more jews

omg, i feel like i could write a thesis on this stuff- there is so much back and forth, so many articles and blog posts, and comments, and critiques, and critiques of critiques- i feel myself pulled to engage in it, even though it bothers me that so many wonderful (and less wonderful) people are wasting their time on it, when there are so many more important issues that jews need to be talking about. maybe i should have been around in the 60's-80's, when we weren't so goddamn concerned about ourselves. just let it lie!

but yet i feel drawn to comment!

and i should be working on my grad school applications and other more pressing, immediate issues. time to get my act together again. or do i want it together, anyway?

well, i'll work on a longer, thesis-like post about this (like the transit strike post which hopefully someone read [somone, if you're out there, please raise your hand :( ]), but in case i don't post until later,

happy new year to all, may it be filled with peace, health and happiness. i'll be partyin it up with darya and diana and maybe some other folks, but first tonight- fondue!

so i'm procrastinating with my grad school (MPH) applications, because i'm a bum and because i fucked up enough already so that my recommendations are going to be a bit later than i had hoped so my evil subconscious figures i might as well wait to finish the rest of it anyway. which is idiotic. but now i'm having second thoughts- i don't know, there are so many other things i'm interested in- and i just spent a fun filled day of looking up cool people and their organizations and thinking about cool non-profits i could start and building bridges between issues and people and organizations in my head (what i ALWAYS do that NEVER accomplishes anything) and now public health looks so, well....narrow. you know? but then i remind myself that i can always be involved with other things as a citizen, a lay person, but i'm just afraid that i won't really do it then. i'll just fall into the trapping of boring bourgeousie comfortable life that i'm falling into now, and that will be it. i haven't even gotten that involved in the co-op for god's sake.

in other news, yay- i found out that my friend eli might be going to public health too! (although he's a year younger than me, and i don;t think he's applying straight out of undergrad. is he?)

transit strike

well, i've spent the last 5 days worrying about whether there's going to be a transit strike, planning for such an event and listening to my boss (who lives 3 blocks from work) and others complain about how these people make plenty of money and have no right to strike, given that they don't seem to be exploited. and you know what?
they almost had me convinced.


but now the strike actually came, as i couldn't believe it actually would, until i went to bed last night thinking that it might actually be a reality. not 100% sure of what i was going to do, i ended up having a pretty easy time of it, ditching my plan of takign the LIRR to jamaica and back to penn and then catchign the special shuttle run by my hospital from 34th to 68th. instead, my roommate, who works for the parks department, got me a ride with her in a parks car that someone drove from prospect park up to their offices at 106th and central park, and then i just had to walk down from 96th st. it actually worked out really well for all of us- i got the ride, and i made the fourth person in their car, which allowed us to take the brooklyn battery tunnel into manhattan and we flew right through the tunnel and up the fdr; otherwise they would have to have gone through queens and up and around on the triboro, which supposedly had mad traffic. my worst tzuris was the fact that I picked this day, of all days, to forget my ipod headhones at home. we should all be so lucky for the duration of the strike.

i'm still a little bit torn, given that this incredibly powerful union is causing all of this trouble for workers who make a lot more money than many new yorkers, these being those also likely hardest hit by the strike (i.e. those payed by the day or the hour, not salaried). while i don't agree with bloomberg's bullshit claims that their actions are "morally reprehensible," i do wonder if they couldn't have just settled for binding arbitration.
i wish i was more knowledgable and understanding of the details of the issues, though, because i don't even know that much about things like arbitration, how they work, how things would have turned out for the MTA and our train conductors if that had been chosen as an acceptable solution.

The concerns I've been hearing are echoed in the comments posted on the transit workers union's blog, where many angry "anonymous" folks have been venting. However, a number of strikers and supporters have responded, also in the comments, raising good points like:

A question to all who condemn the strike should be: would you take this
job, at their pay and conditions?

And:

how about when you go to work, is there anybody taking a piss a few feet from you or maybe some pervert playing with himself. how about your bosses do they write you up for wearing scarves in the winter time or maybe take you off the job because your top button on your shirt is not buttoned?

Some of these same issues are raised today in a NYTimes article, in which Dr. Marian Swerdlow, an author and former train conductor says:

"The working conditions are more physically onerous, the treatment by managers
more disrespectful, and the abuse from the public more hurtful, than any other
group of public workers in the city experiences."

Also from the Times article, Dr. Snyder, an associate professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University in Newark:

"Transit workers, because of the schedules they work and the conditions they
work in, are often in industrial environments that most New Yorkers have left
behind a long time ago," said . The idea that a motorman has to scramble to
find a place to urinate on a busy day is not something most of us face on the
job."

The article's premise is that the TWU has both unique motives and power, because of the nature of the jobs and the power they have to fuck up the city without destroying it. While I agree with the anonymous commenter from the TWU blog who questioned whether critiques of the strike would fill their shoes for a day of working in the tunnels, I don't know if the extent of Swerdlow's remark can really be proven. While en masse, they may have to deal with some of the harshest least sightly things, I'm sure there are plenty of other government workers in equally bad conditions, with equally bad treatment. [Please correct me if I'm wrong.]

Much to my suprise, the Daily News' Juan Gonzalez has pointed out that this strike had been planned in impeccable detail, and was ready to go forward last week. The additional days only bought Touissaint more time to organize the strike and perhaps some slight bit of positive publicity, making him seem like more of a flexible guy. [Except I don't really buy Gonzalez's argument on that last point; I think the union seems even more unreasonable now, becasue the 4 days led to a better offer by the MTA, which they rejected, looking perhaps less flexible than ever.]

The intervening days since Thursday, did, however give Touissant and the TWU the ability to recruit support from other unions into their cause, although I think it would be totally absurd if any other unions including Metro-North or LIRR struck in "solidarity." Yes, I feel morally reprehensible for putting the word solidarity in quotations, and maybe it's my newly-salaried, rapidly-bourgouisifying-ass talking, but I don't see what that would accomplish. The strike obviously can't go on forever, although things will get REALLY fucking interesting if it lasts through Christmas or longer, and I don't see what additional striking workers will do except mess up everyone's lives, and cost both the city, the union and the workers lots of money. In the words of the fictitious (read: obscure West Wing reference coming) Dalton Millgate, "Screw the fruit loops, Sam."

But I was really in denial about all of this actually happening, and thus am surprised that it was really so well orchestrated by Touissant. I keep feeling surprised that they actually seem to be happy, that they are inflicting all of this on the city. While, it's not worthy of the extensive fines, it is very annoying, and the fines are still there for the union, and I don't see why they should be cheering, beyond being an example of the mob mentality. I didn't understand before how the city gets all of those workers to pay the steep fines, but then I felt very dumb when someone explained to me very simply that the union pays and then takes it out of their paychecks. which brings me to my next point- my unease with the fact that the board of the union gets decide on this strike for the thousands of members, some of whom may have practical or ideological objection to the strike. so, i've heard vague bits and pieces on websites, message boards and by word of mouth, about the ability of individuals to show up for work and strikebreak. having subscribed to the TWU's email list for updates a few weeks back, this evening i received a message from them (apparently the email list is supposed to only be for union members) with the following attached flyer:

"A message to any TWU Local 100 Member who is thinking of crossing the picket line from your 34,000 striking brothers and sisters: Think before you act. Is it worth it to lose your Union soul? Is it worth it to make 34,000 life-long enemies? Is it worth it to stab your co-workers in the back? In your heart, you know the answer is NO. Don't Do It."

(certain parts of which were written in huge, scary big block bold letters of at least font size 45.)

