Monday, December 29, 2003
Big changes coming to Union Square
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The landmarked asphalt strip of Union Square North we know as the site of the Greenmarket is going to be rebuilt, and the local preservationists are concerned.
In 1997 the National Parks Service designated this section as a National Historic Landmark, since it was not only the site of the first labor union demonstration and march in 1882 but also served as the grandstand and rally point for Mayday meetings throughout the years, where Socialist and Communist leaders, ranging from Emma Goldman to Harry Bridges, shouted their grievances about Capitalist injustices, with the graceful Palladian Pavilion in the background.
While the much fractured Park itself does not fit a landmark designation - it was restructured many times, raised to accommodate a subway beneath, the Palladian Pavilion was rebuilt, the statues and flagpoles were shuffled to meet the constructions - the North End has remained pristine. Now it's the turn of the space that we have come to cherish on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays as the Greenmarket, brainchild of Barry Benepe in 1975 and flourishing ever since, beloved of grateful New Yorkers who die for a little scrap of cabbage leaf fresh from the farm.
The North End job is a part of a larger scheme, mostly centering on an expansion of the children's' playgrounds that utilizes grants from Councilwoman Margarita Lopez and Borough President C. Virginia Fields. The 14th Street- Union Square BID/LDC, now known as the Union Square Partnership, has engaged the prominent landscape architect firm of Michael Van Volckenburgh of 17th Street, and they have come up with several grand designs (details to follow when I get closer to them, early in 2004.)
The Union Square Community Council, the self-appointed guardians of the park, are expected to review and clarify their positions by the time of their annual meeting of January 21. More opinions are expected. Supervision of National Landmarks in New York is the function of NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, led by Bernadette Castro, and they may be invited to participate in the review, as may the NYC Department of Transportation, who have the responsibility over regulating the traffic around the park.
While the redesign of the Union Square Park proper and the Palladian Pavilion with its defunct bathrooms does not impact the Mayday parade grounds site, still there will be gentrification of the North End. I have some feelings for the old wreck, having looked at it from my office windows daily, for nearly five decades. The Pavilion has been the in the background of the Mayday and other demonstrations. Particularly poignant is the memory of hundreds of demonstrators, on their knees, along the parkside and into 17th Street, silently waiting for the court decision on Ethel and David Rosenberg, as we homebound office workers nearly tiptoed past them, on our ways to the BMT.
The early name, of Union Place, came from the union of Albany Post Road, later named Bloomingdale Road, then Broadway, and Boston Post Road, later Bowery, turning into Fourth Avenue at Cooper Union, renamed Union Square Eastat 14th, then Park Avenue South at 17th Street, continuing as Park Ave from 42nd Street. Logical as anything in NYC. In the famous NYC street redesign of 1807, the potter's field at the juncture was doomed, plowed over and turned into our present pride and joy. In 1928-9 the park was raised six feet, to accommodate the subway. It was no joy in the 1960s when it became a hangout of drug dealing, until rescued by the arrival of the Greenmarket in 1975, and the Zeckendorf Towers that replaced the defunct Klein's On The Square, and Mayor Edward I. Koch's revitalization of 1985, filling the park with lights. 1999 saw the changes around the Gandhi triangle and the subway rebuilding.
As for the Labor Day connection, Peter J. McGuire, a carpenter with vision who in 1881 founded the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, called for an assembly to honor American workers, at City Hall on Tuesday, Sept 5, 1882, which brought out 10,000 union people. They marched to Union Square for speeches and a demonstration, then retired to Reservoir Park (now Bryant Park, then the site of a reservoir fed by the Croton Aqueduct, where the NY Public Library stands, since 1895), for a family picnic. The idea of a Labor Day took hold, Oregon made it a legal holiday in 1887, followed by the US Congress in 1894.
As of the moment, my prejudiced attitude is that the main improvement the area needs is a reliable upward bound escalator at the subway exit on the northeast corner of 14th Street and PAS, under the Food Emporium, which stands dirty and broken ten or more months of the year, for as long as I have been using the Lex Ave trains. I know it is not the BID's responsibility, it is the orphan child of the Zeckendorf people, who received tax breaks in compensation for building and maintaining the escalator. If they knew the curses weary homebound workers heap on their heads, expecting an easy ascent, and instead having to trudge up the filthy contraption, they'd repent. As a start, at least they can reverse the down escalator, which seems to have less troubles, during the evening rush.
Wally Dobelis and the staff of T&V wish you a merry Christmas, healthy New Year, happy Chanukah and bountiful Kwanzaa.
The landmarked asphalt strip of Union Square North we know as the site of the Greenmarket is going to be rebuilt, and the local preservationists are concerned.
In 1997 the National Parks Service designated this section as a National Historic Landmark, since it was not only the site of the first labor union demonstration and march in 1882 but also served as the grandstand and rally point for Mayday meetings throughout the years, where Socialist and Communist leaders, ranging from Emma Goldman to Harry Bridges, shouted their grievances about Capitalist injustices, with the graceful Palladian Pavilion in the background.
While the much fractured Park itself does not fit a landmark designation - it was restructured many times, raised to accommodate a subway beneath, the Palladian Pavilion was rebuilt, the statues and flagpoles were shuffled to meet the constructions - the North End has remained pristine. Now it's the turn of the space that we have come to cherish on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays as the Greenmarket, brainchild of Barry Benepe in 1975 and flourishing ever since, beloved of grateful New Yorkers who die for a little scrap of cabbage leaf fresh from the farm.
