Archive for the ‘Class’ Category

How Much is that Hot Dog in the Window?

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

“Ma’am. Is it true Missouri girls are crazy?” I had just grabbed a bite while my flight was delayed. I looked down at my eight and a half months pregnant belly while I swallowed and then glanced back up to see the National Guardsman who had directed this question at me. A fresh scar ran from the side of his mouth across his left cheek.

“I don’t know,” I laughed it off.

“Well, are you crazy?” His southern drawl slowed the question while his buddies flirted with the women behind the fast food counter, trying to talk them into a lower priced hot dog.

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Yes Men, the Fools

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

So, what’s the appropriate greeting today: “Happy April Fools’”? I hope you haven’t been tricked too severely. (My long-time favorite resource for verifying questionable information is Snopes.com, by the way. For future reference.)

I’ve been thinking about fools and sacred clowns today, appropriately enough. One of the movies I saw at SXSW was The Yes Men Fix The World, a documentary about the culture jamming activists called the Yes Men. This group uses inventive mischief and deceit to expose the wrongdoing of powerful corporations and governmental offices. The movie features Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, but they’re only two members of the larger group.

The Yes Men have created politically-charged hijinks like:

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Posted in Art, Class, Environment, Gender, In The News, Politics, Race, Theater | 1 Comment »

Head of the Class

Wednesday, January 16th, 2008

The days when all you needed to get into Harvard, Princeton or Yale was to have a father or grandfather or great-grandfather who went to Harvard, Princeton, or Yale are long gone, right?

Of course not. We all know that legacy preferences still exist at the upper echelon universities. And even though where your daddy went to school is not considered in admissions decisions in any other country, most Americans are willing to tolerate legacy preferences because colleges have opened their doors to students from all backgrounds in recent years. Women, Jews, African Americans, Latinos, poor kids etc. now have an opportunity to sit next to the Vanderbilts and Rockerfellers at Harvard and Yale. Right?

Not really. Ironically, just as college admission policies seem to moving away from the old school class-based approach, class ends up mattering more than ever.

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Posted in Class, Education | 4 Comments »

White Like Me

Monday, October 29th, 2007

Hi there, Gawker reader. I’m just going to update our regular readers so they’re up to speed.

On Sunday, Chris and I were profiled in the New York Post’s Page Six Magazine in a story about how even New York’s middle-class young professionals are having rent issues in today’s market.

Today, our article was snarked upon over at Gawker. Naturally, personal smears and misinformation ensued.

I’ll keep this brief, with two clarifications, and three questions, especially for you Gawker readers:

  1. Our income is actually $100,000 household, not individual. Also, those who actually read the article will know that it did not assert that we are poor, but that even young people who are financially stable are still encountering steep rent hikes and dodgy landlords.
  2. Did anyone else live in New York City in 2003, or was it just me? Back then, we were worried about a mysterious white powder called ANTHRAX showing up in our workplaces, not snorting cocaine.

Food for thought:

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Posted in Class, In The News, Race | 21 Comments »

Composing a Life: Keeping Up With the Joneses

Tuesday, August 7th, 2007

stuffImagine your bedroom. What is in the closet? The drawers? What is truly important to you? What could you do just as well without?

Now think about your “lifestyle” (for lack of a better word). What does it take to make you “happy”? Do you feel overwhelmed a lot of the time? What do you consider a real treat?

I have long been convinced that overconsumption or, as my filmmaker friend John deGraaf put it, affluenza, is one of the biggest dangers to our psychological and spiritual health, but reading this article on dissatisfied multi-millionaires in the New York Times this weekend just drove the point home even more. It also reminded me of how important it is to stay conscious of the kind of “lifestyle” you become accustomed to–namely, the more cheap, simple, and grounded in relationships, the better.

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Posted in Career/Life, Class | 6 Comments »

The Poor Logic of the Ultra-Rich

Monday, July 16th, 2007

No Punch-for-Punch post today; trying to sell a book about men’s issues really saps my energy for writing about them. That and the heat. Ech.

