American Fall

Every year I make sure to travel upstate and photo-document the autumnal changes to the scenery. In taking the long view of my history, and a quick tour through my external hard drive, I have gigabytes of space dedicated to pictures of trees from prior years. The shot above is from the Katonah Reservoir, a town in upper Westchester county where I used to teach at a private school early in my career as an educator. The picturesque clouds reflected in mirror-smooth water are like something out of a fantasy, and it's part of why I do this. Back when I still had my motorcycle, the ride was very nearly religious - crisp New York air, smells of earth, and leaves, and the bike. There's a really funny story about how on Sunday afternoon ride came to a sudden halt due to a family of wild turkeys quite literally, crossing the road. It's a great motivation for me to get back to a different financial paradigm. But late-year nostalgic musings are not the reason for the title, however it may be tangentially related.

Insofar as this blog is frequently a study of topics related to Public Administration, I will follow a suggestion put forth by the Rachel Maddow show that the reliable theme to use for parsing the national conversation is the Occupy Everything movement. I have spent a considerable amount of time following it, and even been on site, interviewing participants, following the action for my news column. But of late, Michael Moore - despite emphatically refusing any responsibility for leadership of the movement - has become something of a celebrated representative for media outlets far and wide. Whether this is good or bad is still subject to speculation and your own preferences. However, one thing did come up as Moore visited even greater numbers of demonstrations and talk shows along the way: he decided his was an expert voice for the revolution, and even decided that he had the proper ideas for parenting a living, breathing, global political imbroglio successfully towards adulthood. Where this falls apart is in the direct purpose for formation of the Occupation to begin with yeah these many long months ago. Initially, Occupy Wall Street was a movement that included all viewpoints, all idealogical convictions, all regions of the nation. It was also definitively leaderless.

Moore's positioning of himself in the interview spots on the massive slew of talk shows in which he appears fails the movement on both counts: in being a recognizable, frequently seen celebrity in relation to this movement, he drives directly against his own messaging to the movement, which has regularly been 'do not allow yourselves to be coopted by any political party.' Moore's extreme leftist leanings, and his almost ubiquitous appearance at as many OWS rallies as humanly possible alongside his television appearances creates the risk of his face being quickly associated with leadership of the movement. Secondly, this past week he made an egregious error: for some unknown reason, and in accordance with the demands of mainstream media outlets (the New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN among them,) have all habitually called for the dedicated list of demands to which the Occupation adheres as reasoning for their continued unrest. This is fallacious in the extreme. Part of the genius of the Occupy movement was the fact that no such list existed, and that the occupiers existed as a repository for the frustrations and discontent of the American people towards a non-functional political class, and a well fleeced elite playing the stock market as if it were the nickel ante table somewhere in a forgotten corner of Las Vegas where the edges of neon lights no longer reach. But the crucial piece was that no set list of demands existed for the simple reason that the second a list of demands exists, the moment a central core document listing the movement's ideals crystallizes, an opposition can be created, and in the same moment begins the chilling denouement of a once powerful and growing, impassioned drive for social change.

So, how does this become resolved? While Moore's appearances, and celebrity do in fact draw greater attention to the movement, organizers would do well to caution him to not be so visible in terms of talk shows, interviews, or the like lest the media establishment erroneously begin to equate his characteristic Detroit hat and fair figure with representing the movement itself. Also, they should remain adamantly devoid of a central core set of demands upon which politicos, the pundit-tree, and legions of naysayers could glom on and declare "these are un-American." Lastly, and this is perhaps the most crucial piece, the direct action portion of the movement - that which facilitated Bank Transfer Day, which is organizing around voting and the campaign season, - must continue with their plans and endeavor to create many more direct actions. The exact extent of the power of the people has yet to be proved, thought recently, in direct correlation to this movement, ever greater numbers of citizens are awakening to the idea that the governments and corporations exist to serve us, not the other way around.

Whatever dreams may come, this is certain to be quite an adventurous time. A time for us to break free of feeling like just another brick in the wall.

So you say you want a revolution....

I'm always shocked, slightly unnerved, and a little dismayed by the amount of time that passes in between posts here. Perhaps because I spend so much time elsewhere writing, I suppose that through some manner of digital osmosis that a measure of writing will find its way here. Unfortunately, despite my fancy for Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Luis Borges, and Laura Esquivel, I have not been sufficiently infused with the flavor of cybernetic magical realism to achieve such a feat. However, if none of that last sentence made any sense to you, I suggest watching Tron: Legacy - for the combined illusory/illustrative effect.

