Graf and the City

Every morning when I get on the 7 train to head into work I take a quick glance out the west window just before the southbound train turns west and heads into the tunnel at Hunter's Point. The glance is to catch my favorite view of the city. This picture - taken by a brilliant photographer who lives near me - grabs it pretty much perfectly.

Part of what makes that my favorite view is that it includes a completely graffitied wharehouse called 5 Pointz - a living/studio joint for graffiti artists. The building is doused in amazing artwork and it's always got new stuff painted over the old. Finding the new is like playing an urban art game of Where's Waldo.

The Times had a little story about the old graffiti wars (between the city and the taggers) today which is worth reading. I missed the years of the coated train car, but the building art is welcome relief from the overdeveloped urban assault on the eyes.

better to be poor than to be a fat man in the eye of a needle

Andrew Sullivan had an interesting link today to a report about state's relative generosity index. He gives props to the red states, which generally are ranked higher. I think there's something else interesting in there.

While red/blue is interesting, check out the rich/poor. All of the top 10 income states are in the bottom half with regards to their giving. The 10 poorest states are all in the top half with regards to their giving.

This may seem surprising, but doesn't seem to be a new phenomena.

Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny . . . "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything--all she had to live on."

As for red/blue, it does seem a strange paradox that all of the highest earning (generally regarded as friends of the GOP) states went blue, while the poor (generally considered the constiuentcy of democrats) states all went red. Who came up with those conventions anyway. They should be fired.

build your own vans

For all of you Vans Old Skoolz aficionados out there, check out this new feature on the Vans site. Now you can customize your own shoes. Sweet. I'm gonna order me up a pair of yellow ones like this.

The only bummer is that they are 60 bux. That's a bit hefty compared to what you can get them for at Zappos. But hey, what truley groovy retro dude wouldn't pay an extra 10 bux to fly thier own colors?

here we go again

If you've just had the misfortune of losing the presidential election and being beaten soudly in congressional races, as the democratic party has, I suppose it's not strange or unreasonable to go looking for the reason. What is unfortunate, however, is that journalists feel like they have to get involved and that they have to have the answer by tomorrow. What's doubly unfortunate is that whatever answers the news makers can come up with overnight is usually the one that becomes common knowledge.

And so it wasn't surpising that the folks who make news up here on the upper right coast turned to their favorite whipping child, the heartland evangelical. After all, there's tons of b-roll of these folks, and the New York Times has been hating on them for months now. You can read that entire piece here. It's astonishing to me that Ron Suskind and the folks at the Times could be so verbose and self-congratulatory in the process of myth-making.

But, myth or reality, they are the ones who write the news. And when some exit poll data came along which showed "moral values" as a top reason voters went to the polls last Tuesday that was more than enough evidence for news makers to come together and craft the story line for post election analysis: The (Christian Implied) Moral Values Majority Rebuked The Secular Leftists And Flexes Religous Piety Muscle.

Sounds clever right? And it gives the secular (non-religous) types all the excuse they need to croon about the religious freaks who live in the middle of the country. After all, it's best to pin your failures on people you already despire, it makes the hating that much easier. And since this narrative had already been reheared over and over in the minds of those who frequent the New York Times Sunday Magazine, all that was left to do on Wednesday night was build a factual case for what they already knew the narrative was. That method sounds familiar doesn't it? Suskind had just spent 8,000 words spelling it out and denouncing it. The whole reality-based notion gets foggy at this point.

No, I'm afraid the losses last week aren't that simple. And I'd recommend that folks put down their hate mongering and get at least two other opinions from people who may have taken a bit more time to think about things.

I can forgive the newsies their sins of beating a straw beast - they've gotten into the habit of doing it, but when I saw this, I knew I had to say something.