Sunday, November 27, 2011

Best of the Web



“My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher.”   Socrates

“Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.”    Aristotle

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” Abraham Lincoln







Studies in space have shown that birds cannot survive in weightless environments, since they require gravity in order to swallow food.




 http://youtu.be/LMhBuSBemRk  Ice finger of death


http://www.puffgames.com/boneless/    Boneless girl





A friend posted an Allman Brothers song to the web, and one thing lead to another and I remembered how great Duane Allman’s guitar sounded on this song.



somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

ee cummings


somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near



your slightest look will easily unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose



or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture

compels me with the color of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing



(i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;

only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Saturday, November 19, 2011

New York Fall - Sunday Afternoon

Sunday Afternoon

After church we went for a long walk down Battery Park on the southern tip of the island, and boarded the Staten Island Ferry with about 500 other people. (If you would like to know how cattle feel, board a ferry all at once with 500 other tourists.)

This was a fun free trip just to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, plus the magnificent view of Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge and Brooklyn from the harbor. (By the way Ken Burns made a great documentary about the Brooklyn Bridge: http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/brooklynbridge/ )

We returned to Zucotti Park and found a much different scene than the one we saw on Friday night.

There were more protesters and more onlookers, tourists and locals, and many more police officers.

There was a sing along being lead by musicians with guitars, harmonicas, and other instruments. It was very reminiscent to me of the 60s protests of the Vietnam War. While we stood there listening I heard “This Little Light of Mine”, “The Times They Are A’Changing” and other songs from that era. The musicians were varied in age, but most had white hair, if any.

Those of us born after 1953 or so were too young to participate much in the late 60s peace protests, and I for one really felt that I had missed out.

But I only observed this one in 2011. I felt like an interloper, I didn’t start it, I was only here for the weekend, and I didn’t come yesterday when the weather was horrible.

This cartoon by Garry Trudeau appeared that day, and seemed to fit well: http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/archive/2011/10/23#

There were more food vendors than on Friday night, and as I said, many more people both occupying and observing. It seemed that quite a few people had come out to hold up signs and get their pictures taken for posting on news sites and blogs. One man was dressed in a Mad Hatter outfit and posed for photos drinking a cup of tea. There was a group chanting “We’re here, we’re queer and we're not shopping!”. There was a very energetic if cliché drum circle. Here is a video.

Someone was passing out newspapers with the word OCCUPY in 3 inch red letters on the cover with the subtitle “An OWS-Inspired Gazette”. 


It was filled with articles written since the beginning on September 17th by people who had come to New York to participate, taken from blogs and direct contributions. Topics ranged from personal experiences in Occupy Wall Street in Manhattan, to “how to” pieces about past experiences with other movements and demonstrations, to letters from other city’s occupiers, Oakland, Atlanta, Philadelphia… It includes articles titled, “Occupy the Internet”, “The Police”, “The 99%: Parsing the data and ideology of the We Are 99% Tumblr”, “The Politics of the Poor”, two pages of song lyrics (“Themselves” by the Minutemen, “This Land is Your Land” by Woodie Guthrie, “Distraction” by Talib Kweli, (http://youtu.be/yGARxhHqimM language alert) “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone (!), “New York, New York” by Kander and Ebb (“Start spreading the news…), and the protest chant “We Shall Not Be Moved”.  

There were also drawings and cartoons like this one interspersed throughout:

We walked all the way around the park. There were displays about environmental issues along with someone riding a stationary bicycle used to generate electricity for occupiers to use.

There was a party atmosphere, more of what I expected to see when I imagined Occupy Wall Street before coming here. But it was still serious, no marijuana smoke or people with thousand mile stares from tripping on acid. These young people are determined.

Then, as we finished a walk around the little park we saw a demonstration march making its way down Broadway toward the park, about a block away. Police officers walked backwards ahead of the group of about a hundred marchers, and flanking on both sides, limiting it to the right lane of the street. I wasn’t clear what they were marching for, or what group it was, though they walked right past us as we stood on the sidewalk.

