The Secret Museum

Citizen video undercuts city prosecutions of RNC arrestees

Last summer, New York City police arrested nearly two thousand people during the Republican National Convention. Day after day, the mayor and the chief of police got on the tv and radio news, condemning protestors for "rioting," "resisting arrest," and generally causing mayhem that dimmed the event's sheen before the nation. Meanwhile, arrestees began emerging from the the city's detention center at Pier 57, on the far west side of Manhattan, often denying that they'd done anything confrontational--some saying they were not protesting at all, and only guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now, the participatory panopticon is rendering the events of those days more transparent...read the rest at Worldchanging.

Home Insecurity: Persistent Threat Levels

I thought this color-coded panic orchestration left the scene with Tom Ridge. Seen yesterday at the Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina airport, where I had an hour's layover on my way back from Austin. Now I know that I'm still supposed to be scared yellow.

Alex, in Austin, mentioned how uneasy he gets now going through security at airports, because when you step into that line, you could just disappear into the extra-judicial gray zone of Transportation Safety Administration authority.

I had to admit--to myself, it didn't seem worth saying aloud, which must be why it seems UTTERLY VITAL to blog it now--that what with being white, fair-skinned, and female, I've gone through airport security with just about as little personal concern as ever since 9/11, perhaps with a crispy-baked thought or two on how all this fuss with the computers and the shoes was unlikely to result in the foiling of any plot to blow up my plane.

Stories I've heard from friends and families with olive complexions since 9/11, about tense moments at airports, conveniently leave my mind at these moments.

Alex's comments came back to me yesterday at the Austin airport, where one of the TSA guards looked about 12 years old. In fact, I thought he was the grandson of the older couple in front of me, until they moved forward and he asked me for my ID and ticket.

It was thoroughly unsettling to hand them over, and watch this man, who looked more like my friend's young teenage son than a grown-up federal employee with the authority to send me to a back room for interrogation, scrutinize my New York State driver's license, and then scrawl on one boarding pass illegibly in pencil and send me--and my carefully stoic face--on through the metal detectors.

And taking that photograph in Raleigh-Durham, with my ever-stealthy Palm Zire 71 camera, getting very busy with the stylus like I was checking my date book when I thought a guard from over by the security station had noticed what I was doing.

I wonder if this is a shade of what it feels like to drive up to some checkpoint in Columbia and hand over your credentials and passport to a teenage guerrilla with a machine gun, not quite knowing what will happen next as you let the papers leave your hand.

Or, traveling while Muslim.

Home Insecurity: Emergency Empowerment

It's more than a little intriguing (laugh-worthy? impossible?) to wonder how we can teach New Yorkers to live without electricity for an extended period.

Via my friend and fellow home insecurity enthusiast, Patrick Di Justo:

Tuesday, February 15, As part of the Ready New York campaign, OEM has partnered with Empowerment Institute to develop All Together Now, a household emergency preparedness program. All Together Now aims to empower New York City residents to take practical actions to be prepared for any emergency. In building-, block-, or household-based teams, All Together Now participants follow a series of preparedness actions, such as how to create a Go Bag, how to live without electricity, and how to help neighbors in need.

All sessions will take place from 6-8 p.m:

Manhattan: Wednesday, Feb. 23, American Red Cross, 150 Amsterdam Ave. (66th & 67th)

Staten Island: Thursday, Feb. 24, Borough Hall, 10 Richmond Terrace (Borough Hall Court)

Brooklyn: Monday, Feb. 28, Borough Hall (Community Room), 209 Joralemon St. at Court St.

Bronx: Tuesday, March 1, Borough Hall (2nd Floor), 198 East 161st St. at
Concourse Village West

Queens: Thursday, March 3, Borough Hall, 120-55 Queens Blvd., Kew Gardens at Union Turnpike

Mac and Cat (also, Friday Cat Blogging)

Pushkin would like it very much if I'd pay a little more attention to him.

Push has a bit of a feline insecurity complex.

Water Insecurity

Late last year, Alan AtKisson, one of my co-contributors at WorldChanging, posted an essay on his own site that asked, "What is the biggest sustainability problem in the world?"

Not climate instability, poverty, mass extinction, or war. Apparently the answer is water:

A group called GlobeScan operating out of Canada recently surveyed (by email) an international sample of "sustainability experts," with assistance from the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Over 90% of respondents identified issues around fresh water planning and supply as "very important," with renewable energy and poverty next on the list. Concern about water had risen twelve points in two years in this group's survey...

It came to mind a couple weeks ago, when I saw this sign outside a coffee shop in Midtown East. Wonder how long it will be before more restaurants and cafes feel the need to market how safe and clean their water is?

2004:1984

Bitter comment, or keeping hope alive?

Seen on 15th Street in Brooklyn.

'...weeping for her century...'

...is how William Gibson describes his character, Cayce, near the end of Pattern Recognition. "...whether the one past or the one present, she doesn't know."

