the next mayor. There was no time allotted to the audience to speak. We were in the county of Manhattan, home of the largest undisputed income inequality gap in this nation. Joseph McKellar, a panelist who represented Flushing Meadows Corona Park pointed out that there is a correlation between the racial and economic make-up surrounding a park and the conditions of that park. Too true.
Our parks can’t help but reflect this reality. And in a city of such opulence, that simply is not okay.
The Community Garden network has been involved in the care of Greenspaces for decades. This movement came out of poor neighborhoods and largely out of communities of color – with plenty of skill and agency. I doubt any Conservancy in New York City has much to teach us. But maybe we have something to offer them?
Community Gardeners know how to share. We are all volunteers who freely give plants, labor, resources and expertise. Our budgets are usually under $3,000. We get small grants and member fees – we do a lot with a little. We don’t feel a chill when asked to help struggling neighbors. We consider it an honor to be asked.
But neighborhood parks need large amounts of funding to fix broken equipment and to retool park buildings to serve as sites for resiliency centers, youth spaces, meeting and information hubs. Providing support to help make that happen- even one park at a time -would give hope to parks who would otherwise have none. Training by experienced gardeners (from Community Gardens, Parks, Conservancies, etc.) could support gardening stewardship by local neighbors in every park. It would beautify the city and give communities skills to learn how to truly care for and “own” their parks. Every neighborhood deserves their own "jewel" park.
Personally, I don’t believe the public good should have to depend on the largesse of the wealthy for meeting the basic needs of a city. I don’t think a democracy can long survive relying on the whims of the rich. That’s why we have a tax system, so that government, including the Parks Department, would have the resources to take care of all parks.
Dr. King said, “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
Thank you to Senator Squadron for raising the issue in a way that won’t be ignored. And, as Mr. McKellar said, “Any vehicle that creates more equity is a poignant conversation”.
K Webster
Monday, June 3, 2013
Swerve, David Bowie and Musicianship
Swerve, David Bowie and Musicianship
by K Webster / CounterPunch
WordPress posting: Exploring David Bowie:
24th-26th May 2013
The philosopher Epicurus speculated that, despite the overwhelming regularity of nature, atoms traveling in a straight line, in a moment of sheer unpredictability, might deviate from their course – or swerve. From this he gathered that we possess free will.
“It was an astonishing act of thought.” – Melvyn Bragg.
* * *
Once while in Moscow I came upon a searing violin solo in a cavernous stretch of subway. I was struck silent and still. It brought tears. It transported. This is what music can be. No constraints.
At the graveside of my Irish mother the penny whistle piped Danny Boy – out of tune (Buffalo weather is unforgiving to metal). But the worn melody surprised: painful, soulful. Respectfully and appropriately off-key.
Summer evenings and brass players suddenly appear on Rivington Street to make rowdy upbeat sounds, just for the thrill of it. An un-careful explosion of joy and noise.
* * *
“Gems hidden in the recording” – David Bowie
Steve bumped into David Bowie in line at the store. They started talking- about health, raising children – a dad conversation. They walked down the street and as they were saying their goodbyes David called out – “I’ll be in touch about something. If you don’t hear from me right away, don’t worry, it’s going to happen”.
A year or two later, a call came from Tony Visconti. “Do you remember me?” Steve laughed and said, “Yes, I remember exactly when I first met you!” He recounted that it was Tony who had been sent to stall him as they prepared a birthday party for Steve during Bowie’s “Serious Moonlight” tour.
“I’m recording this young English blues musician – David Jones- are you interested?” Steve said of course. After he hung up it dawned on him who “David” was. A call a few minutes later from Bill Z confirmed his suspicion. The project was hush-hush.
The day of the recording Steve walked over to the Magic Shop with his baritone sax and a few other instruments. Bowie was strumming a guitar in the back, Tony and the engineer were nearby. David came out and gave Steve an affectionate hug. They talked for a while as Steve got out his horns. They worked on a few of the songs. They had working titles and some reference vocals. David had ideas of where the horns should be. Tony and David would make suggestions and Steve played.
“Tony and David have done a bunch of records over the years. Tony has ideas and gives direction and was handling the technical side of the day with the engineer. He creates the ground on which this gets built. He knows Bowie well enough to interpret when needed,” Steve recalled.
They started recording very quickly. “Frequently in the studio you spend time trying to figure out this line and that line and where it should go. Not this time.” Steve said later, “You can tell within the first couple of minutes how the day is going to go. And you could tell this was going to be a good day.”
It seemed they wanted more edge, not the accessible playing that is frequently asked for in session work. “They were interested in quirky, adventurous things. The more I took it out, the happier we all got,” Steve said. “They were interested in early takes. Often in session work time is spent refining solos, making them smooth. They weren’t interested in smooth.”
It was the same when Steve did that iconic solo on Modern Love. Bowie wanted first takes or early takes. “More the way jazz players do it. You get what you are going to get”.
For this new release Bowie’s directions were clear: “Just play” “Don’t be contained” ”Farther out” “Don’t even think about what key we’re in”. …
Steve: “We stopped for lunch and watched/listened to some Rhythm and Blues players on YouTube. We talked about Johnny Otis a little bit and about Dr. John and Little Richard.”
Steve had played with Johnny Otis and knew it wasn’t about subtlety. “It wasn’t about a lot of notes or a lot of chops. The lesson working with Eddie Cleanhead Vincent, Big Jim Wynn, and Shuggie Otis was ‘play nothing extraneous’. They were all great players, but it wasn’t a virtuosic display – ever. It was about being there. It’s similar with Bowie. I think he’s interested in being in the present and being musically straightforward. Trusting gut feelings, no covering up with frills. With Johnny it was always first take – you were playing live. But with David too, I think there is something about that first thought. What comes to you out of playing the music, right then and there.”
Years ago, Steve remembered David talking about leaving things in, “so you might find, in a record, things that only happened that one time maybe – just to show we could do it. David called them ‘the gems hidden in the recording’”.
“A recording studio can be a sterile environment, but there was something about having the headphones on, David in the control room, singing ideas kind of back and forth. It felt as spontaneous as it gets. Not contrived. And I don’t think it’s ever ironic. Playing R & B with Johnny was never ironic or coy and I don’t think it is with Bowie. It’s never “playing at playing music”. You’re playing music.
At one point, listening through my headphones, I was thinking: ‘here is this beautiful voice I’m hearing’. It’s very intimate, we’re singing ideas and he’s a few inches away from his microphone. He’s playing his guitar. He’s singing, your playing, he’s giving direction.” A year and a half later when Steve heard cuts from “The Next Day” he was struck again by “how vulnerable and honest Bowie’s voice is”.
The way Bowie set the session up secretively insured there was no pressure from the business end of music on him or anyone else. “He got to work on what he cared about. No pressure from the outside affecting the creative process. He seemed at peace. Slowed down and funny, really in the room, really there. David’s known as a ‘chameleon’, but whenever I’ve worked with him I always felt he was himself. Just himself at that moment. There was no time pressure. That’s the place you want to make records from. No one had to prove anything – just people working on getting some low horn sounds onto this project.”
Steve remembered other record dates that went like that: A recording session with Fred Wesley –James Brown’s trombone player- at a friend’s studio in the East Village. “A couple of hours, a couple of songs. But it felt like every idea locked-in perfectly – it felt like ‘that’s how it’s supposed to be’. And I’ve played with great trombone players all my life. But there was something about the phrasing and the feeling – this is what you want. When things click, when people are in the room together.
