NYC electoral zeitgeist November 2013

Viva la Brewer!

Gale Brewer certainly has the courage, smarts, indefatigable energy and the love to meet the challenges of the zeitgeist of NYC/2013. Of course I am totally biased although now in Newark and just another cripple when on the streets of NYC or crawling up the subway stairs to teach my hundred and something course which usually includes a student who knows and loves Gale Brewer! 

Of course,  who else but Gale used a cane for a short bit so no doubt she knows the nuances of nyc transit.

When I go to NYC now I feel the Hellen Keller quote 

“Cut off as I am, it is inevitable that I should sometimes feel like a shadow walking in a shadowy world. When this happens I ask to be taken to New York City. Always I return home weary but I have the comforting certainty that mankind is real flesh and I myself am not a dream.”    

comforting now to know that there will be Gale as MBP.

The smarts and courage to fight and/or educate...  a recent blog highlighted on the hidden running of NYC:

http://truenewsthebund.blogspot.com/2013/11/organized-crime-politics.html

the energy and love...

9/11/2012: Remembering 9/11/2001

For several years one of the first discussions in all of my NYC college classes was "What were you doing on 9/11?" as all of us were here that day. Have always had firefighters, hospital workers, first responders in my classes. Several of my Methods of Research student teams wrote brilliant proposals to do research on the ptsd of 9/11 survivors. Bonding in my Newark building with other residents; the store owner, in particular who we would ask to update us on those neighbors one had not seen. One such neighbor in a daze for months from the horror of having walked through the MerrylLynch WorldPlaza and dodging people jumping from the WTC towers. I remember the weeks of falling asleep to the BBC or CNN coverage of the aftermath to hear the names of those who had died. The horror on seeing a former co-worker whose fiance, a Citibank employee, never got out of the towers. Remembering the first train trip into NYC a few days post 9/11 and everyone looked out the window to see the rising plume of smoke in what used to be the WTC in the skyline. Photo: one of my conte crayon drawings from Pier 51, West St, WTC in distance.

Post Labor day "summer" fast pastels

Rainyday fast sketchs in da building store.. #90, 91 and #92.
#90 Los Arboles.. loved looking and sketching the shapes and colours in those trees this summer! Newark can be so lush.. certainly Branch Brook Park!

#91 Rain.. started with a fast sketch of a woman walking but couldnt figure out how to finish. She reminded me of my talk with a neighbor about the harrassment of Muslim women at an amusement park recently.. being denied rides if one wore the hajib. Dunno but outrageous harrassment, certainly a host of law suits to come. Maybe the drawing is just an angel...

#92 Remembering 2001. Somehow the work reminded me of the monolith in Kubrick's Space Odyssey 2001, and then the realization that 2001 was also the tenth anniversary of 9/11/01. Our new world reality, post 9/11.
Finally thought about the ending to the summer drawings now that it is post LaborDay. Looking for a regular social work opportunity (will teach part time). I also need to be around more social workers as the current political climate is so outrageous. Amazing that the Republican nihilists are so intent on getting rid of our first AfricanAmerican President, roll back social rights, and destroy the economy for the enrichment of the oligarchs.