The North End job is a part of a larger scheme, mostly centering on an expansion of the children's' playgrounds that utilizes grants from Councilwoman Margarita Lopez and Borough President C. Virginia Fields. The 14th Street- Union Square BID/LDC, now known as the Union Square Partnership, has engaged the prominent landscape architect firm of Michael Van Volckenburgh of 17th Street, and they have come up with several grand designs (details to follow when I get closer to them, early in 2004.)
The Union Square Community Council, the self-appointed guardians of the park, are expected to review and clarify their positions by the time of their annual meeting of January 21. More opinions are expected. Supervision of National Landmarks in New York is the function of NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, led by Bernadette Castro, and they may be invited to participate in the review, as may the NYC Department of Transportation, who have the responsibility over regulating the traffic around the park.
While the redesign of the Union Square Park proper and the Palladian Pavilion with its defunct bathrooms does not impact the Mayday parade grounds site, still there will be gentrification of the North End. I have some feelings for the old wreck, having looked at it from my office windows daily, for nearly five decades. The Pavilion has been the in the background of the Mayday and other demonstrations. Particularly poignant is the memory of hundreds of demonstrators, on their knees, along the parkside and into 17th Street, silently waiting for the court decision on Ethel and David Rosenberg, as we homebound office workers nearly tiptoed past them, on our ways to the BMT.
The early name, of Union Place, came from the union of Albany Post Road, later named Bloomingdale Road, then Broadway, and Boston Post Road, later Bowery, turning into Fourth Avenue at Cooper Union, renamed Union Square Eastat 14th, then Park Avenue South at 17th Street, continuing as Park Ave from 42nd Street. Logical as anything in NYC. In the famous NYC street redesign of 1807, the potter's field at the juncture was doomed, plowed over and turned into our present pride and joy. In 1928-9 the park was raised six feet, to accommodate the subway. It was no joy in the 1960s when it became a hangout of drug dealing, until rescued by the arrival of the Greenmarket in 1975, and the Zeckendorf Towers that replaced the defunct Klein's On The Square, and Mayor Edward I. Koch's revitalization of 1985, filling the park with lights. 1999 saw the changes around the Gandhi triangle and the subway rebuilding.
As for the Labor Day connection, Peter J. McGuire, a carpenter with vision who in 1881 founded the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, called for an assembly to honor American workers, at City Hall on Tuesday, Sept 5, 1882, which brought out 10,000 union people. They marched to Union Square for speeches and a demonstration, then retired to Reservoir Park (now Bryant Park, then the site of a reservoir fed by the Croton Aqueduct, where the NY Public Library stands, since 1895), for a family picnic. The idea of a Labor Day took hold, Oregon made it a legal holiday in 1887, followed by the US Congress in 1894.
As of the moment, my prejudiced attitude is that the main improvement the area needs is a reliable upward bound escalator at the subway exit on the northeast corner of 14th Street and PAS, under the Food Emporium, which stands dirty and broken ten or more months of the year, for as long as I have been using the Lex Ave trains. I know it is not the BID's responsibility, it is the orphan child of the Zeckendorf people, who received tax breaks in compensation for building and maintaining the escalator. If they knew the curses weary homebound workers heap on their heads, expecting an easy ascent, and instead having to trudge up the filthy contraption, they'd repent. As a start, at least they can reverse the down escalator, which seems to have less troubles, during the evening rush.
Wally Dobelis and the staff of T&V wish you a merry Christmas, healthy New Year, happy Chanukah and bountiful Kwanzaa.
Thursday, December 25, 2003
Big changes coming to Union Square
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Big changes coming to Union Square
The landmarked asphalt strip of Union Square North we know as the site of the Greenmarket is going to be rebuilt, and the local preservationists are concerned.
In 1997 the National Parks Service designated this section as a National Historic Landmark, since it was not only the site of the first labor union demonstration and march in 1882 but also served as the grandstand and rally point for Mayday meetings throughout the years, where Socialist and Communist leaders, ranging from Emma Goldman to Harry Bridges, shouted their grievances about Capitalist injustices, with the graceful Palladian Pavilion in the background.
While the much fractured Park itself does not fit a landmark designation - it was restructured many times, raised to accommodate a subway beneath, the Palladian Pavilion was rebuilt, the statues and flagpoles were shuffled to meet the constructions - the North End has remained pristine. Now it's the turn of the space that we have come to cherish on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays as the Greenmarket, brainchild of Barry Benepe in 1975 and flourishing ever since, beloved of grateful New Yorkers who die for a little scrap of cabbage leaf fresh from the farm.
The North End job is a part of a larger scheme, mostly centering on an expansion of the children's' playgrounds that utilizes grants from Councilwoman Margarita Lopez and Borough President C. Virginia Fields. The 14th Street- Union Square BID/LDC, now known as the Union Square Partnership, has engaged the prominent landscape architect firm of Michael Van Volckenburgh of 17th Street, and they have come up with several grand designs (details to follow when I get closer to them, early in 2004.)
The Union Square Community Council, the self-appointed guardians of the park, are expected to review and clarify their positions by the time of their annual meeting of January 21. More opinions are expected. Supervision of National Landmarks in New York is the function of NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, led by Bernadette Castro, and they may be invited to participate in the review, as may the NYC Department of Transportation, who have the responsibility over regulating the traffic around the park.