As it was passing in front of us Cami and I made different decisions. I decided to get up on something and take a video of it, while she decided to join it. Here she is in the very beginning of the video I shot:


When she couldn’t get my attention while I was recording, she had to step back out because if she continued we would have become separated with no phone to reach me.
She explained later why she wanted to join in:

"I saw signs that expressed some of my concerns about the direction the country is going in, signs calling for integrity in leadership, getting big money out of government, equal justice for the rich and the poor and an end to corporate welfare: "Corporations are not people". I was impressed by the marchers who all looked as though they could have stayed home, and several were wearing collars indicating that they are priests or pastors."
When I learned this later I felt bad for holding her back. I started thinking about our different responses. I think there are a great many of us in America, and around the world wrestling with how to respond to this movement. I believe that is why this is making such a compelling on-going news story. Do we watch and wait, or do we plunge right in to be counted?

I can’t speak for her, but when given a choice to join or watch, I usually tend in favor of observing, analyzing, writing about, recording instead of acting, participating, and interacting. I was tempted to become part of this movement, to march in the streets, to sing with the protesters, but I did not.

I support some of the goals I have seen related to this movement, but not all of them. As I said earlier, I support some of the goals of the Tea Party, but not all of them. Part of me holds back from embracing this movement because I am aware of the complexity of making public policy, the likelihood of unintended consequences and the errors committed in the past by mobs suddenly seizing power (take, for example the aftermath of the French Revolution).

While I get the impression that members of this movement are serious, and some are educated and articulate, and they have the wherewithal to organize themselves creatively, they are not public policy experts. I do not think that the organizers of the Tea Party were public policy experts.

But mostly I held back because it is my nature. And the words of the priest were still rattling around in my mind: humble yourself. It is easier to talk about love and justice than to do it. And being human means getting involved, getting our hands dirty, getting our lives dirty.

I don’t really want to punish Wall Street workers for their wrong doing and greed. I don’t really want to punish Washington lawmakers for their inaction. What I really want is morality and compassion in business, conciliation and compromise in government. And work for the unemployed, food for the hungry.

OK, part of me wants to punish the greedy bankers.

Instead of protesting in the streets I came home and cancelled my Bank of America credit card, joined a local credit union, because that seems like a good way to send a message. They won’t get any more of my money. I had heard about this through Bank Transfer Day http://www.facebook.com/Nov.Fifth ) But I am not a financial expert either. I wonder what the unintended consequences of this might be.

As I write this, it is two weeks after our visit, and a couple of days ago the mayor of NYC ordered Zucotti Park cleared. I am dissappointed but also hopeful. You can clear the park, but you can’t kill the spirit that started this movement. 

We left New York that evening, by train, then by car, and back to our happy home on our sleepy street in this northeastern college town. I am grateful for the sweet life and warm home that we returned to. I wish that this protest could somehow produce a world where every human can have a warm safe place to live, enough food to eat and care when they are sick, just for being human. I believe it is possible.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

New York Fall - Sunday Morning

Whenever we travel on a Sunday, we like to visit and worship at a local church. The older the better, in my view. So we had decided to return to Trinity Wall Street. It is a magnificent 165-year-old Gothic revival cathedral in the heart of the big city, on the corner of Broadway and Wall Street.

Trinity Church from Wall Street
The original church was built in 1698, using tackle provided by the famous privateer William Kidd. It was destroyed by fire during the Revolutionary War and rebuilt in 1790. George Washington had attended nearby Trinity Chapel, and then attended the second church once construction was completed. This building was in turn torn down due to being weakened by heavy snows and the third and current church was completed in 1846.

Trinity Church Birds Eye view 1846
Attending church in this historic building is kind of magical at first. One imagines Alexander Hamilton walking down the same aisle on a Sunday, sitting in the same pew. Or George Washington in his finest jacket and silk breeches, his best leather shoes and a fine tri-cornered hat under his arm, escorting Martha to their reserved pew near the front.


This day the organist began with a piece from the 17th century by an Italian, Frescobaldi, one movement of Fiores Musicali (“Musical Flowers”). http://youtu.be/vF5tOUUlLRE The effect was actually electrifying.

Then the huge choir processed in and sang “Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord”. http://youtu.be/s6ji4y9Q-K0 I have gotten used to things in Manhattan being generally of the first quality, and this choir was one of the best I have heard. They sounded terrific, especially in the vast interior of this stone Gothic cathedral.

The beauty of the sights and sounds began to meld into the familiarity of the service. The Collect was read, the choir sang Psalm 107 (“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy endures forever”) and sounded like a band of angels.

