email to community board 1

Hello,

I am a junior at NYU. My concentration is in documentary film and politics. I am currently doing research for a film I hope to make on local government and community engagement. I want to explore how crucial such things were to American history (Tocqueville described local engagement as our defining trait), why such engagement is disappearing, and of course, I hope to look at people like yourselves, who still make time for this important task.

I was hoping that you might be able to put me in touch with some people that I might talk to about these things. At this stage, I am still trying to understand fully the work of the community board-- what are its major goals, issues, obstacles?-- and also the individual personalities which make up each board.

Any and all help would be deeply appreciated.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments or concerns.


Hopefully I hear back from them...

Socially Relevant Doc Research

So I'm working on this new doc idea, on community engagement/local government.

I was thinking of covering it from the angle of the community board, which means i need to start going to the boards (both meetings and members) and identifying compelling characters or issues to focus on.

I also think it is essential that I get permission to film them during their daily lives, not just in meetings, since the point is that they volunteer and make time in their (presumably) busy lives for this crucial, rapidly disappearing, civic duty.

Choose one or two boards (complete list at http://www.nypl.org/branch/local/govt/commbd.html ). Basic info on boards (their function, ect. is at http://www.nyc.gov/html/cau/html/cb/place_in_gov.shtml

Considering bk board #1, which is williamsburg. http://www.billburg.com/community/
http://www.cb1brooklyn.org/cb1_cal.htm

There is also the city council http://www.nyccouncil.info/html/calendar/calendar_new.cfm , which gets paid and is something of a diffferent matter, yet local.

and the hate parade marches on...

I've been following the ENDA debate for a while now, and getting the thoughts of all sides has been an interesting experience. However, I am constantly dissapointed and shocked by the large number of self-proclaimed christian organizations which have been so aggressively and openly against the bill. The reasoning they give, that this would somehow give trans or gay people "special priviledges" -- as if the right to work, to make a living despite people's predetermined hatred for something you are, was some sort of privilege that the rest of us don't already have and experience as an inalienable right. As if they don't claim that privilege every day of their lives. As if they don't seek to claim it again, doubly for themselves and none for the LGBT community as it were, when they oppose ENDA as somehow burdening their "religious freedom" in employment practices. I've yet to hear how an employer's discomfort with the sexual orientation or gender expression of an employee might burden the employer's free exercise of religion, and maybe someone can explain that to my satisfaction but somehow I doubt it.

The sad fact is, this isn't at all an issue of freedom of religion. Its about freedom to discriminate, and to pretend otherwise is nonsense. The part that really turns my stomach though, is the way Christianity, supposedly a religion of love, is used to justify and validate this unconscionable hate-mongering. I am not personally a Christian, but there are elements of Christianity that I genuinely respect. I don't think intolerance was something Jesus preached, but hey, what do I know?

its midnight and ive been drinking...

hey, remember online quizzes?

What Classic Movie Are You?
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John McCain is a tool

Remember the good old days, about a year ago, when John McCain was totally commendable? A maverick free thinker who supported sensible policy even if if meant directly going against his own party. "Now thats backbone," I said to myself, and I'm sure many others. "That kind of principled action is what we need from the democrats."

Cut to 2007, when McCain decides to run for president, and promptly sells out everything he's ever stood for (coincidentally the things which made him popular and respected enough to run in the first place). When I saw today that he has called for Roe V. Wade to be overturned, and not even on the basis of some sort of intelligent legal argument but just spewing the standard Republican reactionary buzzwords (ie activist judges) I had a physical urge to vomit.

Oh Senator McCain, how low you have fallen and how disappointing for all of us who hoped you stood for a better, more reasonable brand of politics. Ambition blinds all men, i suppose, but yours is a special kind of betrayal. If your campaign advisers convinced you that you could pander to the far right like this and still win back the moderates and undecided liberals, I assure you that they were mistaken. You sold out too openly, too completely. No amount of spin or snappy ads will make us forget. You traded your moral high ground to become the pet and puppet of the Republican party, and I'm afraid you only get to switch sides once per election cycle.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wretch.