Read Kevin Sites' blog today, about the news footage he shot in Falluja, the killing in the Mosque.

How to reconcile that with the quiet park across the street, the glowing yellow leaves on the trees, or even something as small and warm as my cat sleeping, curled up, across the room?

But if the off button is stuck in the on position...

...we can always marry a willing Canadian.

Today We Push the Off Button

Orr stooped to unlace his shoes. He didn't want to get the Alien's bedspread dirty with his shoes, that would be scarcely a fair return for kindness. Stooping made him dizzy. "I am tired," he said. "I did a lot today. That is, I did something. The only thing I have ever done. I pressed a button. It took the entire will power, the accumulated strength of my entire existence, to press one damned OFF button."

"You have lived well," the Alien said.

U.K. LeGuin, The Lathe of Heaven

Lost Dog Sadie

Lost dog in Park Slope...anyone seen her?

Andrew Sullivan's blog

Mitsu suggested I'd be pretty fascinated by Andrew Sullivan's post-debate blogging, and by gum he was right:

MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN:

Put Away Your Hankies...a message from Michael Moore

I'm not feeling particularly inspirational, having just transcribed an interview about how the EPA (fails to) regulates pesticide uses. I liked this missive by Michael Moore, though, so I'll promulage it further.

9/20/04

Dear Friends,

Enough of the handwringing! Enough of the doomsaying! Do I have
to come there and personally calm you down? Stop with all the defeatism, OK?
Bush IS a goner -- IF we all just quit our whining and bellyaching and stop
shaking like a bunch of nervous ninnies. Geez, this is embarrassing! The
Republicans are laughing at us. Do you ever see them cry, "Oh, it's all
over! We are finished! Bush can't win! Waaaaaa!"

Hell no. It's never over for them until the last ballot is
shredded. They are never finished -- they just keeping moving forward like
sharks that never sleep, always pushing, pulling, kicking, blocking, lying.

They are relentless and that is why we secretly admire them --
they just simply never, ever give up. Only 30% of the country calls itself
"Republican," yet the Republicans own it all -- the White House, both houses
of Congress, the Supreme Court and the majority of the governorships. How do
you think they've been able to pull that off considering they are a
minority? It's because they eat you and me and every other liberal for
breakfast and then spend the rest of the day wreaking havoc on the planet.

Look at us -- what a bunch of crybabies. Bush gets a bounce
after his convention and you would have thought the Germans had run through
Poland again. The Bushies are coming, the Bushies are coming! Yes, they
caught Kerry asleep on the Swift Boat thing. Yes, they found the frequency
in Dan Rather and ran with it. Suddenly it's like, "THE END IS NEAR! THE SKY
IS FALLING!"

No, it is not. If I hear one more person tell me how lousy a
candidate Kerry is and how he can't win... Dammit, of COURSE he's a lousy
candidate -- he's a Democrat, for heavens sake! That party is so pathetic,
they even lose the elections they win! What were you expecting, Bruce
Springsteen heading up the ticket? Bruce would make a helluva president, but
guys like him don't run -- and neither do you or I. People like Kerry run.

Yes, OF COURSE any of us would have run a better, smarter,
kick-ass campaign. Of course we would have smacked each and every one of
those phony swifty boaty bastards down. But WE are not running for
president -- Kerry is. So quit complaining and work with what we have. Oprah
just gave 300 women a... Pontiac! Did you see any of them frowning and
moaning and screaming, "Oh God, NOT a friggin' Pontiac!" Of course not, they
were happy. The Pontiacs all had four wheels, an engine and a gas pedal. You
want more than that, well, I can't help you. I had a Pontiac once and it
lasted a good year. And it was a VERY good year.

My friends, it is time for a reality check.

1. The polls are wrong. They are all over the map like diarrhea.
On Friday, one poll had Bush 13 points ahead -- and another poll had them
both tied. There are three reasons why the polls are b.s.: One, they are
polling "likely voters." "Likely" means those who have consistently voted in
the past few elections. So that cuts out young people who are voting for the
first time and a ton of non-voters who are definitely going to vote in THIS
election. Second, they are not polling people who use their cell phone as
their primary phone. Again, that means they are not talking to young people.
Finally, most of the polls are weighted with too many Republicans, as
pollster John Zogby revealed last week. You are being snookered if you
believe any of these polls.

2. Kerry has brought in the Clinton A-team. Instead of shunning
Clinton (as Gore did), Kerry has decided to not make that mistake.

3. Traveling around the country, as I've been doing, I gotta
tell ya, there is a hell of a lot of unrest out there. Much of it is not
being captured by the mainstream press. But it is simmering and it is real.
Do not let those well-produced Bush rallies of angry white people scare you.
Turn off the TV! (Except Jon Stewart and Bill Moyers -- everything else is
just a sugar-coated lie).