A young girl rose from the congregation, mounted the layman’s pulpit, and in a clear calm voice read the Epistle (from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, 2:9-13).

Then a priest, with great ceremony, surrounded by four people carrying candles, another carrying a tall crucifix and a sixth carrying the Bible, read the Gospel, Matthew 23:1-12: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+23%3A1-12&version=NIV

Another priest in impressive robes stepped down into the congregation to speak. He read from some papers which he held in his hand. Here is his sermon, as a webcast.


(Note the bald man in a light colored shirt with the beautiful woman in brown in the eighth pew back, left side of church, aisle side of the pew. I’m on TV! [OK, webcast…])

I encourage you to listen to this sermon, even if you are not a believer or church-goer. Think about what you would say if you were a priest addressing a Wall Street congregation about hypocrisy. How would you talk about the Occupy Wall Street protesters to a crowd of well-to-do Manhattanites in the context of Jesus’ message about the hypocrites in the church? This speaker, The Reverend Mark Bozutti-Jones, was masterful.

I have a written summary of the sermon, but it is too long to include here. Shoot me an email or a comment below and I will forward it to you.

One point he makes is that it is easier to talk about love and justice than to do it. That every human heart has light and compassion, and good, even those people working in the financial system on Wall Street.

Then he quotes the last part: “For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

He says that being human means getting involved, getting our hands dirty, getting our lives dirty. Being human is never wrong, never evil, it means being able to love every person equally, and desire justice for each person, independence, welcome, hospitality for every other human.

The Reverend Bozzuti-Jones asked us to be humble, to try teaching humility through our actions, not to oppress others but to be humble.

When he ended his sermon something unexpected happened. People applauded. Listen to the webcast and you will know why this crowd of people in this solemn, old stone cathedral felt compelled to break with tradition by spontaneously erupting into applause at the conclusion of this sermon.

Walking down Broadway after church I was still thinking about what he had said. I remembered my reaction to one of the signs I had seen at Zucotti Park. It read “God Hates Banks”. I remembered saying at the time that I couldn’t agree with that one, and now I knew why.

Next: Another look at Occupy Wall Street

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

New York Fall - Saturday Noon


Saturday Noon

We woke up to a rainy day. Rainy, wind blowing, 45 degrees. But we are from Juneau Alaska so we felt right at home!

We spent the morning reading, writing, walking the dog and enjoying takeout coffee from right next door. Then, fortified for an outing, we made our way to the lower tip of the island of Manhattan, to the old section.

Among the towering skyscrapers, amidst the ubiquitous yellow cabs and the cold and wet of the city streets, we found an entire city block of old preserved buildings, which included our destination, Fraunces Tavern, which is a restaurant http://www.frauncestavern.com/ and a museum http://www.frauncestavernmuseum.org/ .

This is a bird’s eye view of the whole block, and a street level view; both photos lifted from the web.


This site is most famous for being the location where George Washington bade farewell to his officers at the end of the Revolutionary War. In the museum is a restored room similar to the one where this dinner party took place. You might think that this would be a sumptuous, luxurious space, but it wasn’t: bare pine floors stained with spilled wine and ale, smoke hanging thick in the air from a dozen clay pipes, a simple long wooden table, bare wooden chairs, a fireplace at either end of the room, candles on the table and in sconces on the walls. On this day there had been a large tureen of turtle soup, and bread and cheese and other simple fare.


One thing I learned by being in this room is that this was an extremely emotional time for everyone present. George made a speech and raised his glass to his officers, saying:

"[w]ith a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.".

He then asked them to come up to him and offer their goodbyes individually because he knew that he would break down in tears if he tried to make the rounds of the room. It turned out that everyone, including the great General, despite his famous self control, was in tears by the end of the evening.

Think about what these men had been through. They had revolted in open war against the most powerful country in history, their country, their sovereign King. If they had failed they knew that they would have all been ignominiously hung and their families would have been ruined, their vast fortunes lost, their honor stained for all time, their legacies in ruins. They had endured many privations over the long years of war, watched their men suffer hunger, leave bloody footprints in the snow for want of shoes. They had avoided, attacked, out-maneuvered and defeated the finest of armies and the greatest naval force the world had ever known. They had witnessed spirit-crushing defeats, and soaring triumphs. And it was all coming to an end, here in Fraunces Tavern in New York City. After the emotional farewell, Washington left the room, went to the wharf, boarded a barge and returned to Virginia.