When we finished the last song Tony said how well it had gone. I had no idea whether any of it would make it on the record. But in a way, I thought, it didn’t matter. I get to be alive making music with a brilliant mind.”
Maybe that’s the point. The chance to reinvent the world with like-minded musicians – a valiant effort to flex our free will.
As they left the studio, Tony said, ‘I’ll never forget today.’
Swerve.
With thanks to Steve Elson
K Webster is a writer and community organizer.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Op/Ed: It’s Time to Reactivate Stanton Street Park Building
Op/Ed: It’s Time to Reactivate Stanton Street Park Building
The following article was written by Lower East Side resident K. Webster:
In a time of diminishing resources we must rethink how we allocate the ones we have. Community resources such as the numerous park buildings that dot the Lower East Side must be returned to active neighborhood use. We can no longer afford to have these buildings used for storage or sit neglected as empty space. The Stanton Street building in Sara D. Roosevelt (SDR) Park was once a bustling youth center. We need it back.
Affordable spaces are vanishing. With the ongoing collapse of structural support for vulnerable youth, elders, and working people, the need for access to publicly owned sites in densely populated, low-income neighborhoods is clear. And, as Hurricane Sandy made evident, we are in desperate need of hubs from which to catalyze self-help efforts to take on climate change locally.
There is an urgent need for gathering-places to plan our common future and to share skills. We need dedicated sites where we can tackle current crises and strategize to prevent or ameliorate those that loom. Three community issues in particular stand out: the ongoing youth-on-youth violence, the disintegration of funding streams for low-income neighbors, and the need to practice “going green.” Could we marry these in one building?
We recently lost a bottle redemption center nearby. This has had an immediate impact on those who live on the economic margins. The working poor rely on this supplemental income to stay in their homes. Could we share these buildings for recycling? We get “greener,” people get concrete help.
We have young people who need to know they matter. Our teenagers need to take charge of their future. But in order to do that they need skills and hope- they already have the energy and the ability. Bike-share programs are coming to the LES in the spring along with jobs to maintain them. Can we use this site to train our youth to fix a bike?
Could they learn to build solar panels and install them? Figure out how to build a wind generator? Can math and science serve a present purpose- not just in a textbook? Can information be used to excite the minds of our youth who may see no way forward towards a life that has relevance?
In our community we have talented volunteers who are eager to share knowledge to help us create a better environment -right now. They can teach us how to ride a bike. Or fix it. Or fix your grandmother’s shopping cart. Or teach us how to grow vegetables or flowers or fruits. Or how to compost. Or knit a sweater or sew a shirt. Or read or write. Or make a poem. Or organize the tenants in your building. We have many skills here: across class, race, age, schooling and gender. Could we use park buildings as central clearinghouses for taking concrete actions? Could we site technological think tanks here that point us towards a sustainable future? Could parks become models of sustainability?
What if we show youth some options? Insist on possibility despite our own exhaustion and discouragement? Stop telling them what THEY should do and instead show them what WE will do? What if we make a decision to stand on behalf of our children and our planet? Apply sustainability to sustaining our environment AND our youth?
Can we use our combined talents and power to shift our focus to solving crisis and not waste time finding fault, blaming others, doing nothing or talking endlessly?
It has been done. The Delancey SDR Park building was reopened in the 1980’s because this community fought for it. The building had sat empty, with no park funding. It now houses the BRC’s senior nutrition center. M’Finda Kalunga Garden, Stanton CSA, SDR Coalition, Community Board 3, Parks Department and others meet there. It is a beehive of activity. Generous hard-working staff and seniors have created an oasis of caring in our park – on a shoestring budget. This building bristles with joy and purpose.
We can do it again.
We have active interest in re-energizing park buildings from our Council Member, Community Board 3, the neighbors, local funders and not-for-profits. We have ongoing efforts to survey the buildings and the neighbors as well as offers to maintain and program the building. We have interest expressed from the Parks Department.
Just as the erosion of our environment must be challenged now (because hurricanes and physics won’t wait) so we must pivot to take on the other urgent needs of this neighborhood. All our public resources must be fully used.
I’ve heard reasons why we can’t reopen the building. But for any of us who’ve witnessed the disaster of Sandy or the disaster of children dying on our streets- none of the reasons hold. I can’t imagine losing my child to such tragic foolishness but I also cannot imagine sitting by while OUR tragic foolishness says there is nothing we can do about it.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
"Biden And Ryan Share Faith, But Not Worldview"
Ryan: "..."The preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of Catholic social teaching, means: Don't keep people poor; don't make people dependent on government so they stay stuck in their station in life," Ryan told CBN. "Help people get out of poverty [and] on to a life of independence."...
K Webster from nyc
Biden is emblematic of his working class roots. He is not calculated and blurts what he thinks - a campaign manager's nightmare.
Ryan is emblematic of his upper class roots. He is polished and calculated -a campaign manager's dream.
I'll take the kinder version of Catholic - one that didn't grow up surrounded by privilege to arrive at a philosophy of self interest couched as valuing "independence". Ryan essentially asks, "Why can't you make it like I did"- never acknowledging that he didn't - that his parents financed his ladder to "success".
Biden, despite his years in politics, still has some of the sheen of working class values: that we help each other get a leg up. Especially in an economy that was just gutted by the Romney's of this world.
Ryan calls it charity - we call it help.
K Webster from nyc
Biden is emblematic of his working class roots. He is not calculated and blurts what he thinks - a campaign manager's nightmare.
Ryan is emblematic of his upper class roots. He is polished and calculated -a campaign manager's dream.
I'll take the kinder version of Catholic - one that didn't grow up surrounded by privilege to arrive at a philosophy of self interest couched as valuing "independence". Ryan essentially asks, "Why can't you make it like I did"- never acknowledging that he didn't - that his parents financed his ladder to "success".
Biden, despite his years in politics, still has some of the sheen of working class values: that we help each other get a leg up. Especially in an economy that was just gutted by the Romney's of this world.
Ryan calls it charity - we call it help.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Republican Women more targeted by sexism than Democratic women?
Opinion: Where the Ladies At, GOP?
"....Republican women are in a position of being the punching bag for media who love to hit. Michele Bachmann has her flaws but..."
my response:
K Webster from nyc
It is not acceptable and nor should it be tolerated to have any woman treated as less than fully human. It is hurtful and keeps every girl or adult woman from being ourselves and from lending our minds to creating solutions for our communities.
Sexism is run at any and every female, the more visible, the more she draws fire: focusing on a woman's hair, clothes, relationship to men, looks, motherhood status, perceived anger, perceived sexual appeal, etc. But Republican women are not more targeted by sexism than any other female. Hillary Clinton was viciously attacked as a female - remember?
As to the policies of some of the women the article focuses on - as a whole they are not helpful to most women (as mothers, workers, etc) in the lives we actually lead. Hence the party does not attract most women.
It's the policies of any party that is not attracting women's votes that need review. You can't posit a "special" victimhood for the women who uphold the values of a party that just doesn't have most women's interests at heart as an excuse for those policy failures.
"....Republican women are in a position of being the punching bag for media who love to hit. Michele Bachmann has her flaws but..."
my response:
K Webster from nyc
It is not acceptable and nor should it be tolerated to have any woman treated as less than fully human. It is hurtful and keeps every girl or adult woman from being ourselves and from lending our minds to creating solutions for our communities.