4. Conventional wisdom says if the election is decided on "9/11"
(the fear of terrorism), Bush wins. But if it is decided on the job we are
doing in Iraq, then Bush loses. And folks, that "job," you might have
noticed, has descended into the third level of a hell we used to call
Vietnam. There is no way out. It is a full-blown mess of a quagmire and the
body bags will sadly only mount higher. Regardless of what Kerry meant by
his original war vote, he ain't the one who sent those kids to their
deaths -- and Mr. and Mrs. Middle America knows it. Had Bush bothered to
show up when he was in the "service" he might have somewhat of a clue as to
how to recognize an immoral war that cannot be "won." All he has delivered
to Iraq was that plasticized turkey last Thanksgiving. It is this failure of
monumental proportions that is going to cook his goose come this November.

So, do not despair. All is not over. Far from it. The Bush
people need you to believe that it is over. They need you to slump back into
your easy chair and feel that sick pain in your gut as you contemplate
another four years of George W. Bush. They need you to wish we had a
candidate who didn't windsurf and who was just as smart as we were when WE
knew Bush was lying about WMD and Saddam planning 9/11. It's like Karl Rove
is hypnotizing you -- "Kerry voted for the war...Kerry voted for the
war...Kerrrrrryyy vooootted fooooor theeee warrrrrrrrrr..."

Yes...Yes...Yesssss....He did! HE DID! No sense in fighting
now...what I need is sleep...sleeep...sleeeeeeppppp...

WAKE UP! The majority are with us! More than half of all
Americans are pro-choice, want stronger environmental laws, are appalled
that assault weapons are back on the street -- and 54% now believe the war
is wrong. YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO CONVINCE THEM OF ANY OF THIS -- YOU JUST
HAVE TO GIVE THEM A RAY OF HOPE AND A RIDE TO THE POLLS. CAN YOU DO THAT?
WILL YOU DO THAT?

Just for me, please? Buck up. The country is almost back in our
hands. Not another negative word until Nov. 3rd! Then you can bitch all you
want about how you wish Kerry was still that long-haired kid who once had
the courage to stand up for something. Personally, I think that kid is still
inside him. Instead of the wailing and gnashing of your teeth, why not hold
out a hand to him and help the inner soldier/protester come out and defeat
the forces of evil we now so desperately face. Do we have any other choice?

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com

WTC + 3 Years, 1 Day

I did not set out to observe 9/11 yesterday. Around 9 a.m., as the memorial service was underway at Ground Zero, I drove east, out of Brooklyn, to the Hamptons, to visit with my father and his wife, and go the beach. After two years of being emphatically in town for this anniversary, I had decided to take advantage of my last full day with a borrowed Subaru, my folks' presence in Hampton Bays, and the post-Labor Day lull to get in at least one more trip to the Ponquoge Beaches, burrow my feet in the creamy sand, and swim in the Atlantic.

As I drove up the BQE and out onto the Long Island Expressway, I listened to Weekend Edition on WNYC-FM. A long segment was playing--interview with a NYC fireman's widow. She was complaining that now lower Manhattan looked just like any construction site, and that people were selling tourist trinkets on the streets around the WTC site. These offended her.

I thought, this is the living city, this is what happens, if anything it's reassuring to see people picking up the pieces of mundane life...of course knowing that one can hardly challenge grief, especially the grief of a 9/11 fireman's widow. I knew I was being cold.

I switched to the AM affiliate, to listen to the reading of the names of the murdered. Last year it had been the children reading the names of their parents (grandparents, aunts, uncles); this year the readers were parents and grandparents.

As each reader finished their list, they spoke the name of the person they had lost.

"...and my son..."

"...and my daughter..."

Speaking out these names one more time to the world--this person once lived. She was special, he was the light of our family. Sometimes the speaker called out the name loudly, sometimes with voices breaking. Couples invoked their lost children in unison. Sometimes, horribly, a speaker named two names. The messages often so simple and similar: "We love you, we miss you. We will always love and miss you."

I was struck by how grief can obliterate eloquence.

Some readers switched to a native tongue, often Spanish, to invoke the name of their son or daughter. Language mattered to communicating their messages of the heart.

All this carried very clearly over the AM waves, as for the first time in three years, I made an escape from the city on September 11, crying on and off all the way to Riverhead. How lucky I was to spend the day visiting with my family, swimming in the ocean and hearing the plain noises of the waves and the gulls and people talking.

Much later...driving westward towards home in the dark, the Tribute in Light became visible somewhere just east of the Queens line. I had been scanning the radiowaves for decent rock or pop, but with those beams of light now in sight, I felt a cliched desire for classical music, something that at least seemed more emotionally apropos.

Tuning back in to WNYC-FM, the evening music was Brahms’s “A German Requiem," in honor and mourning of the dead, perhaps including the death of the life we thought we knew.

In the extended entry, the email I sent out before leaving work on the morning of September 11, 2001.

-----Original Message-----
From: Emily J. Gertz
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 11:05 AM
To: xxxxx
Subject: NYC update

Well, as you might imagine, people are really scared here.