While the redesign of the Union Square Park proper and the Palladian Pavilion with its defunct bathrooms does not impact the Mayday parade grounds site, still there will be gentrification of the North End. I have some feelings for the old wreck, having looked at it from my office windows daily, for nearly five decades. The Pavilion has been the in the background of the Mayday and other demonstrations. Particularly poignant is the memory of hundreds of demonstrators, on their knees, along the parkside and into 17th Street, silently waiting for the court decision on Ethel and David Rosenberg, as we homebound office workers nearly tiptoed past them, on our ways to the BMT.
The early name, of Union Place, came from the union of Albany Post Road, later named Bloomingdale Road, then Broadway, and Boston Post Road, later Bowery, turning into Fourth Avenue at Cooper Union, renamed Union Square Eastat 14th, then Park Avenue South at 17th Street, continuing as Park Ave from 42nd Street. Logical as anything in NYC. In the famous NYC street redesign of 1807, the potter's field at the juncture was doomed, plowed over and turned into our present pride and joy. In 1928-9 the park was raised six feet, to accommodate the subway. It was no joy in the 1960s when it became a hangout of drug dealing, until rescued by the arrival of the Greenmarket in 1975, and the Zeckendorf Towers that replaced the defunct Klein's On The Square, and Mayor Edward I. Koch's revitalization of 1985, filling the park with lights. 1999 saw the changes around the Gandhi triangle and the subway rebuilding.
As for the Labor Day connection, Peter J. McGuire, a carpenter with vision who in 1881 founded the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, called for an assembly to honor American workers, at City Hall on Tuesday, Sept 5, 1882, which brought out 10,000 union people. They marched to Union Square for speeches and a demonstration, then retired to Reservoir Park (now Bryant Park, then the site of a reservoir fed by the Croton Aqueduct, where the NY Public Library stands, since 1895), for a family picnic. The idea of a Labor Day took hold, Oregon made it a legal holiday in 1887, followed by the US Congress in 1894.
As of the moment, my prejudiced attitude is that the main improvement the area needs is a reliable upward bound escalator at the subway exit on the northeast corner of 14th Street and PAS, under the Food Emporium, which stands dirty and broken ten or more months of the year, for as long as I have been using the Lex Ave trains. I know it is not the BID's responsibility, it is the orphan child of the Zeckendorf people, who received tax breaks in compensation for building and maintaining the escalator. If they knew the curses weary homebound workers heap on their heads, expecting an easy ascent, and instead having to trudge up the filthy contraption, they'd repent. As a start, at least they can reverse the down escalator, which seems to have less troubles, during the evening rush.
Wally Dobelis and the staff of T&V wish you a merry Christmas, healthy New Year, happy Chanukah and bountiful Kwanzaa.
Big changes coming to Union Square
The landmarked asphalt strip of Union Square North we know as the site of the Greenmarket is going to be rebuilt, and the local preservationists are concerned.
In 1997 the National Parks Service designated this section as a National Historic Landmark, since it was not only the site of the first labor union demonstration and march in 1882 but also served as the grandstand and rally point for Mayday meetings throughout the years, where Socialist and Communist leaders, ranging from Emma Goldman to Harry Bridges, shouted their grievances about Capitalist injustices, with the graceful Palladian Pavilion in the background.
While the much fractured Park itself does not fit a landmark designation - it was restructured many times, raised to accommodate a subway beneath, the Palladian Pavilion was rebuilt, the statues and flagpoles were shuffled to meet the constructions - the North End has remained pristine. Now it's the turn of the space that we have come to cherish on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays as the Greenmarket, brainchild of Barry Benepe in 1975 and flourishing ever since, beloved of grateful New Yorkers who die for a little scrap of cabbage leaf fresh from the farm.
The North End job is a part of a larger scheme, mostly centering on an expansion of the children's' playgrounds that utilizes grants from Councilwoman Margarita Lopez and Borough President C. Virginia Fields. The 14th Street- Union Square BID/LDC, now known as the Union Square Partnership, has engaged the prominent landscape architect firm of Michael Van Volckenburgh of 17th Street, and they have come up with several grand designs (details to follow when I get closer to them, early in 2004.)
The Union Square Community Council, the self-appointed guardians of the park, are expected to review and clarify their positions by the time of their annual meeting of January 21. More opinions are expected. Supervision of National Landmarks in New York is the function of NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, led by Bernadette Castro, and they may be invited to participate in the review, as may the NYC Department of Transportation, who have the responsibility over regulating the traffic around the park.
While the redesign of the Union Square Park proper and the Palladian Pavilion with its defunct bathrooms does not impact the Mayday parade grounds site, still there will be gentrification of the North End. I have some feelings for the old wreck, having looked at it from my office windows daily, for nearly five decades. The Pavilion has been the in the background of the Mayday and other demonstrations. Particularly poignant is the memory of hundreds of demonstrators, on their knees, along the parkside and into 17th Street, silently waiting for the court decision on Ethel and David Rosenberg, as we homebound office workers nearly tiptoed past them, on our ways to the BMT.
The early name, of Union Place, came from the union of Albany Post Road, later named Bloomingdale Road, then Broadway, and Boston Post Road, later Bowery, turning into Fourth Avenue at Cooper Union, renamed Union Square Eastat 14th, then Park Avenue South at 17th Street, continuing as Park Ave from 42nd Street. Logical as anything in NYC. In the famous NYC street redesign of 1807, the potter's field at the juncture was doomed, plowed over and turned into our present pride and joy. In 1928-9 the park was raised six feet, to accommodate the subway. It was no joy in the 1960s when it became a hangout of drug dealing, until rescued by the arrival of the Greenmarket in 1975, and the Zeckendorf Towers that replaced the defunct Klein's On The Square, and Mayor Edward I. Koch's revitalization of 1985, filling the park with lights. 1999 saw the changes around the Gandhi triangle and the subway rebuilding.
