Labor day weekend included: a quick stop at a dance party, five more job applications, some bike rides, an outdoor Brooklyn flea market, two late brunches, Warioware for Wii Smooth Moves, birthday cake (not mine), and, obviously, hot dogs. David wanted to know if these counted for AHHAT activites, and I decided yes — the [...]
Category Archives: Politics
Blogs, Bikes, Sledgehammers
07-Jul-08Last night, the bloggies, aka the video group, aka a group of GC soc students (and one poli-sci interloper) who have been collaborating on mutating projects for the past year, got together at the home of our advisor for some drinks and some re-capping of our latest activities. The group started as a way of [...]
“Thank You For Not Driving!”
26-Jun-08On my bike, on my way to the Grad Center today, a Greenpeace canvasser shouted the above to me. I thought that was nice. I have an intense and conflicted relationship with canvassers. In the summer months, the streets around my apartment are swarming with young, white, idealistic kids on summer vacation from liberal arts [...]
339 days left…
12-May-08…until the next National Librarian’s Day (April 16, 2009), but if you need a fix of your favorite Local Librarian before then, I’ve got a couple of options for you: (1) Emily has a piece in Radical Catologing, a new collection on the politics and possibilities of library practices, with articles addressing “the implications behind [...]
May Day
01-May-08Just got home from the May Day rally at Union Square. A nice turn-out, some good signs. Meanwhile, great post over at Scatterplot from yesterday, especially appropriate for today.
That Dream Within a Dream
30-Apr-08Apparently the fact that wealthy white gay people want to be just like other wealthy white people is news again. The Sunday Times magazine had a story on how young gay boys are nuts for nuptials, profiling a handful of white Boston gays in their 20s who have gotten legally wed. The interview subjects discuss [...]
Sean Bell Verdict
24-Apr-08The Queens judge presiding over the Sean Bell case is announcing his verdict tomorrow. If you haven’t followed this, here’s a Google news search of articles on the case. Somewhat surprisingly, given all the important things going on with Britney Spears and Jennifer Aniston, local and national media have actually paid a fair amount of [...]
I’ve been enjoying this song by Andrew Bird called Tables and Chairs. It’s a nice corrective to the kind of ascetic-activist denial-of-fun to which I and some of my political co-conspirators can be prone. (Who said that thing about if I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution?) The song ends: [...]
Neoliberalism and Conscription
21-Apr-08One of the best articles I’ve read recently is Deborah Cowen’s Fighting for Freedom: The End of Conscription in the United States and the Neoliberal Project of Citizenship. It’s a really tight, focused read on the relationship between the restructuring of welfare programs in the U.S. and the end of the draft/launch of an all-volunteer [...]