I will continue to ponder what I think of that. Meanwhile, more info available at Gothamist.
Good night from one of the Upper East Side, where I'm camping out at a friend's.

i just found this on a west wing message board in a message someone wrote a while back:

" After all, if not for Leo, Jed is a Dartmouth professor emeritus who used to be a politician, Sam is a frustrated lawyer, Toby's never won a political campaign, C.J.'s is a self-hating corporate spokeswoman, Charlie's followed his mother into a D.C. police cemetery, Donna's wondering why the cute Minority Leader of the Wisconsin House of Representatives has never noticed her, the nice blond on his staff, and Josh is a Congressman from Connecticut, 118th out of 200-odd Democrats in seniority, with no chance ever at a Committee Chairmanship, and has probably spent the last 7 years asking failed Presidential nominee Hoynes, "Why didn't you listen to me?""

uh, so sad. RIP John Spencer 1946-2005

brooklyn jews

yes, brooklyn jews is a new organization trying to bring more unaffiliateds into the fold in brooklyn, one of the organizations hostingthe dec 24 jewltide celebration in park slope. which you should come to. b/c i'll be there.

but for the purposes of this post:

i'm sitting in the central branch of the brooklyn public library reading a 1996 village voice article about queer/yiddish culture that i found while googling alicia svigals, the klezmatics former violinist, in an effort to try to find out more about her partner ellen and their children. [she's sort of an idol of mine since even before i had a klezmer violin lesson in her apartment when i was in high school.] i just heard her perform in the second floor meeting room of said public library- a highly disorganized chanukah klezmer concert with adrienne cooper, the unarguable foremost female yiddish vocalist at least in the US of A. meanwhile, two men with black kippot and beards sit across from me at this table doing some project on a dell computer while arguing in hebrew.

all of this i find very ironic- you know, the friction between the real jews of brooklyn, the jews that brooklynites of other ethnicities picture when they hear the word "jew," and the new jews of brooklyn, the ones looking for cheap rent in droves, the ones hosting or attending the aforementioned jewltide party at a club in park slope.

[Edit: I just finished the article and it's fucking amazing. you have to read it. it also reminds me of why i'm obessed with tony kushner and portnoy's complaint.]

i always have all these little thoughts and anecdotes as the day goes by that i want to post but by the time i get a round to it (i still have never gotten a "round tuit" although my old violin teacher had one on a bulletin board) i forget.

but for now-

so, i just checked my recent direct deposit into my savings account online, and i noticed it was lower than usual, so i checked my paycheck on the hr system: they've started deducting some extra NYC tax since i moved to brooklyn (i don't even remember telling them i had moved) of $30+ :( boo :( i wonder what that goes towards...

hmmm...

i just discovered that with the "company" discount, a new apple ibook is LESS than two-weeks salary (after taxes!)!

p.s. much more about my actual life and thoughts coming soon (i have at least 3 unposted drafts sitting around here on blogger.)

NOW check it out.

"they preach that i should save the world; they pray that i won't do a better job of it"

it's the 50th anniversary of the village voice!
too bad it was just sold to New Times Media.
apparently the print edition that i picked up this afternoon, full of clippings from the paper that was the last 50 years, beat the online edition which comes out tomorrow.

bullshit, i know. but somehow i feel that's somewhat appropriate or metaphorical, a representation of what the voice really is. as i sat skimming through the issue on the subway home from work about an hour ago, i wondered what had not changed in new york in the past 50 years besides the subway and the voice.

p.s. if you can name who's lyric i quoted in the title of this entry (without googlecheating), i'll get you a spare keepsake copy of the special 50th anniversary edition of the voice.

i keep wasting time at work. i need to stop looking up random things online so i can finish looking up a few patients' phone numbers and then go home and unpack so that maybe later i can spend some time looking up random things online.

oy vey

there's this african-american nurse where i work who constantly says things like "oy vey" and calls me "bubeleh." it's bizzare.

there's actually more to that story, but not now.
my life has gone to insane shit. and i mean insane.

so the move was postponed yet again this weekend, because the apt wasn't ready on sunday when it was supposed to. saturday consisted of me frantically trying to pack and figure out if i was buying a bed or not and move other large furniture around my house. however this only got crazier b/c the day went from- yes, i'm moving to: becca saw the apt and it's still a mess so no i'm not moving yet to: nicole spoke to the landlady who assured her it would be ready by sunday, so nicole is insisting on moving on sunday and in order to share the movers with her i have to move to. but then i was like, fuck this, i'm not moving tomorrow so she agreed to just bring a mattress and sleep there this week and she'd move the rest of her stuff next week.

needless to say, i got there on sunday jsut to check out the place and nicole came a little later but it was clearly in no condition to be slept in so she didn't stay in the end. it's a huge mess and they still have things left to do like painting and installing radiators, filling in a hole in the wall in my room, some painting and staining of doors, putting in the kitchen sink, and A LOT of clean up.

but wait. it gets MUY better. during those several days of craziness, every time i spoke to becca, she was more and more mad at nicole and complaining that nicole was treating her unfairly and violating her, that nicole never listens to her and just yells at her on the phone and she's having serious doubts about livign with nicole at all. i tried to reassure her that everything would be ok (on sat night) and then didn't speak to her again until last night (monday) when she called me.

she called me to tell me that she can't live with nicole and she's pulling out of the lease and getting a subletter before we even move in.
meanwhile, i had been having major doubts about moving for weeks, bc i'm still not sure i want to commit to living in ny for a full year. and i had discussed this with becca. but i assumed that i couldn't actually pull out of the lease a) because it would be incredibly unfair and b) b/c the lease says NO SUBLETS ARE ALLOWED!.

i told becca this- she claimed she hadn't read the part of the lease that said no sublets allowed. she's still insisting that she do this, and it was an incredibly hellish night, one of my worst ever although, i did eventually get to sleep.
i literally almost pulled my hair out. if there was some way i could get out of this, i would. i really would. somehow she's getting out of this, but i'm not allowed to?

i don't understand how anyone could do this, and it's just an unbareably confusing and upsetting thing. i'm so mad yet i keep crying uncontrollably.

MEANWHILE, i had a research meeting at work last week where the Dr. in charge of my study announced (to everyone's surprise) that he wants to end the study immediately and move on to the rest of data collection/analysis and writing the papers. nobody really knew what was going on and my boss said she'd speak to him (he's sort of scatterbrained and she does all the detail work) and see what the hell he was talking about and get back to me. so she just got back to me and said that he wants us to stop recruiting new patients (which is currently the majority of my job) at the end of this week and focus solely on data collection for the existing patients which he thinks is going to take a really long time.

neither my boss nor i quite know what that means yet, but it's going to be a big change for me.

sorry there was no humour in this post. ugh, i don't know what to do, and my life is a huge mess! help!

[murder?], she blogged

"we can save democracy
with the wealth only freedom can bring"

-rosie

shanah tova; the year ahead...

shanah tovah to you all! as this past tuesday and wednesday were the jewish holiday of rosh hashanah, which celebrates the beginning of the jewish year it seems that the past few weeks have included a lot of thinking about the future, especially the coming year and where i want to end up by next rosh hashanah. this has all happened sort of surreptitiously, though, interspersed between a lot that's been going on in my life. all of this is the same reason that i haven't gotten to post in several weeks; - an apartment search, a found apartment, a lease signing despite many doubts about the commitment-to-NY entailed by the signing of said lease, and a bunch of other stuff.

i took a few pictures at the 9.24 anti-war march in DC which i hope to post soon, as well as some of the numerous pictures i took of my niece while she and her parents visited for the holidays this week. but now i should get back to work and save the blog posting for my own time.

tomorrow morning i'm auditioning to be on jeopardy (keep on laughing; you're absolutely right) and the very vague and likely not actually happening plan is to move into the new place in brooklyn on sunday.

more to come.

but in the meantime, i'm still on all these listservs from cornell and elsewhere that i need to get off of, but i'm reluctant to do so. after seeing this website earlier today, i had an idea that instead of trying to continue to cull all of the interesting articles i receive and forward them on to individuals who might be interested, i could post them on this blog and comment :) i don't know why it's taken me this long to figure that out. as i sit and wonder how everyone else gets so much fodder for their blogs.

so here's the first one, taken from an email:


Happy Birthday Desmond Tutu!

From Wikipedia.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Desmond Mpilo Tutu (born October 7, 1931) is a South African cleric and
activist who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of
apartheid. Tutu was the first black South African Anglican Archbishop of
Cape Town, South Africa, and primate of the Church of the Province of
Southern Africa. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

"When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the
land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we
had the Bible and they had the land."

"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them."

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of
the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you
say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

"I don't preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were
hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I
feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread."

"We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot
for sinners. His standards are quite low."

"Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity."

"A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons."

"For goodness sake, will they hear, will white people hear what we are
trying to say? Please, all we are asking you to do is to recognize that we
are humans, too."

"I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the
table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of
rights."

"Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a
favor; they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor,
and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious
systems."


http://www.afrol.com/articles/13584
http://www.afrol.com/articles/11404
http://iafrica.com/news/sa/820912.htm
http://www.whosoever.org/v2i4/perry.html

i'm so behind in posting for the week. i need to rant about my stressful apartment search as well as my anguish and embrassment at the way my country handles major crises and the needs of poor minorities.

i missed a protest of this local hate-fest, yesterday, unfortuantely. but i got to see jess briefly last night, which was nice. i've mostly been spending my weekends at home, hanging with the parents doing absolutely nothing because i'm so exhausted from attempts at apartment hunting after work on weeknights. we'll hopefully have a place in park slope or prospect heights, brooklyn within a week or two. cross your fingers. if you like me.

even though i've always had a lot of gripes with the clinton family, as the state of this country's elected leadership has sunken to new and newer lows over the past few years, and as i've read about bill clinton's work in stemming the aids crisis overseas and other work, my admiration for him has started to return, despite many of the decisions he's made that i oppose, most egregiously, his support for "free trade" capitalism at the expense of the rest of the world's welfare. as i walk past his foundation's headquarters every day on my way to and from work, i imagine that it might be a much more exciting and worthwhile place for me to be working. clearly much of his work is attempting to effect major change in global public health.

although i've disagreed with many of hillary's moves since she became my senator 4 and a half years ago, i think it would be really cool if she became president. although many of her goddamn liberal politicking drives me crazy, i do have to face the reality that nobody left of her is going to get elected to the highest office in the land, and of coures, she is a woman.

BUT i was extermely dismayed to learn that she's officially joined the leadership of the DLC. not that she was such a leftist before, as this stupid article seems to imply, but still. the DLC has the potential to suck every idealistic and populist bone out of her body, leaving a centrist shell infinitely indistinguishable form the GOP.

it's now 4 yrs since cornell and ithaca really became my home. i can descreetly remember the entire chronology of that day four years ago, 9/11/01, and how safe i felt tucked away up there amidst the large gothic buildings, the collective brilliance, picturesque hills and meadows, and the throngs of identical looking students. as i've mentioned earlier, i think that day really bonded our class together, as a group, because the place you can experience a tragedy like that and come through it together collectively, is truly home. although the only thing i'll likely be doing today in commemoration is posting on this blog and watching the reading of the names broadcast on tv, the fact that the four years since the 9/11 attacks coincides with the same four years since i began college, since i began my journey of joys and frustrations at cornell has some stronger meaning to me. i'm not sure what it quite is yet. i have a feeling that my journey and relationship to that place is not over and will continue at some point in the future.

as i read my first alumni magazine last night, it was actual more of a sad, heart-felt experience than anything else.although i spent the last 10 months or more complaining aboud so much and wanting to get out of there, last night what i experienced was a sadness at the speed with which those same four years passed and a recognition of all of the regrets i have, experiences passed up, moments extinguished, both trivial and not.

it seems like our country has more and more victimes with each passing year, and it's not only because i have come to experience a more complete political understanding of the world around me since i began four years ago as a freshman: first 9/11, the war in afghanistan, invasion of iraq, now katrina, continous violence in other locations intermingled, specifically israel and the occupied territories, and really every continent i can think of besides australia. i don't know. i feel like the past four years have only partially equipped me to deal with all of these global problems. i feel like it was an amazing start, an immersion in problems, solutions, nuance...but only a beginning. but there seems to be so much more i should have gleaned from that experience, and i can't help wondering if jacob lehman had been chosen a little earlier as university president and stayed a little longer, might cornell have made a bit more progress at advancing towards that goal of comprehensive global education?


may the memories of all the victims over the past four years, near and far, nameless and unnamed by the press be for blessings to guide us to a more just society and world.

i have so much stuff to bitch about and say about how shit's going down down south; maybe i'll write that later, but i just wanted to say--- i just went to lunch and i saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that said "hang out with your wang out" and now i can't get the phrase "rock out with your cock out" out of my head.

sim city 2000

according to CNN, they're following my lead and contining the real life city 2005 version of sim city 2000:

Widespread looting and random gunfire have been reported across the city. Police told CNN that groups of armed men roamed the streets overnight.

money and more money: being a real person sucks

issue number 1:
so i've basically had my heart set on moving to nyc the past few weeks/months. when i accepted this job, even though i didn't want to be in new york, i told myself it was only on the condition that i would not be living at home.

however, last week, i was reading this book i'm in the middle of, called hope's edge, which is an amazing book. technically the sequel to diet for a small planet, it deals a lot more with the relationships between food consumption, production and global justice movements. a section i was reading on the trains that mornign made me really excited about all these potential avenues for creativity in the future, all these exciting alternative development projects, and as usual my thoughts turned to thinking about how i could be doing that now and wondering why i'm wasting my time in this job that really doesn't excite me or make much progress beyond a few hundred folks in a very minute manner.

my rationale for the past few weeks every other time i've been wondering this is that i need to get a head start, start making some money, and then after either i've worked a bit or i've gotten a graduate degree, i can go off and do my own thing. but this morning i realized that if i'm going to live in the city, i'm really not going to be saving much, if at all, depending on what rent ends up being and the lifestyle i choose to lead. and so, it seems, that i'm sort of just wasting a whole year, becasue i know what i'll be doing the whole year, unless i change jobs, and although i'm making a decent amount of money, i'll just spending a boatload of it on rent and living in this psycho city, when there's so much more i could be doing if i was a less risk-averse person.

so i've definitely been having some doubts about actually moving to the city, although i can't see staying in the position i'm in for much longer either. and the problem is, that if i can't stand my job after a few months, i won't be able to move somewhere else and do something else unless i find a subletter. but i will likely be living with two good friends, which would be great, and i'm hoping to get involved in stuff and meet lots of nwe people. it's just that the majority of my awake time will be spent at work, and it seems like it will mostly be a waste. i suppose what i can do, if i do move, is to keep looking for cooler jobs in nyc and then if i get one, switch jobs while staying in the apt.

but what i don't understand is how i can get a recommendation if i'm looking surreptitiously and don't want them to know.

issue number 2:
i've received a lot of credit card offers in the mail and have been trying to decide between them which one to get, because i do need to get a new credit card to replace the one i currently have and need to cancel which is tied to an ithaca local bank. i had been vaguely thinking abotu the working assets credit card, because it could be a concerete lifestyle action on my part towards supporting progressive organizing. however, after i decided to research the card a bit, to make sure there was nothign sketchy about it, i discovered this whole issue people had been discussing online- apparently the credit line for working assets is through MBNA, a financial group that donates heavily to the republicans. while this was not something i had thought about previously, after reading it did seem relevant, causing me to have doubts about that card.

someone's comment on that board mentioned the Salmon Nation card, through the ShoreBank/Pacific, which is a local Northwest US bank also linked with community development in Chicago. So now I've been thinking about that card, but I can't decide what to do and would welcome any suggestions.

P.S. This post was intended for Friday Aug. 26 or earlier but I didn't finish writing it, so it's only being posted now. However, none of the above issues have yet been resolved so it is still relevant.

flooding--> city destroyed

CNN Reports:

Nagin said both the city's airports were under water, the Southern Yacht Club had burned to the ground, an oil tanker had run aground and was leaking, there were gas leaks throughout the city and Interstate 10's twin spans heading east over the lake were "completely destroyed."

I'm sorry, and this is really not funny, but isn't that reminiscent of old school Sim City 2000?

I will investigate any ways to help besides sending money etc. to Red Cross and post them here to compensate for my lack of sensitivity towards the subject. Please don't send me for sensitivity training.

oh my gawd, i'm kvelling!

so i've been reading jewschool for months, maybe years, now but nothing has topped both this insanely hilarious article
and this call for submissions that is WAY after my own heart and ideas and something i imagine i could get very passionate about/involved with in the future. i'm only sorry i never responded to the initial call for submissions for Mazel Tov Cocktail because you're damn straight i could write a friggin epic whatever about how amazing Barbara Myheroff is or the conversation that would occur if she had dinner with Emma Goldman.

mayors

so apparently mayor bloomberg thinks that noise is a big problem issue in new york? something on which time should be spent above other issues?

wtf

after reading/reading about last night's mayoral debate, i really like freddy ferrer. but then, i liked him 4 yrs ago too. also, i can't vote in nyc. damnit. although solicitors (not british lawyers) constantly come up to me and i have to turn them down bc it's utterly irrelevant for them to waste their time on me.

shoutout to phil kim, my fellow CIW '03.

how to blogroll, anyone?

