Sitting around a table in the Palm Court at the Plaza Hotel, six friends
sip from porcelain teacups and munch on an assortment of delicate
pastries and sweets. The friends are a mixture of ages and interests,
but all have a common thread - each is currently a college student,
dealing with similar pressures from professors and peers alike. A girl pushes her hair behind her ear, bringing up the new spring line of a big fashion house. A boy clears his throat before reviewing the new indie blockbuster he illegally downloaded.
One of the boys, dressed fashionably in a charcoal button up cardigan over a magenta dress shirt, announces that he has some news to share. There is a calm in the conversation, and he smiles. He has recently been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), a developmental disorder concerned with inattentiveness, over activity, impulsivity or a combination.
“We all cheered when he said he got diagnosed with ADD… like it was a
good thing,” admitted Mercedes B., part of the Plaza tea party and a
19-year-old BAFA student at Eugene Lang College and Parsons School of
Design. “Because that means that he gets pills.”
Prescription drug abuse has been on the rise in the past decade in the
United States; use of unprescribed drugs in the past ten years has grown
by 430%, according to a study done by the U.S. Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration. College students have definitely
contributed to this growth; a 2010 survey by the National College Health
Association had ___ results. Out of 105,781 students surveyed, 3.2% had
taken antidepressants, 7.5% had taken painkillers, 4.3% had taken
sedatives and 7.8% had taken stimulants - all without a prescription for
the drug.
“Our culture has viewed [prescription drug abuse] as inevitable, more
inevitable than smoking weed,” nineteen-year-old New School student
Dylan D. said. “It’s hyped by the media. It’s always in movies,
television shows.”
Prescription drug use and abuse at the New School is a topic often
ignored.
“They didn’t say anything [at orientation],” Grant N., a Parsons
student, said. “People go crazy working here, they should tell you
about the effects abusing drugs like Adderrall.”
In the midst of schoolwork and final projects, prescription drugs are often forgotten about, although their abuse increases.; out of 30 students interviewed, more than half thought that prescription drug abuse at the school was a problem. Seventeen students admitted to using prescription drugs they had not been prescribed, and two even admitted to deceiving a doctor into giving them a prescription they did not need.
A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
discovered that almost 40 Americans die every day from prescription drug
overdoses. This poses a serious risk for students, who take pills, which
they purchased or were given, without an understanding of dosages or the
addictive properties of the drugs. Many of the New School students
surveyed were not even sure how to spell the names of the drugs that
they admitted to taking.
The ignorance surrounding prescription drugs seems to be a part of the appeal – at least to Dylan D. “You can’t see how much you’re taking.
It’s a source of excitement. People are curious to try things when
they don’t know what the results will be.”
Grant N. doesn’t even remember what he took recreationally. “It was
Percocet or Vicodin, I don’t remember. I took like four, and it
didn’t do shit.”
Other students’ self-medicate, using the drugs to solve minor aches
and pains or to help them focus intensely on their studies.
“I know some Architecture students who take Adderall all the
time,” Grant N. explained. “It’s the only way they can get work
done.”
An increase in the amount of prescriptions given has led to an increase
in the amount of people abusing prescription drugs, according to the
CDC.
“Enough narcotics are prescribed to give every adult in America one
month of prescription narcotics,” Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the
CDC, said in a telebriefing in early November. “This stems from a few
irresponsible doctors and, in fact, now the burden of dangerous drugs is
being created more by a few irresponsible doctors than by drug pushers
on the street corners.”
The idea of a “dealer” seems to be almost absent from prescription
drug abuse. The mysterious “friend”, who seems to have an unlimited
supply of prescribed drugs they would be more than willing to share, has
replaced the drug dealer. According to the New School students that
admitted to using unprescribed drugs, the most popular ways of acquiring
the drugs were through a friend. Thirteen students said a friend had given them the drugs, nine out of 10 said they had purchased the drug from a friend.
Mercedes B. has only taken a prescription painkiller once, and a friend
gave it to her, without any request for compensation - though it could
also be contributed to the doctor’s negligence.
“The Percocet came from a friend who was getting his wisdom teeth
removed. He got a full prescription three or four months in advance, so
we just snorted it.”
Regardless of the risks that come with abusing prescription drugs- arrest, addiction, and expulsion, to name a few – some students don’t feel that it is a problem at the New School.