I'm fine. I'm in Manhattan. I just made it to work and emerged from the
subway to hear about the attack. Right now all the access on and off
Manhattan is shut down, so I'm stuck here. At work right now, where the
net connection is ok, but Lincoln Center is being cleared out and I'm off
to my friend Margaret's apartment, soon. I might be hard to reach and I
might not be able to get online again so I thought I'd write now.

For those of you who need to know: have spoken to Candy, who says Andrew
is fine. Have spoken to Margaret and Judge, both fine. Have spoken with
Lucy, who is inviting me to move to Mass. immediately. Cannot locate my
father or Anne, suspect they may have gotten trapped on the road and hope
they'll turn back to LI asap.

Although I am not much given to prayer, I am thinking about those in the
WTC and their families and friends. Both towers have collapsed. I am
very frightened to hear of the aftermath and to go down there and see the
familiar buildingscape altered forever by this horrifying event. Please,
all of you be well and careful.

love,

Emily

Resume All Major Protest Operations

On a wall on E. 17th, just off Union Square. My personal favorite of all the current agitprop. Who designed this? I would love to have a clean copy as a souvenier of this exasperating, frustrating, angry, sometimes frightening week.

9/3 update: Have tracked down the provenance of this poster: relapsed.net.

Take a look at the NO RNC Poster Project, with .jpgs and .pdfs to download. It's all protest nostalgia now.

Chalking it up to the GOP

Northwest corner of 6th Ave. at 16th St., earlier this evening.

Protest collage (accidental)

Seen on 9th Ave. in Chelsea.

Home Insecurity: A post-protest text dialogue

emily (pts/26 16:46):
I really didn't expect that I was going out and doing something so radical. but apparently I was. goddamn.

mk (pts/17 16:47):
"the accidental revolutionary"

emily (pts/26 16:47):
yeah, it would be funny, after leaving all that behind (was more active in such things in the 80's/early 90's, Gulf War I protests and the lot), that I take it up again in my ripe middle age.

mk (pts/17 16:48):
it's oddly symptomatic of the times. riding a bike is subversive and radical. what the fuck?

emilyg (pts/26 16:48):
exactly!

Peaceful bicycle riders arrested in New York City

I went to Bike Bloc this morning, an unofficial action in support of the main protest march here in NYC. There were about 250 bikes, riders ranging from your iconoclastic activist and latter-day punk types to fairly benign looking people like me. We gathered on the SE triangle across from Union Square south.

I had hung two placards from my bike rack: "Yes, George, there is global warming" on one, and the other, WorldChanging's logo and slogan.

You may have read in various news outlets that over 250 bicycle riders were arrested Friday night, out of 5000 participating in Critical Mass. Here's a press release about it from the NYCLU. So I had a sense that this was a somewhat more edgy activity than just walking in the march would be, but I also figured that the police would not be looking for trouble unnecessarily. And we had no intention of making any.

The group left Union Square around 11:30, circled it twice, and then headed up Park. Somewhere in the high 20s we cut over to 6th Ave. Guys on big heavy scooters started weaving through traffic and the bikes as we went up 6th, very recklessly. Vans with lights and sirens started coming up behind the riders, and most of us moved to the side to let them through--I thought they were ambulances, but they were police vans.

As I came up to 40th with the two buddies I'd made for the ride, we could see the vans and some scooters pulled over at 41st (by Bryant Park). We could see one rider kneeling with a cop cuffing him, and two other riders standing and being cuffed. One was a legal observer (bright green cap).

The scooter-riders, in case it's not clear, were plainclothes cops, and I saw them all around midtown as I moved about the area over the course of the afternoon.

A few of us ended up walking up about halfway the block to observe the arrests -- most of the ride had scattered by this time, about 10 minutes since we'd left Union Square.

We encountered a few riders on west 40th, including one of the organizers, and eventually learned that the bike bloc was reconvening at Union Square. Once there, we were told that there had been perhaps 25 arrests (about 10% of the riders). If folks wanted to continue, it was suggested that they do so in small groups of no more than 5 people, head towards the march, and perhaps offer support.

Two of my buddies decided to head for Brooklyn. Another man we'd hooked up with at west 40th wanted to go over to the march, so we rode/walked down 14th, cut up 6th and over on maybe 15th. It was completely packed. Impossible to ride, we walked the bikes for several blocks. Eventually, though, it was so crowded that we cut east in the 20s and he decided to try and head home.

I wasn't ready to leave, so I ended up biking up 6th and reconnecting with the march as it crossed east, walking my bike all the way. For the final several blocks south I walked with two women who are Sierra Club volunteers--SC is holding a vigil down near Ground Zero to protest EPA's whitewashing of the post-9/11 environmental situation. SC is the only national green group with any presence in the city this week.

Blah blah blah riding around a little more on the east side...got to the 42nd Street Library around 3:45, the pre-determined reconvening time for the bike bloc.

Learned that the cops had been picking off riders in the vicinity of the march and Times Square all afternoon ("Riders who look like protestors, not like yuppies, there's just no other way to say it," said the organizer), perhaps 50 people all told between the morning and the afternoon had been picked up by the cops.