engaging the disengagement

honestly, i don't know what to think. for months i agreed with the likes of Naomi Chazan, who I heard speak in October '04, and other members of the faltering israeli left, who have warned against the disengagement, both for its unilateral nature and for fear that leaders would view it as a substitute for rather than precursor to bilateral talks with the palestinians. however, honestly, this seems to be a huge step. i haven't been reading much of what the left opposition to the disengagement is saying, besides stressing that it not be the end-game solution. maybe they're saying it's all a big publicity stunt and that the palestinians aren't actually getting much.

i suppose we'll see what happens when it's over. as i write, haaretz is reporting that 16 of 21 gaza settlements have already been evacuated and it's only day 4. will there be civil war? will missiles be launched over the green line now as the right insinuates, proving that gaza alone might not even be sufficient as a first step? i don't know.

what i do know is that this is really going to continue wreaking havoc on israel internally. i wish i was taking the class i took on israeli society (with tamir sorek) right now. when i took that class, it was just a dead-end depressing time, in the middle of the second intifada (2003), when more people were being killed by the day and it seemed clear that the geneva initiative wasn't taking hold beyond the fringe. but now it would be really interestign to discuss these issues, because a main focus of the course was on the internal splits between religious and secular and between elite and poverty-stricken, and the intrsection of those divides.

even though it came from ariel sharon, for whom i would never have expected to have anything but fightin words, it seems like it might be the spark to light the internal struggle which was going to have to happen sooner or later. clearly, such a struggle would not be pleasant for anyone involved, but what i could never understand about the people who kept saying, well, we can't give land back, because they don't deserve it right now, or we can't do this, or we can't do that: did they honestly see the current situation as sustainable, as somethign that could continue the way it's been for the past 5 yrs (or the past 38 years) for much longer?

Yair Sheleg writes in Haaretz:

In recent years, there was an unofficial status quo between the religious right and the liberal left: On the one hand, the liberal left railed against the settlements, but never dared to evacuate them (including in the context of the Oslo agreements) out of an understanding that this was the apple of the right's eye, and out of a sense of what the consequences could be. On the other hand, the religious right railed against the control the liberals have over the legal system, the media, academia - in fact all the systems that create public opinion - but in actual fact did not wage an all-out war to change the situation, both because it was preoccupied with struggles over the territories as well as out of an understanding that these institutions were the apple of the liberals' eye.

He writes of a "deal that fell through," and seems to imply that the religious right will no longer hold up its end of the "deal," now that it has been betrayed. I agree with Sheleg's assessment of the way in which the disengagement represents a huge twist in Israeli politics and a huge departure from the corrupt and undemocratic status quo deals of the coalitions. But I'm not quite sure if the religious will be able to force their agenda in other matters as revenge, as Sheleg claims. And who's to say this might not lead to more honest brokering between the factions; more of a recognition of who actually represents the will of the majority and who doesn't...
TO BE CONTINUED (maybe)

8.19 update:

wow. it gets better and better.

Condoleeza Rice is actually towing the line of the Israeli left, "empathizing with Israel," while reminding her that the Gaza pullout is not enough, urging withdrawal from more of the West Bank and decreased travel restrictions on Palestinians.

wal-mart

another story about wal-mart, amidst all the talk of their hopeful (hopeful for them, i mean, clearly)expansion to places like queens, ny that have thus far been succesful at keeping out their poor labor etc. practices:

so they are complaining that their profits have been lower for the past two quarters, which they think is a result of the continuously rising gas prices and they foresee this to continue to cut into their profits. oh poor babies.

but maybe the other culprit is unions at work? have any of the wal-marts successfully unionized yet? i don't even know.

Wal-Mart is also struggling with keeping its expenses down, Scott said.

"We did not meet our goals as our expenses in the quarter grew faster than our sales," Scott said.

oh, poor babies again- their expenses are rising. well, clearly we know who will be hit if they are trying to lower their expenses.

(actually, i don't even know if increased wages/benefits/etc. would even increase their expenses by that much, given how big they are.)
thoughts anyone? or have i already expended too many characters and too much energy on the terrible titan?

maybe i should have been in "ordinary people"

i always thought they were a cool troup, albeit a bit too campy and amateurish for the subjects they were dealing with. well, apparently, although the NCAA finally got the hint about one of their major issues, the ridiculous appropriation, mocking and god knows what else of Native American tribes in sports teams, Jeb Bush can't possibly deal with Florida State University not mocking Native Americans, and actually claims that they like it!

some of these things are so out there one can hardly believe that they are true stories.

i also think that if i done more of that sort of creative arts before i graduated, whether it was non-chai notes music, drama acting, or writing- journalistically or whatever, i might have gone in that direction in the first place, and not be struggling to shove it into my life now. hopefully, once i look for, get, and move into an apt., i can allocate more time to these things.

i've really been realizing lately that i need to have a career that directly involves more politics (not just by explaining, well, these people are neglected by the mainstream healthcare system, and so by helping them i'm decreasing the disparities, leveling the playing field and subverting the system...) and definitely more writing. so i'm hoping that even though i don't have particular training/skills/much-knowledge in things like agricultural trade policy, or immigration law, which really interest me, if i try to begin reading and writing more on those topics and trying to freelance a bit, that will hopefully get mre more into the writing field, and show that i have some experience in those topics. (so it wouldn't really help me to freelance on any human development or non-political topics, like, say....colon cancer...lol)

8.10.05 edit: i tried to link to some reference website for ordinary people, but it seems that they no longer have an rso page or anything. i hope they didn't disband!

the news sucks

preface: there are a number of very annoying cliche/expressions in this post, for some reason, which bothers me immensely, but in order to post from work at all, i don't have time to work on the writing to try to say exactly what i mean, and must rely on this molest-some banter. ha! i made up a word!

i don't understand how this could have barely made the news, covered up by all this stupid detalia about the shuttle and whether the size of each astronaut's farts will affect the return to earth. literally, the mother of some astronaut from queens has been getting air time every single night to spew the same idiotic quote every single night, about how she completely trusts nasa and she believes her son is safe because they said so. dude, it's fucking outer space.....i'm sure anyone really know what they're talking about.

but anyway, back to reality, so all this time as bush was ducking away under semantic differences over who in his administration he was going to fire and who he was just going to slap on the wrist, regarding valerie plame-gate, it turns out john bolton had testified in the grand jury and then lied about it?

i love sen. joe biden (D-DE) who investigated and figured out this whole coverup and said:

It seems unusual that Mr. Bolton would not remember his involvement in such a serious matter...In my mind, this raises more questions that need to be answered. I hope President Bush will not make the mistake of recess appointing Mr. Bolton.

but no, bush has gone ahead and appointed him as a recess appointment, despite the hard work of senator biden, proving all of his (sadly) weak opponents correct again. so the horrible reasons the u.s. is going down to hell in a handbasket both domestically and internationally are just piling on now, and nobody seems to care! it's all still about the poor little spring break party girl lost in aruba, and angelina and brad's cute little african baby (clearly, not being orientalized or exoticized....clearly...) and who knows what else. in place of the fact that now both the american people and all the constituent nations of the u.n. (the whole world basically) are being screwed with their pants on.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

in other news, my stint as the sole resident of my house has ended, as my parents came home from their vacation last night. it was a little sad saying goodbye to the car that had become mine last night, but shortlived things are nice sometimes too. any you know, i don't really want to get too comfortable in the white picket fence, leather-seated car lifestyle anyway.

the grinch who stole my...something

the following post was written on 7.26. i was hoping to add more that day and i've had various other things to write since then, but if i don't write them down right away, which the schedule doesn't really allow, i tend to forget them, so...closure/structure is lacking. read away at your own risk:

i feel like i am falling down the chute. or more accurately, falling up the chute. like there's some kind of suction chute that brings you away from your goals, your ideals and your interests; once you start living in one place, making money and associating with boring, normal, apolitical people, the kind of people i've seen specifically identified by a friend of mine in the past few weeks and also by the main character in the AMAZING book "extremely loud and incredibly close."

anyway, these people, and this lfestyle brought me way up the chute yesterday. to the point where i had no idea till thei morning when it was too late, that cafta was up for a vote in the house yesterday.