But I do want to comment on a spread the Times had yesterday on the new “Gilded Age.” The basic point is that American society is moving back to the robber baron era when the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. Those few, obviously, don’t see a problem with this and point to their far-reaching philanthropy as the reason. They should be able to pay 17% of their income in taxes, as Warren Buffett does, because they give it all back in the end.

This line of argument is as fallacious as the Bush administration insisting we “trust” them with indiscriminate power over habeas corpus and other constitutional rights.

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Posted in Class, In The News | 2 Comments »

Composing a Life: America, the Beautiful-ish

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

american flagIn honor of the upcoming holiday, I want to offer a bit of a reflection on what it means to be an American.

I don’t think I truly understood what it meant to be from the U.S. until I was away from it for a substantial amount of time. While studying abroad in South Africa, a country I thought had “race problems,” I was asked questions like, “So in America, everyone lives side by side, regardless of race?” Well, no. Sometimes. Not really. No.

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Posted in Class, Politics, Race | 4 Comments »

Kidz Today: The Darkest Side of Being Black Today

Wednesday, June 27th, 2007

Please allow me to introduce you to 16-year-old Blair Holt. He’s the handsome kid in the picture below, who is described by the Chicago Tribune as a “sharp dresser…popular among his classmates” and as having the “ability to make friends across social boundaries.”

It seems that everyone’s talking about the murder of Jessie Davis and her 9 month-old fetus or how wrestler Chris Benoit murdered his wife and seven-year-old son before committing suicide this weekend. And these tragedies deserve a certain amount of media coverage because they are criminal, horrible and senseless.

But there are tragic crimes going on all around us that never get talked about. Do you know what happened to Blair Holt just a few months ago?

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Posted in Class, Education, Race | 22 Comments »

Hilton’s Hypocrisy

Friday, June 8th, 2007

I woke up this morning a little hungover (due to fabulous Crucial Minutiae rooftop antics last night), rolled over, turned on Nik’s giant TV, and was greeted with the news that Paris Hilton is already out of jail.

I posted a lengthy piece on Huffington Post about this, but I just want to reiterate how totally disgusted I am by Hilton’s recent behavior, not to mention the whole gamut of disappearing pop stars who glamorize addiction and don’t take their responsibility as role models seriously in the least.

Hilton is revealing herself to be a total hypocrite (“I am ready to face the consequences of violating probation. During the past few weeks, I have had a lot of time to think and have come to realize I made some mistakes.”)

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Posted in Class, In The News, Pop Culture | 4 Comments »

Tipping–Can We Settle This Once And For All?

Wednesday, May 16th, 2007

So one guy I read regularly is Bill Simmons over at ESPN.com (aka The Sports Guy), and I’m cool with all of his pro-Red Sox rants and everything, but this last mailbag just pissed me off. Answering a question from a reader about tipping, he suggested tipping cab drivers 20%, delivery men 20%, room service 25%, curbside baggage handlers $5 A BAG, and 10% extra for the freaking sushi chefs! (He originally said “takeout: 20%” but clarified later on that he meant delivery).

Now…when did tipping in this country get so out of control? So glad you asked. I think it’s a direct result of all the young people who make ends meet early on working those kinds of jobs. Back in the “old boy’s club” days, college students weren’t working jobs to make ends meet during or after school; they were right on the fast track to success. Now, with everyone having worked a service job or at least having friends who have, there’s a peer pressure to tip more. First 15% for waiters was acceptable. Now, as any former waiter/waitress at your party of six out to dinner will so snidely inform you, 15% is an insult. 20% is the minimum. And we don’t want to anger our friends through undertipping the waiters, so we tip more. And this leads to tipping the freaking BAGGAGE handlers $5 A BAG at the airport. Here’s my scale:

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Posted in Career/Life, Class | 10 Comments »

Beauty in a Wicked World: Don’t Say I Never Gave You Nothin’

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

genshiro_small.jpgLast month, billionaire Genshiro Kawamoto, a Japanese real estate mogul and billionaire, opened three of his multi-million dollar homes in Hawaii to three homeless families of Native Hawaiian descent. The families can live there rent-free, but paying utilities, for ten years.