Since the middle of the month, I've been steadily following the Occupy Wall Street protest, and even visited and written a related article. The first time I visited the occupiers, it was slightly after my visit to the 9/11 Memorial site (pics below) and I must say I was incredibly impressed. The mainstream journalistic coverage of the movement has been entirely plagued with misinformation and doomsayers warning of a maleficent dystopia if these activists are permitted to continue what in many venues is being called lambasted as adolescent, fleeting hysteria. But after two weeks of constant occupation, 66 other cities getting involved, and scheduled appearances of union backing on the schedule for the near future, the truth of the matter is that the mass media's portrayals of this "tiny, insignificant rally" can no longer be ignored. Thousands of protesters showed up for the Brooklyn Bridge incident that took place on Saturday, and it grows exponentially by the day. I expect I will have at least one more article out in the next few days, and that in the offing, it might actually be more.

In other news, I've been asked to report for a linguist exam this coming Tuesday (as in, in two days.) This normally wouldn't be a concern, though, for the past year I haven't actually been doing the work of a linguist, save for minor conversations here and there, and during the past two weeks, my brother's been in town, so there was truly no opportunity for studying of any kind. Talking with another interpreter colleague who knows my skills rather well, I asked what I should do given the extremely tight turn around time. She suggested I go with a 'Zen mentality' to the exam, and try to be as calm as possible. That may just be what I need to do, right after I spend all day tomorrow reviewing all of my notes.

Today was rather interesting, one of the NUF 2011 class members showed up as part of a trip for her new position, and half a dozen of us appeared to share brunch with her. It's always interesting hearing what everyone is doing in the interim, and how many folks have moved on to something new and interesting, or have taken a left turn at Albuquerque, etc. There are many of us that came out of the program and walked straight into positions, but there are a group of us that are still searching for the proper fit, or the right opportunity, and frustrations run high at times. Frustration echoed in the protests by placards reading "Overeducated, underemployed" or similar slogans. In many corners of the internet, this is being called our 'Tahrir Square moment.' Odd that this singular theme has seemed to usurp whatever other message I'd been trying to convey.

In my next post, which first I'll have to be sure to make in the very near future, I shall have to talk about my volunteering at the VA Hospital, and how that has all gone. But for the time being, it's late, and I must sleep.

Good night!

A public administration exam.

This past week has been all about public administration field tests. First, with and entirely unprecedented earthquake in the middle of the week trembling the very ground upon which we walked, and then a strong - although not as much so as we had originally believed would be the case - hit from a slowly spinning down Category 1 hurricane, the leadership and governance systems in the great State of New York were sorely tested. But New York State, as well as the City have experienced both of these types of adverse conditions before, and not nearly as far back as you might believe (but long before it was discovered that oversized - even for New York - rats of a separate genus from our usual Norwegian brown rats are now scurrying the tunnels below the City streets. Where might all these Herculean rodents escape to once their underground havens become inundated with spillover from a storm surge at high tide?). So, as photos of damage and videos of rivers rushing through rural (and not so rural) America populate the previously unseen corners of the interwebz, let us explore some of the more pertinent questions from, even for New York City, what amounts to a really wild week.


On Friday of last week, I published an article in my Examiner.com column asking a whole range of difficult questions about the operation of the State, whether our infrastructure is prepared to handle two natural disasters in one week, and what we could possibly do about it. In the interim, I've managed to rediscover this page documenting New York's share of the 2009 stimulus funds (referenced in the article) which offers a clearer picture of what the former governor's office identified as areas where he should dedicate spending, which, if I remember correctly, met with some changes after he was ousted. That minor detail is now more crucial than ever since, in a recent Wall Street Journal article that drew direct relationships between reactor safety and their geographic location in earthquake prone areas the author said:


"Last year, the NRC produced an updated assessment as part of the seismic review, which found that many of the 96 reactors east of the Rockies faced higher earthquake hazard levels than previously thought. The assessment found 22 reactors where a rough estimate showed a potential hazard higher than several important metrics, including the level of shaking the plants were originally designed to withstand."


Asked to react to these sorts of statements, industry officials tended to repeat the same message as Alexander Marion - Nuclear Energy Institute's VP of Nuclear Operations: 


"I'd caution against reacting too much to the data since the hazard analysis is still under way and the industry already is looking for ways to increase the safety margin."