[there was supposed to be more written in here about why i was very upset that cafta was approved by the house. basically, it passed by two votes, two of which were democratic representatives from brooklyn and queens. so i kinda feel like if i had done something more, even though i don't actually live in brooklyn or queens, but close enough, then maybe i could have changed the course of history. but probably not.]

of course, very dissapointed am i. ringing repeatedly through my ears is josh lyman's cry, "i lose this vote...i'm resigning," from the guns not butter episode of the west wing.

yesterday, was a really long, busy day, as i am coming to understand all of my wednesdays will be at this job, because i have to trek around harlem collecting data and dealing with disorganized clinics.

so much to post about. i'm so behind.
job
weekend in michigan
sweet honey in the rock popping up everywhere

but i'm so tired. i'm always too tired when i come home at night to post. maybe i should force myself to beat the fear and post at work?
weird.

they stole my line!

p.s. fucking "AM New York" horrible paper stole my headline idea....it came to my mind last night while i was reading something, and it was so perfect and i was going to make it a blog post title: the plame game

i think they're already using plame-gate. i honestly don't know why anyone is surprised. it's just more fodder for the talking heads, now in the form of blog rolls to leech upon minutiae which still elude your average american. true, i obviously think w is being a ridiculous lying coward and rove should be hung out to dry, but i still think there are more pressing matters to be typing and arguing about.

colons, colons, colons

here's why i need to be a journalist- i get bored with things very quickly. i don't know how i can do only colon cancer for a whole year, let alone do the same thing every day for a whole year or for my whole life. i need to be learning new things all the time, or at least some of the time. i'll have learned everything i need to know by next week and if i want to learn more, here it's snooping.

boo.

and i want to write! and be political!
boo for big salaries accompanying boring jobs.

oy...

**apologies for the poor writing quality and incoherence of this entry; i'm really tired but feeling creative/emotive/in need of catharsis**

so, i should really get to bed soon, or more likely, start what will become my nightly routine of: iron my clothes for tomorrow, make lunch for tomorrow and otherwise get ready to wake up at an ungodly hour, but

i wanted to post a bit about how i'm in a much better mood than i was last night, for some reason...
last night i was really annoyed, hopefully this won't offend anyone reading this, after spending some time with some friends, and i realized i'm really starting to get sick of all these labels that the left puts on each other- lately, everything that doesn't fit people's exact image of what a true leftist, or someone who's political enough, or something, everyone's (well not EVERYONE) favorite word seems to be "bourg-y" (no idea how to spell it but it's a shortened adjective form of bourgeouis) and i'm really fucking sick of all the hypocrisy.

it seems like everyone's just too fuckin "armchair" or "bourg-y" no matter what they do, but the realy hypocrisy seems to be that the people who just love labeling people and putting them in these not cool enough/not political enough boxes seem pretty fucking "boug-y" to me, when they seem to have all the newest status symbols, mooching of mommy and daddy and seeming to have no self control to avoid satisfying their need for instant gratification, whether it's fashion, food, substances, sex.....what have you. dude, just cuz you put on the fucking starving artist act, it doesn't mean that's you. you can't possibly say you're not bourg-y when you keep having shit handed to you. so ok, maybe you're not loaded with trust-fund induced gadgets and hundred dollar handbags, but come on...and it's complete hypocrisy for all these people like this, who are students or single people who have no responsibilities in life except checking their email, getting to work or class, finding a place to sleep at night and keeping up with the latest trends.

you know what- in some ways, the notion of family in this world, in this city (forgetting for a minute that i'm not "b and t"), is pretty fucking radical. and i'm getting fucking sick and tired of having to defend people who live in the real world, people who have children, spouses/partners, siblings, parents and other relatives to worry about, who have real responsibilities, which may require them to act politically in different ways.

honestly, i think you have more power as a consumer of alcohol, fast food, cigarettes, jeans, computers and flip flops, than you do as a member of a huge protest mob. look at the world. the fact that you even have the privilege of traveling around the world to witness other political struggles puts you up their on the continuum of wealth and privilege and we as americans just really don't get it. for the most part. so, until you can say you've lived on 10 bucks a day with no extra alcohol budget, or spared yourself some new trends to save up for someone else's future, i don't fucking want to hear it about the "bourg-y" armchair activists.

and that's the end of my rant.

(and my disclaimer- i'm not saying i've had to brave the real world either, but at least i don't go around judging everyone and their apartment building by these characteristics, or at least i try not to, and if you ever catch me doing it, i want you to call me on it, unless i'm complaining about my fellow cornellians who are up in the high 5-digit incomes in their insane finance jobs gambling away money on private prisons and predatory lending. they fucking deserve it....... ahh, the irony :) )


and although that was what was fucking pissing me off last night, i'm in a much better mood tonight- i had my first day back at work today, post chicken-pox, and it was really exhausting and i need to go to bed. but, even though my first patient to recruit this AM was only spanish speaking and i must have sounded like a complete disrespectful moron reading to her off of a sheet aboud colon cancer, in crappy spanish, she enrolled in the study! which was exciting, so i couldn't have been that bad.
but now i must get to bed for my next of many future days as a member of the real working world. at least i have my ipod to get me through the commute :) (yes, again with the crappy irony/sarcasm)

p.s.- here's an im i just wrote:

MiniVAVster: ya, seriously, no more late night ices for me
MiniVAVster: i'm fuckin pooped

ciao, over and out

chicken pox

wow, i have poor communication skills. i mean, i've basically been home now for 6 and a half days straight and have been more out of touch with friends [and blog] near and far than ever before.

a recap of my life is that i started work last week- monday and tuesday were orientation, then i had one day at my worksite on wednesday, at which point (at the end of the day on wednesday) i started having a reaction to the chicken pox shot which i got two weeks earlier, having never actually experienced the chicken pox virus. since wednesday, i've been home with this reaction (consisting of about 20-25 "pox") because they wouldn't let me go to work because i could theoretically transmit my version of the virus to the immune-compromised cancer patients.

anyway, i've thus had lots of free time,but for some reason haven't posted.

going to do some errands now, but i'll be back later. i promise.

in the meantime....i think this brief about american over-influence in efforst against the disengagement of the gaza strip is interesting...

:: APN :: Issue Briefs

bad at decisions

well, the fact that i completely suck at taking control of my own life and making decisions is finally coming back to haunt me.

so- somehow, my parents got inside my head enough to convince me to do exactly what they wanted me to do, which was to get a more secure, better paying, less political, less what i actually want to do, job in new york, in a secure (in terms of job security) place like a hospital....

so somehow, bc of the fact that i had graduated and am living at home, i became so desperate that i started following these leads that they wanted me to follow- and now i have been offered a job at sloan-kettering doing something that is remotely interesting/relevant to what i want to do, but there are so many other jobs, in other cities, that i would much rather have --and the HR woman at SK is being a bitch and won't give me extra time to decide, really because they need to know bc the job would start in july--so they have to hire someone mas ahora.


so i really don't know what to do and i have to decide by like mon or tues---someone help! what should i do???

p.s. sorry i haven't posted in a while- since then, i graduated and have been living at home where a) there's nothign to write about except how long island sucks and b)the internet is slower than driving behind a white bell driving school drivers ed car.

boo. also yay. graduating's a bit of a mixed bag i guess. i hate that expression. i also hate having to go to the public library to go online, bourgeouise-nik that i am.

who's up for living in queens with me? bc i'm only taking the job under the condition that i don't live at home, and i don't think i'll be able to afford anywhere else besides queens (plus it would be a cool place to live, i think).

consciousness-raising

well, it's senior week- supposed to be so much fun, and i have been having fun, relearning how to knit, spending lots of time outside, going to the farmer's market and the commons, and some other stuff...

but i still don't have a job and have been having difficulty motivating myself to keep looking.

since gloria steinem was on the l-word last week, i've been looking for more info about her, googling, etc. and i feel like she's not known, understood or revered enough among my generation. i'm currently listening to a speech she recently made at a symposium on women's sexuality at indiana university, and she said that she went to some other school (i forget exactly where) and most female students didn't know who she was. i was astounded at this, and it only cemented something i'd been feeling for the past few hours, after thinking about it-

i think we need a new sort of consciousness-raising for our generation, both dealing with gender politics and other politics, i think because of the way the debates are being framed by the right and by media censorship. and there seems to be a backlash, a rising acceptance of sexist attitudes, especially among young males, black, white, brown, etc., especially among educated folks, a growing apathy driven by consumerism and the obsession with the superficial issues presented in reality tv shoes, etc. and it's somehow gotten uncool to be progressive, to be an activist, it likens you to those old hippies.

gloria also said somethign in the same speech about how women get more radical with age, and i actually think to some degree that seems to be true, at least with some women, and i feel like my generation and younger women (and men) seem to be rejecting any association with politics, despite the high turnout in the last election.