As for the Labor Day connection, Peter J. McGuire, a carpenter with vision who in 1881 founded the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, called for an assembly to honor American workers, at City Hall on Tuesday, Sept 5, 1882, which brought out 10,000 union people. They marched to Union Square for speeches and a demonstration, then retired to Reservoir Park (now Bryant Park, then the site of a reservoir fed by the Croton Aqueduct, where the NY Public Library stands, since 1895), for a family picnic. The idea of a Labor Day took hold, Oregon made it a legal holiday in 1887, followed by the US Congress in 1894.
As of the moment, my prejudiced attitude is that the main improvement the area needs is a reliable upward bound escalator at the subway exit on the northeast corner of 14th Street and PAS, under the Food Emporium, which stands dirty and broken ten or more months of the year, for as long as I have been using the Lex Ave trains. I know it is not the BID's responsibility, it is the orphan child of the Zeckendorf people, who received tax breaks in compensation for building and maintaining the escalator. If they knew the curses weary homebound workers heap on their heads, expecting an easy ascent, and instead having to trudge up the filthy contraption, they'd repent. As a start, at least they can reverse the down escalator, which seems to have less troubles, during the evening rush.
Wally Dobelis and the staff of T&V wish you a merry Christmas, healthy New Year, happy Chanukah and bountiful Kwanzaa.
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Atour of paradise, in South Pacific (Vanu Atu)
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
I am ten years old, and I am in a National Geographic expedition to New Hebrides, watching the Melanesians! This déjà vu was prompted by viewing a harvest processional, called the Rom Dance, on Ambrym, an island renowned for its magic, in the South Pacific, part of what is now the Ripublik blong Vanuatu. This ritual, performed by 14 men in full-length banana leaf costumes, with spire-top bird-head masks, surrounding a group of naked men dressed in nothing but pandan-leaf penis sheaths, is the precinct of village elders, who acquire the rights, and the accompanying social standing,, by donating a pig (valued at $200!) once a year. In turn, they are allowed to make wood carved tom-toms, the sacred two-tone drum communication devices, and their miniature replicas favored by tourists, and the privilege of issuing certain taboos. The dance costumes are destroyed at the end of the real ritual. A neat social structure for promotion of industry, and taxation, Washington to copy.
We, the 112-member expedition tourists from the M/S Clipper Odyssey, exploring a new route for Intrav/Clipper, partly under the flag of the National Museum of Natural History, were favored with a preview of the hour-long ceremony, after a ritual exchange of gifts, and an obligatory pig-slaughter (only the Captain participated). The villagers are feared because of their powers of incantation and performing levitation (unconfirmed) and superior replication of magic figures (confirmed). The latter were sold after the ritual, by skilled speakers at festive tables, with groups of carvers observing, silently. Our arrival prompted visits by a hundred or so neighboring villagers in colorful dress, who reclined on the tree-lined black sandy beach, women and men separately, and watched our moves. The men and women have separate secret societies, and female menstrual emissions are, in some cultures, thought to have magic and deadly qualities. Magic and Christianity seem to coexist well, the cultural influence if missionaries is evident - there are no bare torsos in Melanesia, while the Micronesians still remain climate-appropriately undressed.
Upon our arrival in eight-person Zodiacs (rubber boats) and a wet landing at the beach, we were cordially greeted with handshakes, and escorted to logs placed around the village green, which soon became the scene of the back-and-forth Rom dance/parade figure movements, musically accompanied by two naked drummers on tam-tams. Photography was tolerated. The cordiality was evident when neighboring villagers left, shaking hands individually with locals (guards?), along the beachside access road, a far cry from the head-hunting ferocity described by Jack London (1876-1914) in his South Seas tales. The progeny of his Michael and Jerry, two dogs who sang, were roaming freely on the beach, along with fearless toddlers, who smilingly shook hands with strangers. The adolescents were more reticent, and an adult male, lying on the beach, ironically called out to the tourist: "this is how we spend our days!" We both laughed, uneasily. You do not have to read Bronislaw Malinowski of the Trobriands, or Margaret Mead of Samoa to catch the drift.
The Vanuatans, independent since 1980, with vestiges of a British-French overseeing Condominium installed in 1906 (ironically called Pandemonium), are at lest quadri-lingual, with Bislama, the pidgin language I remember from Jack London, prevailing. Native speakers of melodic "kustom" languages often speak two or three, their own and their mothers' village tongues. Intermarriage between villages, even hostile ones, has always been favored, and population has been kept low. The na-Vanuatu, 200,000 inhabitants ob 83 islands, combined size of Connecticut, own land in common, live self-sufficiently on fish and swidden gardens (rotated in 10-15 generations, and seem to have learned, since settling there in the Stone Ages, to guard against overpopulation. Is this a practice in genetics, or simply lack of medical care?