Sexism is run at any and every female, the more visible, the more she draws fire: focusing on a woman's hair, clothes, relationship to men, looks, motherhood status, perceived anger, perceived sexual appeal, etc. But Republican women are not more targeted by sexism than any other female. Hillary Clinton was viciously attacked as a female - remember?
As to the policies of some of the women the article focuses on - as a whole they are not helpful to most women (as mothers, workers, etc) in the lives we actually lead. Hence the party does not attract most women.
It's the policies of any party that is not attracting women's votes that need review. You can't posit a "special" victimhood for the women who uphold the values of a party that just doesn't have most women's interests at heart as an excuse for those policy failures.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Dining with Burlesque at The Bowery Poetry Club?
The Villager: BY K WEBSTER I like the Bowery Poetry Club. I wrote about this important arts space recently on my local blog, Bowery Gals.
I’m very concerned, however, about the club’s impending merger with Duane Park, a Tribeca restaurant with burlesque shows.
Apparently, the Poetry Club has featured artists’ versions of burlesque acts before. Artists try to reinvent old forms hoping to find a fresh edge, though you’d have to work pretty hard to transform this from hackneyed titillation/tired joke into a new thought.
Still, artists can try, and fail, and have it be an honest effort. But the idea of being treated to a steady diet of burlesque shows as part of a high-end dining experience is kind of creepy. It’s just different when you try to make something normal or hip or “just good fun,” when it actually exploits a group of people, in this, case women.
As money speaks louder and louder, the deluge of the sexual exploitation of women and girls grows in direct proportion: Beauty pageants that sexualized 5-year-old girls, millions of trafficked women around the world (and here), the pornography industry, billboard advertising provocatively posed young women (and boys) selling underwear (or anything), prostitution (trafficked women, poor women, child brides, addicted women, abused women, Village Voice ads for escort services, etc.), and all the other overt and subtle ways women’s bodies are sold for off-the-charts profit.
For those of us with children nearby (girls or boys) advertising as if it’s no big deal to have women taking off their clothes as part of the paying customers’ dining experience signals that it’s O.K. for women to be used like a side of parsley. It’s depressingly archaic and stupid, but no less damaging to any hope for a future of relaxed connection across gender.
I don’t blame women — however we figure out to survive sexism will be imperfect. I modeled in art school — for money — and was no less exploited because it had “art” attached to it. I’m also married, which is an institution begun out of the slavery of women.
I don’t think there is an individual solution that gets any of us out of this mess. But I don’t think we want to pretend that agreeing to have female bodies used as commodities is a real choice or a choice without consequence for women. The offer of pseudo-power to manipulate men’s loneliness while being taken advantage of is not agency. There just isn’t a level playing field in gender dynamics. We live in a context of the economic domination of women by men, driven by men (no matter who fronts it).
And men have to take an unflinching look at their participation in the sex industries — i.e., porn has real victims. You don’t want to settle for counterfeit closeness or momentary relief when it comes at the expense of someone else. It is hurtful to women and to men to have the human need for closeness tied to money.
In a culture that increasing targets anything and anyone for profit, we can’t — in the comfort of liberalism — claim that asking women to sell their bodies isn’t harmful. It has to be challenged for what it is: the sexual exploitation of a vulnerable group for the profit of others.
Until women earn the same as men, find employment and respect in any field, are in positions of power in proportion to our numbers, walk down the street without getting surveyed like a piece of meat, are free from the threat of rape or trafficking, until it’s O.K. for men and boys to be close without being ridiculed, until gay oppression ends… enterprises, even those with a posh veneer, that cash in on exposing women’s bodies for profit, just aren’t O.K.
Poetry Club, please rethink this.
I’m very concerned, however, about the club’s impending merger with Duane Park, a Tribeca restaurant with burlesque shows.
Apparently, the Poetry Club has featured artists’ versions of burlesque acts before. Artists try to reinvent old forms hoping to find a fresh edge, though you’d have to work pretty hard to transform this from hackneyed titillation/tired joke into a new thought.
Still, artists can try, and fail, and have it be an honest effort. But the idea of being treated to a steady diet of burlesque shows as part of a high-end dining experience is kind of creepy. It’s just different when you try to make something normal or hip or “just good fun,” when it actually exploits a group of people, in this, case women.
As money speaks louder and louder, the deluge of the sexual exploitation of women and girls grows in direct proportion: Beauty pageants that sexualized 5-year-old girls, millions of trafficked women around the world (and here), the pornography industry, billboard advertising provocatively posed young women (and boys) selling underwear (or anything), prostitution (trafficked women, poor women, child brides, addicted women, abused women, Village Voice ads for escort services, etc.), and all the other overt and subtle ways women’s bodies are sold for off-the-charts profit.
For those of us with children nearby (girls or boys) advertising as if it’s no big deal to have women taking off their clothes as part of the paying customers’ dining experience signals that it’s O.K. for women to be used like a side of parsley. It’s depressingly archaic and stupid, but no less damaging to any hope for a future of relaxed connection across gender.
I don’t blame women — however we figure out to survive sexism will be imperfect. I modeled in art school — for money — and was no less exploited because it had “art” attached to it. I’m also married, which is an institution begun out of the slavery of women.
I don’t think there is an individual solution that gets any of us out of this mess. But I don’t think we want to pretend that agreeing to have female bodies used as commodities is a real choice or a choice without consequence for women. The offer of pseudo-power to manipulate men’s loneliness while being taken advantage of is not agency. There just isn’t a level playing field in gender dynamics. We live in a context of the economic domination of women by men, driven by men (no matter who fronts it).
And men have to take an unflinching look at their participation in the sex industries — i.e., porn has real victims. You don’t want to settle for counterfeit closeness or momentary relief when it comes at the expense of someone else. It is hurtful to women and to men to have the human need for closeness tied to money.
In a culture that increasing targets anything and anyone for profit, we can’t — in the comfort of liberalism — claim that asking women to sell their bodies isn’t harmful. It has to be challenged for what it is: the sexual exploitation of a vulnerable group for the profit of others.
Until women earn the same as men, find employment and respect in any field, are in positions of power in proportion to our numbers, walk down the street without getting surveyed like a piece of meat, are free from the threat of rape or trafficking, until it’s O.K. for men and boys to be close without being ridiculed, until gay oppression ends… enterprises, even those with a posh veneer, that cash in on exposing women’s bodies for profit, just aren’t O.K.
Poetry Club, please rethink this.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
The Nation: You Swipe Card, Banks Swipe Cash by GEORGE ZORNICK
"Earlier this month, we reported on the Senate battle over "swipe fees," which banks charge merchants for processing credit or debit cards. It appeared the story was over, and an effort by banks to maintain high swipe fees was vanquished — but an eleventh-hour action by the Federal Reserve Wednesday has given Wall Street yet another astonishing victory in Washington...."
K Webster (Bowerygals) wrote:
So these "goods and services" are deserving of off-the-charts profits while middle, working and poor people just keep spiraling into debt? Please please don't try to sell that "trickle down" competition-will-solve-all-our-problems-speak!
Predatory capitalism is not enshrined in the US Constitution. It's a flawed economic system that was good at some things and those things are not compensating for where it's running off the rails now. It's not holy and it is not working. You can't continue to get profit off of people who have no income and the earth can't tolerate much more of the rapacious hunt for pristine "markets".