But there was another story here. The man who owned the tavern was named Samuel Fraunces, who was born in Jamaica of uncertain heritage (some hold that he was a black man). Over a nine year span he was a witness to some deeply significant times. In 1774 Sam watched men plot a revolution in his tavern, planning the New York Tea Party. The next year a British warship sailed into the harbor and bombarded the city and an eighteen pound cannonball crashed through his tavern’s roof. The following year, after the city was occupied by the British, Fraunces fled to New Jersey, but was later captured and forced to return to New York City to cook for British generals and the tavern was frequented by British soldiers. After seven long years of British occupation, in 1783, once the British had finally evacuated the city, his tavern was the site for the famous farewell dinner. Imagine the stories he could tell!

On this day, only six generations and 228 years later, we enjoyed a traditional 18th century tavern meal, by candlelight: shepherd’s pie and fish and chips. It was a grey October day, yellow leaves falling on the sidewalks and streets outside the tall 12-pane windows, the rain becoming a wet driven snow, but inside it was cheery and warm.

 Next: Sunday Morning at Trinity Church

Saturday, November 5, 2011

New York Fall - Friday Night

Continuing into our first night in the City...

It is a glorious autumn night, cool and clear. There is a front moving through bringing rain and maybe snow, but now it is still nice, lots of people on the streets. We come to a beautiful old church where they are holding a Halloween party for the neighborhood.  The kids are running around in the churchyard, hopping over tombstones and playing in a sculpture made from the roots of a tree that was toppled when the World Trade Center collapsed nearby.

Trinity Churchyard and rear of church


Trinity Root statue
The church is Trinity Episcopal www.trinitywallstreet.org and we go in for a brief look around, then head on to a restaurant I found in a guidebook, Pongris Thai in Chinatown.

The Chinatowns I’ve visited in some cities seem to be more tourist attractions than actual Asian communities, but this one, like the one in San Francisco, is very much by and for the Asian population. All of the newspapers and magazines for sale on the street and in stores are printed in Chinese, or other Asian languages. The streets and stores are filled with a great diversity of people, seemingly mostly Asian. It reminds me of Whitman’s poems, written in Manhattan:

…The machinist rolls up his sleeves….the policeman travels his beat….the gatekeepers marks who pass,

The young fellow drives the express-wagon….I love him though I do not know him;

There seem to be a thousand Vietnamese, Chinese, and Thai restaurants. Pongris is a great Thai restaurant.

On the way back we get a little lost again. (My iPhone map lags a bit in locating us, so when we stray off course, we might not know it right away. Still, navigating with GPS is one of my favorite parts about living in the 21st century!)

We find ourselves passing a long array of NYPD police cars and vans. These are not just parked, but each has at least one cop in them, some have two or three, sitting in the van talking. This is just outside City Hall.  Police presence in the city, both with uniforms and video surveillance, is obvious but this concentration is curious.

Walking a block on we realize we are beside Zuccotti Park, the site of the current Occupy Wall Street, “We are the 99%” demonstrations.

Zucotti Park, Halloween weekend

We had intended to join this protest, since we were going to be here, though we had not come to town just for that purpose, so tonight I am feeling a little like an interloper. But I am part of the 99%.  Cami and I moved to Delaware two years ago to help care for our aging parents, and since then have only found part time work, though I have sought work very consistently since arriving. My retirement fund was depleted by the unregulated capitalism that caused the Great Recession of 2008, the year I retired, and has failed to thrive as expected because of that recession.

So I am frustrated with our financial system. I am frustrated with our law-makers and leaders. I found myself agreeing a few years ago with much that I heard from the Tea Party, which was another protest movement in reaction to our political system. I am frustrated at the increasing power of corporations over my life and our leaders.

I have been watching and waiting for the groundswell of protest that I think is inevitable. “Even a rabbit will bite when it is cornered.” I wonder if Occupy Wall Street is the protest I have been hoping for.

I found a Wikipedia article that states the purpose of the protest pretty well:

Although the movement is not in complete agreement on its message and goals, it does have a message which is fairly coherent, according to Bloomberg Businessweek:

They want more and better jobs, more equal distribution of income, less profit (or no profit) for banks, lower compensation for bankers, and more strictures on banks with regard to negotiating consumer services such as mortgages and debit cards. They also want to reduce the influence that corporations—financial firms in particular—wield in politics, and they want a more populist set of government priorities: bailouts for student debtors and mortgage holders, not just for banks.