While we were standing there listening and talking, with a lot of other marchers sitting on the library steps relaxing, a few police approached the crowd from the north. I can't recall the exact order of the following but: One of the cops took up a megaphone and said that we were being ordered to disperse because we were illegally blocking a pedestrian thoroughfare. If we dispersed, we wouldn't be arrested. The bike riders began to scatter. A riot squad appeared on foot. Bike cops started to gather, and our buddies on the scooters also re-appeared. Keep in mind that 5th Ave. was completely closed to civilian traffic for blocks around the library.

I went across the street to talk with one of the organizers for a sec, and then hung out watching for some time. The riot squad looked ready to move in and make arrests (of the people sitting on the stairs?) and several police vans pulled up. But over the course of maybe 20 minutes, the scooter and bike cops pulled away and went down 5th a few blocks, the riot cops relaxed and took off their helmets, and nothing further happened before I left.

ADDENDUM, 8/29 10:22 pm:

Here are the accounts of the bike bloc that were texted in to nyc.indymedia.org as the ride progressed:

11:41 AM
200 bikes heading eastbound on 14th from University place

12:01 PM
Broadway and 34th, 3 cyclists and at least 2 legal observed taken into custody, unconfirmed reports from nyc legal of arrests at 41st and 7th.

12:24 PM
bike bloc reportedly experiencing mass arrests at 7th and 34th

12:37 PM
Undercover motorcycle cops attack cyclists in the bike bloc at 6th ave and west 41st. Appx 40 arrests have been made. Cyclists are reconvening at Union Sq. south.

03:25 PM
Police are reportedly arresting bikers heading uptown. They are trying to redirect people towards 5th ave. This may be a trap. 6 arrests are reported at 6th and 34th.

GOP Media Coverage

I'm trying to take note of good online resources for tracking Republican National Convention, and the protests and other oppositional activities in the city. Tracking them via a post on Worldchanging. If you'd like to suggest a site, send it along via the WC suggestion form. Thanks!

Welcome, Republicans...what's that smell?

Billboard on 7th Ave. at 34th St...that is, across the street from Madison Square Garden.

Took a walk up 8th and then east to Madison, early last evening. Lots and lots of NYPD vans by the Garden, big heaps of fencing yet to be strung out into barriers and pens. Didn't feel all that unusual, really. We'll see.

It's a Beautiful Day?

Interesting choice of song to follow Kerry's speech (I think he did it--I think he sold it--but I missed the beginning so I'll have to watch video to decide).

Do people actually look at the lyrics to these songs before they pick them? (Does it matter?) It's a mixed bag here:

See the world in green and blue
See China, right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out

See the Bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
And see the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood, all the colors came out

Is Charisma Problematic in Politics?

Later today, after below about wanting a Democratic leader with charisma, I encountered a good critique of charisma in politics. Media critic John Powers has just put out a new book, Sore Winners (And The Rest of Us) in George Bush's America. He was on Fresh Air today to talk about it with Terry Gross, and the conversation turned towards political magnetism and why we might want to think twice about it.

Listen in.

Obama

I didn't plan ahead of time to tune into the Democratic National Convention. So am surprised to find myself watching for the past two nights. What am I looking for?

As someone who's planning to vote for "anyone but Bush," rather than Kerry in particular, I realize that at least in part, I'm looking for some indication that there are Leaders amongst the Dems who are going to speak truth to the current imbalanced power. Who are going to emanate enough self-assurance, intelligence and charisma to at least have a chance of drawing the factions in this country back into civil conversation. Who think that "united states" is actually a pretty cool idea.

(It's great to soak in the Gore-Carter-Bill Clinton verbiage, but these are not people I'll have opportunities to vote for ever again.)

Why look for it here? Because my crowd, however numerous or not, the ironic, the mostly-unaffiliated, the "I-care-and-maybe-I'm-political-but-I'd-never-get-involved-in-a-political-party" types, may have no where else to look for a while. There is no chance of a third-party candidate being viable at the national level in time to restore the U.S. as on of the kids in the world sandbox, to steer energy policy towards liberation from fossil fuels, to re-establish policies that are going to help the poor and let the middle class continue to exist, and to give reformist elements in the Republican Party (McCain, REP America) time to revitalize their own arena.

Which brings me to Obama. Who could fail to be moved, listening to this man's words last night, seeing him connect with the crowd? This was why I was watching the convention. I nearly cried. I thought, move to Illinois and work for this man.

kos (at DailyKos, natch), with his usual intelligence, dissect's the Right's Wednesday-morning quarterbacking attempts to co-op Obama. They must be shocked to realize they've got someone to worry about:

"The reason Obama has put the Right into a quandry is that he exposed, in one masterful performance, every caricature the Right has of liberalism. He affirmed our belief in government's ability to make life better without conjuring up images of "welfare queens". He affirmed the right every American has to believe in the god of his or her choice, or no god for that matter, without making it a public matter. He affirmed the beauty of multiculturalism, that we are more than white, black, Asian, Latino, or anything else, without feeding the fiction that we all want a balkanized country. He affirmed that unity is an American value, while dividing Americans based on sexual orientation or race is not. "

Bill (and others) in Boston

Sat downstairs tonight, watching the Clinton's speeches with Jane, who supplied a nice Canadian red.