No one gets to be secure under this system. Obviously the very wealthy aren't or they wouldn't keep trying to make money they cannot spend in their or their children's children's lifetimes. Check out the NYTimes article on the 23% pay raise of the top CEO's while entire countries and states are going bankrupt.
This is just getting stupid.
K Webster (Bowerygals) wrote:
So these "goods and services" are deserving of off-the-charts profits while middle, working and poor people just keep spiraling into debt? Please please don't try to sell that "trickle down" competition-will-solve-all-our-problems-speak!
Predatory capitalism is not enshrined in the US Constitution. It's a flawed economic system that was good at some things and those things are not compensating for where it's running off the rails now. It's not holy and it is not working. You can't continue to get profit off of people who have no income and the earth can't tolerate much more of the rapacious hunt for pristine "markets".
No one gets to be secure under this system. Obviously the very wealthy aren't or they wouldn't keep trying to make money they cannot spend in their or their children's children's lifetimes. Check out the NYTimes article on the 23% pay raise of the top CEO's while entire countries and states are going bankrupt.
This is just getting stupid.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Walcott: Don't Penalize Parents Who Raise Money for Their Schools
"Walcott: Don't Penalize Parents Who Raise Money for Their Schools
June 22, 2012, 6:37 p.m.
By KYLE SPENCER
As the gap between middle-class and poor public schools widens because of differing results from parent fund-raising, the city’s Department of Education is directing principals to a fund that was set up to deal with such disparities...."
K Webster
The frenzy of fundraising distorts the purpose of a Parents Association. This should be an organization dedicated to getting resources to parents so they can better think about their children. But, instead of gathering to support one another in the outrageously complex task of caring for societies young, already exhausted parents feel the obligation to find money for their school. Or their lives are so overwhelming they give up and watch as their next generation is forgotten - again.
Institutions set up to educate the next generation are everyone's business - tax those who benefited from this system. The growing disparities are in no ones best interest.
June 22, 2012, 6:37 p.m.
By KYLE SPENCER
As the gap between middle-class and poor public schools widens because of differing results from parent fund-raising, the city’s Department of Education is directing principals to a fund that was set up to deal with such disparities...."
K Webster
The frenzy of fundraising distorts the purpose of a Parents Association. This should be an organization dedicated to getting resources to parents so they can better think about their children. But, instead of gathering to support one another in the outrageously complex task of caring for societies young, already exhausted parents feel the obligation to find money for their school. Or their lives are so overwhelming they give up and watch as their next generation is forgotten - again.
Institutions set up to educate the next generation are everyone's business - tax those who benefited from this system. The growing disparities are in no ones best interest.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Living by the Clock of the World: Grace Lee Boggs’ Call for Visionary Organizing By: Matthew Birkhold Date Published: April 17, 2012
"...Grace Lee Boggs recently told .. activists should turn our backs on protest organizing because it “leads you more and more to defensive operations” and “Do visionary organizing” because it “gives you the opportunity to encourage the creative capacity in people and it’s very fulfilling.” ... ...we need to understand ... historical perspective ...also need to understand how visionary organizing differs from protest organizing...the way history develops means that ideas that were progressive or even revolutionary in one era, can become mental roadblocks to progress in another era. ... Rebellion, Revolution & the Clock of the World ...the present is the culmination of thousands of years of human responses to structural conditions. These responses include consent to state policies, rebellion against them, and revolutions. In the development of human history, ...rebellions were important because, contrary to consent, they represented moments when oppressed people stood up to assert their humanity by protesting what society has done to them. .. They do not yet see themselves responsible for reorganizing society, which is what revolutionary social forces must do.” ... ...revolutions create new societies because they begin with “projecting the notion of a more human human being” whose development has been limited by structural conditions. Revolutions ...create societies more conducive to human development. A revolution is not for the purpose of resolving past injustice. ... ...Grace and James asked, “What time is it on the clock of the world?” They answered by visualizing 3,000 years of human history on a clock where every minute represented fifty years and argued that the age of revolutions was only four or five minutes old. Scientific revolutionary thinking, as represented by Marx and Engels, was just wo minutes old, and the epoch of global revolution represented by the anticolonial struggles of the 1950s-60s was a mere thirty seconds old. In 1974, the US Civil Rights Movement began merely 15 seconds ago..."Wonderful read. Thank you. It makes me rethink the question: How much is "enough"? Capitalism breeds insecurity for everyone, even the wealthiest of the wealthy, so greed and confusion ensue in a fruitless effort to quench a bottomless pit of fear for survival. It doesn't matter that someone has twenty mansions -there is no security in this system. So how do any of us truly understand that whatever "comfort" we try to buy it won't work? There is no "back door" to get out of class oppression. As long as anyone is targeted everyone is vulnerable. We probably all have to shift our mind set to a search for having the largest, most human life possible. Not look for "formulas" for what we should "sacrifice". For those currently in poverty (either by global or US standards) "enough" might mean "more". For the middle/owning class it will mean "less". For those of us who have any class privilege it is key to uproot our own fears of survival and honestly take on our own confusions. It is helpful to remember that for the poor, survival has often depended on helping each other and on building relationships - they know this. We have a lot to learn from this group. As someone who was raised poor I remember well the feeling as a child that it must be okay with society that my family was on the edge. How do we make it concretely clear to people that we see what is going on and it is NOT okay with us. Not just ask them to "live simply" or to "sacrifice" or tell them they are "privileged" compared to the rest of the world. We have to acknowledge the terror of living so close to that edge. It would be useful to notice that all of us tried to navigate this ruthless system with the tools we were raised with. Now, we have a chance to challenge it with fresh thinking and a fierce refusal to participate blindly. And not fall into the trap of unawarely buying into the ethos of this brutal system by an intention to target any human with destruction. This system is already on a juggernaut towards it's own self-destruction. We can guide it's demise as best we can. We each get to take seriously our "responsibility for reorganizing society" so that we can finally try to be a "more human human being".
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Timothy Dolan Authorized Payments to Abusive Priests, Documents Show
"Cardinal Timothy Dolan approved payments to suspected pedophile priests to leave the ministry when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee, new documents reveal..."
K Webster from nyc
Paying off an abuser so he can go elsewhere to molest other (not-Catholic?) unsuspecting children is NOT the high moral ground...despite the very excellent cost savings to the Church. I do believe Jesus would have not have weighed the financial costs to the Church but the moral ones. And his brand of justice looked quite different.
It is breathtaking how entitled this male dominated institution and it's mouthpieces harbor, reward and/or protect child molesting priests- all the while harassing Sisters who work behalf of the poor for being too "radical" on women's issues. These men have the temerity to claim the right to control women's bodies when they clearly cannot control their own nor their brother priests.
Abortion is not an easy choice for any woman - and men who have the gall to assume a high moral tone don't risk their lives to bear children. Take on the men in your ranks for their transgressions and we'll be more apt to listen to your issues with ours!
As for NPR bias, this news organization did stories on several examples of institutionalized pedophilia. Deal with the issue -not your feelings of victimization. k webster from NYC Sorry Ed from Larchmont, but even if you are right, this is still inexcusable. The Church is known for being authoritarian when it chooses. It could have immediately removed these men to a place where they wouldn't be in contact with children. There was no "rush" in that sense. Why didn't the Church hierarchy set up a center-away from children- to help them? Invariably these men had been targeted as children themselves. Instead, after the damage was done, they rid themselves of these clearly troubled men and sent them off to prey on other children. This didn't "end their obligations" - to anyone. How in any sense was this a morally acceptable solution?