Independence has been costly; the Vanuatu treasury, post-boom, lost some reputed mega-millions when persuaded by a London financier to invest in bonds returning 25% annually .Fortunately, islanders have not lost their money-less self-sufficiency. Visiting the Maskelynes, small low islands, our adventure- ready advance scouts (ours was very much an ad hoc day-by-day schedule) were granted beach and reef snorkel privileges for 2,000 vatu ($20) and a hat. Islanders rowed out to the ship in primitive dugouts with outriggers and lateen sails, held together with palm-frond ties, and a man, when asked, offered to sell his one-person canoe to our Amazon-size scout from New Zealand (she owns a dive shop) for 5,000 vatu. That was big bucks on Uliveo, where we did shoreline sight-seeing of the idyllically clean lagoon village (the weather became too dirty for snorkeling) in our eight-passenger Zodiac boats . We did see two men with adzes hewing at a tree-trunk, shaping a canoe (the dugout is so narrow that it holds two feet only when placed heel-to-toe), an effort of many hours of work. A replacement? Industry cannot be stopped. Our anthropologist, Bob Tonkinson, a Vanuatu veteran since the 1960s, hailed an old friend, a chief, who treated us to mangoes, best ever. The villagers' source of cash income is Jimmy, a guide, who has a boat from the capital -Port Vila, of which more later - stop for fresh fish, on some mythical schedule, since there was no evidence of a cell phone or an electric generator, the few-hours- a- day link to civilization in more advanced Vanuatu and Fiji villages.
What else do I know about Vanuatu economy? Well, there' s an award winning beer, Tusker, Air Vanuatu is the flag-bearing airline, and there are two newspapers and two news sites. The GDP is $1.3K per capita, and the trade balance is sadly one-sided. Main partners are Japanese, who buy sea-cucumbers. The Aussies, NZ, US and EU contribute. Ah, the cost of paradise.
I am ten years old, and I am in a National Geographic expedition to New Hebrides, watching the Melanesians! This déjà vu was prompted by viewing a harvest processional, called the Rom Dance, on Ambrym, an island renowned for its magic, in the South Pacific, part of what is now the Ripublik blong Vanuatu. This ritual, performed by 14 men in full-length banana leaf costumes, with spire-top bird-head masks, surrounding a group of naked men dressed in nothing but pandan-leaf penis sheaths, is the precinct of village elders, who acquire the rights, and the accompanying social standing,, by donating a pig (valued at $200!) once a year. In turn, they are allowed to make wood carved tom-toms, the sacred two-tone drum communication devices, and their miniature replicas favored by tourists, and the privilege of issuing certain taboos. The dance costumes are destroyed at the end of the real ritual. A neat social structure for promotion of industry, and taxation, Washington to copy.
We, the 112-member expedition tourists from the M/S Clipper Odyssey, exploring a new route for Intrav/Clipper, partly under the flag of the National Museum of Natural History, were favored with a preview of the hour-long ceremony, after a ritual exchange of gifts, and an obligatory pig-slaughter (only the Captain participated). The villagers are feared because of their powers of incantation and performing levitation (unconfirmed) and superior replication of magic figures (confirmed). The latter were sold after the ritual, by skilled speakers at festive tables, with groups of carvers observing, silently. Our arrival prompted visits by a hundred or so neighboring villagers in colorful dress, who reclined on the tree-lined black sandy beach, women and men separately, and watched our moves. The men and women have separate secret societies, and female menstrual emissions are, in some cultures, thought to have magic and deadly qualities. Magic and Christianity seem to coexist well, the cultural influence if missionaries is evident - there are no bare torsos in Melanesia, while the Micronesians still remain climate-appropriately undressed.
Upon our arrival in eight-person Zodiacs (rubber boats) and a wet landing at the beach, we were cordially greeted with handshakes, and escorted to logs placed around the village green, which soon became the scene of the back-and-forth Rom dance/parade figure movements, musically accompanied by two naked drummers on tam-tams. Photography was tolerated. The cordiality was evident when neighboring villagers left, shaking hands individually with locals (guards?), along the beachside access road, a far cry from the head-hunting ferocity described by Jack London (1876-1914) in his South Seas tales. The progeny of his Michael and Jerry, two dogs who sang, were roaming freely on the beach, along with fearless toddlers, who smilingly shook hands with strangers. The adolescents were more reticent, and an adult male, lying on the beach, ironically called out to the tourist: "this is how we spend our days!" We both laughed, uneasily. You do not have to read Bronislaw Malinowski of the Trobriands, or Margaret Mead of Samoa to catch the drift.
The Vanuatans, independent since 1980, with vestiges of a British-French overseeing Condominium installed in 1906 (ironically called Pandemonium), are at lest quadri-lingual, with Bislama, the pidgin language I remember from Jack London, prevailing. Native speakers of melodic "kustom" languages often speak two or three, their own and their mothers' village tongues. Intermarriage between villages, even hostile ones, has always been favored, and population has been kept low. The na-Vanuatu, 200,000 inhabitants ob 83 islands, combined size of Connecticut, own land in common, live self-sufficiently on fish and swidden gardens (rotated in 10-15 generations, and seem to have learned, since settling there in the Stone Ages, to guard against overpopulation. Is this a practice in genetics, or simply lack of medical care?