“I don’t think anything bad is coming out of it,” Dylan D.
believes. “I think a majority of the New School uses [prescription
drugs], but it’s the same at other colleges. Everybody does it.”
Either way, prescription drug use is on the rise, and there are mixed
feelings about what should be done.
Dr. Thomas Frieden of the CDC believes in attacking at the primary
source.
“States can take effective action to shut pill mills and reduce
doctor shopping by patients,” he suggested during the telebriefing.
“Boards that are concerned with physician licensure can take
appropriate action against physicians who have been inappropriate in
providing prescription narcotics outside the bounds of reasonable
medical practice.”
Students, however, just want to be better informed.
“During orientation, health services had a table with condoms,”
Dylan D. said with a chuckle. “Really, they should’ve had
information about prescription drugs - you know, what they look like,
the effects. The fact that [prescription drugs] are addictive. Honestly,
I didn’t even know that.”
Monday, 19 December 2011
Friday, 16 December 2011
Profile Re-write
James Hannaham enters the classroom every day, sits, and removes his hat. The hat sometimes differs, but the routine never changes. He looks around the room, meeting the eyes of the students surrounding him before smiling and cracking a joke. Writing students, clutching their drafts like babies, visibly loosen up and smile easily, wondering, is this the calm before the storm?
Hannaham is a creative writing professor at Eugene Lang College and Pratt Institute in New York City, but that is not his limit; he claims to be a sort of renaissance man on his website, labeling himself as an “author, or writer, or something like that… perhaps novelist, but also journalist, teacher and occasional performer.”
Someone with so many interests may come off as intimidating, but, attending a class with Hannaham, one realizes just how down to earth and human he actually is. He may tell the story of his tattoo – the children in school morphed his last name into the insult, “hammerhead”, which is why he now has the shark inked permanently on his arm. However, Hannaham’s ink is not the only evidence of his finding happiness and success.
“God Says No”, Hannaham’s first novel, was published in 2009. It follows Gary, struggling to accept his homosexuality in the face of religion and the American South. In July 2010, the book was featured on Entertainment Weekly’s list of best new paperbacks, and has received stellar reviews in publications from New York to Austin to Seattle.
Although openly gay, Hannaham is adamant about separating the author from his work. In an interview with The Village voice, he calls the novel’s main character a “shadow self”; though they have basic similarities, he differs greatly from his character. In class, he warns students against reading too much into a character based on background knowledge of the author, stating, “Unless you talk to the writer, you’ll never really know.”
Recalling parts of his childhood, one can see that Hannaham’s struggles were much different than Gary’s, and his tongue-in-cheek attitude about life-changing occurrences proves that he handles adversity a bit better than his main character. Hannaham remembers his childhood fondly, regardless of the taunts. His mother, who has since passed, was his greatest influence as a child and has continued to be through his adulthood.
Hailing from Yonkers, New York, Hannaham was met with adversity from the very beginning. Yonkers, “The City of Gracious Living” was sued by the NAACP for segregation of the school system and housing in 1980. 97% of public housing was constructed in a one square mile area in Southwest Yonkers, and City Council members vetoed proposals allowing housing to be built in the wealthier areas, where most council members lived. This decision trickled down into the school system, which was widely segregated by race and socioeconomic status.
“My childhood was largely defined by various busing programs to schools on the other side of the city,” says Hannaham. The city of Yonkers lost the suit and Hannaham, though never forgetting the effects of segregation on his childhood, moved on to greater academic endeavors.
Hannaham, though a published author and journalist, did not have a clear sense of what he wanted to do growing up. He majored in design in college, though the extents of his graphic work presently are funny musings about the choice of type and layout on the pages of books and magazines.
“It took me a long time to realize that what I’d always been interested in was language and words and meanings,” Hannaham said. “I was in a rock band, but I wrote a lot of odd lyrics which seemed more the point than the music.”
In 2008, Hannaham worked for the culture department at Salon.com, the closest he’s come to a full-time job. He now is a freelance writer and writing professor at Eugene Lang College and Pratt Institute. His teaching is one part of his adulthood that he feels is very influenced by his mother and her parenting style.
Hannaham’s various interests and influences make him hard to pin down.
He maintains an air of mystery even when discussing his current projects.
“I am working on a bunch of different things,” Hannaham says, before giving a laundry list of goals. “A story collection, a manuscript, a group of short pieces, and a series of wall text placards that contextualize works of art that for whatever reason actually can’t exist.”
