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Friday, October 3rd, 2003
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8:17 pm - Natural-Born Professor
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I managed to lead a class discussion today. Without having notes. Without having even looked at that section of the book in more than a cursory manner (mostly during class announcements). With an hour and a half of sleep and a cup of English Breakfast. I even did it well, stimulating interesting discussions that made the class lose track of time. Oh, and my professor is the author of the book.
NB: I really shouldn't do things this way, especially when I really enjoy the content (like in this class), but it's good that I can do so. Imagine the courses I'll teach while prepared.
current mood: satisfied
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5:19 am - Maps
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Multimap.com, an online atlas service based in the UK, has some very nice maps. It is much easier to navigate than Mapquest or Yahoo! Maps, and has nicer-looking and more detailed maps (especially for Europe but also for North America). It also has a nice interface for when multiple places have the same name, or one with very similar spelling. For instance, this disambiguation map for the search "Mantovino" in Italy shows eleven places that I might have been thinking of. Unfortunately, they seem to only offer aerial photos by post for £24.95 (without even showing any previews).
current mood: dorky
current music: some noise in the common room
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| Sunday, September 28th, 2003
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2:59 am - Next Saturday
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"The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, a cross-country caravan
backed by organized labor and civil rights organizations, was
launched on Sept. 20 in cities around the US. Inspired by the
1961 freedom rides that fought to end segregation in the South,
the caravan features 18 buses departing from 10 cities with
nearly 1,000 immigrants and supporters on board, with the goal of
building a new civil rights movement. The buses will stop in more
than 100 cities to focus on immigrant rights; the riders will
then meet with members of Congress in Washington, DC on Oct. 1
before ending the trip with a mass rally in Queens, New York, on
Oct. 4. [New York Times 9/25/03; AP 9/26/03]."
An immigrant rights‘ movement in this form is news to me. It is very good news. I am of course familiar with the efforts of many wonderful people and organizations to fight discrimination, to educate immigrants about their legal rights, and to stop the violations of those rights that occur daily. I knew of individual struggles, of the fight against INS special registration, against the anti-immigrant measure of the Patriot Act, for the granting of amnesty for undocumented immigrants. I hadn't yet heard of a movement this large and this broad, one with the expressed intention of “building a new civil rights movement.” It is about time.
More information is available here.
I intend to write here more often about the history of migration, about current migration issues, and give some of my thoughts and hopes about the future.
current music: Leysh Nat'arak. Natacha Atlas. Diaspora
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| Thursday, September 25th, 2003
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12:19 pm - Graduate School Options (in no particular order)
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| Monday, September 22nd, 2003
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3:20 am - Census Tract 2.01, New York County, New York
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Population 3,121. 42.7% Chinese-speaking, 35.7% Spanish-speaking, 18.8% English-speaking, 1.1% Arabic speaking.
( Photos )
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| Wednesday, September 17th, 2003
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9:04 pm - Carrying Coal to Newcastle
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Stoner #3 (my roommates have names, but their nicknames are more fun) has just complained about the lack of Chinese food in the neighborhood. He must not have tried walking south. Ever. This is CHINATOWN!
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3:15 am - Historical Films
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The Library of Congress’ American Memory historical collections contain many interesting early films. Many are from over a hundred years ago. Below are some recommendations. The first, linked to at Making Light, got me looking for more.
What happened on Twenty-third street, New York City, 1903 - Women's skirts have been lifted up by the winds from subway grates for well over a century now. Watch especially the reactions of passersby.
TR in Africa, 1909. Watch footage from ex-president Theodore Roosevelt's Smithsonian Institution-sponsored safari in East and Central Africa.
See how the 1901 Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo (yes, the one William McKinley was assassinated at) portrayed an "authentic" Japanese village. Speaking of McKinley, you can actually watch Leon Czolgosz being executed.
If that's not morbid enough for you, you can watch a reenactment (filmed by Thomas Edison in the Orange Mountains, NJ), of the US Army shooting up Filipinos during the Battle of the Trenches at Candabar. Or you can watch actual footage from the Spanish-American War, including Aguinaldo's Navy, 25th Infantry, and An Historic Feat (which apparently involved getting mules across a river).
current mood: silent
current music: None. I'm watching silent films.
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(comment on this)
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| Sunday, September 14th, 2003
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8:25 pm - New Icon and Pictures
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This icon was inspired by Little Italy's Feast of San Gennaro. San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, is honored every year by a procession on Mulberry Street. Rather, he was honored, back when this neighborhood was full of actual Italians who cared about their saints. Today, the martyr is sponsored by Coca-Cola (who can't even spell his name right).
On Thursday night I took some pictures of some of the interestingly non-Italian aspects of the event. There are many quasi-Italian things, of course, like the same zeppole and calzone stands over and over and over again, a couple of nuns walking around, and people hawking Sinatra CDs while playing Sean Paul on their speakers. Quite a bit of it though is not Italian at all.
( Enjoy )
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| Friday, September 12th, 2003
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9:41 pm
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| Thursday, September 11th, 2003
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12:51 am - It's Opposite Day!