anyway, i think i'm goign to sit and marinate with this idea, and see what i can do about it. about raising the consciousness-- here to start, is a list of radical, inspring women, that i'm eventually hoping to put on the web and expand as a resource, but it's still in production (or really, rather just begun:

bella abzug | barbara boxer | joan jacobs brumberg | heather cottin | barbara ehrenreich | emma goldman | fannie lou hamer | arlie hochschild | bell hooks | frida kahlo | diane keaton | naomi klein | natalie merchant | rosie o'donnell | marge piercy | bernice johnson reagon | adrienne rich | susan sarandon | gloria steinem | barbra streisand | alicia svigals

-and check out the flickr for new pictures.
peace out

the shit. from bangkok.

well, this is it!

daily reports from bangkok from the international herald tribune's newest subeditor from new york.

living vicariously through grace- this is the closest i'm going to get to real adventure. it's only been two days and i'm amazed.

everyone should check this out daily- it's going to be an amazing ride, i can tell.

i can't even finish this god damn final that i have to write for tomorrow- my last one ever! i was all excited to write about the sociology of food systems, for the last time, but i just can't get it done- keep procrastinating. boo. and i can't disconnect from the internet b/c i'm downloading the season finale of the l word. oh well.

regrets. and so it goes...

just had two opposite yet similar conversations with an old friend who i haven't talked to in maybe a year or more, and my bunnie who is leaving so shortly for bangkok. this passage of time and change leaves me feeling empty and full of regrets.

although both positive and negative, their lives, often full of drama, at least compared to mine, leave me feeling morally inert, incapable of making decisions or experiencing life.

college- you have so many expectations, so many ideas of what it's going to be, and few, if any, fulfilled. what am i moving toward? anything?

i am so excited for my bunnie and her exciting adventures, but at the same time, was hoping to maybe see more of each other as (hopefully) working individuals next year, and that maybe the chance would even come for us to live together. and now she'll be across the world, expanding her ever-rising horizons, while i, doing who-knows-what, continue pining after the adventures which seem to await her every waking moment.

and my other friend, who has had some difficult times recently and previously, has the tortured artist lifestyle i've always envied though for which i'm not willing to sacrifice my sleep, comfort and security. but really, what security do i have now?

nearly none.

only 2 more weeks of security, and that scares me, despite the regrets and the adventure i crave.

and so it goes.

wyclef sings "mi pi eil?"

ok, so i just discovered that on the song "closing arguments" by wyclef jean, from his album Carnival, there's weird flute sample of the shabbat z'mirot song "mi pi eil," also called "ein adir" i think....has anyone heard this? i wonder why it's there?

vaio keys

so i popped off two keys on my vaio laptop a few weeks ago and have been trying to get them back on since then. a friend who thought he knew what he was doing tried, but still i've only been able to get them half on- they're sort of precariously half attached. and the dude at best buy, where i have a warranty was useless.

i found this post, which is probably the same type of keys, but no help or instructions and i can't figure out how to contat this dude!lucky fix for a broken laptop key

any suggestions?

the stage with snoop n the gang (after the game) 

yo 

more friends 

my friends :) 

ghetto fab eli 

ilana and lily 

hillel staff 

yummy chai notes 

alex n eloise 

 

stilt man 

9/11 and slope day

well, i started writing a post a little while ago about how it's the night before my last slope day and the night after my last day of classes as undergraduate. ever. and about how this is all making me very sentimental and thinking about the past 4 yrs and how they went so fast and i have so many regrets, and while i'm eager to go out and jump off the cliff, how it's so fucking scary to leave this place.

but it got deleted before i published it.

and i still can't sleep bc of all of this.

so i'm trying to make a mix on itunes celebrating/contemplating the past 4 yrs that hopefully other people will be able to access.

i'm contemplating a temporary blog for cornell seniors to do some reflecting and sharing. we'll see.

i just found this clip: http://streaming1.video.cornell.edu:8080/ramgen/cu/remembrance_914.rm from the ceremony after 9/11/01

that brings back so many memories- i really feel like our class had a strong bond because of 9/11, that we had to create connections and families bc we were struck by this incomprehensible event after we had only been here for about 2 weeks. jeez, that was a crazy time.

this clip actually brought tears to my eyes several times. hearing ken clarke utter a prayer on behalf of the mass number of members of the cornell community who turned out on that day is just an unbelievable feeling. and i still remember the song that samite of uganda did that day "anyoyo." he's back for another concert sometime this month- maybe it already happened-- and his name has poppped up various times over the years, but that song, i think, will always stick in my mind.

i remember thinking how safe i felt up here in the middle of cow and apple-land. i think that feeling of safety is something i'm going to have difficulty leaving in the next few weeks.

also on the clip is a rendition by the glee club/chorus of "mlk" by u2. i have no recollection of that being sung at the ceremony, but several months later downloaded/discovered it and it remains one of my favorite songs.

and big bird up there on the platfom. hunter rawlings. i wonder what lehman would have done during that time. even though i never felt any particularly feelings one way or the other about the waspy fellow, i feel like he did wield some sort of comforting authority up there on that podium, his mostly salt hair blowing in the mid-september wind.
wow, there's a lot i really need to savour in the next few weeks. maybe it's time to get cracking on those papers and cover letters so i can really do this savouring.

i'm sure there will be more contemplating, snuffling and remembering to come.

fingers, fingers everywhere

ok, this is the problem with america: "Joe Reardon of the Agriculture Department's food and drug division said state officials closed the shop while the food processing equipment involved in the accident was cleaned and sanitized."
cnn reported today that a frozen custard shop 'fessed up to its worker's having lost a finger in the processing equipment, after a man found that very same finger in his pint and had put it in his mouth!!
-that this insane moron of an ice cream store owner is allowed to reopen his store after the machines are cleaned???!! what i want to know is how they could have possible sold any ice cream after that and not tried to find the damn appendage??
oh, hmm....well he lost a finger, and we haven't found it, but,hmmm, let's not look for it. maybe nobody will notice. idiots, idiots!

and the man who almost ate it before spitting it out! sheesh. i don't eat at wendy's, but ice cream always seemed do innocous.(p.s. i know the wendy's thing wasn't true, but check out the dvd extras for super size me. my sister tells me the experiments they do on big macs etc. are pretty scary!)

incidentally, on an-only-related-by-the-fact-that-they're-food-note, i had quite an intense evening- i brought my friend and project partner, akua, to the house of the farmworker family that i tutor, so we could interview them for our paper after tonight's tutoring session. not only did we get home after 11 pm, but we had lots of fun--- a mexican food truck came to their house, at which i bought nopales (cactus) and then learned how to cook them! two ways! and then juan carlos insisted on giving us a whole package of pan dulce. damn. memories. pan bamby.....

i think one day i'd like to make some kind of top 10 list of random places to eat or buy food all over the world that are somewhat under the radar and authentic. mmmmm.
but time for bed, maybe i'll dream of even better pan dulce than the one's sitting on my desk.

signing off, enjoying for just this one night, even though i don't have a job and am fucked for the 25 pages i have to write this week, how wonderful it is to be freed from the bondage of slavery in egypt. was it my ancestors? was it me? does it matter? it's someone today. but at least they get to eat pan dulce from a van that comes to their house :)

garment workers and amharic music

it's things like this, the Cornell Library's acquisition of a whole collection of ILGWU Ladies Garment Workers photos that make me proud to be associated with cornell.
i wonder if my grandma is in any of the photos? i know she wasn't really heavily involved with the union, but maybe at some cultural/social event, after all that had to have been a pretty big part of her life given that she worked all the time and really had no family except her parents and then my mother. and i hear she didn't really have any friends either.
what a sad life for such a bitter woman.
i guess my mom has improved on the family tradition.


i'm currently obsessing over idan raichel's music- two songs from his second cd, out of the depths, are still on the top 10 chart in israel (based on the army radio station, which i found out this summer, my best friend from elementary school worked at- she was like the head of the news desk or something, two years ago, while she was in the army. at least she wasn't shooting arabs.) anyway, idan is fucking brilliant, although after obsessing over him more, (instead of writing my 25 pages worth of papers that are due this week) i found out that there was a bit of controversy over the first album put out by his "project" because he apparently didn't give enough credit to the other musicians that worked with him.

i completely understand the idea of a "project" as different from a band- i guess maybe that's a more common notion in the states than in israel, because people didn't seem to understand it there- or they didn't understand why he called it what he did, and why the same people weren't all involved with the cd and live performances.

