Ezra Klein thinks Kurt Andersen is wrong

Talking about maps and demographics.

This topic reminds me of dear ol' José Ortega y Gassett and his La Rebelión de las masas. A political classic.

Well, Ezra, you are now wearing a tie and looking older and so on...but you are missing the point.

Kurt Andersen's piece on NYMag offers thoughtful insight about political noise and demographics. His point: the nation might have demographically outgrown its political institutions, and this is what creates the political noise coming from the ideological extremes.

Ezra's response is simply irrelevant. Obvious or false. His point: the House is noisier and 'crazier' than the Senate. And it 'works' more efficiently ('better') because of that.

So what?

The point is the NOISE. Its growth. The static. The FULLNESS of it all. Everything seems cramped-up, full, noisy, extreme, extremeful....full of everything, and of course full of shit.

When I lived in Québec, Canada, it dawned on me how irrelevant the rest of the country seemed to be, on a day to day level. How the Feds were just like irrelevant on a daily basis. They were there, we were here. Very different from Puerto Rico, were the governor is as powerful as the President is here, and as near to everybody as a small town mayor is.

When I got to NYC ten years ago, it seemed that barring a war (or two or three wars), the mayor had a more direct impact on my life than the President. At least that seemed to be the case here in NYC, coz the city was/is rich and it generates its own micro climate of dollars, and can/could afford a certain degree of independence. Not anymore. The political noise is everywhere. Especially the federalized noise.

Ezra, however, thrives in this 'federal' noise (or adding to it), while I hate it. Ezra's check depends on it. On the 'crazier' part of politics. Yet, precisely when life becomes full of politics, craziness and noise, when there remains no space or time for anything else, that's when we have to begin pondering about what went wrong.

It seems to be about the demographic weight of it all; and complicating it is the complexity of those demographics. Maps, maps, maps.

We need space and time to deal with out own local political noise. And not running the risk that by temporarily ignoring the federal noise the country is gonna go down the drain while we take care of our local business. Kurt is speaking about THAT.

An ideological or theoretical explanation might be sexier, but if it turns out that sheer demographics IS distorting the political responsiveness and optimal-ness of the system, then....everything should be on the table. And that's what Andersen is pointing to.

Maps

Six months ago my boss said: you have to learn maps NOW!!!

And so, I did. Or I am, learning maps. Specifically, GIS (Geographic Information Systems).

I am have developed the skills to do my own maps...like the maps that John King plays with in CNN. In about three months, I WILL be able to do one of those...I am almost there. Layers of features, you can turn them off and on, etc.

I have access to tons of data, TONS. Electoral, tax lots, education, census, race, gas lines, airports, parks...you name it, there is a map for that. And I probably have access to it.

Well, I have a good problem in my hands. Because I want to mix my political knowledge (political philosophy specifically) with this map-making stuff. But, I still haven't figured what or how. I don't want to be Chuck Todd, I don't wanna be John King, I don't want to be a lofty architect playing utopias in the urban space and stuff...I want to DO something interesting with this...but 'what to do' is still beyond me.

Just got the book GIS for the Urban Environment. Looking for more general knowledge and ideas; As I have the technical stuff (computer wise) almost under my belt.

I have realized that given our current cultural obsession with space and place (the use of it, the curiosity with how places come to be, research on public spaces, etc.) the one who knows how to map stuff out, has a significant competitive advantage.

There are quite a few organizations doing progressive urban planning around (like the Project for Public Spaces), but I knew about them mostly from my interest in urban planning. Now I come from a different perspective...

I am beginning to think map-ally. Everything I read, I am mapping it out. For example, just ended reading The Search for the Buddha (by Charles Allen) two weeks ago; and well, without good maps it was almost impossible to figure out what was what, and where was everything. Absent good maps, we had absolutely no idea of even the historical existence of the Buddha. Maps, maps, maps. That book, by the way, is an archeological detective story. Superbly written. And a wonderful body-blow to Edward Said's Orientalism. Btw, I did my MA thesis on Said, and my momentous conclusion was that his argument was either obvious or false. I never understood what all the fuzz was about. But this Allen guy, while barely addressing Said, DESTROYS him. Said was much more interesting as a literary critic...and even there...he was....obvious or false. I can fight that one.

This is one of the maps I did some time ago. An extremely simple one. And I've edited it a lot, so as to keep private stuff private. But at this point I can map out almost everything that I want to. I just want to put it to good use.

Bodega Down Bronx

Who knew that the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center, located in the Bronx, 'feeds' almost 10% of the country's population (over thirty million people)?

That it is the largest produce and meat market in the world?

That it is the largest sea food market in the world outside of Japan?

That from the Bronx we ship food all the way to Canada, Europe and the Caribbean?

Those are facts.