Independence has been costly; the Vanuatu treasury, post-boom, lost some reputed mega-millions when persuaded by a London financier to invest in bonds returning 25% annually .Fortunately, islanders have not lost their money-less self-sufficiency. Visiting the Maskelynes, small low islands, our adventure- ready advance scouts (ours was very much an ad hoc day-by-day schedule) were granted beach and reef snorkel privileges for 2,000 vatu ($20) and a hat. Islanders rowed out to the ship in primitive dugouts with outriggers and lateen sails, held together with palm-frond ties, and a man, when asked, offered to sell his one-person canoe to our Amazon-size scout from New Zealand (she owns a dive shop) for 5,000 vatu. That was big bucks on Uliveo, where we did shoreline sight-seeing of the idyllically clean lagoon village (the weather became too dirty for snorkeling) in our eight-passenger Zodiac boats . We did see two men with adzes hewing at a tree-trunk, shaping a canoe (the dugout is so narrow that it holds two feet only when placed heel-to-toe), an effort of many hours of work. A replacement? Industry cannot be stopped. Our anthropologist, Bob Tonkinson, a Vanuatu veteran since the 1960s, hailed an old friend, a chief, who treated us to mangoes, best ever. The villagers' source of cash income is Jimmy, a guide, who has a boat from the capital -Port Vila, of which more later - stop for fresh fish, on some mythical schedule, since there was no evidence of a cell phone or an electric generator, the few-hours- a- day link to civilization in more advanced Vanuatu and Fiji villages.
What else do I know about Vanuatu economy? Well, there' s an award winning beer, Tusker, Air Vanuatu is the flag-bearing airline, and there are two newspapers and two news sites. The GDP is $1.3K per capita, and the trade balance is sadly one-sided. Main partners are Japanese, who buy sea-cucumbers. The Aussies, NZ, US and EU contribute. Ah, the cost of paradise.
Labels: Ambrym, Bob Tonkinson
Thursday, December 11, 2003
NY Democratic party picks a Presidential candidate
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Being abroad and reading both foreign and domestic opinions of US policy frees the mind wonderfully from the mindlock called NYTimes. There appears to be a thread of despair for the Democratic Party that runs through the current press reports. The Economist and our Time mag both recently featured articles on the Hate Industry and the Politics of Rage, the anger against Bush that drives current Democratic politics, a device the former calls futile. Nixon and Clinton, the most hated Presidents, won their re-elections with votes to spare. Popular writers and talkers on both sides feed the hatred ((Al Franken, Michael Moore, David Corn, Molly Ivins vs. Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh) and escalate the polarization that has been strong since the Gingrich election of 1996. The Economist suggests that the country is being inadvertently driven to the Left, alienating the moderates, much to the Bushites' relief. Having just returned from Australia, I can offer a corollary. The Aussie Labor Party caucus overthrew their moderate leader Simon Crean and selected Mark Latham, a hyper-Dean type (a Sydney Liverpool slum kid and rugby-player who broke a cabdriver's arm in a fare dispute, and calls Bush dangerous and incompetent), over Jay Beazley, a Blair "get rid of the terrorists” type. P.M. John Howard's Liberals are relieved.
I think it was an Australian Economic Review leader that analyzed the US situation most succinctly, if not quite accurately. The Democratic candidates are counting on the popular anger against Bush, but have no programs. The senator candidates are bothered by the war for which they voted in principle, and agree not to retreat from Iraq, but have no action plans. Others (Dennis Kusinich) will offer the management of Iraq's democratization to the UN, a naïve solution, while a third contingent (Al Sharpton, Carol Moseley-Braun) ignore Iraq and concentrate on domestic issues. The solution offered to the potential deadlock is a deus ex machina, a strong force, like an Al Gore or Hillary Clinton, entering the race at the last minute and saving the party, but by what miraculous mechanism? The rules prevalent after 1968 require a democratic primary process, rather than a popularity contest on the convention floor.
So, what is happening? Well, in NYC you are seeing petition gatherers collecting signatures for the Presidential candidates and for delegates to the national Presidential Convention, to be placed on the ballot for the Presidential primary that will take place on March 2. Each presidential hopeful needs 5,000 signatures statewide to appear on the primary ballot, and each delegate needs 1,000 signatures for the national convention. The candidates that will have 15% or better voter support in the primary will be represented by NY delegates at the national Presidential Convention in Boston, end July 2004.
Thus, in our 14th CD area Congresswoman Caroline Maloney has a slate for John Kerry, of six members per CD (he's also supported by Mark Green and Virginia Fields), and you will see Louise Dankberg of the Tilden Democratic Club heading it. Other local clubs, the Eleanor Roosevelt, GSID, Lexington, Coda (below 14th Street) and Lenox Hill will also be active with petitions. Each Presidential candidate has a NYS committee, and attempts to have a delegation in each of the 29 CDs. Kerry and Dean have
the necessary complement, Sharpton and Moseley-Braun will not try, and the other candidates are struggling to reach the number. NYS will have 287 delegates at the National Convention, 236 pledged to candidates. We get there by electing 154 delegates in the primary, 51 at the NYS Democratic Convention in May (after getting some clues in 20+ state primaries), plus some uncommitted and alternates, a fuzzy process.
Note that clubs do not attempt to unite in support of a candidate, and their members may appear on various lists. That's democracy, Mayor Bloomberg. You the voter, stopped on the street by a petition-gatherer, may not recognize the state convention candidates, but you will see the Presidential candidate's name.
Going back to the original question, can the rescuing candidate, Hillary or Al, appear on a white horse on the convention floor, and give the Dems direction and leadership? The horse act is ok, but petition laws govern. The petitioning for delegacy to the NYS Presidential primary on March 2 is limited to Nov. 26 through Dec. 21 (with signatures due Jan.2, 2004), so there. No matter how deep and vociferous their anti-Bush sentiment, no pledged NY delegates can step forth in March 2004 at the Boston Presidential Convention, to push the case for Hillary or Al - unless you, an individual, form a committee and print up some forms and gather the 5,000 unauthorized signatures super fast, as someone jocularly suggested (but do not expect the Board of Elections to accept them).