You can see the "Library" on the right

There are signs all over the park, and they cover a variety of issues, like global warming, the increasing power of corporations, and the need for jobs. One of the signs read:



IT’S SIMPLE.

RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH.

CREATE JOBS FOR THE POOR.



Another I see reads: “I’ll believe a corporation is a person when I see one exhibit Love & Empathy”


Here is another:



There are websites you might have seen with signs like this one:  Funny and Clever Protest Signs From Occupy Wall Street http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bl-occupy-wall-street-signs.htm

So when we first arrive we hear the crowd chanting something. As we get closer we are on the fringe of the crowd of about 150 people, and we can see that people are gathered around a few people on the stairs which lead down from the upper sidewalk along Broadway, and they are repeating what the speaker is saying. This “human megaphone” is, I have read, a response to the ban on megaphones. It seems quite bizarre at first. Everyone repeats every word that every person says. The speakers are not making announcements so much as having a debate of sorts. When a new speaker wants to say something, they shout “Mike check” and the crowd responds “Mike check”. Then the new speaker makes their point.

Initially the effect is that the crowd seems to be repeating and accepting everything that is said. But of course they are not. It is simply a mechanism so that the maximum number of people can hear what is being said.

I am reminded of the orators of the 18th and 19th century, who may have spoken to crowds near hear, who could be heard by hundreds of people. Of course they didn’t have the sounds of New York City traffic all around them, plus occasional sirens and such.

But several of the speakers tonight had voices that could be heard without the repeating, but the crowd repeated what they said nonetheless.

As we stand listening, for perhaps an hour all told, the content is a debate over the process of spending money by the finance committee with oversight by the “GA” (General Assembly) and the Spokesperson Group, and about making a written statement of purpose. There is a circular being passed out that proposed that the demand of the group be stated as “Jobs for Everyone.” This crowd is not what I expected. Being from the generation of protests during the 1960s I expected a group of people there for a good time, smoking pot, drumming, dancing, and being somewhat frivolous. That’s not what I see on this fall night. This is a crowd of serious dissidents, most young, in their 20s and 30s, who are educated and seeking consensus and solidarity on issues of process that most of them feel very strongly about.

I also kind of expected older people, I don’t know why, perhaps because of the apathy about government that I perceived in the younger crowd in the past two decades. I looked up the OWS and found this about their demographics (the next two paragraphs are cut and pasted from web sources):

According to a survey of Zucotti Park protesters by the Baruch College School of Public Affairs published on October 19, of 1,619 web respondents, 1/3 were older than 35, half were employed full-time, 13% were unemployed and 13% earned over $75,000. 27.3% of the respondents called themselves Democrats, 2.4% called themselves Republicans, while the rest, 70%, called themselves independents[50]

On Oct. 10 and 11, the polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland interviewed nearly 200 protesters.[51] Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, 98% would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and 31% would support violence to advance their agenda. Most are employed; 15% are unemployed. Most had supported Obama; now they are evenly divided. 65% say government has a responsibility to guarantee access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement. They support raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and are divided on whether the bank bailouts were necessary.

Sometimes the debate gets heated. One voting block feels that amendments to the statement should be voted on and consensual now, rather than after the vote. There is discussion of the actions of the District Attorney’s office in response to the protest. After a while I lose the sense of awkwardness about every point and counterpoint being repeated by the crowd, and start to form my own opinions about what the group should do.

It looks like a nascent group of people forming into self governance by consensus. It reminds me of two early forms of democracy.

The first is democratic ancient Greece. I think about early Greeks debating matters of public policy, and then voting by casting black or white rocks into an urn.

The second is early English settlements in Jamestown, or Roanoke. The business venture that financed the colony had policy, but day to day decisions were voted on democratically, one man, one vote.

I learned in school that true democracy works with groups no larger than can hear what each speaker is saying, about a hundred. That seems true with the Occupy Wall Street group. They are still struggling, six weeks after forming, to make a statement of demands or positions.

I wonder what Martin Luther King Jr. would recommend. I believe it would be that they take a stand on a specific public policy they want to have changed, and then create protests involving civil disobedience. This group marched over the Brooklyn Bridge a few weeks ago, and 700 were arrested.