Living near Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Hannaham has strange, yet sensible, advice for living in New York City.
“Buy a piece of property in an up-and-coming neighborhood,” he says, “In a few years, your friends will marvel at how little you paid.”
Hannaham is a creative writing professor at Eugene Lang College and Pratt Institute in New York City, but that is not his limit; he claims to be a sort of renaissance man on his website, labeling himself as an “author, or writer, or something like that… perhaps novelist, but also journalist, teacher and occasional performer.”
Someone with so many interests may come off as intimidating, but, attending a class with Hannaham, one realizes just how down to earth and human he actually is. He may tell the story of his tattoo – the children in school morphed his last name into the insult, “hammerhead”, which is why he now has the shark inked permanently on his arm. However, Hannaham’s ink is not the only evidence of his finding happiness and success.
“God Says No”, Hannaham’s first novel, was published in 2009. It follows Gary, struggling to accept his homosexuality in the face of religion and the American South. In July 2010, the book was featured on Entertainment Weekly’s list of best new paperbacks, and has received stellar reviews in publications from New York to Austin to Seattle.
Although openly gay, Hannaham is adamant about separating the author from his work. In an interview with The Village voice, he calls the novel’s main character a “shadow self”; though they have basic similarities, he differs greatly from his character. In class, he warns students against reading too much into a character based on background knowledge of the author, stating, “Unless you talk to the writer, you’ll never really know.”
Recalling parts of his childhood, one can see that Hannaham’s struggles were much different than Gary’s, and his tongue-in-cheek attitude about life-changing occurrences proves that he handles adversity a bit better than his main character. Hannaham remembers his childhood fondly, regardless of the taunts. His mother, who has since passed, was his greatest influence as a child and has continued to be through his adulthood.
Hailing from Yonkers, New York, Hannaham was met with adversity from the very beginning. Yonkers, “The City of Gracious Living” was sued by the NAACP for segregation of the school system and housing in 1980. 97% of public housing was constructed in a one square mile area in Southwest Yonkers, and City Council members vetoed proposals allowing housing to be built in the wealthier areas, where most council members lived. This decision trickled down into the school system, which was widely segregated by race and socioeconomic status.
“My childhood was largely defined by various busing programs to schools on the other side of the city,” says Hannaham. The city of Yonkers lost the suit and Hannaham, though never forgetting the effects of segregation on his childhood, moved on to greater academic endeavors.
Hannaham, though a published author and journalist, did not have a clear sense of what he wanted to do growing up. He majored in design in college, though the extents of his graphic work presently are funny musings about the choice of type and layout on the pages of books and magazines.
“It took me a long time to realize that what I’d always been interested in was language and words and meanings,” Hannaham said. “I was in a rock band, but I wrote a lot of odd lyrics which seemed more the point than the music.”
In 2008, Hannaham worked for the culture department at Salon.com, the closest he’s come to a full-time job. He now is a freelance writer and writing professor at Eugene Lang College and Pratt Institute. His teaching is one part of his adulthood that he feels is very influenced by his mother and her parenting style.
Hannaham’s various interests and influences make him hard to pin down.
He maintains an air of mystery even when discussing his current projects.
“I am working on a bunch of different things,” Hannaham says, before giving a laundry list of goals. “A story collection, a manuscript, a group of short pieces, and a series of wall text placards that contextualize works of art that for whatever reason actually can’t exist.”
Living near Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Hannaham has strange, yet sensible, advice for living in New York City.
“Buy a piece of property in an up-and-coming neighborhood,” he says, “In a few years, your friends will marvel at how little you paid.”
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Feature Draft
Six friends sit around a table in the Palm Court at the Plaza Hotel, sipping from porcelain teacups and munching on an assortment of delicate pastries and sweets. The friends are a mixture of ages and interests, but all have a common thread – each is currently a college student, dealing with similar pressures from professors and peers alike. One of the boys, dressed fashionably in a charcoal button up cardigan over a magenta dress shirt, announces that he has some news to share. He has recently been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), a developmental disorder concerned with inattentiveness, over activity, impulsivity or a combination.
“We all cheered when he said he got diagnosed with ADD… like it was a good thing,” admitted Mercedes B., part of the tea party and a 19-year-old BAFA student at Eugene Lang College and Parsons School of Design. “Because that means that he gets pills.”