So that’s why some observers see a Bush prevalence in 2004. The Dems have no overwhelmingly bright star with a program, except Howard Dean, who's a cannon-ball populist weirdo, with little time left to correct the image. In terms of concerted action, the local clubs are not finding any. Happy Holidays!
Wally Dobelis thanks Louise Dankberg, and Rodney Capel of the NYS Democratic Committee.
Being abroad and reading both foreign and domestic opinions of US policy frees the mind wonderfully from the mindlock called NYTimes. There appears to be a thread of despair for the Democratic Party that runs through the current press reports. The Economist and our Time mag both recently featured articles on the Hate Industry and the Politics of Rage, the anger against Bush that drives current Democratic politics, a device the former calls futile. Nixon and Clinton, the most hated Presidents, won their re-elections with votes to spare. Popular writers and talkers on both sides feed the hatred ((Al Franken, Michael Moore, David Corn, Molly Ivins vs. Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh) and escalate the polarization that has been strong since the Gingrich election of 1996. The Economist suggests that the country is being inadvertently driven to the Left, alienating the moderates, much to the Bushites' relief. Having just returned from Australia, I can offer a corollary. The Aussie Labor Party caucus overthrew their moderate leader Simon Crean and selected Mark Latham, a hyper-Dean type (a Sydney Liverpool slum kid and rugby-player who broke a cabdriver's arm in a fare dispute, and calls Bush dangerous and incompetent), over Jay Beazley, a Blair "get rid of the terrorists” type. P.M. John Howard's Liberals are relieved.
I think it was an Australian Economic Review leader that analyzed the US situation most succinctly, if not quite accurately. The Democratic candidates are counting on the popular anger against Bush, but have no programs. The senator candidates are bothered by the war for which they voted in principle, and agree not to retreat from Iraq, but have no action plans. Others (Dennis Kusinich) will offer the management of Iraq's democratization to the UN, a naïve solution, while a third contingent (Al Sharpton, Carol Moseley-Braun) ignore Iraq and concentrate on domestic issues. The solution offered to the potential deadlock is a deus ex machina, a strong force, like an Al Gore or Hillary Clinton, entering the race at the last minute and saving the party, but by what miraculous mechanism? The rules prevalent after 1968 require a democratic primary process, rather than a popularity contest on the convention floor.
So, what is happening? Well, in NYC you are seeing petition gatherers collecting signatures for the Presidential candidates and for delegates to the national Presidential Convention, to be placed on the ballot for the Presidential primary that will take place on March 2. Each presidential hopeful needs 5,000 signatures statewide to appear on the primary ballot, and each delegate needs 1,000 signatures for the national convention. The candidates that will have 15% or better voter support in the primary will be represented by NY delegates at the national Presidential Convention in Boston, end July 2004.
Thus, in our 14th CD area Congresswoman Caroline Maloney has a slate for John Kerry, of six members per CD (he's also supported by Mark Green and Virginia Fields), and you will see Louise Dankberg of the Tilden Democratic Club heading it. Other local clubs, the Eleanor Roosevelt, GSID, Lexington, Coda (below 14th Street) and Lenox Hill will also be active with petitions. Each Presidential candidate has a NYS committee, and attempts to have a delegation in each of the 29 CDs. Kerry and Dean have
the necessary complement, Sharpton and Moseley-Braun will not try, and the other candidates are struggling to reach the number. NYS will have 287 delegates at the National Convention, 236 pledged to candidates. We get there by electing 154 delegates in the primary, 51 at the NYS Democratic Convention in May (after getting some clues in 20+ state primaries), plus some uncommitted and alternates, a fuzzy process.
Note that clubs do not attempt to unite in support of a candidate, and their members may appear on various lists. That's democracy, Mayor Bloomberg. You the voter, stopped on the street by a petition-gatherer, may not recognize the state convention candidates, but you will see the Presidential candidate's name.
Going back to the original question, can the rescuing candidate, Hillary or Al, appear on a white horse on the convention floor, and give the Dems direction and leadership? The horse act is ok, but petition laws govern. The petitioning for delegacy to the NYS Presidential primary on March 2 is limited to Nov. 26 through Dec. 21 (with signatures due Jan.2, 2004), so there. No matter how deep and vociferous their anti-Bush sentiment, no pledged NY delegates can step forth in March 2004 at the Boston Presidential Convention, to push the case for Hillary or Al - unless you, an individual, form a committee and print up some forms and gather the 5,000 unauthorized signatures super fast, as someone jocularly suggested (but do not expect the Board of Elections to accept them).
So that’s why some observers see a Bush prevalence in 2004. The Dems have no overwhelmingly bright star with a program, except Howard Dean, who's a cannon-ball populist weirdo, with little time left to correct the image. In terms of concerted action, the local clubs are not finding any. Happy Holidays!
Wally Dobelis thanks Louise Dankberg, and Rodney Capel of the NYS Democratic Committee.
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Tourism causes environmental stress
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
As we in the US worry about such environmental issues as Alaskan oil, Rust Belt factory smoke output, and, particularly in New York, about the government hiding from us the toxic contents of the haze emanating for months from Ground Zero after 9/11/2001, it may be interesting to note how environmentalism is faring throughout Planet Earth. As a side note to the hiding of Ground Zero information, this is what governments have done in all the wars of our memory. The superstructure, while praising the heroic efforts of the soldiers and workers, and the positive attitude of the population, worries about early pension applications and about class action lawsuits, as the heroes get older and experience symptoms of emphysema and other disorders that might be attributable to their selfless exposure to the poisons.