basically, he's this white jewish israeli guy in his late twenties who has just made 2 chart-topping amazing albums, of sort of israel fusion music, based mostly on the traditional cultural music of ethiopian jews, some of which were sung in their language, amharic. he also used reggae and some other ethnic styles less common in israel, especially in the second album which was just released in 2005.

he was accused of a sort of cultural appropriation of their music and culture. while i do think it's a bit fucked up that this culture had to be presented by a white ashkenaz man in order for it to become popular, and i am wary of cultural appropriation in general, based on my slightly-more-than-cursory understanding of his music, after having listened to it a zillion times, i don't think that's what he did. he seems to have a genuine respect for presenting other people and their cultures, but i guess, we'll see....to be examined further. comments appreciated. i'm going to try to post an mp3 of his on my cornell server space and link to it here at some pt soon. but in the meantime, there are clips on his website.

struggles

there's a lot of stuff i could be writing about- there's a huge battle going on at cornell to save the redbud woods: yesterday 8 students locked themselves in the president's office and then day hall (the administration building) was taken over. i could/should be posting pictures of my niece from my trip home last weekend for passover. but i'm writing about this article i found in the ny times. after reading about how the albany legislators are sitting around resting on their laurels and eating leisurely lunches because they actually passed the state budget on time, i became even more dismayed reading about this example of the horrible processes i'm constantly learning about in my sociology of food systems class. an only-somewhat-ragtag ethnic food market in the bronx is being pushed out by developers trying to put in big box chain stores. so it's not only walmart in rural iowa and new york. crap. i have nothing practical or insightful to write about this right now. maybe later.

cycles

i was reading a book a few months ago called Listening to Prozac, and it was talking about how apparently when people are coming out of a depression is when they are at the highest risk of killing themselves.

now let me preface this by saying that: that particular thought has not crossed my mind, nor do i expect it to and i'm not actually saying i'm at risk for it, but--

i think i can understand why now. i think i'm at somewhat of a similar point now, and it's almost worse, or more frustrating, because i can see the potential happy, busy life i can lead, but you get so angry at yourself when you think about how much time you wasted on sleep and self-pity.
if i had only spent that time looking for a job, or reading, or being outside or talking to people or cooking, etc.
i think that it's perhaps the most difficult time and the time when you're most disturbed by your own actions (or lack thereof) and therefore might be a time which would cause someone to actually go through with killing themselves. i do actually feel this change in energy levels and willingness to do things that they describe.

when you're actually IN the depression, you're so deep in the self-pity and tiredness, etc, that it's just beyond... (although obviously not for everyone)
but at this point you can really feel how the rest of the world is, and you want that, and it's just the most frustrating thing in the world. and your self-pity turns to self-hatred and a feeling that clocks are ticking and you've just wasted so much time.
oh dear.

stalking

i was just "googling"/stalking my spanish teacher and had a (MILDLY) profound realization:

this whole thing of stalking/researching/googling/etc., has become a much less social activity with the advent and widespread use of the internet. i just saw the box cover of the vhs of "now and then" at someone's apt the other night (i LOVED that movie when i was but a pre-teen), and i just now thought of that scene where they are all going through the newspaper clippings looking for her mother's death, and then they find all that other stuff about the creepy guy's son having died, or whatever- and it's this whole social thing and they provide each other with amusement and support in turn.
and now.... we sit alone starting at a screen wasting time learning more useless facts in a day than i can count.

i think i always loved that movie so much because it seemed like the childhood/pre-teenhood i wished i'd had. maybe that's why everyone liked it?

my love/hate relationship with weekends

i think my love/hate relationship with weekends much resembles my love/hate relationship with time.

actually...i think i just have a hate relationship with time- except that i love that i can do certain very specific things in very short amounts of time. but other than that...ya

i think it's time for another one of my "reasons why i suck" posts or rather, "why i'm letting everyone down, including myself" posts.

if i'm alone, i never get anything done, but if there are people around i never get anythign done either. if there's no IMMEDIATE (and i mean immediate) deadline, i think i have to wake up and immediately go to a place where there are other peop;le, just not people that i know and really want to talk to....i keep trying to change my life and it never works. i supose i could try again from here on...

i have a problem.

NYC Grassroots Media Coalition

i'd much rather be at this conference in new york, that my best friend's organization is putting on- she's chairing a panel tomorrow on how ethnic media can access gov. info and she's on the speaker's list! i'm kvelling!!

but seriously, this whole conference sounds amazing- i miss new york, and large cities, and actually enjoying life, a lot. what happened? maybe i should be looking for jobs in ny? someone help me.

ugh!!

i think the blog gods are conspiring against me. they do- the gods conspire against me.

but seriously, i wrote a really long post on thursday night about a speaker i had heard and the israeli-palestiian conflict, and how theories about that fit into an even larger paradigm/world-view. and then i kept getting a "document contains no data" error- and it kept doing that even after i copied all the text so i could later paste it.

well, of course, since thursday night, other things have entered the clipboard, displacing my very well-thought out blog post and now it's gone!! :(
boo. and i'm getting a cold. and thus missed the farm tour i was supposed to be at all day today for one of my classes.

inferiority & sark

omg! a sark institute!

on making your creative dreams real!

i wanna go! but who the hell can afford several hundred dollars for that...
oh well.

i need sark. maybe it will help me dread this horrid inferiority i'm feeling. at least that's what i thought when i reunited with sark briefly on friday night at abby's, where we had a lil' ladies get together. which was pretty much replicated last night sans abby at lara's, watching kissing jessica stein. abby had both succulent wild woman and eat mangoes naked, while i only have the bodacious book of succulence, bc i gave everyone else succulent wild woman in high school. although faye did give me a book by sark about doing everything you want to do without getting out of bed. uh oh....
maybe that's where i went wrong. i seem to have the misconception that you can actually do that. crap.

AND abby knew what SARK stands for.

but anyway, i feel like sark might get my creative juices flowing. i'm just- my own worst enemy. i'm supposed to be applying for jobs, so i can actually let "the great work begin" but i just keep getting distracted by stupid crap. i spent like half the day reading a fiction book that i'm really into. the longings of women, by marge piercy. who's awesome. i mean, i'm glad i was reading rather than watchign crap i downloaded on computer or something, but still.

and then i do things like look at grace's friend eugene's blog, which is amazing, and just makes me feel uncreative and inferior and....(maybe a little not self-absorbed, but still)

i forgot to bring my digital camera on the road trip, so i can't even do something with that. i'll have to wait for darya to develop her non-digitals and scan them.

i miss my bunnies. i hate this fucking isolated university. but the trip was a nice diversion.

i should stop whining- it's just hard, i don't know. i feel like i waste so much energy on decisions and the facade and being confused, and i wish i didn't. any advice?

i had a birthday party for einstein.

boo

i had just been writing a whole thing about the rest of my spring break travels in the "southlands" when i lost the post. and now i only have half an hour before girls movie night at lara's- kissing jessica stein is the film de jour. and i have to get some job search stuff done.

so currently it will have to suffice to say that i'm now back in ithaca and will write more about the trip later. unfortunately i don't have pictures either because i forgot the digital camera at home- i'll have to wait to scan in darya's non-digitals when she gets them developed.
boo.

virginia is for lovers

greetings from lexington, virginia. the capital of things being closed by 8:30 on a sunday night-

the great road trip of spring break 2005 has begun-
spent friday night through this morning in philly - i had my 7.5 hour interview yesterday and was yawning by noon. oh well.

today we drove all the way from west chester to matthews arm to nelson st.
-most of the day was spent driving to front royal, va and then down the skyline drive through shenandoah national park.

after checking in at the wingate inn in lexington, va we tried to find something to eat in the cute but utterly closed downtown lexington, only to end up with VERY thin crust domino's pizza.

currently, the roommates are reading the in-room ruby tuesday's menu
and remarking about the absurdness of the number of calories in the food listed on their menu.

more updates to come from the many wireless cafes of north carolina, where we're headed tomorrow.

peace out

spring break a-comin

got myself a haircut before i embark on road trip to virginia and north carolina with 2 friends tomorrow morning for spring break. we're going to miss dragon day tomorrow....it's not on thursday as usual this year, but friday. the week will be kicked off by a pirg interview all day on saturday, so i probably won't be writing all week. but i'm hoping i can get in some online time- bringin the laptop with me.