K Webster from nyc
Paying off an abuser so he can go elsewhere to molest other (not-Catholic?) unsuspecting children is NOT the high moral ground...despite the very excellent cost savings to the Church. I do believe Jesus would have not have weighed the financial costs to the Church but the moral ones. And his brand of justice looked quite different.
It is breathtaking how entitled this male dominated institution and it's mouthpieces harbor, reward and/or protect child molesting priests- all the while harassing Sisters who work behalf of the poor for being too "radical" on women's issues. These men have the temerity to claim the right to control women's bodies when they clearly cannot control their own nor their brother priests.
Abortion is not an easy choice for any woman - and men who have the gall to assume a high moral tone don't risk their lives to bear children. Take on the men in your ranks for their transgressions and we'll be more apt to listen to your issues with ours!
As for NPR bias, this news organization did stories on several examples of institutionalized pedophilia. Deal with the issue -not your feelings of victimization. k webster from NYC Sorry Ed from Larchmont, but even if you are right, this is still inexcusable. The Church is known for being authoritarian when it chooses. It could have immediately removed these men to a place where they wouldn't be in contact with children. There was no "rush" in that sense. Why didn't the Church hierarchy set up a center-away from children- to help them? Invariably these men had been targeted as children themselves. Instead, after the damage was done, they rid themselves of these clearly troubled men and sent them off to prey on other children. This didn't "end their obligations" - to anyone. How in any sense was this a morally acceptable solution?
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
The Bowery Poetry Club, etc...
There is still a bit of wild wonder left to the Bowery and its environs. Not the showy, frenetic kind that’s manufactured for us now. But the authentic kind that grows out of the hard –won, steady efforts of an artist insisting on showing their mind. Not hoping for fame or money in that moment, just working because you have to try once more to feel that alive: on the edge of what you know and what your willing to dare not to know.
A few Sundays ago Bowery Poetry Club held a reading of Daniel Wolff’s work. He’s one of those guys who everyone wants to know- so easy going and personable it can almost make you forget that he is also a delicate thinker of deep intelligence and heart. These were bird poems. Just that. Gorgeous and true, they gently communicate an awe of these creatures and a terrible pity for the rest of us. The humor: wry, sly and deliberate. And an almost imperceptible joy that slips out between the lines. It is such a relief to be required to pay close attention to grasp the meaning of something.
The poems were read by a unique cast of artist and activist voices: John Sayles, Maggie Renzi, Michelle Montas, Dennis Boutsikaris, and Jonathon Demme, among others. It was lovely to hear the variations on Daniel’s “voice” and to hear what each found in the work. Humbling to watch the more famous among us get so beautifully behind the poems -everyone making way for the words they were asked to steward in that moment.
You want to read the poems again in the quiet, when nothing else is tugging at you.
It was followed by a preview of Jonathon Demme’s unflinching documentary about the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans (Daniel co-produced). Told through the lens of one of its citizen’s, Caroline Parker, it is an elegant reminder of why we build community - our only real power. And like everything Daniel tends to be involved with – imbued with a willingness to see what they were looking at.
That night reminded me of what I love about this neighborhood. Like how a few years back, Loudon Wainwright held an unannounced (to the public) busking for his new collection –High Wide & Handsome- The Charlie Poole Project. If you were lucky you happened upon this wondrous event - free and there for the taking. There they were, playing and singing their hearts out in the scruffy backyard of a low-income senior nutrition center. So much sheer joy and mischief- you can’t make that up - you either feel it or you don’t.
(High Wide and Handsome clip)
And then there was discovering Steve Elson and Erik Friedlander, music heavyweights, pouring out soulful sax/clarinet and cello sounds respectively in nearby M’Finda Kalunga Garden. Playing full out for a local public school in a sukkah (with its required “roof open to the skies”) for the Jewish harvest festival. The music simply enveloped neighbors out for a stroll, drawing them to the fence with the passionate and deeply human echoes of Jewish life.
Or those brass players who suddenly appear on Rivington Street to make rowdy upbeat sounds together, just for the thrill of it.
The Bowery Poetry Club anchors the arts community by insisting that poetry and music are not a luxury, but an essential that everyone is entitled to. Art is one way people thrive and think afresh. This neighborhood can still surprise you in this way: artists doing their work and generously giving it to anyone who will stop by long enough to pay attention.
I’d like our arts institutions (not just those funded by hedge fund guys) – but our places -to be preserved and protected so that our culture – working artists’ culture- is not forgotten or smoothed over. And offered to anyone who will dare to notice.
K Webster
A few Sundays ago Bowery Poetry Club held a reading of Daniel Wolff’s work. He’s one of those guys who everyone wants to know- so easy going and personable it can almost make you forget that he is also a delicate thinker of deep intelligence and heart. These were bird poems. Just that. Gorgeous and true, they gently communicate an awe of these creatures and a terrible pity for the rest of us. The humor: wry, sly and deliberate. And an almost imperceptible joy that slips out between the lines. It is such a relief to be required to pay close attention to grasp the meaning of something.
The poems were read by a unique cast of artist and activist voices: John Sayles, Maggie Renzi, Michelle Montas, Dennis Boutsikaris, and Jonathon Demme, among others. It was lovely to hear the variations on Daniel’s “voice” and to hear what each found in the work. Humbling to watch the more famous among us get so beautifully behind the poems -everyone making way for the words they were asked to steward in that moment.
You want to read the poems again in the quiet, when nothing else is tugging at you.
It was followed by a preview of Jonathon Demme’s unflinching documentary about the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans (Daniel co-produced). Told through the lens of one of its citizen’s, Caroline Parker, it is an elegant reminder of why we build community - our only real power. And like everything Daniel tends to be involved with – imbued with a willingness to see what they were looking at.
That night reminded me of what I love about this neighborhood. Like how a few years back, Loudon Wainwright held an unannounced (to the public) busking for his new collection –High Wide & Handsome- The Charlie Poole Project. If you were lucky you happened upon this wondrous event - free and there for the taking. There they were, playing and singing their hearts out in the scruffy backyard of a low-income senior nutrition center. So much sheer joy and mischief- you can’t make that up - you either feel it or you don’t.
(High Wide and Handsome clip)
And then there was discovering Steve Elson and Erik Friedlander, music heavyweights, pouring out soulful sax/clarinet and cello sounds respectively in nearby M’Finda Kalunga Garden. Playing full out for a local public school in a sukkah (with its required “roof open to the skies”) for the Jewish harvest festival. The music simply enveloped neighbors out for a stroll, drawing them to the fence with the passionate and deeply human echoes of Jewish life.
Or those brass players who suddenly appear on Rivington Street to make rowdy upbeat sounds together, just for the thrill of it.
The Bowery Poetry Club anchors the arts community by insisting that poetry and music are not a luxury, but an essential that everyone is entitled to. Art is one way people thrive and think afresh. This neighborhood can still surprise you in this way: artists doing their work and generously giving it to anyone who will stop by long enough to pay attention.
I’d like our arts institutions (not just those funded by hedge fund guys) – but our places -to be preserved and protected so that our culture – working artists’ culture- is not forgotten or smoothed over. And offered to anyone who will dare to notice.