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So I overheard from a kid in the elevator in my building. He told his older brother, "I bet you $10 it's that elevator." The other elevator opened. The older brother said, "You owe me $10." The younger brother said "every Thursday is opposite day." Opposite day-themed, comments, anyone?
current music: Basketcase. Green Day
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| Wednesday, September 10th, 2003
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11:39 pm - Home Sweet Census Tract 41, New York County, New York
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| Sunday, September 7th, 2003
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3:56 am
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I only make fun of sloppy writing when I have another reason to dislike the source. So, in honor of the fare increase I present the following gem from the MTA's magazine article about the 125th Street Metro North station:
"This station was predated one of New York City’s first subway station."
current music: Tom Bombadil's Song. The Tolkien Ensemble
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| Saturday, September 6th, 2003
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5:05 am - Impressions of Chinatown
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Our professor asked us to do a few minutes of free association about Chinatown. The words that we were to write down didn't have to be just our perceptions but could also be our perceptions of others' perceptions. Then, after we discussed the nature of the class (basically it is leading toward a class project to benefit the community) and contributed answers to the discussion "do you consider yourself American," he set us free to go explore Chinatown with a notebook, writing down impressions. Here are my free association and my results:
( Free Association )
( Notes from walk )
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| Friday, September 5th, 2003
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1:47 pm - 好哇！！
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I just bought the coolest thing at the bookstore next to the Chatham Square NYPL. It's a bilingual map of the United States (English and Chinese)! States and major cities are labeled in Chinese, as are islands and other important features. On the back are city maps of San Francisco (旧金山), Los Angeles (洛杉矶), and New York (纽约). Actually the map is Taiwanese-made so there are no simplified characters, but I typed them simplified anyway.
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| Thursday, September 4th, 2003
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11:32 pm - Spell your username in favorite songs
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Shubra -- Natacha Atlas -- Ayeshteni
Aqaba -- Natacha Atlas -- Gedida
Tout semble si… -- Zebda -- Essence ordinaire
Ya weledi -- Natacha Atlas -- Halim
Alhambra Pt. 1 -- Natacha Atlas -- Diaspora
Demain -- Les Nubians -- Princesses Nubiennes
Amulet -- Natacha Atlas -- Halim
Samsara -- The Tea Party -- TRIPtych
Agib -- Natacha Atlas -- Halim
Almost all of the good songs I have that start with "a" are by Natacha.
current music: Samsara -- The Tea Party -- TRIPtych
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12:28 pm - Easy Day
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We're watching a movie (perhaps the one narrated by Carlos Fuentes) in Inventing America today. My second class is my once-a-week Thursday class, Science Studies and the New Medical Genomics. As a first session, it should be mostly syllabus-getting and introduction. Today should be easy. I think I will go set up my 2-credit independent study tonight, if my adviser has the same hours he has for the past three years.
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| Saturday, August 30th, 2003
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2:02 pm - Irony
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A customer at work bought Personal Bankruptcy for Dummies and sighed with extreme irony when he charged his total of $23.95.
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| Friday, August 29th, 2003
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3:07 am
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I went to Jaya Malaysian Restaurant (90 Baxter, between Clavin Pl. and White) with Bria. The version of asam laksa that I tried at an Upper West Side restaurant was neither spicy nor particularly fishy, so I was sure I hadn't yet proven the Philadelphia waitress wrong. I did tonight though. The waitress at Jaya also tried to warn me against the soup, but this time I lied and confidently stated I had eaten it and loved it. I'm glad I did because now it is not a lie at all; I have tasted no better soup. I only had a twenty, so Bria paid for mine. I thus owed her a drink, so we went to this bar at Ludlow and Delancey called Motor City with, of all things, a Detroit theme. When I got home, I checked my messages, found out that  tazadebevita was back in New York. We got some wings at Pluck U. and some coffee at Kiev Café. It's been a very fun start to the weekend. Well, this is really not much of a weekend, since I work Friday and Saturday night, but I will have more genuine weekends starting next week when classes begin.
I'm thinking about starting a series of short essay entries on various places (starting with North America, because it has the most accessible demographic data) that have unexpected populations. Examples:
- McPherson County, SD and McIntosh County, ND: Still 35% German speaking after all these years. Great example to throw out when someone wants to claim that previous generations of immigrants to the US assimilated. Assimilation, to the degree that it did exist, was a worldwide post-World War I phenomenon that was caused by the drastic decline in migration and other economic activity worldwide the war caused. Such activity did not reach 1914 levels again until well after World War II.
- East Aleutians Borough, West Aleutians Borough, Kodiak Island Borough, AK. Like the above counties in the Dakotas, about 60% English speaking. Second place may surprise you though. It's not Aleut or any other Alaska Native language. It's Tagalog (at levels ranging from 12-27% across the region). Yes, Alaska has a significant Filipino population (with an origin as far back as the Spanish-American war).
- Ford County, KS. Home of Dodge City, Cowboy Capital, home of Wyatt Earp and the Santa Fe Trail. Almost as Hispanic as the Bronx.
- The Gujarati- and Maltese-speaking populations of Nunavut (OK, I'm stretching it here, they have 10 people each, and I won't be able to find anything more than the demography, but it's still amazing. Nunavut?)
current music: Voyager, Les Nubians, Princesses Nubiennes
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| Wednesday, August 27th, 2003
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4:19 pm
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| Tuesday, August 26th, 2003
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3:21 pm
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My Ethernet connection isn't working right now. A lot of the building seems to be having problems. marginalia can't connect with her own port at all but she is able to connect through someone else's Airport.
On Fox News last night (which my suitemates and I were watching to make fun of) there was this anchor who would pronounce every single foreign "h" as if it were Hebrew ח (het). She had no accent to speak of. She pronounced the very un-Hebrew name Muhammad as Muחammad. OK, I thought, Arabic is close enough. I guess that's ok. Then she pronounced the h in Hainan as ח. Chinese isn't even a Semitic language.
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