Prescription drug abuse has been on the rise in the past decade in the United States; use of unprescribed drugs in the past ten years has grown by 430%, according to a study done by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. College students have definitely contributed to this growth; a 2010 survey by the National College Health Association had ___ results. Out of 105,781 students surveyed, 3.2% had taken antidepressants, 7.5% had taken painkillers, 4.3% had taken sedatives and 7.8% had taken stimulants – all without a prescription for the drug.
“Our culture has viewed [prescription drug abuse] as inevitable, more inevitable than smoking weed,” nineteen-year-old New School student Dylan D. said. “It’s hyped by the media. It’s always in movies, television shows.”
Prescription drug use and abuse at the New School is a topic often swept under the rug.
“They didn’t say anything [at orientation],” Grant N., a Parsons student, said. “People go crazy working here, they should tell you about the effects abusing drugs like Adderrall.”
The issue of abusing prescription drugs is not without relevance at the New School; out of 30 students interviewed, more than half thought that prescription drug abuse at the school was a problem. 17 students admitted to using prescription drugs they had not been prescribed, and two even admitted to deceiving a doctor into giving them a prescription they did not need.
A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered that almost 40 Americans die every day from prescription drug overdoses. This poses a serious risk for students, who take pills, which they purchased or were given, without an understanding of dosages or the addictive properties of the drugs. Many of the New School students surveyed were not even sure how to spell the names of the drugs that they admitted to taking.
Dylan D. believes that ignorance to be part of the appeal of prescription drugs. “You can’t see how much you’re taking. It’s a source of excitement. People are curious to try things when they don’t know what the results will be.”
Grant N. doesn’t even remember what he took recreationally. “It was Percocet or Vicodin, I don’t remember. I took like four, and it didn’t do shit.”
Other students’ self-medicate, using the drugs to solve minor aches and pains or to help them focus intensely on their studies.
“I know some Architecture students that take Adderall all the time,” Grant N. explained. “It’s the only way they can get work done.”
An increase in the amount of prescriptions given has led to an increase in the amount of people abusing prescription drugs, according to the CDC.
“Enough narcotics are prescribed to give every adult in America one month of prescription narcotics,” Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, said in a telebriefing in early November. “This stems from a few irresponsible doctors and, in fact, now the burden of dangerous drugs is being created more by a few irresponsible doctors than by drug pushers on the street corners.”
The idea of a “dealer” seems to be almost absent from prescription drug abuse. The mysterious “friend”, who seems to have an unlimited supply of prescribed drugs they would be more than willing to share, has replaced the drug dealer. Of the New School students that admitted to using unprescribed drugs, the most popular ways of acquiring the drugs were through a friend. 13 students said a friend had given them the drugs, while 9 said they had purchased the drug from a friend.
Mercedes B. has only taken a prescription painkiller once, and a friend gave it to her, without any request for compensation – though it could also be contributed to the doctor’s negligence.
“The Percocet came from a friend who was getting his wisdom teeth removed. He got a full prescription three or four months in advance, so we just snorted it.”
[FACULTY QUOTE HERE]
Regardless of the risks that come with abusing prescription drugs are great – arrest, addiction, and expulsion, to name a few – some students don’t feel that it is a problem at the New School.
“I don’t think anything bad is coming out of it,” Dylan D. believes. “I think a majority of the New School uses [prescription drugs], but it’s the same at other colleges. Everybody does it.”
Either way, prescription drug use is on the rise, and there are mixed feelings about what should be done.
Dr. Thomas Frieden of the CDC believes in attacking at the primary source.
“States can take effective action to shut pill mills and reduce doctor shopping by patients,” he suggested during the telebriefing. “Boards that are concerned with physician licensure can take appropriate action against physicians who have been inappropriate in providing prescription narcotics outside the bounds of reasonable medical practice.”
Students, however, just want to be better informed.
“During orientation, health services had a table with condoms,” Dylan D. said with a chuckle. “Really, they should’ve had information about prescription drugs – you know, what they look like, the effects. The fact that [prescription drugs] are addictive. Honestly, I didn’t even know that.”
“We all cheered when he said he got diagnosed with ADD… like it was a good thing,” admitted Mercedes B., part of the tea party and a 19-year-old BAFA student at Eugene Lang College and Parsons School of Design. “Because that means that he gets pills.”