K Webster
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Catholic group criticizes Paul Ryan - Politico
Cardinal Dolan weighing in on Republican's devasting policies for the poor -
guess whose side he's on?
Apr. 14, 2012 - 9:43 AM EST
Just compare the two quotes.
From the Catholic group "Faith in Public Life":
“Simply put, this budget is morally indefensible and betrays Catholic principles of solidarity, just taxation and a commitment to the common good. A budget that turns its back on the hungry, the elderly and the sick while giving more tax breaks to the wealthiest few can’t be justified in Christian terms...”
and Dolan:
"...commending the Wisconsin Republicans’ “continued attention” to Catholic social justice “in the current delicate budget considerations in Congress,” and praising his attention to fiscal responsibility, the role of the family, the dignity of human life and attention to the poor."
Just asking...
Since when does a righteous moral stance require consideration of "delicate budget considerations"?
Which statement could you hear coming out of Jesus's mouth?
guess whose side he's on?
Apr. 14, 2012 - 9:43 AM EST
Just compare the two quotes.
From the Catholic group "Faith in Public Life":
“Simply put, this budget is morally indefensible and betrays Catholic principles of solidarity, just taxation and a commitment to the common good. A budget that turns its back on the hungry, the elderly and the sick while giving more tax breaks to the wealthiest few can’t be justified in Christian terms...”
and Dolan:
"...commending the Wisconsin Republicans’ “continued attention” to Catholic social justice “in the current delicate budget considerations in Congress,” and praising his attention to fiscal responsibility, the role of the family, the dignity of human life and attention to the poor."
Just asking...
Since when does a righteous moral stance require consideration of "delicate budget considerations"?
Which statement could you hear coming out of Jesus's mouth?
Monday, April 9, 2012
Cardinal Dolan's Faith and Politics
WNYC News Blog
Cardinal Timothy Dolan Says Faith Has a Place in Politics
Sunday, April 08, 2012 - 04:37 PM
By The Associated Press
Comment from K Webster:
What exactly was Sen. Santorum's "good point" on Kennedy's speech? Kennedy, faced with tremendous anti-Catholic bias, chose to uphold the best of what the US tries to be: a place of religious tolerance where no one religion holds sway over any other -while never ever disavowing his own faith.
As to Dolan's views on contraception, it never fails to amaze how the Catholic Church feels no hesitation to find comfort in US law when it suits. Like filing for bankruptcy to avoid paying settlements to children who were sexually abused by their priests and subpoenaing those victims' organizations. But claims it's a violation of religious freedom to provide equal treatment to women for health care -as our laws would stipulate or claims it's a violation of "sovereign immunity" to be required to report the crimes of pedophiles to the authorities -as our laws would stipulate.
The Church hierarchy, dominated by men and male culture, has clearly demonstrated they have no ability to think outside of their own self-interests. They would willingly risk women's lives, health and ability to determine their own futures as mothers, they exploit the labor of nuns, lie for and protect victimizers, harass organizations who defend the victims of their priest's abuse and shield themselves from any responsibility. All to hold onto earthly power and prestige.
Far from washing the feet the survivors of abuse as did the Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Ireland, Dolan and his brethren instead attack U.S. elected officials who intend to insure women have equal access to health care and uphold our laws that would have criminals brought to justice.
Dolan says: "U.S government is engaged in a "dramatic, radical intrusion of a government bureaucracy into the internal life of the church" ...
Your own base has been calling out loud and clear -perhaps you are in need some dramatic radical intrusion?
Zuccotti Park Owners Were Right to Eject OWS Protesters: Judge?
WNYC News Blog
Zuccotti Park Owners Were Right to Eject OWS Protesters: Judge
Monday, April 09, 2012 - 11:14 AM
By WNYC Newsroom
Protesters face off with police after the police in riot gear removed the protesters early in the morning from Zuccotti Park on November 15.
The owners of Zuccotti Park, Brookfield Properties, were within their rights to eject protesters from the park last November in order to clean it, a Manhattan judge ruled last week.
The judge issued his ruling Friday as he refused to dismiss trespassing, disorderly conduct and other charges against an Occupy Wall Street protester.
The judge wrote that "it is clear that when the defendant was ordered by the police to vacate the park, he was not legally entitled to refuse."
The judge further ruled that there was no evidence that Brookfield's move was applied to the defendant and other protesters because of a disagreement with their message.
With the Associated Press
Comments [1]
K Webster from NYC:
The "Law"...
Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place. - Mahatma Gandhi
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. - Thomas Jefferson
Possession isn't nine-tenths of the law. It's nine-tenths of the problem. - John Lennon
For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future. - John F. Kennedy
Apr. 09 2012 01:57 PM
Zuccotti Park Owners Were Right to Eject OWS Protesters: Judge
Monday, April 09, 2012 - 11:14 AM
By WNYC Newsroom
Protesters face off with police after the police in riot gear removed the protesters early in the morning from Zuccotti Park on November 15.
The owners of Zuccotti Park, Brookfield Properties, were within their rights to eject protesters from the park last November in order to clean it, a Manhattan judge ruled last week.
The judge issued his ruling Friday as he refused to dismiss trespassing, disorderly conduct and other charges against an Occupy Wall Street protester.
The judge wrote that "it is clear that when the defendant was ordered by the police to vacate the park, he was not legally entitled to refuse."
The judge further ruled that there was no evidence that Brookfield's move was applied to the defendant and other protesters because of a disagreement with their message.
With the Associated Press
Comments [1]
K Webster from NYC:
The "Law"...
Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place. - Mahatma Gandhi
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. - Thomas Jefferson
Possession isn't nine-tenths of the law. It's nine-tenths of the problem. - John Lennon
For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future. - John F. Kennedy
Apr. 09 2012 01:57 PM
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Mula's Story
Mula’s Story
Mula, a devout Muslim, came of age during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. While battles were waged in the countryside, he taught children at the local madrasah (school). At 14, Mula was one of the few literate people in his village.
As the Russian army approached, the slightly built but fiercely loyal boy wanted to join the resistance. He abandoned teaching in defense of his country. Overwhelmed by the well-armed attackers, he was badly wounded. A brave uncle dragged the barely alive boy to safety. Though Mula’s injuries were severe, he had to be moved frequently — just ahead of the advancing Russian army. There was no time to let his family know what happened.
His father was determined to learn if his beloved son was alive. He saddled his mule and rode for miles, searching over mountainous terrain. He finally discovered his injured child in a hospital run by French doctors. Upon arriving at his son’s bedside, the once-determined father fainted at the sight of Mula’s wound.
Though gravely injured and far from home and family, what grieved Mula was seeing his elderly father weakened and disheartened.
Mula’s leg was shattered and a section of bone was missing. In order to heal or walk again, his father knew his son had to leave Afghanistan. The father bribed a taxi driver to take Mula cross-country, past three Russian checkpoints and through the Khyber Pass. Mula finally made his way to a Pakistani medical center and refugee camp.
After spending a year in the camp, braving persistent visits to the Red Cross and enduring terrible pain, a United States bone specialist saw his file and felt he knew what to do with the injury. The doctor’s own family had fled Latvia during the Russian invasion years before. Mula was brought to the U.S. for necessary medical treatments. He spent months in a rehabilitation facility. Lying in a hospital bed, he learned English by watching cartoons.
