Monthly Archives: November 2012
Hold on the Sweaters and Blankets: Hurricane Sandy Victims Need Money
NPR: Want To Help Sandy Victims? Send Cash, Not Clothes
During Mayor Bloomberg’s announcement for his Rapid Relief plan for homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy, he mentioned the recovery work already done.
“Over the past eight days distribution sites we’ve established have provided nearly 2 million prepared meals, nearly a half million bottles of fresh water, one hundred ten thousand blankets and other essential supplies to the people that need them the most,” said Bloomberg.
The Tuesday after Hurricane Sandy struck New York City nearly 20 percent was blacked out, according to Reuters. A cold front barreled through, leaving most victims freezing and homeless.
Now weeks later, power has been restored to most houses. There isn’t a need any longer for blankets, clothes donations or hygienic supplies. Victims need the hands of volunteers and money to fix their homes.
Hurricane Sandy damaged thousands of homes in New York City. An additional 200 homes that were declared irreparable by the city are in the process of being bulldozed. This is a brutal housing crisis that left 3,000 adults living on the street among the other “47,000 people forced into homelessness by the economy”, according to New York Magazine.
So the next time you want to help out Hurricane Sandy victims, lend one hand to help with reconstruction and the other to flip through your wad of cash.
Occupy Sandy is taking in money donations for New York City here.
Mayor Bloomberg Announces Rapid Relief
Mayor Bloomberg introduced “Rapid Repair”, a FEMA-assisted plan to rebuild homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy. Although New York governor Andrew Cuomo asked Washington for $30 billion in emergency aid, Brooklynites are getting fed up and returning to grassroots for help.
Members from the Occupy Wall Street movement mobilized immediately after Hurricane Sandy struck New York and proved to have re-surged from the fading corners of Wall Street. Occupy Sandy has proved to be incredibly significant to those affected most by the catastrophe of Hurricane Sandy.
Members have set up orientations at meeting places for volunteers to gather and distribute food and first-aid, help with the clean up of trash left by the super storm and to even help pump water from peoples homes.
In the case that New Yorkers want to help with Hurricane Sandy, but do not have the time to volunteer or extra blankets to donate, Occupy Sandy’s website has this covered. Members set up a “wedding registry” where donators can purchase things the victims do need such as flashlights, cookware or a self-powered radio.
Although Con Edison’s utility workers have brought power back to over a million customers in New York City and other affected areas, their website on November 12th updated that “the 1 million restorations do not include approximately 16,300 customers in flood-ravaged areas of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.”
Residents of Gerritson Beach still do not have power. Residents of Coney Island, Canarsie, Howard Beach and through out Queens do not have power. They feel abandoned.
Amidst an arguable humanitarian crisis, Occupy Sandy volunteers have proven to give their support to the 99% of those who desperately need them.
Occupy Sandy has two main distribution centers: 520 Clinton Avenue (between Fulton & Atlantic) with hours between 9am and 9pm and 5406 4th Ave at the St. Jacobi Church with hours between 9am and 9pm.
Bullying
The family of a Brooklyn teenager is in the process of suing for $16 million for a brutal assault that left their child to undergo two surgeries in his right eye and little faith that he will be able to see out of it again. Kardin Ulysse, 14, is the victim of bullying.
Preston Deener, a fifteen year-old sophomore at Brunswick High School in Maryland, was attacked by his peers while preparing for an on-camera interview with a television station about his exposure to bullying. He has also been a victim of cyberbullying on Twitter.
A mother in Flagler County, Florida was arrested for fighting a teenage boy at his bus stop. She was protecting her child from a bully.
When one thinks of bullying their mind may flutter through images of kids being hung in a locker in the buzzing hallways of high school, a jock tripping the kid in glasses while running in gym class or the prom queen spilling punch on the girl with braces who is waiting on the wall to be asked for a dance. At the end of these scenes, the nerd always wins. Locker boy plots a harmless and quasi-successful revenge and a lesson is learned on both sides. The boy in glasses steals the jock’s girlfriend and the girl in braces comes back to the high school reunion as a foxy bombshell. The nerd has to win. Right?
Today bullying is on the rise and things aren’t exactly the same as portrayed in a John Hughes film. The use of force to intimidate others ends in physical, emotional and psychological damage, which may or may not be capable of healing.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, New York is placed second in ranking the states with the highest level of bullying. Thirty-seven percent of teenagers report being bullied at school.
The medium of bullying has changed since the wacky portrayal of bullying in 1980s films. Expansive access to the Internet provides a more isolated platform for bullying, known as cyberbullying. Bullying can now be through physical coercion, verbal abuse or via the internet.
Erin Gallagher, an Irish thirteen year-old, committed suicide after warning the bullies that she intended to only 24 hours before her body was found.
October is Bullying Prevention Awareness Month, when protestors march through the streets of New York in solidarity with the greater world to support it.
Information on how to get involved can be found here.
Marina Abramović – An Artist’s Life Manifesto
“An Artist’s Life Manifesto” serves as a paradigm for how an artist should conduct his life. It is merciless yet coddling on the creative soul and at most heavily influenced by the creator’s own life.
Marina Abramović– a Serbian-born, New York-based, provocatively brutal teacher and queen of the performance art world—read the manifesto in Florence, Moscow, and other cities around the world. She read her constructive guide to other artists, students and enthusiasts.
The idea was derived from her upbringing under the communist-dictatorship in Yugoslavia. At the age of 29 Abramović carved a pentagram into her belly with a razor in front of an audience. She had to be home by 10 in the evening. Now as a world renown performance artist, Abramovićhas spent her life rewriting the script and has finally completed a version of her own manifesto to follow.
The manifesto is divided into sections ranging from an artist’s relation to the erotic or suffering, symbols to silence and different death and funeral scenarios. Take word from Abramović, evidence of her learning the hard way is weaved through out her body of work.
“An artist should avoid falling in love with another artist” is repeated three times by Abramović, although she had most notably only made the mistake once. Abramović had a romantic tangled into a working relationship with Ulay (real name Frank Uwe Laysiepen). In 1988 they decided to end their relationship with a performance, each of them walking from opposite start-points on the Wall of China to meet in the middle. This journey was initially planned for their wedding day. Instead of joining as one, they said their goodbyes and after meeting kept walking their separate ways.
Abramović still performs and remains a student (she provided a women-only lecture in London last August to explore the meaning of feminine energy), however concentrates on the creation of writing, films and knowledge in her fans and students.
Body Dialect 