It seems like during the last four years, I have been more in need of alcoholic fortification than ever.

Fortunately for me, this is not saying a lot, since I seldom finished even a bottle of beer in college.

All the speeches dwelled a little more on detail and less on sweeping inspiration than I expected this early in the convention. I guess you don't waste opportunities to propagate memes in the networked age.

I didn't expect to feel anything other than curiosity at the tactics of the speeches, but was happily surprised: finally, the leaders of the Democratic party are staking out their territory and calling the current administration what it is: extremist, untruthful, interested mostly in giving more power to the powerful, more money to the very wealthy.

Still, I'm not sure I'm inspired, yet. More like: relieved.

Al Gore:

"...I also ask tonight for the consideration and the help of those who supported a third party candidate in 2000. I urge you to ask yourselves this question: Do you still believe that there was no difference between the candidates? Are you troubled by the erosion of America’s most basic civil liberties? Are you worried that our environmental laws are being weakened and dismantled to allow vast increases in pollution that are contributing to a global climate crisis? No matter how you voted in the last election, these are profound problems that all voters must take into account this Nov. 2."

Jimmy Carter:

"Truth is the foundation of our global leadership, but our credibility has been shattered, and we are left increasingly isolated and vulnerable in a hostile world. Without truth, without trust, America cannot flourish. Trust is at the very heart of our democracy, the sacred covenant between a president and the people. When that trust is violated, the bonds that hold our republic together begin to weaken.

"After 9/11, America stood proud, wounded but determined and united. A cowardly attack on innocent civilians brought us an unprecedented level of cooperation and understanding around the world.

"But in just 34 months we have watched with deep concern as all this good will has been squandered by a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations.

"Unilateral acts and demands have isolated the United States from the very nations we need to join us in combatting terrorism...recent policies have cost our nation its reputation as the world's most admired champion of freedom and justice.

"What a difference these few months of extremism have made. The United States has alienated its allies, dismayed its friends, and inadvertently gratified its enemies by proclaiming a confused and disturbing strategy of preemptive war. With our allies disunited, the world resenting us, and the Middle East ablaze, we need John Kerry to restore life to the global war against terrorism."

Hillary:

"Being a Senator from New York, I saw first-hand the devastation of 9/11. I visited Ground Zero right after we were attacked. I felt like I was standing at the Gates of Hell. I hope no American ever has to witness a sight like that again. That tragedy changed all of us. I know it changed me. And every day now, as a mother, as a Senator, and as an American I worry about whether we are acting as wisely as we can to protect our country and our people.

"Last week, the bipartisan 9/11 commission issued its report. It was a sober call to action that we ignore at our peril. John Kerry understands what’s at stake. We need to fully equip and train our firefighters, police officers and emergency medical technicians, our first responders in the event of a terrorist attack.

"We need to secure our borders and our ports, as well as our chemical and nuclear plants. We need to reorganize our federal government to meet the new threats of these times. We need to make sure that homeland security is properly funded and that resources go to the areas at greatest risk."

Bill Clinton:

"...the Republicans in Washington believe that America should be run by the right people - their people - in a world in which America acts unilaterally when we can and cooperates when we have to.

"They believe the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who embrace their economic, political and social views, leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves on important matters like health care and retirement security.

"Now, since most Americans aren't that far to the right, our friends have to portray us Democrats as simply unacceptable, lacking in strength and values. In other words, they need a divided America.

"But we don't."

Civil Disobedience Criminalized

Word that the Greenpeacers arrested in the Pennsylvania clean air action have been charged with felonies under federal terrorism laws:

For decades, Greenpeace protesters have been climbing tall structures and hanging banners from them. Once they come down, after having had their say, they typically have been charged with minor offenses and received minor penalties. All that changed June 24, 2004, when federal prosecutors charged peaceful and nondestructive protestors of the Bush administration's air pollution policy with violating laws meant for terrorists.

They were charged with two federal felonies under laws that make it illegal to "knowingly and willfully damage or attempt to damage the property of an energy facility" or "attempt to cause a significant interruption or impairment of a function of an energy facility." It would be the first federal prosecution under this law. They were also charged with four state misdemeanors, three state felonies, and conspiracy. Greenpeace says they neither damaged the plant nor interrupted its operation.

Link to full Society of Environmental Journalists article.

This is the criminalizing of civil disobedience. By this measure, the Boston Tea Party was a terrorist act, rather than "the greatest act of civil disobedience of the 18th century," as I recently heard it described on Liberty! The American Revolution on PBS.

(Yes, I was actually watching PBS. Sort of. From the other room while I typed.)