Prescription drug abuse has been on the rise in the past decade in the United States; use of unprescribed drugs in the past ten years has grown by 430%, according to a study done by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. College students have definitely contributed to this growth; a 2010 survey by the National College Health Association had ___ results. Out of 105,781 students surveyed, 3.2% had taken antidepressants, 7.5% had taken painkillers, 4.3% had taken sedatives and 7.8% had taken stimulants – all without a prescription for the drug.
“Our culture has viewed [prescription drug abuse] as inevitable, more inevitable than smoking weed,” nineteen-year-old New School student Dylan D. said. “It’s hyped by the media. It’s always in movies, television shows.”
Prescription drug use and abuse at the New School is a topic often swept under the rug.
“They didn’t say anything [at orientation],” Grant N., a Parsons student, said. “People go crazy working here, they should tell you about the effects abusing drugs like Adderrall.”
The issue of abusing prescription drugs is not without relevance at the New School; out of 30 students interviewed, more than half thought that prescription drug abuse at the school was a problem. 17 students admitted to using prescription drugs they had not been prescribed, and two even admitted to deceiving a doctor into giving them a prescription they did not need.
A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered that almost 40 Americans die every day from prescription drug overdoses. This poses a serious risk for students, who take pills, which they purchased or were given, without an understanding of dosages or the addictive properties of the drugs. Many of the New School students surveyed were not even sure how to spell the names of the drugs that they admitted to taking.
Dylan D. believes that ignorance to be part of the appeal of prescription drugs. “You can’t see how much you’re taking. It’s a source of excitement. People are curious to try things when they don’t know what the results will be.”
Grant N. doesn’t even remember what he took recreationally. “It was Percocet or Vicodin, I don’t remember. I took like four, and it didn’t do shit.”
Other students’ self-medicate, using the drugs to solve minor aches and pains or to help them focus intensely on their studies.
“I know some Architecture students that take Adderall all the time,” Grant N. explained. “It’s the only way they can get work done.”
An increase in the amount of prescriptions given has led to an increase in the amount of people abusing prescription drugs, according to the CDC.
“Enough narcotics are prescribed to give every adult in America one month of prescription narcotics,” Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, said in a telebriefing in early November. “This stems from a few irresponsible doctors and, in fact, now the burden of dangerous drugs is being created more by a few irresponsible doctors than by drug pushers on the street corners.”
The idea of a “dealer” seems to be almost absent from prescription drug abuse. The mysterious “friend”, who seems to have an unlimited supply of prescribed drugs they would be more than willing to share, has replaced the drug dealer. Of the New School students that admitted to using unprescribed drugs, the most popular ways of acquiring the drugs were through a friend. 13 students said a friend had given them the drugs, while 9 said they had purchased the drug from a friend.
Mercedes B. has only taken a prescription painkiller once, and a friend gave it to her, without any request for compensation – though it could also be contributed to the doctor’s negligence.
“The Percocet came from a friend who was getting his wisdom teeth removed. He got a full prescription three or four months in advance, so we just snorted it.”
[FACULTY QUOTE HERE]
Regardless of the risks that come with abusing prescription drugs are great – arrest, addiction, and expulsion, to name a few – some students don’t feel that it is a problem at the New School.
“I don’t think anything bad is coming out of it,” Dylan D. believes. “I think a majority of the New School uses [prescription drugs], but it’s the same at other colleges. Everybody does it.”
Either way, prescription drug use is on the rise, and there are mixed feelings about what should be done.
Dr. Thomas Frieden of the CDC believes in attacking at the primary source.
“States can take effective action to shut pill mills and reduce doctor shopping by patients,” he suggested during the telebriefing. “Boards that are concerned with physician licensure can take appropriate action against physicians who have been inappropriate in providing prescription narcotics outside the bounds of reasonable medical practice.”
Students, however, just want to be better informed.
“During orientation, health services had a table with condoms,” Dylan D. said with a chuckle. “Really, they should’ve had information about prescription drugs – you know, what they look like, the effects. The fact that [prescription drugs] are addictive. Honestly, I didn’t even know that.”
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
Weekly Response 12/7
The Huffington Post made an interesting choice of a headlining story earlier today. The article, "The GOP's Crackpot Agenda", was the center of the page, for at least a few hours. However, when reading it, I was directed to Rolling Stone, where the original article was posted - a destination I did not quite expect. This deserves some commentary of its own and how the internet is shaping journalism. A good article can be posted and reposted through other outlets, and one would never expect to end up where the end up, just through clicking through.