Which is closely akin to a collective thumbing of the industry's nose at the American public. Population security be damned, there's money to be made. Following that inherently faulty logic is the Aleberta Canada Tar Sands debate. Here we have an entire portion of another country's province specifically dedicated to the production of a type of crude oil that is expensive to extract, rips up the environment in the process, and threatens people, wildlife, and the global climate as a result, all in the name of, as the Manhattan Institute's Robert Bryce said: "cheap, abundant, reliable energy." Later on in the PBS interview where he made the statement, he clearly says that the tar sands project will produce energy that is 'abundant and reliable,' the subtext being that economic exclusionary principles will undoubtedly apply. 


The very well known and possibly overused statements are recycled as he cites unemployment rates and reduced dependence on foreign supply. That is an argument, however, that presupposes there is only one conceivable solution to the problem at hand - fossil fuels. With the variety, breadth, and quantity of unemployed, high achieving, highly educated individuals in the country at this moment, there simply has to exist the possibility that alternatives can be produced. Bryce's position throughout the interview is that despite environmental costs - the potential for a spill underneath the largest freshwater aquifer in the middle of the country, the potential for terrestrial leaks similar in scope and effect to the BP Macondo blowout, the fact that greenhouse gas emissions (read: contributing factors to larger storms that will effect the coastline) are all allowable costs to be paid for an energy solution that is outdated, expensive, and dangerous. So dangerous and unsavory the potential consequences that protesters have begun risking jail time in the nation's capitol  for the cause. 


This century, it was promised - from both the current administration and the last - would be all about alternatives to oil and renewed interest in clean, renewable, profitable energy sources. If you have any doubts about the fierce urgency of now, and whether we can actually afford the environmental costs, you should definitely view this slideshow, and read its accompanying text. Possibly one of my side projects may become researching this line of thought and attempting to cobble together some form of policy paper which could be exported to those with sufficient clout to make a change. Anyone out there have any ideas of where to start?


Lastly, there was quite a bit of messaging, movement of people, administering to the public, and distribution of resources in preparation for, and in the wake of Irene. Many in the regions that were not utterly destroyed are vociferously complaining about their minor inconveniences due to forced evacuations. I still have difficulty fathoming this concept. Had there been catastrophic devastation, and the government either not been prepared, nor issued these warnings, those same people - given their unlikely survival - would be the same mugging the camera to complain on any available news source that they had been slighted. All reports point to the fact that there is more flooding yet to come,  a smattering of information for which can be gleened from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's website dedicated to Irene's after effects.


And just because I can't leave you without a little music - 

Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well...

As this blog has evolved, it has been equal parts expressions of catharsis, elation, surreptitiousness, serendipity, and lollifying loquaciousness. I am reticent to disrupt the pattern. The remaining weeks in July after my last post were precisely the unrelenting parade aux folles one would expect when confronted with 12 graduate credit hours to complete in six weeks. Still and all, I often felt the comfort and familiarity that I had developed over time in the Division, and spoke about my experience there frequently during my classroom experiences. We all did everything we could to make the stress of the perilous trek that much less, but, inside of the pressure cooker, there really is only so much you can do. I worked with different groups, directed as I could, offered help where it was needed... and I think that went well. I was selected to help deliver the address to faculty at graduation, something for which I had originally imagined volunteering when the opportunity arose whilst still in Washington, DC, though I never actually raised my hand (virtually), I suppose because I was too caught up in 'productivity.' But, a second chance is always well received, and the speech seemed well received.

Leadership has become an interesting topic of discussion of late, with presidential hopefuls from the opposition party beginning their erstwhile campaigns for the vaunted office. How they shall fare remains to be seen, though the whirling dervish of bravado and politicking currently monopolizing all possible media outlets. Much is at stake, and the field of contenders shows the potential for the country to drift dangerously towards versions of the future that inevitably would prove disastrous for us.

At the same time, this is a period of both great opportunity and great peril. I've begun donating some time to the VA Medical Center, if only to keep busy and gain exposure in a public service position as I search frantically for the next big step. I am making some interesting connections, and I'm certain this won't be the last I write of it. Also, I now have a broad network with a variety of connections, we shall see how that goes. But as August draws to a close, so do the remaining funds that I received from the NUF experience, and the very stark reality of a very limited safety net. Trying to keep things in perspective - balancing opportunity with cost, and cautious optimism with a slippery slope of aggravation. However, my current status is not entirely depressing, there are some prospects on the horizon, and this feels like my time. To quote one of my classmates: "You can master the universe..." and given the amount of obstacles I've managed to overcome just over the summer, I'm inclined to believe him.

A very real an tangible way...

