A report on an August trip to New York City. My favorite sign was one in the subway, officially reminding customers that it is white women who are typically the most poorly behaved group of humans. Why won’t these Speakerphone Americans use headphones?
Also new, I think, are the land acknowledgements near Central Park regarding Seneca Village, a settlement of “approximately 225 people” who were Black. Examples from the Public Theater and from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
This is kind of confusing. We must acknowledge Native Americans, who were dispossessed usually without any compensation, and condemn the dispossessors (white people). In the case of some of the land that is now Central Park, apparently there were dispossessors who happened to be Black. Unlike white dispossessors, the Black dispossessors are virtuous and must be acknowledged. (According to Wikipedia, the Black property owners of Seneca Village were paid market value for their land because it was acquired by eminent domain.)
Who else must be acknowledged? Those behind the “Latinx Freedom Movement” in the 1960s (they were Latinx ahead of their time and the term “Latinx”?). The billionaires who created today’s Hudson Yards remind us that capitalism is the root cause of inequality (humans were equal prior to the advent of this evil system, which, unfortunately is still practiced in Palm Beach County where one of the above-mentioned billionaires fled).
More of the exhibit, which reminds us that the reason we have immigrants is not due to an open border+cradle-to-grave welfare state, but rather because of U.S. military intervention in Guatemala, Cuba, an dthe Dominican Republic. (Our military interventions in India also explain the large number of Indians now living in the U.S.?)
Speaking of Hudson Yards, “The Vessel in NYC’s Hudson Yards reopens with safety netting 3 years after spate of suicides.” (CNN, 2024; the Chinese can build thousands of miles of high-speed rail or several new NYC-sized cities in 3 years, but Americans need 3 years to install some ugly nets?)
Don’t forget to mask when outdoors on the adjacent High Line:
It is safe to unmask when inhaling healing marijuana, however, which is available on nearly every block. LA Olympics ambassador Snoop Dogg has his own brand of weed, apparently, and smoking cannabis all day is “safe and legal”:
I’m too stoned now (just from looking at the above images) to continue writing, so I’ll post a follow-up with the rest of the photos…
Whenever people ask me about these thing I point out I am immensely proud of the fact my father’s family made his way from Swabia with Duke Liudolf (son of Emperor Otto the First), and got given their land South of Forli after vanquishing whomever was there before, and that my mother’s family were part of the Norman invasion of Sicily, fought their way all the way up to the east of Naples, and took their land there — taking it from whomever was there before, it goes without saying. All true, and a fantastic way of getting some people shut up and go away without me even asking them to!