Surveying the wreckage

When I played high school soccer, we would ride the bus from our township to the other team's township. Our coaches would try and get us all fired up to win the game. What I thought was: someone's gotta lose the game. Why should it be them instead of us?

(It turns out this isn't necessarily true in soccer, but you get the larger point.)

How do people marshall their courage and just be something? Be an artist, be a writer? I need to figure that out.

Signal Orange

People continue to inspire me with imaginative engagements against the current political situation.

Signal Orange represents the dead with the living — wearing T-shirts in their names. There is one shirt for each soldier who died. The front states how he or she died, the back reads, “(Rank) (First) (Last) can’t vote anymore.”

Signal Orange doesn’t say that these soldiers or their families condemn or support the war, and it doesn’t speak for them. Whether they opposed or supported the war, they were fighting for our right to decide democratically whether a war is just or not. They’ve been buried twice—once in the ground, and once in the media. If we can make them visible in the media through Signal Orange, we can demonstrate that they had voices that have been lost.

Eco Disaster Porn: Let's Go!

Although I enjoy the curmudgeonly rants of environmentalists like Bill McKibben, I'm still pleased with the green crowd's creative response to The Day After Tomorrow.

In case you're not caught up on the pop culture media press, TDAT is an upcoming disaster film. Rapid climate change, indeed! In TDAT, during a few short epic Hollywood weeks, tornados destroy Los Angeles (the Hollywood sign is turned into toothpicks, natch), a tidal wave engulfs New York, the temperature drops, and then a hell of a lot of snow falls, leading to scenes like this one:

Our heros exploring what I presume to be the 42nd Street Library, which is done up like the dacha in Dr. Zhivago.

I was resistant at first. I had to set aside my irritation at New York getting destroyed, AGAIN, in the movies. This is a Roland Emmerich film, and he took entirely too much glee in populating New York City with nebbishy stereotypes in Independence Day, and then let aliens destroy The Big Apple.

I got over it. New York City always gets it in the movies. And, despite 9/11, we almost never get it in real life, compared to London, Baghdad, Sarjevo, Moscow, or Dublin.

The destruction of New York City is THE universal cinema cliche for "death of The Cosmopolis by mega-event." May the Statue of Liberty live on for decades more as our time's Ozymandian symbol of the folly of human endeavor.

Then, a few folks, such as my Worldchanging editor Alex Steffen, raised a call to actively use the film to raise consciousness about climate change.

I was skeptical at first. Not because of the bad science, but because it's a Roland Emmerich film. The guy made bombastic hash of one of the best all time science fiction novels, and classic sf films, War of the Worlds.

However, finally, I come down on the side of TDAT. Why?

Because it is tiring to be so earnest that one can't simply enjoy pop culture. Roland Emmerich hacked H.G. Wells to pieces artistically, and all I got was this aesthetic headache.

While I worked at Greenpeace in DC, in '89-90, The Hunt For Red October came out. Most of the office went to see it opening night, organized by the Nuclear Free Seas campaign staff. Why? Because it was FUN. We laughed, a few of us groaned over Sean Connery's Scottish Russian accent, we had drinks afterwards.

One of our more wonky campaign issues made it to the big screen, in a completely glossy, over-the-top, Hollywood extravaganza, with handsome actors and high technology. Life was good.

So, now, activists have the same opportunity to see themselves moved from the fringe to the center on a complex issue, thanks to American big-budget movie excess. In their dead serious ways, NRDC gets it, Rainforest Action Network gets it, Worldwatch gets it.

Greenpeace, unsurprisingly, takes an especially media-rich approach.

And in delicious irony, this movie is financed by Fox, the Official Vertically Integrated Transnational Media Empire of the Bush Administration. Apparently Fox was not prepared for the uses that enviros would make of this movie in the face of Bush's stolid, anti-science, ideologically-driven refusal to act on climate change.

It comes out May 28. Let's go to the movies!

Master lock recovery plan

If you, like me, have one or more Master Locks laying around (see schematic, right), sadly separated from the combinations that would open them, go to the Master Lock web site and download the Lost Combination Form.

Fill it out, get it notarized, send it in, and voilà — Master will send you the combination!

Cool.

Branding and Social Change...Wha?

This Saturday, April 3, New York University is holding its annual, free, All University Dialogue, this year called Toward Securing the Global Village.

OK, I'm unclear on what "securing the global village" means, but the particular panel I plan to attend is "Media: A Conduit for Social Progress," at 3 p.m. Panelists include Fred Fields of the Taproot Foundation and Sandi Abadinsky of the Enterprise Foundation, two right-on foundations supporting community-based nonprofits, and I hear that dk holland, a guru on branding for nonprofits, may attend.

Local folks wondering just what the heck a successful bid for the 2012 Olympics might mean to the area will want to check out the 11 a.m. panel on "NYC 2012 Cultural and Economic Implications." Olympics are economic and cultural drivers worldwide--wouldn't it be interesting if they could be Worldchanging events instead of resource pits? In NYC, two huge, neighborhood-leveling stadium bids are currently in play, important subway extensions may hinge on related funding, and let's not even talk about the "security" issues.