The article itself was somewhat biased, however the bias was well backed up with historical patterns and quotes from experts. This created a sense of trust between the reader and the author, and rather than taking everything that was written for word, I found myself raising questions, which I think as more the intention of the article than convincing the reader a certain way. It was also an all-encompassing article, bringing to light many issues surrounding the GOP, rather than choosing to focus on one. This was done through the use of headlines that broke up the piece - something not everyone agrees with, considering the many discussions our class has had. However, in this longer piece, with many different facets, I appreciated the titling of the sections, as it made it easier for me to navigate, and I wasn't so jarred by the switch in subjects.
While trying to find and example of a trend piece, I came across an article on turtlenecks from the New York Times. I expected to find this one just as trivial as the other trend pieces from the Times, but this one seems to hold some weight. The piece started with the initial notice of a trend - a fashion designer wearing a turtleneck on the red carpet. This seemed like light evidence - but the article quickly dove into more in depth evidence. The article references fashion shows from this season that implemented the turtleneck in their designs, as well as celebrities that have recently been spotted sporting the dated sweater. The article also included some "street style" photos of every day people wearing the turtleneck. Experts were not forgotten - a Parson's professor was interviewed about the history and appeal of the turtleneck in the fashion world, and why it is a recurring trend. While not a trend that I particularly want to follow, the article convinced me of its validity as a trend in the fashion world.
Monday, 28 November 2011
Profile of James Hannaham Draft One
It can truly be said that James Hannaham is a man of many talents; he admits to being a sort of renaissance man on his website, where he claims to be an “author, or writer, or something like that… perhaps novelist, but also journalist, teacher and occasional performer.”
Someone so faceted may come off as intimidating, but, attending a class with Hannaham, one realizes just how down to earth and human he actually is. He may tell the story of his tattoo – the children in school morphed his last name into the insult, “hammerhead”, which is why he now has the shark inked permanently on his arm.
Hannaham, a Yonkers native, remembers his childhood fondly, regardless of the taunts. His mother, who has since passed, was his greatest influence as a child and has continued to be through his adulthood.
Hannaham, though a published author and journalist, did not have a clear sense of what he wanted to do growing up. He majored in design in college, though the extents of his graphic work presently are funny musings about the choice of type and layout on the pages of books and magazines.
“It took me a long time to realize that what I’d always been interested in was language and words and meanings,” Hannaham said. “I was in a rock band, but I wrote a lot of odd lyrics which seemed more the point than the music.”
In 2008, Hannaham worked for Salon.com, the closest he’s come to a full-time job. He now is a freelance writer and writing professor at Eugene Lang College and Pratt Institute. His teaching is one part of his adulthood that he feels is very influenced by his mother and her parenting style. His writing, however, is more of himself. His novel “God Says No”, published in 2009, is about a closeted gay man and his struggle to accept his sexual orientation within the terms of his faith.
Hannaham is adamant, however, about separating the author from his work, which leads one to wonder how much can really be discovered about Hannaham merely through reading his work.
(need another quote here) *pending a meeting (unable to meet over break)
Living near Pratt Institute, Hannaham has strange, yet sensible, advice for living in New York City.
“Buy a piece of property in an up-and-coming neighborhood,” he says, “In a few years, your friends will marvel at how little you paid.”
*waiting on response from student for a student quote
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Weekly Response (make up) 11/23
Today, the New York Times really disappointed me. I have to admit that I have yet to read the article that I am about to write on, but its content attracted me, as it took up the center of the website and seemed extremely unimportant. All I can say is that I hope to one day be paid to write articles about bulldog breeding, and have them take center-stage to greater world issues, like the leader of Yemen ending his rule, etc.
Now I have to admit I have been slightly wrong. While I still feel that this longer piece may not have deserved center stage, it was a wonderfully written article. The writer set up a scene before jumping into the piece, using fantastic details that really drew me in, even though I'd initially been opposed to reading the article. You could also tell that the writer had done his research; I felt that I was educated about something I knew relatively nothing about, but not in a patronising way - it was easy. The quotes were also great; either the writer lucked out or had a plethora of quotes to choose from, because they were quirky but added greatly to the overall piece. This piece was almost more of a feature story than a news article, and I must admit that I enjoyed reading it more than I would've liked to.