A local town business arranged for his health insurance. Two years and two American families later, another family took him in and helped him get his green card. Sadly, he could not return to Afghanistan as long as the Russian army remained.
I asked Amy, Mula’s “foster” mom, how they became family.
“Mula came to us through our church, … the wife of our minister … appealed to the Mission and Action Committee to have the church sponsor him so he could stay in this country…. We had a large farm house and after talking it over, my husband and I asked to meet him.”
Were there any fears about taking him in?
“… With a son in third grade I was very concerned about how this young man who had endured war, been physically wounded, and possibly emotionally scarred, would influence our own beloved son.”
And then?
“When he walked through the door of the church sitting room and looked at us with warmth and hope and openness… I knew it would be all right. And it was more than all right. Mula gave our family at least as much as we gave him.”
The family soon deepened its commitment and trust in one another. Mula said, “My life will never be the same because I knew them.”
Years later, Mula joined the U.S. government in an effort to fight al-Qaeda. He lost many friends in the struggle, including the brave uncle who pulled him to safety.
He married, had a family and settled down in the United States. A short time ago he reached out to help American friends who were struggling to raise their granddaughter. His close relationship, love and respect for the entire family enabled him to offer and be accepted to parent the child.
“[Mula] has kept his faith strong and his heart open,” Amy said.
He is now off to Afghanistan, risking his life in the ongoing battleground. He wants his homeland free.
“I think Mula is an epitome of the American story,” Amy said. “He’s an example of what I hope America means to the world.”
* names have been changed to protect privacy of subjects
About the Author:
Kathleen Webster is a community organizer in New York City’s lower Manhattan. She is the Co-Chair of an activist community garden on the Lower East Side and the Chair of the Chinatown Working Group’s Education and Schools Working Team. She is an artist, organizer, former construction worker, mom, wife, and daughter and proud of her working class Buffalo roots.
Losing Bialystoker; Losing the Love in L.E.S.
Losing Bialystoker home; Losing the love in L.E.S.
March 1, 2012 | Filed under: Talking Point |
BY K WEBSTER | Every life matters or none do.
My mother battled with Alzheimer’s disease for over almost six years while living with my family. She has now lived in a nursing home for more than a year. She has severe dementia and her body is twisted into contortions called “contractions.” It’s a yoga pose that she could never have done, even in her youth. She struggles to communicate in a language that she is no longer in command of and a memory that can’t remember. In this last period, she was admitted into hospice care, which means she is leaving this earthly life soon.
Nurses and aides now do what I used to do. They daily perform the most intimate tasks of care. Their generosity and compassion is boundless and unstinting. They have become family to us. They go the extra mile on her behalf. I love these women with all my heart. In the words of that football coach: “I’d go to war with these [women]”. And they are in a “war” with bedsore wounds that could make a soldier cringe. Their goodness is exploited. They know it, but continue to make the human choice to stay big-hearted. Most come from cultures that still think that caring for elders is a sacred obligation. Lucky for us that they do.
So far, she has beaten the odds. She pulled out of the last decline, her wounds healed (the doctor could not believe it). We strung Christmas lights in her room and kept adding to them every day until now we are in danger of blowing a fuse. They are spectacular. She wakes up and her face brightens and she says, “Oh my,” or “Those are beautiful little adults.” The words aren’t “right” but they convey the message clearly.
It’s tempting to laugh when she makes “mistakes” with the phrases she comes up with. But we don’t. It is such an openhearted effort. The kind a small child makes: tender, not cautious or careful, but daring and wonderful and human. It is a gift to be with her. It’s a pause from the world of “important business.” We get to remember how astonishing life is. It has never been clearer to me that each of us has a chance to be fully alive at any moment. With dementia you live in the moment because the last moment is forgotten — though the feel of connection remains. Present joys are precious — what Virginia Woolf called “Moments of Being.”
What I find most heartening is her reaction to people who enter her room. She says, “I love you” or “I love him” or “You are my favorite dress.” She is pure love. Increasingly, any bitterness, sorrow, reproach drops away and she is left with pure love. It’s shockingly beautiful.
I want her to have a chance at her own fight to be alive “even” in this condition. (Ever notice the arrogance of the phrase “diminished” existence?) She seems to want to. And every morning that she wakes up with that twinkle in her eye (that easily matches that of the Christmas lights) is a victory. A bit of life well lived.
I was inspired to write this after seeing Millie Munschein’s photo in this newspaper’s Feb. 9 article “Last-ditch effort to landmark L.E.S. Bialystoker Home.” The image showed Millie speaking at an Aug. 2011 rally to save her home, the nursing home.
When I see Millie Mundschein I see my mother and your mother — all of us someday. I see the closing of the Bialystoker for what it is: a humiliating defeat for our community. And a shameful abuse of the elders who lived there.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
NYC needs the creativity of O.W.S.: The Villager
December 1, 2011 | Filed under: Notebook | Posted by: admin
BY K WEBSTER | You can tell that it’s time for a society to rethink itself when it justifies trashing books.
The destruction of the Occupy Wall Street encampment and its 5,000-book library raises many questions.
Like how exactly do you get free speech in a country where the ownership of the means to communicate is so grotesquely concentrated in the hands of the wealthy? Where corporations buy unlimited speech while people have to resort to cardboard signs?
And sorry, but whenever I hear too much moral outrage about private property rights in relation to Zuccotti Park I can’t help but think about whose backs those “rights” were historically and literally built on.
But I want to stick with the idea of books, the arts and ideas — this is, after all, New York City.
Where is New York’s gritty art scene? Where is its edgy, daring, life-loving, risk-taking self? Where are this generation’s Beat poets? It’s Harlem Renaissance? It’s Nuyorican Cafes? Where are the Abstract Expressionists? Where is this generation’s punk scene, jazz scene? Any arts scene?
Despite stereotypes to the contrary, artists and other thinkers flourish when they have peers nearby. That’s why we see so much tepid artwork these days — no one can afford to live here and build arts communities. No one can think flexibly, give voice to life’s complexity or gather courage to challenge what is known, in the face of isolation.
Mayor Bloomberg prides himself on his support of the arts. Yet probably the most stunning, provocative, intelligent, edgy work of human creativity to hit this town in a very long time was the Occupy Wall Street movement. Signage that is pure poetry, a library, puppeteers, photography, performance art, sculptural inventiveness (those bikes!), dance and language (those hand signals!). Messy, yes. Needing to work at being better neighbors, yes. But nothing worth creating is ever tidy. Artists have always struggled to fit in. It goes with the territory.
The removal of the O.W.S. encampment with its astonishing spark of life will haunt us. And while you can’t destroy an idea whose time has come, you can destroy communities. (Back to our history again.) And what is lost is incalculable. This community was earnestly trying to find solutions, to practice democracy and sustainability, and dusting off art forms to find their relevance. Ideas were being generated and tried out. Young people were trying to get a handle on their future.
Some of us passionately support O.W.S. because at least it is trying to grapple honestly, with humor and ingenuity, with the enormous mess created by the 1 percent in this country. It is an irony, a bitter irony, that in hollow and dishonest words, one of the wealthiest men in America claimed to be “protecting” us. From what exactly? Thinking?
It is a bitter irony that people who were trying to find our future were ordered evicted and arrested, while the people who literally stole our future were ordered guarded by our police force. An irony that a park, whose new rules must be obeyed, is cleared out in record time. But the stinking mass of corruption and theft that lies not two blocks from O.W.S. sits rotting for decades.