And it reminds me of when I turned vegan some years ago. When things related to food needed to be more under control, was precisely when I felt the more chaos.

Among the main difficulties back then: where do I get wholesome, healthy, fresh produce and fruits in the South Bronx?

It was a huge eye opener to the politics of food, of offer and demand, of neighborly living.

My informal observations led me to determine a few facts that seem to hold true to the ten blocks around my house:

1) there is an average of two traditional delis/bodegas/groceries (what's the difference?) per square block in my area.

2) there is not much choice in terms of quality pre-packaged food (organic and/or unprocessed products) in the area.

3) I suddenly realized that even in terms of 'unhealthy' stuff, like beer and cigarettes, my old neighborhood of Fort Greene (Brooklyn), had a lot more choices to offer.

4) There is a scary amount of fast foods (both multi-nationals and local) in the area, offering -again- no choice to the residents of the area.

5) I especially noticed that the 'native' population of the neighborhood, the old-timers, usually buy in the regular bodegas/delis/groceries or at the fast-food and/or Chinese joints, while the newest people in the neighborhood (immigrants from African and Central and South America) buy in their own local stores where fresher food, produce, and fruits are more readily available that in the traditional delis.

I buy my food mostly from a Korean owned fruit and produce store, or at the Mexican shop half a block away. Why? Because they have fresh produce and fruits (that's what we vegans eat!), and are generally cheaper than the regular supermarkets (there are four in the area). They are also more conveniently located.

The Korean owners of the fruit and produce store even began to store tofu and soy milk because of me...I am one of two customers that buy it; I have never met the other tofu eater! At times I have to buy even more than I need, because I want them to keep on bringing it.

I have never been an 'elitist vegan', and by that I mean one who shops and eats only at health stores, exclusively vegan joints or hip places. I buy locally, in my neighborhood. Or I buy in the markets where groups that are traditionally more 'vegetable friendly' buy. So, I buy a lot in Indian markets, Chinatown, etc. I find cheap vegan food, and I keep it real.

Yet, for more higher-end stuff, for pre-package ingredients, spices, or exotic stuff, there is only one place to go: Manhattan.

What is truly positive in all this is that my observations and concerns are shared by a very vocal and proactive minority. People that organize green markets in the summer, activists that give residents access to city land (in empty lots) to cultivate their own produce, folks who organized a food coop (of which I am a founding member) to give residents a bit more choice as to what they get into their bodies.

Libertad, my partner, sent me this link of a 30m documentary called Bodega Down Bronx. It is very very interesting, and it is done the guerrilla way. Check it out.

What struck me the most? -"kids are the ones who purchase most of the snacks in the bodegas".

It is a big 'duh!'...but it is also VERY scary.

East Coast v. West Coast

True to my disciplined approach to life, my first topical post will not deal with the South Bronx or Veganism. Me being me.

Joe Hirsch, of the Mott Haven Herald, writes that New York State Senator Rubén Díaz Sr. "is concerned that Puerto Ricans and New Yorkers are being left out" of a commission studying the creation and funding of the National Museum of the American Latino, a future project that has gained bi-partisan support as well as the support of president Obama.

Leaving the main concern of Senator Diaz aside for the moment, this issue around the museum reminds me of some observations I made during a trip back in 2005 to San Francisco. My trip back then taught me about the almost absolute institutional disconnect that both official and 'underground' cultural players have as to the respective plights of the Latino and Latin American artistic communities in the East and West of the country. In other words, our peers in San Francisco knew very little about Latin American cultural life in New York, and vice-versa.

Is this issue of the museum excluding New Yorkers the first clash between both cultural communities? THAT might be interesting!

Florida, Nevada and California have members in the commission, New York has zero. Why? Might it be that the leadership in those states is fairly homogeneous (Cubans in Florida, Chicanos in both Nevada and California) while there is much infighting for resources and attention among the myriad micro-communities of artists and ethnic enclaves in the New York City Latino and Latin American community? Hummm? That, I guess, is not a question, but my hypothesis.

The Latin population in New York City is changing so fast that it is hard to imagine for those not interested. But the changes are huge and will have an impact on everybody. I guess, true to the New York spirit, people will only notice when their rents are affected. And they will. Ha!

Being naive...

This blog, as all others, will be shaped by my personal interests. These include urban development, environmentalism, animal rights, veganism and cultural life and the arts in New York City. It also happens that I am Latin American (from Puerto Rico) and I happen to live in the South Bronx, and so, my interests will be filtered through a Latin American/South Bronx lens.

All that being said, it feels weird to have a blog, and to feel obliged to choose a limited number of topics to write about. I guess that my principle will be that I am a fairly entertaining conversation partner, a good story-teller, and that if I present them the right way, my interests will hopefully interest others; and that my opinions eventually might make an impact. Good or bad.