Some people have criticized Kawamoto’s gesture as being empty and impractical: how will the families pay for their bills? If this billionaire really wanted to help the homeless, he’d build affordable housing or fund programs that help people stay off the streets. One commenter on the article says, “This is just a sick P.R. move.” It’s possible. Kawamoto has a bumpy ethical track record: in 2002, he evicted 27 Oahu tenants with 30 days’ notice because he wanted to catch the rising housing prices.

His supporters disagree, saying that a good deed is a good deed, no matter what the motivations.

So what do you think? Does a good deed have to have good intentions, or does it stand on its own as an act?

Photo Credit: AP

Posted in Beauty in a Wicked World, Class, In The News | 1 Comment »

They Don’t Call Them “Pampered” for Nothing

Thursday, March 29th, 2007

I live on an island that is being invaded by a strange and powerful force: rich toddlers. Don’t get me wrong, I like toddlers and everything. But do they have to be growing at such a fast rate? And do they all have to be richer than me?

A few days ago, the New York Times ran the following article noting a major change in Manhattan demographics: click here for the article

Shockingly, in a city that once spat families with kids over its bridges and through its tunnels, the number of families with kids under the age of five in Manhattan has increased by 32 percent since 2000. And these aren’t just any toddlers. White families are having babies at a higher rate than any other group (according to the article, this is the first time since the 1960s that there are more white toddlers in Manhattan than black or Hispanic children of the same age). The median household income for a white non-Hispanic toddler is now $284,000. These are literally the richest and most powerful kids in America.

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Posted in Class | 3 Comments »

Beauty in a Wicked World: Spring is here!

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007

Happy first day of Spring, all! In the spirit of new growth and abundance, I bring you this tidbit.

My class-warrior husband and I often talk about money, especially family money that makes some young people very, very rich. We get especially frustrated with young, wealthy people who act and live like they don’t have any money. Obviously it’s a complex issue, and it’s easy for me to judge from the outside, but their denial of the reality of their lives almost orientalizes the poor, as if it’s a lifestyle choice not to have money.

Which is why I was so encouraged to read this article in the February 26 issue of U.S. News:

Making Their Privilege Pay: Wealthy generation X-ers are finding it takes more than money to do good deeds

The article (written by Kimberly Palmer) talks about wealthy Gen Xers who have formed organizations, like Resource Generation and Grand Street, to counsel each other on how best to use their money for philanthropy and the greater good.

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Posted in Beauty in a Wicked World, Class, In The News | 5 Comments »

Kidz Today: Kidz Today are Screwed

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007

Imagine this:

You are in your own house. It is the place where you wake up each morning and lay your head each night. It is your refuge from the world’s turmoil. It is the structure that contains your life’s possessions.

All of the sudden, there is water everywhere. And it is rising fast, seeping in through the walls, gushing in from the windows. Outside, you can see floating red balls. They are massive nests of fire ants with a queen that is surely in panic. They take loft to escape the water moccasins, poisonous water snakes that threaten humans and ants alike.

The water continues to rise. Cockroaches and rats come up from the sewers and canals seeking dry land all around you. You pile up your furniture to get to higher ground. The water keeps rising.

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Posted in Class, Health, Politics | 3 Comments »

Beauty in a Wicked World: Weeds and Youth Activism

Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

Welcome to my new column on Crucial Minutiae. Every Wednesday, “Beauty in a Wicked World” will offer evidence — some huge, some tiny — that hope still exists in the world, that we aren’t all going to hell in a handbag.
Crow Poison
Today, in Brooklyn, the trees are still bare, and the partial sun and 60 degrees might slip back into snow by the weekend. But in Houston, where I’m from, my favorite flower has sprouted up all over the place. It’s a weed that grows in great bunches throughout Texas. I used to pick handfuls of them and plop them in a Dixie cup when I was a kid.

The weed’s name? Nothing poetic like “bluebonnet” or “Indian paintbrush.” No, it’s called Crow-poison, or false garlic. There is still hope when something so lovely goes by such a funky name. I appreciate that.

Now that your senses are warmed up, here’s a more dramatic item for you:

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Posted in Beauty in a Wicked World, Career/Life, Class | 1 Comment »