Month: March 2015

Public shaming has its place, but lately I find myself feeling sympathy for those shamed, even when they’re in the wrong. Yesterday Gothamist was giving the kids in the picture in this link a hard time for taking selfies at the site of the East Village explosion.

Yes, it’s in poor taste but I tend to think everyone is clueless at this age. And they may not have learned yet about the two people who are missing. And young people don’t comprehend or think about property loss (unless its their own).

I remember when they constructed a ramp behind St. Paul’s so people could get a better look at the WTC site. People took pictures of each other then too, in front of the devastation, and it always floored me when they’d smile for the pictures. But even then I don’t remember getting mad. Just thinking, people are stupid. They smile automatically. Someone is taking my picture. Smile. It’s thoughtless and stupid, but not evil. Another young woman is getting a hard time for having her picture taken in front of the site and for flashing a peace sign. Again, she’s just responding without thinking to whoever is taking the picture. She’s not using great judgement but who doesn’t make mistakes??

Now these girls are on the cover of the Post. I mean, fuck the people who think they are so much better. Again, yes the people pictured are being terribly insensitive but the people publicly shaming them, like they’ve never behaved badly or stupidly. I’m getting tired of this holier than thou rush to judgement, and so publicly.

Update: I just remembered, there’s a new book out called So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.

What’s better than a dog walker? Two dog walkers. I better take some pictures of my cats. They’re going to get a complex.

I’m reading now that there are two people missing after the explosion in the East Village. For the record, calling Con Ed will not always help. I know I’ve posted about this many times, but I had to call Con Ed for three months to get them to respond to a gas leak in my building. I kept track of every phone call (and letter). This is the Cliff Notes version. There were many phone calls in-between.

10/7/07: I call Con End and report a gas leak. They come and tell me there’s no leak. Many phone calls later …
12/29/07: Con Ed finally agrees there’s a leak and turns off the gas to my apartment.
12/31/07: I continue to smell gas though and call Con Ed. Con Ed says I’m mistaken. I call the landlord, the EPA and HPD. No help.
1/8/08: I call 311 who calls the FDNY who uses their own device, and they agree there is still a gas leak and they call Con Ed who finally shut off the gas to the entire building. The leak was in an apartment in the middle of the building, not mine.

In other words, it took Con Ed three months to properly respond and only because the FDNY conducted the right tests, apparently.

This was from a demonstration yesterday on the steps of the former courthouse across the street from the Municipal Archives. It houses some sort of school now (among other things) and the students were protesting I’m not sure what because they were standing in front of their sign. But I saw signs about segregation and “Black students matter.”

The little guy on the right was looking at me! He loves me. He wants to kiss me. I love how the guy on the left raised his paw like that. He sat there with his paw up like that until the light changed and they moved on. Seriously though, these dogs are gorgeous and so sweet looking. What breed are they?

Someone left these eggplants at the gate of a cemetery on 11th Street (the Second Cemetery of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue). I googled “eggplants and cemeteries” and yes, it’s a thing. According to a few sites I found it’s an offering to the spirit Oya, who is an orisha. This particular orisha has influence over death and cemeteries. God, I love the internet.

If you live in New York, you should go to this presentation being given by Larry Racioppo on Wednesday, March 25th, at 7pm at the Central Library in Brooklyn. He’s a great photographer! And the rituals surrounding religion are, well, interesting! For more details click here. The picture below is one of Larry’s of course.