I wonder what Mohandas Gandhi would recommend. Perhaps a hunger strike? This crowd is well fed, with plates of hot food available.

My overarching thought about this process is that their purpose is their presence, and nothing else needs to be written or said. Simply gather in protest. But people, particularly young people, are driven to describe, to learn, to debate, to evolve. And people need something to think about, something to do of an evening.

Beside the crowd are tents which cover most of the rest of this small park. Some are two person tents, some larger dome tents. These are not makeshift, they are pretty nice tents, pitched on the paving stones of the park, though most are covered with blue tarps to increase weather resistance. This is a fairly small park. Maybe half a city block by less than half a block. There is a sanitation station with brooms and trash bags, 20 gallon buckets with water for washing, and other hygiene items. There is station for making signs. There is a welcome desk with literature and flyers for passersby and seekers, and there is a library with books for people living here. There is one corner with a couple of young women collecting donations to offer otherwise free coffee. Along the side walk are food vendor carts, opportunistic business people, and in a closed street beside the park is a specialized van with a generator running inside and a tall post with satellite dishes on top.

New York's finest, on the j.o.b.
And everywhere on the fringe of the crowd and the encampment there are police officers, standing casually in pairs, watching, listening placidly. Cami stops to thank one of them for their service. He is a personable, friendly guy, who says that a slice of pizza would be a welcome thank you.

It is late and we are getting cold. We are now in the thick of the crowd. When people in the crowd have left, we have all taken a step forward, so that gradually we have been pulled deeper into the crowd, pulled into the debate, pulled into the movement so to speak.

The speakers have decided to take a vote. There is general approval in response to the fact that they are taking a vote, expressed not through applause, but through raised hands with fluttering fingers.

“All those in favor of adopting the living document as currently amended, raise one hand!”

Almost all of the people in the crowd raise a hand. Then someone shouts

“Mike check”.  The crowd repeats: “Mike check”.

“Point of order” The crowd shouts: “Point of order”

“The first vote” The crowd shouts: “The first vote”

“Should be” The crowd shouts: “Should be”

“For those who” The crowd shouts: “For those who”

“Oppose the vote.” The crowd repeats: “Oppose the vote.”

“OK. OK. All those opposed to adopting the living document as currently amended, raise one hand!” A few hands go up. I want to vote in favor, but again I feel like an interloper, that I don’t have a right to vote here, that I haven’t earned it by occupying the place. A couple of people at the front of the crowd carefully count the hands aloud. I wonder why they don’t just declare that “the yea’s have it” since it is obvious that the vast majority now approve the measure. Then I recall that they are seeking a 90% consensus, with dissenters being able to propose amendments later.

I am reminded of a hot summer in 1776 when a convention of representatives met in Philadelphia to gain consensus of the states on a declaration of independence from Britain. There were some heated debates and endless votes there as well.

“14 votes opposed.”

“OK, All those in favor of adopting the living document as currently amended, raise one hand!”

And again the two people meticulously count each hand raised. “Put your hand down when I count you”. The young woman on this side counted 110, and there were as many on the other side.

We turn to leave as the votes are being carefully tallied. We walk around the outside of the park, looking at signs, at the people. There are four people with jackets that read “NYPD Community Relations”. I think to myself, ‘They are also the 99%.’

I notice one couple walking up the sidewalk. There are quite a few tourists here, but these two stand out. They seem to be locals. They are walking home, probably; from an evening out, maybe, and happen to go by this park. They clearly don’t belong there. He is dressed very nicely in an expensive suit with no tie, and she is also dressed in expensive clothes with all of the accessories. Nice shoes. I catch a sense of haughtiness in their glances and smiles and comments. Harrumph.

I received an email last week from a well-off friend who likes to attempt to goad me into responding to his callously conservative propagandistic forwarded emails. I do the same by forwarding him my own callously liberal propaganda. This email from him contained a cartoon of a man at his door greeting three small trick or treaters.  He says “Oh, look honey, three children with bags full of candy. We can take that and give it to the children who are too lazy to go out and trick or treat for themselves!”  One trick or treater says to the other “Great. A Democrat.”

I responded that this looks like the philosophy of “I got mine, to heck with you!”

He readily agreed.

That did kind of grate with me.