The past three weeks of the NUF experience have been entirely different than any other point in the past year. We returned to New York the last week of May, and for me, there was the added difficulty of being injured. Complications between the insurance company and my orthopedist's office impeded the process of my recovery, but after finally getting everyone to talk to each other (it only took two weeks to get an MRI done) the actual process of discerning the difficulty took far too long (the results of my MRI didn't arrive to the doctor's office until several days after the scan was taken) all of which left me dealing with a level of pain that, on a scale of 1 to 10, I would assess at 20.5. Fortunately, the day that the scans showed up at my doctor's office, I was also able to get in to see him, and to his credit, he prescribed the best option (an anti-inflammatory medication) which reduced the swelling of the disc and allowed it to move off the nerve, relieving a great deal of the pain.

Fortunately, classes started after I started taking the medication, and had already started on the way back towards being whole. The outlink for this post is to the organization run by one of my professors for this semester, and it is to him that I credit the title. We were having quite an in depth conversation regarding the Human Resources frame in an organization, and how the language in memos, though the requester of a feedback memo might be asking for valuable feedback, might not land just right when it reaches their ear once they've actually begun to read said memo. Truer words were ne'er spake, and as I frequently communicate to the class of 2012; you can redo a budget, you can ask for another strategic plan, you can even reshuffle the organizational chart, but you cannot, cannot, cannot pull back a message.  Especially if it's on the internet. There's a leadership lesson to be learned here.

The past three weeks have been a complete test of endurance: 12 graduate credit hours in 6 weeks, several days out of the week where we are in class for a total of about 9 hrs a day, trying to squeeze in a few workouts in between piles of reading, writing effective papers, statistical analysis, and economic theorizing. As I commented to one of my classmates this morning, I feel as if one of the widely destructive tornadoes that blew through the South last month continues to rage unrelentingly throughout my cranium. So far, we've received back our Stats and Econ midterms, and papers from each of the classes where we need to submit them. Everyone has a clear idea of where they're standing, and is feeling incredibly worn and as if their reserves of motivation are running a bit low. We all do our best to keep each other up, but it's like the last mile of the marathon, where you feel your body on fire, and there's still a climb to the crest of a hill to cross the finish line...

In the midst of all the coursework is the need to find my way into a new position, something which - to quote a classmate, - is renting a lot of space in my head. But, several opportunities are beginning to show up, and I'm confident that something will solidify shortly.

However, these past few weeks have not been devoid of fun, and I'll have to follow up this post with a write up of the scavenger hunt that I designed and led, a couple weeks ago for the incoming cohort of NUFfies. As always, I intend to leave you with a bit of music, but of a different sort: One of the most amazing things in NYC is a program called 'Music Under New York' where the MTA actually pays artists to perform in the subway stations, turning the entire affair into a form of public art (see also Jerry Mitchell). To that end, the video below was one such artist that really reminded me of the spirit of New York the first weekend after I was back in class:

Media Strategy

This week has been full of unexpected surprises. For example, what started as a minor twinge in my back Tuesday night ended up being a slipped disc Wednesday morning, and that has peppered my experience throughout, up through today. To be sure, the symposium which I'd signed up for on Wednesday was a difficult experience to sit through because the very act of sitting caused me so much discomfort that I'm not entirely sure how, exactly, I was able to accomplish it for hours at a stretch. In contrast, having been to this event, I've managed to make a few new contacts, and find out more information about potential places and positions towards which I can focus my efforts. Also, it's been raining in the capitol region for the past several days, which pleases me greatly since it keeps the heat and mosquito population down, and makes the experience a bit more bearable.

The Dialogue on Diversity is a series of day-long symposia focused on different topics, and this one was specifically tailored for the purpose of discussing health disparities in the minority and immigrant communities in the United States.  One of the main presenters with possibly the greatest number of representatives from its myriad offices and subdivisions was the Federal government's Department of Health and Human Services. Specific sections spoke on topics that ranged from obesity - one study claims that every child born in the US in 2000 will in some way be affected by obesity, unless, that is, we make some changes in our diet and practices, - Food Insecurity - one representative spoke on the evolution of Food Stamps into the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program, and it's potential for wider impact in minority communities that are in need, - the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (which, it so happens, is the purpose for the title of this post,) and quite a few others, including National Minority AIDS Council, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, National Council of La Raza, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and several others who made clear several crucial health concerns for the future of our communities.

One of the most salient messages from everyone's presentation was the fact that information needs to be more available, more accessible, and more clear for the general public, especially those who stand to benefit from the broadest range of programs. For example, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius put together a video commemorating the first anniversary of the Affordable Care Act.