What's in the air

We take this opportunity to suspend the usual art reports, half-thought-out political observations, and expressions of angst to note that the season really has shifted—it is spring. It is the best part of spring, where the air is still a little cold, and the light is warmer, but not really thick yet, and the trees are still bare, so you get to appreciate their minimalist beauty without suffering in an icy wind.

We have opened our windows to allow a fresh mixture of car exhaust, microparticles of asphalt, lint (from the dryers in the laundromat next door), early pollen, and regular old air to equalize the indoor and outdoor atmospheres.

Breakfast today consists of a perfect blood orange—tart, firm, ideal mixture of orange-and-red flecks in the flesh, organic—two slices of dill havarti, two slices of whole grain toast of some sort with butter (yes, butter! organic!), and french mocha coffee. We would have taken a picture of the orange but we ate it instead.

So, here is a cat's eye view of Brooklyn, in early spring, from the sill of the kitchen window, on the fourth floor, looking south towards Coney Island (maybe there is a molecule or two of Atlantic Ocean in the air this morning, too).

Art making and world events

How do we make art in the face of overwhelming world events? Since 9/11, at least three ideas for photo-based installations have come and gone while I sat and did nothing to realize them. Thinking too long brought on doubt.

In a recent issue of Orion Magazine, composer John Luther Adams wrote,

What is the value of art in a world on the verge of melting? An Orkney Island fiddler once observed: "Art must be of use." By counterpoint, John Cage said: "Only what one person understands helps all of us." Can they both be right?

Three decades ago I came to Alaska to help save the wilderness, and I was an environmental activist for years. When I left that work, I did so with the feeling that someone else could carry on my part in it, but that no one else could make my music. In recent years I'm wondering again about the meaning of my life's work...[H]ow can I make art that doesn't speak directly to world events?

I am able to decode how to respond to world events as an activist. Finding myself in direct, desperate opposition to the Bush administration, I write my articles, I register voters.

But as an artist, I am mute on the big issues. I can only observe small things: individual lives and deaths, the map of human nostalgia, loss, sadness, regret and depression. Perhaps a bittersweetness over the mixed blessing of memory.

I made this bowl (and burned the candle) the day after Spalding Gray's body was identified:

home insecurity 3

Two days ago I left my apartment to go to DC. As I walked to the subway, I was suddenly overcome with the fear that I'd left the coffee pot on. But I was going to miss my connection to DC if I turned around, and what were the chances that I'd done that, really? So I kept going.

Riding the F train to Manhattan, the thought would not leave me. I imagined the building catching on fire. What would happen to my cats? Would anyone get them out? Would anyone from the building, or the management company, know how to reach me? But of course I could not have left the coffee pot on. I've only done that once in as long as I can remember.

Maybe the building would not burn, but my cats would be overcome by the toxic fumes as the plastic melted down around the hot plate.

Well into Manhattan, I decided to take the train to DC instead of the bus, and caught the 12:05 Metroliner south. At some point these thoughts left me.

Tonight, as I emerged from the subway, I sniffed the air. No smell of smoke, just the slight cold edge of New York in early spring. I walked up the street. I turned the corner. It was quiet. I entered my building, got my mail, and climbed the stairs.

The cats ran to the door and made happy noises as I came in.

My emergency kit

• Black Maglight flashlight--works
• Transistor radio
• Assorted batteries
• Two (2) 2 (two)-litre seltzer bottles filled with tap water
• Old dried apricots
• Salted almonds
• Small zippered bag containing toothbrush, toothpaste, one tampon, lip balm, eyeshadow (dual shade), hand lotion, antibacterial gel
• About a pound and a half of cat kibbles
• One (1) can of cat food (...for the cats)
• Bicycle, i.e. human-powered transport #1 (it's locked to a rack in the basement and I lost key. Note to self: get super to liberate my bike before next disaster.)
• Folding kayak, i.e. human-powered transport #2 (way far off near Jamaica Bay, and where would I put the cats?)
• (and, where exactly would I paddle to?)
• Proven capacity to cope in case of disaster
• Experience walking several miles to get home during a blackout

Insecure

It's an interesting time to be in New York City. I returned in 2000 on the dot-boom tidal wave, and have been riding out the backwash of destruction. Apparently, according to today's New York Times, this guy took two years to get another job. I've had the inverse experience, with three jobs and three layoffs behind me since coming back here, and almost a year of staying afloat freelancing.

Would I have moved back here if I'd known I'd be living on my own wits in this way? Probably not. But it is kind of engergizing at the same time.

Home Insecurity: On today's broadcast of The Next Big Thing, Jesse Green examines the contents of a disaster emergency kit. The note that came with it explained that it was thoughtfully provided in the wake of last summer's blackout. Green notes that we've had blackouts in New York City before. We all know what disaster that kit is really meant for.