As we were leaving the park we hear a cheer rise from the crowd. Apparently the vote passed and they could move on to the next piece of business. We resolved to return and put some money in the donation tin, and continued our walk home.

As we passed by Trinity Church again, I noticed a large headstone with a name engraved on it:  “Alexander Hamilton”. This is one of the graves the children in Halloween costumes had been cavorting upon earlier. Of course he was the first Treasury Secretary, an ardent Federalist and lifelong confederate of George Washington, and the architect of the early United States financial system.

Gravesite of Alexander Hamilton

The graveyard is dark now, Hamilton long dead, killed in a duel with the then Vice President Aaron Burr. George Washington long dead of old age, bones resting in Virginia.

It occurs to me, in this wash of thousands, millions of people here in this great city, that people today are in essence the same as they were back then. These days we are looking into our electronic devices, and conducting commerce and social relations through them now. We get around faster, in cars and trains and all sorts of fast conveyances.

But we still seek a good meal at the end of the day. We all want the best for our children, those who have them, and for our families. Our standards of living are vastly improved in some ways, but greatly diminished in others. We all want a good life for ourselves, and some of us want that good life for others, less fortunate, less able. And some are still willing to revolt against the powers that be to seek more equality for all.

New York fall. Can you smell the rain coming?


Next: Old Town and Fraunces Tavern - the original revolution...

Thursday, November 3, 2011

New York Fall - Friday Evening

Continuing with our first day in the City...

Having met our only time sensitive appointment, we went back to the apartment and took the dog for a nice long walk in the park which runs along the Hudson River. There were wonderful views of the skyscrapers along the New Jersey shore, and of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.




After we took the dog home, we went out in search of dinner. We had seen a Thai restaurant on the way in, but on second look (the menu above the counter was depicted in bleached out photographs, and no one was in there eating), we decided to keep walking and see what else presented itself. Pretty soon we found ourselves accidentally walking down Wall Street. I saw the massive stone building with the words “Stock Exchange” chiseled above the door. The street was also cordoned off with metal barriers and a few police officers stood in pairs along it, (unlike in this photo from the web.)

You might know that Wall Street was originally named for a wall constructed by the early Dutch settlers to keep, depending on which story you believe, the British, the Native Americans, or wildlife and pigs, out of their settlement.

I stopped, though we were very hungry, and looked around for a few minutes with a feeling that we were in a place which was special somehow, and not just NYSE special.

I have just finished reading Ron Chernow’s wonderful biography George Washington, a gift from my generous and well-read father in law, and, in the prior two years a few other books about the times of the American Revolution including David McCullough’s’ John Adams and 1776. I have just started Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton. Standing there I suddenly realized where we were.

Across the street from the Stock Exchange, just in front of us, there was another stately stone building with massive columns, which looked like many of the government buildings one sees while in Washington D.C. It is the Federal Hall, and on the top of the front steps stands a massive bronze statue of George himself, because it was here, after the ratification of the new Constitution, on the balcony of this very building, on a cool sunny Thursday in April 1789, that he took the oath of office at the first presidential inauguration. When he finished taking the oath there was a thunderous ovation, the bells of the churches of the city rang, and he turned a went inside to deliver the first inaugural address to the first Congress. You can see his handwritten copy here. http://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/gw-inauguration/



He was quite familiar with New York, his army having famously occupied it in the early years of the war, after the siege of the British in Boston. Then he lost New York to the British. (Imagine 300 British warships in New York harbor!)

But after the British surrendered at York Town seven long years later, and then having taken their sweet time leaving New York, George had ridden back into town to the cheers and adulation of an adoring populace.

Then having retired, (“At last!” he thought) to Mount Vernon to live quietly as a gentleman farmer, he was called on once more to serve, this time as president. He was reluctant but at the same time ambitious, so he accepted and made the long ride from Virginia to New York, enduring celebrations and speeches and adulation at every town he passed through, (the many places today with the proud plaque “George Washington slept here”, also proudly displayed the plaques when he was alive.) George Washington was in some ways America’s first superstar.

I thought about all of those times, standing here at the foot of the steps of the federal building, on the curb of Wall Street, in the shadow of the Stock Exchange, thinking about how these times are like those times in many ways.

But we are still hungry and we walk on.



NEXT: Dinner in Chinatown and Zucotti Park: Occupy Wall Street!