This is fantastic, but many more people need to be drawn to the site, and made aware of the fact that Healthcare.gov is a central information warehouse where they can make comparisons between healthcare plans, search for providers, understand the law, and find contact information for DHHS personnel. Also, there is the potential for several of these organizations to partner together for the purpose of realizing their communications outreach goals, and bringing their message to their target audience. I'm hoping I can help in that endeavor in several ways, this particular blog piece being one of them. 

But that was just Wednesday...

Friday, I presented a Social Media 101 workshop for the Altrusa District 2 conference, and it went over fabulously. Altrusa International, from their website, is "...an organization of professional women and men who volunteer our energies and expertise in projects dedicated to community betterment. We are also a community service organization that espouses volunteerism, service and fights for literacy and against AIDS." They are presently in the midst of a rebranding campaign, looking to increase their membership, and in truth, having heard some of the fantastic stories that this organization has been capable of achieving, they ought to attract a very wide audience. I would personally like to see the organization draw in a much larger crowd, committed, as I am, to the public service, hence the current objective in educational attainment.

I'm always pleased by how much people change their minds in an hour's worth of presentation and a few short demonstrations. Nearly the entire room went from eschewing the concept of even getting involved in any sort of social media interactions, to questioning excitedly what are the next steps. Once they realized that you could use these newfound super powers for good instead of evil "Can we set up a Facebook page for a Community Activity?" Absolutely, go and check out the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park.) "What if I don't want to have a blog where I tell the world every last detail about my life?" That's not necessary. You have complete control over the content of your blog (and for a great example, read mine! Or, go and see the Bronx News Network) Also, don't confuse your LinkedIn with your Facebook page PLEASE!!! I was asked several times if I was available for strategy sessions (yes,) and if I had a consultation fee (also yes,) but noone seemed to flinch at that idea. Many business cards were exchanged, and I feel fairly certain that I might soon be needing a secretary. I kind of like this sort of adventure, truth be told, I'm getting to utilize my technological, educational, and business acumen, and manage my own schedule. I could see myself falling easily into this pattern. Stay tuned and we'll see how this goes. If you find yourself needing to work on such a project, find me on my LinkedIn, through Facebook, or leave a comment here.

Ya sé como convertirme en viento

Esas palabras de 'El Alquimista' me siguen de lugar en lugar. Varios hechos últitmamente me hicieron recordarlas. En fin, me he convertido en el mero imagen de lo que nunca pensaba que iba a ser: el analista estadistico y presupuestario, no muy diferente del Santomé—protagonista de Benedetti,—aunque no me haya acordado a ninguna tregua conmigo mismo todavía. Es una cosa bastante desconcertante para un lingüista, de repente contar con tanta destreza matemática, pero no hay que complicar la felicidad. Falta un més para regresarme a casa, a Nueva York, digo, la casa en el Bronx ya no me queda abierto. Sin embargo, me encantaría regresar al lugar, o quizás un lugar cerca del mismo.

Today is Saturday, and it's an odd feeling. I finished, printed, bound, and packaged my capstone this past Thursday. I could have actually put it in the mail then, but I just didn't move fast enough to get out of the office on time, so it went into the mail yesterday (Friday). The required postmark date for the final draft is this coming Monday. There is only one other classmate of whom I am aware with enough forethought and planning to have completed the project at the same time, and she is to be commended. Every other classmate I've spoken with is steadily chipping away at the final version as I write this, or has already pleaded for an extension already cognizant of the fact that they won't be capable of making the deadline. I mention this because this blog, our cohort's studies, and even the entire point of this accelerated course is to train "leaders." Leaders prove themselves in the heat of battle, under the pressures of actually being in the lead, they manage their time well, know how to access the right resources at the right time, know who to call if they don't have the answer to a problem, and so forth. 

Leadership, in contrast, is not endemic to those with a haughty attitude, a practice of unprecedented self ascription of power, the inability to speak softly and wield a big intellect, or any of the myriad personality malaises which I've witnessed in excess along this very uneven and incredibly difficult trajectory. Of course, there are several people in my current experience that do not fit the disparaging commentary above. In point of fact, I can think of several. But I am distressed and disappointed by those that do. I feel sincerely that a poor choice was made in many cases, and that these individuals, in truth, do not belong in the position of access to power.

In reality, the whole purpose of this post was to announce that I had managed, much as I did with every other version, data set, or significant piece required by the professors, to turn in the final draft early. By all counts, mine arrived the date it was due, hard copy, through the mail, and an extra one sent to the folks so they can have it on their shelf. I had to maintain a personal standard, you see, though that has caused several of my cohort members great consternation. But, I can tell you, given that the chips were down, who I would rather have on my team.