I really appreciate how the Huffington Post now has an entire online section dedicated to the OWS movement and articles relating to it. I chose to read one about a protestor passing on a note to Obama about the police brutality around the country during a hand shaking session. It was a short read, and intended to be so, but it fell a little flat for me. While I did appreciate the quotes from Obama (though indirect) and the exact text that was on the note, I would've really appreciated a comment from a protestor that was there, or someone else from the audience who witnessed when the protestors originally interrupted Obama's speech. This just makes me question what makes big news vs. small news, and where priorites are given. If it's a smaller article, is it okay to neglect certain aspects of the article, just to get a short story across? I'm personally quite confused on the appropriate way to report on a situation like this.
Thursday, 10 November 2011
OWS Article - Third Draft
Carefully balancing a slice of pizza in one hand, 24-year-old Cerrij, from Mississippi, made room for her neighbor’s dog Daisy to sit on her sleeping bag – her “home” of three days. She offered the slice to her neighbor, who accepted it with a grateful smile and a nod. On the other side of Zucotti Park, located in Manhattan’s Financial district, a chorus of voices could be heard, singing Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me”, accompanied by a circle of drummers.
"It's not just for me,” said Cerrij, “It's for the entire world. It's for you, for the cops that are out here night after night, for the unions, for teachers.”
Following a call to action from Vancouver-based non-profit organization Adbusters, Zucotti Park has been occupied in a protest now known as Occupation Wall Street (OWS) since September 17, 2011, an attempt to bring to light the alleged corruption of big businesses and the deregulated economy to light.
Protestors have been camping out in Zucotti Park, as well as participating in marches and planned protests throughout the city. Many of these actions have seen an increased involvement from the NYPD, and hundreds of arrests have been made and tickets issued, many followed by claims of illegal procedure. Politicians across the nation, both local and national, have begun to take notice of the movement.
Inspired by the occupation of Tahrir Square in Egypt, Adbusters proposed a similar occupation to the Arab Spring of early 2011 on July 13, 2011, urging those upset with the economic collapse and wealth disparity in America to occupy Wall Street. On July 26, the movement went viral, spreading around the Internet, with Adbusters proposing a spread of the movement to other cities around the country and world.
As the movement gained momentum and support, on July 28 the New York General Assembly (NYGA), previously in existence for support of earlier protests, called for a public meeting to organize the occupation.
As the movement gained a following, Anonymous, a self-proclaimed “hacktavist” organization joined the movement, posting an online video detailing their expectations for the planned occupation.
“On September 17, Anonymous will flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months,” a computerized voice claims in the video. “We want freedom.”
Within the weeks leading up to the proposed occupation, the NYGA met continuously to plan how best to organize the occupation and provide necessities for the occupiers. A trial run of the occupation on September 8 resulted in the arrest of nine occupiers.
On September 17, 5000 protestors marched through the Financial District, occupying privately owned Zucotti Park in hopes of bringing
“You have to get things into the collective unconscious in order to change things,” said 24-year-old medic Kat Adams, who has been volunteering at the occupation since September 26, when it was still in its most nascent stages. “Someone eventually has to come up with a comprehensive idea, but first you have to get the idea out there.
This call for change by Adams and fellow protestors is the most publicized and widespread demonstration against America’s economic system since the economic collapse of 2008. However, the collapse was not a surprise occurrence; years of deregulation of the economy and poor choices on banks’ behalves plummeted the nation into an economic crisis.
“A convergence of events over the past 12 years has brought America to an impasse,” Gregg Rule, financial advisor of MorganStanley and Smith Barney, said. “We are locked into a grinding economic downturn, the great middle class is shrinking, power and prosperity have become ever concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.”
Regardless of preventative measures taken following the Great Depression, deregulation of the economy in the 1990s and new rights given to banks led to mismanagement of money.
Banks and investment groups were allowed to merge. As a result, banks could now make risky investments and loans, which had previously been the business of investment groups only.
With this change, many people were able to take out loans – including, but not limited to, mortgage loans – that they may not be financially able to pay back. When, after a short period of economic prosperity, the value of houses took a nose-dive, the amount of foreclosures on homes skyrocketed.
People were unable to pay back their loans and banks were soon buried by debt. When the market crashed in 2008, President Bush signed a $700 billion bailout of the banks, at the expense of the American taxpayers.
In addition to feeling wronged by both the government and the banks, people are frustrated with growing wealth disparity between the earnings of the top 1% and the other 99%.
In a report by the Congressional Budget Office, the disparity is clear; from 1979 until 2007 the average income for the top 1% has grown 275%, while the 99% has reached its highest growth at 65%.