it's sad how much i aspire to be one of these laptop junkies on these newfangled tv shows. i think i aready am one- now i just need the rest of the lifestyle.
i think it's the lighting that does it- you need the sexy half-lighting.

in other news, it really sucks that the senate voted to drill in the anwr today. did a huge project on that freshman year, but i don't really remember the conclusions, or rather, i know that i concluded that they shouldn't drill, but i don't remember the concrete reasons, or i would have sent them to congress....riiiiight.

and yesterday wolfowitz (soooo exciting- cornell's his almamater!! silent cheer right here!) was nominated to be head of the world bank. how much worse could you get- a jew as head of the world bank??!! fuck, we're screwed. better get those yellow stars ready.

the other way i can look at it is that the world bank is evil anyway, and so if we stick him there, at least we get him out of the way so he can't harm anything else. i mean, i don't think suddenly the world bank would have actually cancelled all the debt and done good shit if bono was picked to head it. come on, i'm sure he would have just been fucking co-opted (even though his music has been kinda already).

anyway, i should probably get somewhere in the job hunt before leaving tomorrow am.
lots of love
happy st patty's day from your local frat boys (i went outside a few hours ago, to meet up with a friend for a brief mtg at stella's (which HAS, might i add, the sexy half-lighting! must spend more time there) and these drunk fratguys in an suv, who almost ran me over, yelled out the window "FUCKIN HIPPY!"
it was very exciting.
collegetown has been a fucking zoo since like 3 pm today. insanity at the bars. sheesh. patrick.

lookin for a day job, like bette porter's

just kidding.

coming up soon...pictures from einstein's birthday - 3.14.05

i've made slight progress in the job search, but only very slight- i have a second interview with a vista program in chicago next week, or the week afte spring break , but really i'm quite far behind where i expected to be by spring break- ugh....i REALLY need to get cracking on this or i'm going to prove my family right- i don't know how i let this past month go by without really sending anything out.

i'm not depressed, but i feel this inertia and lack of motivation returning- i sleep too much, i don't go to class or get stuff done until the last minutes (that last part as usual, but somehow it seems different). i feel like the line from angels in america- "well, there's the shit problem, and the weight problem, and the morale problem," but for me it's- "well, there's the shit problem, and the head problem, and the sleep problem, and the job problem..." (and that's about it). although i've been feeling mostly better this week...

but i just can't help getting addicted to these shows about people, and their careers, and their lives, and their relationships- it's a sort of fantasy world, but if i keep sitting around downloading them and watching them, instead of applying for jobs, they will continue to be just that- fantasy worlds. drat.

but ya, so yesterday, i was walking to class and i saw this squirrel (tangent: squirrels, birds chirping, they've been everywhere, so EXCITING! spring is coming methinks. yay. two days till we head south for the week. yay.) standing on top of a round picnic table, near the edge of the table, looking like he might jump off the table into the deep abyss (and bench) below at any moment , and i felt a sort of cameraderie with the squirrel-i feel like all this lack of motivation and not caring, is just part of me being anxious to get out of here. i realized, in that second, (could this SOUND any more dramatic?) that i feel just like that squirrel, but if the squirrel was told he couldn't jump off the table for a while, like he just had to hop around up there, traversing the same ground , the same wooden slats he had already been familar with for two years. i dunno. maybe it's just an excuse but i feel like i'm really ready for my life to begin, and i feel really couped up and anxious to get on with actually being in control of/in charge of my own life.i don't know why i can't do that know- maybe someone insightful can explain that to me, but anyway, ya...

so, i'm a squirrel...

propaganda

wow.....i thought had accidentally gotten a pop-up ad from fox news when i saw this story:

CNN.com - Lawmakers share parents' fears - Mar 14, 2005

maybe they should stop praying and learn the facts, if they expect their kids to live. troops out now!
apparently the peace and justice gift shop in ithaca has just started selling those ubiquitous magnetic yellow ribbons, but these say "support our troops- bring them home"

i definitely have more to write about from this weekend, but i also have a take-home prelim due tomorrow and esl tonight. general recap is that my 2 roommates' parents and my parents all visited this weekend, so it was pretty busy, though minimally chaotic-
fri night- went to yummy dance party at rachel's for a little while where i preceded to get a splinter in my foot (went THRU the sock) while trying to skank (remember that? popularity circa 1999, very popular on the south shore of long island at places like "da funky fish") to some swing song.
got the splinter out myself!! on sat afternoon after a few attempts by various parents. proud accomplishment. can remove wood from own foot.
sat night was my chai notes concert, which was why some of the parents were up. chaotic, fast and slightly emotional, but overall hard to process that things are really winding down.

more to say later

abe foxman

i haven't posted in a little while, although i had a lot to say twice this week. hopefully i'll recap the week later, b/c a few things that happened may be of interest.

anyway, i was being a bum and looking at my favorite blog JewSchool, which is usually right on target with what i'm thinking or would want to be thinking if i was in the know and they had this post about abe foxman, who i fucking hate.

so now i want to start a group "Jews Against Abe Foxman"- anyone want to join?

aargh. makes me so long. nobody said Ariel Sharon represents me, only metaphorically or somehow construed through the JNF or the Law of Return, but Abe Foxman- NOT in my name.
fucker.

later

i''m procrastinating planning my lesson for tonight's esl class for isabel reyes and her family in dresden, ny...i'm quite nervous as this is the second lesson, and last week i didn't really need to plan much because it was mostly just introductions and stuff....ahh. scary.

i just read that a bill just passed one house of legislature in mexico, which would allow mexican citizens abroad to vote in the 2006 election, which i think could drastically influence things, assuming the bill passes the senate and goes into effect- if thousands of mexicans (many of whom are farmworkers and other low-wage workers) were to vote against the neo-liberal candidate (i don't know who the candidates are yet), assuming there was another candidate who was against nafta, which could be an entirely false assumption, it could have a big impact. maybe?
am i simplifying things?

i saw a great play on sat night- "death and the maiden" by ariel dorfman, in english. they are also doing the play in spanish in april, so i'm hoping to go to that too. he's a brilliant man, dorfman. the play, in true dorfman tradition, is about the ideas of forgivenss, memory and retribution, as expressed through a family struggling to come to terms with the human rights abuses commited against them and others during pinochet's regime in chile.

in other news, i'm still obsessed with twig tea, angels, etc.
hoping to start reading some marge piercy and to stop bitching about my bitch of an apartment-mate.

wish me luck tonite!

look what i did!

look what i did!

john stewart et al.

got john stewart tix this morning...yay :) it's quite convenient that while others stood IN line (note my use of the correct IN LINE) for upwards of four hours to get tickets, the addition of the second show allowed lazy bums/not real fans like me to get tickets from the comfort and ease of their keyboards with credit card in hand....(and a week later at that!)....mwahahaha!

i do feel a little guilty too though.

i sort of feel like that about a lot of things- that other people put in lots of work, and i squeak by the easy way with the same endpoint... which, i suppose, makes me feel like a bad person. my professor wrote that i am "an exceptionally good writer" on my grant proposal for his graduate class on poverty, public policy and the lifecourse, referring to a part of the proposal which i think i had spent an exceptionally SHORT time writing...while there definitely problems with the proposal, i find it ironic that the things that i seem to exert the LEAST effort on, often turn out the most fortuitous.

i'm afraid i'm counting on the same attitude of things sort of falling in my lap in my (not entirely existent) job search, and i don't think it EVER works that way with jobs. boo. maybe i should stop spending time on creating the perfect blog.

regrets.
i definitely regret not continuing to work for the Sun. now realizing that maybe i do have some talent at writing, combined with the fact that i really enjoyed writing for the sun, makes me think that maybe i only quit because it was one of the few things that actually DID motivate me, and maybe that scared me. oh well.

anyway.....chai notes has sort of been taking over my life lately, we had a skit-writing meeting last night at my apt and are singing at the kdh tonight (yay. can't you sense my excitement). Also had a meeting today to work on planning the study abroad photo exhibit coming up after spring break.

yumm, now i'm eating peanut butter-filled pretzel nuggets. yumm. better stop so i can fill up on crap at the kdh.

i'm supposed to see "Death and the Maiden," a play by Ariel Dorfman, who's beautiful mind i am in awe of, at risley.

NOTE TO READER: i apologize for any similarities this post may have had with a certain shoe-throwing AP's online diary, which often dwells on said person's talents and extraordinary abilities. this was entirely by accident, and i hope the point came across sufficiently that i don't think these talents have been particularly useful for or utilized by me thus far.