the missing students

june-- the time of graduation and celebrating-- but this commencement speech by aries hines of mills college reminds us that the choice of going to college and succeeding there is not a dream within everyone's grasp. this video and her speech are a reality check for me... i struggle to pay my school loans while doing public interest work, but never did i struggle to get into college or law school. i saw this on the applied research center's website: for the students who aren't supposed to graduate. listen to and read her powerful speech.

a bright vision for the future-- essential reading

from symposia books in providence, RI (a wonderful bookstore we discovered a few years ago), a book i want to get... i briefly knew chris carlsson (friend of a friend) when i lived in san francisco in the mid 90s, he started the critical mass bike ride phemon, every friday in the city...

Chris Carlsson, the author, will be at symposia on monday may 19th for an in-store reading...

Nowtopia: How Pirate Programmers, Outlaw Bicyclists, and Vacant-lot Gardeners are inventing the Future Today!

"Chris Carlsson is one of our most original and compelling voices of radical social change in America. Nowtopia opens a window onto today's vibrant subcultures of technical experimentation and cooperative work, in everything from biofuels to bicycling, gardening to the webworld. More than tinkerers and bohemians, these renegade innovators are pioneers of new ways of living beyond the market and ordinary jobs. Carlsson moves effortlessly from tales of personal liberation to a trenchant analysis of the reconfiguration of class. Nowtopia is a ringing appeal for the liberation of human creativity from the noose of wagework--before it's too late."

-Richard Walker, Prof. of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, Author of The Capitalist Imperative

Why Waiters Don't Start Unions

I have been reading Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell, and while not his most famous work, by a long shot, it is still amazing. This afternoon, reflecting on class, Presidential elections and the inequality that is rampant down here in Brazil, and becomes more and more common in the richest country in the world (our beloved US and A), I thought I would share a tiny bit of this phenomenal book with you, my cherished reader.

"The moral is, never be sorry for a waiter. Sometimes when you sit in a restaurant, still stuffing yourself half an hour after closing time, you feel that the tired waiter at your side must surely be despising you. But he is not. He is not thinking as he looks at you, 'What an overfed lout'; he is thinking, 'One day, when I have saved enough money, I shall be able to imitate that man.' He is ministering to a kind of pleasure he thoroughly understands and admires. And that is why waiters are seldom Socialists, have no effective trade unions, and will work twelve hours a day--they work fifteen hours, seven days a week, in many cafes. They are snobs, and they find the servile nature of their work congenial."

I worked at the Central Park Boathouse restaurant for a month, and it was one of the worst jobs of my life. Orwell is completely right. I have never felt more servile, and was treated with arrogance by the biggest slaves of all in the restaurant business, the waiters. Of course, compared to the goon of an owner of that hell-hole, they were angels.

time to leave hoboken????

wow, the local website for the hoboken community has given me the best reason to leave this town. see kid radical's comment here which already has caused quite a stir. below is the post and photo from the site. we hope our loyal readers will join this discussion. where is the compassion? concern for others? have those who posted comments that want to "clean up the streets" ever talked with a homeless person? do you know their stories, their lives or their names? do you think they choose to struggle with mental illness, addiction or poverty? if you see a growing "problem" that affects you and "the value of your home", what are you doing about it? do you volunteer at the shelter, donate to a non-profit organization that helps the homeless or serve your community? myself and others who contribute to this blog try to address that question every day in our work, our daily routines and interaction with others. i'm glad these posts inspire heated debate and hope that we can do more than just insult each other's blogs.

there is a very real face to homelessness. look at it.

--A reader chimes in about his feelings about the state of homelessness in Hoboken. He thinks it’s getting worse. We have a great shelter, but is the situation really falling apart?

“Dear Hoboken 411,
What is up with the increase in the number of homeless people in Hoboken? Its feels like they are growing in number. I see the same homeless people walking Washington Street everyday. I don’t think they are dangerous but at the same time I am sure they make us hardworking residents uncomfortable, to say the least. (As well as decrease the value of our homes). And where do they come from? What is so appealing about Hoboken to the homeless? Is this a growing problem in our town? Is there anyway to help alleviate it? Something has to be done in my opinion. This town is better than what I am seeing. Obviously Hoboken has made great strides over the past 10 - 15 years, but why can’t we clean up the streets?
-Anonymous”--

India, Brazil and the US…Similar and Different?

I try to go for a walk most mornings, and I have noticed a phenomena ever since I started this habit. All over my neighborhood, in the city of Bauru, in the heart of the Brazilian state of São Paulo, can be seen people pushing huge carts full of cardboard, aluminum cans, and other recyclables. They push the carts themselves, or, if they can afford it, have a horse that pulls a makeshift carriage for them, which they load to the top with potentially profitable refuse. And you can see these people everywhere; they are almost a part of the scenery. Almost a caste.

I say almost a caste because every one of these “scavenger-hunters” of a sort come, invariably, from the poorest neighborhoods, or even more likely, favelas, of Bauru. They pay no taxes for their finds, receive no benefits for their toil, and are, in many ways, outside of society. They exist, but are, in many ways, throughout Brazil, invisible.

Which brings me to another invisible people, the untouchables of India. I will not go into detail describing the lifestyle of one of these outsiders, the lowest of the low in the caste-based society that is India. What I thought of today was this: how different is India from Brazil with regard to the poorest of the poor?

I recently read that the largest and most powerful state in India had just elected an untouchable for its governor. This is, in many ways, a monumental and stunning achievement and change in Indian society. Twenty years ago, as the New York Times article pointed out, this event would be unthinkable. However, India is modernizing, and although poverty is still horrendous throughout the country, some barriers are finally being overcome. One of them is the stigma that class brings to a people, especially the people traditionally considered dirty and pariahs.

Coming back to Brazil, I began to wonder if this type of sea change could ever occur in Brazil. I remember my mother telling me about a former maid that became a Congresswoman a few years ago. I, myself, have never heard of a favelada or slum-dweller, ever making it to federal politics. It just doesn’t happen. Unfortunately, the same families seem to produce the political class. And the cycle continues. So, can Brazil call itself a democracy, where every individual has a voice in government? I have to answer a resounding no.

Turning to the US, my country, I would have to answer the same resounding ‘no’ to the same question: is The U.S.A. a democracy, and can anyone play a part in the governing of the country, no matter what class they come from? Just take a look at how many millionaires are in the Presidential race.