We are in serious trouble. We need ideas. But this mayor just evicted one of the most hopeful think tanks in generations.
BY K WEBSTER | You can tell that it’s time for a society to rethink itself when it justifies trashing books.
The destruction of the Occupy Wall Street encampment and its 5,000-book library raises many questions.
Like how exactly do you get free speech in a country where the ownership of the means to communicate is so grotesquely concentrated in the hands of the wealthy? Where corporations buy unlimited speech while people have to resort to cardboard signs?
And sorry, but whenever I hear too much moral outrage about private property rights in relation to Zuccotti Park I can’t help but think about whose backs those “rights” were historically and literally built on.
But I want to stick with the idea of books, the arts and ideas — this is, after all, New York City.
Where is New York’s gritty art scene? Where is its edgy, daring, life-loving, risk-taking self? Where are this generation’s Beat poets? It’s Harlem Renaissance? It’s Nuyorican Cafes? Where are the Abstract Expressionists? Where is this generation’s punk scene, jazz scene? Any arts scene?
Despite stereotypes to the contrary, artists and other thinkers flourish when they have peers nearby. That’s why we see so much tepid artwork these days — no one can afford to live here and build arts communities. No one can think flexibly, give voice to life’s complexity or gather courage to challenge what is known, in the face of isolation.
Mayor Bloomberg prides himself on his support of the arts. Yet probably the most stunning, provocative, intelligent, edgy work of human creativity to hit this town in a very long time was the Occupy Wall Street movement. Signage that is pure poetry, a library, puppeteers, photography, performance art, sculptural inventiveness (those bikes!), dance and language (those hand signals!). Messy, yes. Needing to work at being better neighbors, yes. But nothing worth creating is ever tidy. Artists have always struggled to fit in. It goes with the territory.
The removal of the O.W.S. encampment with its astonishing spark of life will haunt us. And while you can’t destroy an idea whose time has come, you can destroy communities. (Back to our history again.) And what is lost is incalculable. This community was earnestly trying to find solutions, to practice democracy and sustainability, and dusting off art forms to find their relevance. Ideas were being generated and tried out. Young people were trying to get a handle on their future.
Some of us passionately support O.W.S. because at least it is trying to grapple honestly, with humor and ingenuity, with the enormous mess created by the 1 percent in this country. It is an irony, a bitter irony, that in hollow and dishonest words, one of the wealthiest men in America claimed to be “protecting” us. From what exactly? Thinking?
It is a bitter irony that people who were trying to find our future were ordered evicted and arrested, while the people who literally stole our future were ordered guarded by our police force. An irony that a park, whose new rules must be obeyed, is cleared out in record time. But the stinking mass of corruption and theft that lies not two blocks from O.W.S. sits rotting for decades.
We are in serious trouble. We need ideas. But this mayor just evicted one of the most hopeful think tanks in generations.
O.W.S. pros outweigh cons: Downtown Express
To the Editor:
Last Thursday night I went down to an off-site sustainability meeting for Occupy Wall Street. Our community garden needs compost and they have it. It’s a win-win. As I walked to the bus I passed young adults in my neighborhood partying in a bar and at a well-heeled gallery opening. When I got to the meeting area there was an atrium full of young adults — and people of other ages — gathered in clusters strategizing about media, sustainability, sanitation, facilitation, education, etc. on behalf of O.W.S.
Did you know that after their generators were taken they hooked up bikes to batteries to power their electricity? Did you know they are looking into solar power and building a model wind generator? They are creating power-generation models that we might all need to know how to build someday. They are figuring out recycling. (City parks are not required to recycle.) They are composting, they have a gray water reclamation model. They are building possibilities for sustainability that as community gardeners we’ve been working toward for more than 30 years now.
On the Lower East Side, we still have a vibrant neighborhood: diverse, interesting and rich in culture and uniqueness. I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else.
But in my neighborhood another teenager was murdered a few weeks ago, despite the courageous attempts by his parents to organize against youth violence. One of the few remaining low-income senior homes was sold for luxury condos. Those longtime residents were scattered away from friends and families. More unemployed workers and fewer housing options for this community’s elderly resulted. I wish we had thought to “Occupy Bialystoker.”
As a parent, I know it’s hard to live next to noise and crowds. We’ve been subjected to an unending barrage of luxury construction on the Lower East Side and a high-end bar scene that has generated noise, murders and not a few wasted evenings spent trying to rein this scene in. We have seen a burgeoning of mindless wealth accumulation and the required mind-numbing activity that accompanies it. We have seen the despair in our low- and middle-income youth over the realization that they will never be a part of the American Dream while witnessing the relentless economic decline of their parents. Over-the-top wealth inequity is not news here.
If I had a choice between living with the (loud) sounds and inconveniences of youth organizing for a better world, trying to take charge of their futures, as well as the future of all of us, or living with the status quo — I know what my choice would be.
They are welcome next door to me. Bring it all. Drums too. Because I think it may be past time to end our silent consent to the travesties going on around us.
K Webster
Last Thursday night I went down to an off-site sustainability meeting for Occupy Wall Street. Our community garden needs compost and they have it. It’s a win-win. As I walked to the bus I passed young adults in my neighborhood partying in a bar and at a well-heeled gallery opening. When I got to the meeting area there was an atrium full of young adults — and people of other ages — gathered in clusters strategizing about media, sustainability, sanitation, facilitation, education, etc. on behalf of O.W.S.
Did you know that after their generators were taken they hooked up bikes to batteries to power their electricity? Did you know they are looking into solar power and building a model wind generator? They are creating power-generation models that we might all need to know how to build someday. They are figuring out recycling. (City parks are not required to recycle.) They are composting, they have a gray water reclamation model. They are building possibilities for sustainability that as community gardeners we’ve been working toward for more than 30 years now.
On the Lower East Side, we still have a vibrant neighborhood: diverse, interesting and rich in culture and uniqueness. I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else.
But in my neighborhood another teenager was murdered a few weeks ago, despite the courageous attempts by his parents to organize against youth violence. One of the few remaining low-income senior homes was sold for luxury condos. Those longtime residents were scattered away from friends and families. More unemployed workers and fewer housing options for this community’s elderly resulted. I wish we had thought to “Occupy Bialystoker.”
As a parent, I know it’s hard to live next to noise and crowds. We’ve been subjected to an unending barrage of luxury construction on the Lower East Side and a high-end bar scene that has generated noise, murders and not a few wasted evenings spent trying to rein this scene in. We have seen a burgeoning of mindless wealth accumulation and the required mind-numbing activity that accompanies it. We have seen the despair in our low- and middle-income youth over the realization that they will never be a part of the American Dream while witnessing the relentless economic decline of their parents. Over-the-top wealth inequity is not news here.
If I had a choice between living with the (loud) sounds and inconveniences of youth organizing for a better world, trying to take charge of their futures, as well as the future of all of us, or living with the status quo — I know what my choice would be.
They are welcome next door to me. Bring it all. Drums too. Because I think it may be past time to end our silent consent to the travesties going on around us.
K Webster
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Elizabeth Warren - hero
To Quote Elizabeth Warren:
"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there- good for you.
But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers
the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest
of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory...
Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a big hunk of
it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there- good for you.
But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers
the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest
of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory...
Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a big hunk of
it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
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