“People need to start listening to us, rather than the 1%,” said a 35-year-old man from Chicago, who requested only to be known as “Joe”. Protestors have adopted this mathematical lingo as a mantra for the occupation, shouting it during marches and holding up signs emblazoned with the words “We are the 99%”.
Some members of the 99% have been detrimental to the cause – specifically those outfitted in the blue and white of the New York City Police Department (NYPD). Many arrests have been made since the beginning of the occupation, the most controversial of them followed by claims of wrongful arrests and brutality.
“What is rare is the sight of young, white, middle class looking women being hunted down and pepper sprayed, tossed about, hand-cuffed and in some cases arrested by members of the NYPD,” said Jill Nelson, author of “Police Brutality: An Anthology and two-time participant at Wall Street, “It says something profound about…how dehumanized, culpable and just plain low those who protect economic privilege and property are…”
Nelson refers to the Youtube video showing arrests made in Union Square, where young women are corralled and pepper sprayed by NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna. Controversy followed this viral video when Bologna and his family received threats after his personal information was posted online by the hacktavist group Anonymous.
Another large controversy arose out of the police action taken on October 1, when over 700 tickets, desk summonses and arrests were made on the Brooklyn Bridge after the police seemingly allowed protestors into the roadway.
“The police permitted and led demonstrators onto the Brooklyn bridge, they were escorting the demonstration, they took them way out into the bridge and stopped the demonstration,” summarized Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, which has since filed a class-action lawsuit against Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD on behalf of the demonstrators.
Yotam Marom, a recent college graduate of 25, feels that the police involvement has been used as more of a scare tactic against protestors to discourage their involvement.
“Parents that have kids can’t risk being arrested, people that have to go to work the next day can’t risk being arrested,” Marom said. “I can risk being arrested. I was held for eight or nine hours.”
However, there are some that feel that the police involvement has been entirely appropriate and even beneficial to the movement.
“We facilitate peaceful protests, that’s what we do, we do it every day,” said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. “That is our job. This is what we do and we do it every day. Make certain people can demonstrate peacefully.”
Peaceful protesting will continue not only in Manhattan’s financial district, but also in other corners of the country and world.
The Occupy movement has spread not only nationwide, but internationally. It now includes major cities in Spain, Germany and England. Not only large cities have participated, however; within the United States, there have been occupations in small towns. One woman residing outside of Bethel, Alaska is the lone occupier in the movement, Occupy the Tundra.
Crystal M. Zimmerman of Occupy Amarillo (Texas), said of the offshoot, “We held a solidarity march and rally on the 15th….nearly 100 people showed up….As we walked, people honked in support, gave us a thumbs up, cheered for us, and some even joined in the march.”
Although far from the actual Wall Street, Occupy Amarillo is gaining support.
“There are a few people that have been adamantly against what we stand for, but they typically will engage in conversation with us,” Zimmerman says. “Usually, they realize that they agree with more of what we have to say than they thought.”
One person who can’t be convinced on the pressing issues of the occupation is a man repeatedly voted into office by New Yorkers themselves – Mayor Micheal Bloomberg.
"If you focus for example on driving the banks out of New York City, you know those are our jobs," said Mayor Bloomberg on his weekly radio show, on October 7th. He has openly been less than supportive of the movement on Wall Street, criticizing the protesting and occupying as being damaging to city jobs.
However, many politicians outside of New York City’s local realm have shown their support of the movement.
“It’s independent... it’s young, it’s spontaneous, and it’s focused,” said Nancy Pelosi, House Minority leader of OWS. “And it’s going to be effective.”
Other supporters of the movement include congressman Ron Pail, GOP candidate and former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer, and GOP candidate Gary Johnson, to name a few.
President Obama is not without his own commentary on the happenings on Wall Street. In a news conference on October 6, President Obama defended his own decisions regarding the economy and expressed an understanding of the frustrations of the American people.
“What I think is that the American people understand that not everybody has been following the rules,” voiced President Obama. “And these days, a lot of folks who are doing the right thing aren’t rewarded, and a lot of folks who aren’t doing the right thing are rewarded.”
The responses to the protest have shown the contrast in ideals of not only the American people and politicians, but also the world. The future of the movement is unknown, especially with the coming blustery winter months.
But protestor and World War II Veteran Eddie Davis seems to be onto something, expressed in ten short words.
“We all need to band together to see a change.”
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