Okay, the world environment. The headline news of the researchers toiling for the Conservation International and UNEP (Environmental Program), whose 1000 delegates were conferencing in South Africa during September 2003, deals with 25 “biodiversity hotspots, ” threatened by tourism, the mainstay of income for many LDCs (Less Developed Countries) . Island cultures, arid countries and tropical forests put under pressure by economic development due to tourism are the majority of those impacted. Typically, stress on the limited water supply causes damages to the environment and the aspects of nature tourists have come to enjoy, and the visits cease, but the destruction has been done.
The critics worry us that tourism has grown out of proportion. It now generates 11 percent of the world’s GDP, employs 200 million people and yearly transports 700 million international travelers, a number that was 10 million in 1960 and should double by 2020(!). The guess is that, in its full implications (construction, food, vehicles), tourism numbers might be even higher, superseding other industries as the world’s main income generator. In the past decade the count of visitors has grown 20-fold in Laos and Cambodia, five-fold in South Africa and three-fold in I Brazil, El Salvador and Nicaragua, more than doubling in Dominican Republic.
In 49 LDCs it is a principal export (#1 in 37). But it uproots indigenous people, causes social and cultural disruptions, and destroys nature. There is a need to protect nature’s biodiversity by integrating tourism planning. Some 700 plus threatened species of nature remain totally unprotected: 223 bird, 140 mammal and 346 amphibian varieties..
As an outsider, one wonders whether the tourists are getting too much unilateral criticism. Runaway economic development, industrialization attempts and population growth, trends that have destroyed fragile sub- Saharan agriculture, do not seem to come in for criticism from this group of ecologists. The fact is that funds from tourism and environmentalist enthusiasts awakened by what they have seen on trips account for substantial funds volunteered to protect the areas. While Cancun was inhabited by 12 families before 1970, it is now visited by 2.6 million vacationers a year. Tourism has brought money to help in feeding Mexico. The barrier island’s mangrove and inland leafy forests may have been cut and sewage treatment is inadequate for the settlements, but there would not have been any, and no wages at all except for the foreign money.
Herewith some statistics of conservation. A total of 102,102 areas are protected , such as World Heritage Sites and biosphere reserves, 1.4% of the planet’s land area, 18 million square kms, a little more than all of Russia, or a little less than the US and Canada combined. In Europe there are 43K protected areas, 18K in Northern Eurasia, 13K in North America (just over 18 percent of its land area) , 9K in Australia/New Zealand, 9K in Africa, and some 4K in marine areas.The largest ten are Greenland’s National Park (348K sq. km, equivalent of California, Oregon and Nevada combined), Texas-size An -Rub-al-Khali wildlife area in Saudi Arabia (247K sq. km), the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia (132K sq. km), the same-sized Northwestern Hawaii coral reef ecological system , nearly same-sized Amazonia forest reserve in Colombia, Quiang Tang nature reserve in China (96K), Cape Churchill wildlife system in North Canada (54K), another Saudi northern wildlife protection system (39K), the Alto Orinoco-Casiquare biosphere reserve in Venezuela/Bolivia (Maine-size, 8K) and the similar, Velo de Javari in Brazil. Much of the national recognition of nature’s needs for protection has come after 1960, and much of it is in name only. That leaves the ecologists unsatisfied, particularly since five of the 14 biomes, or major terrestrial ecological communities identified in a key 1992 World’s Park meeting have not been protected. The tropical humid forests of Amazonia are 23% protected, and the warm and arid deserts (e.g. Sahara), the rain forests and the “mixed island systems” (Indonesia) are well. But, lake systems, temperate grasslands, cold winter deserts (Gobi), temperate leaf forests (North America, North Europe), needle leaf forests (Scotland, Scandinavia) have not secured protected area status. The rich countries are not taking care of themselves.
As we in the US worry about such environmental issues as Alaskan oil, Rust Belt factory smoke output, and, particularly in New York, about the government hiding from us the toxic contents of the haze emanating for months from Ground Zero after 9/11/2001, it may be interesting to note how environmentalism is faring throughout Planet Earth. As a side note to the hiding of Ground Zero information, this is what governments have done in all the wars of our memory. The superstructure, while praising the heroic efforts of the soldiers and workers, and the positive attitude of the population, worries about early pension applications and about class action lawsuits, as the heroes get older and experience symptoms of emphysema and other disorders that might be attributable to their selfless exposure to the poisons.
Okay, the world environment. The headline news of the researchers toiling for the Conservation International and UNEP (Environmental Program), whose 1000 delegates were conferencing in South Africa during September 2003, deals with 25 “biodiversity hotspots, ” threatened by tourism, the mainstay of income for many LDCs (Less Developed Countries) . Island cultures, arid countries and tropical forests put under pressure by economic development due to tourism are the majority of those impacted. Typically, stress on the limited water supply causes damages to the environment and the aspects of nature tourists have come to enjoy, and the visits cease, but the destruction has been done.
The critics worry us that tourism has grown out of proportion. It now generates 11 percent of the world’s GDP, employs 200 million people and yearly transports 700 million international travelers, a number that was 10 million in 1960 and should double by 2020(!). The guess is that, in its full implications (construction, food, vehicles), tourism numbers might be even higher, superseding other industries as the world’s main income generator. In the past decade the count of visitors has grown 20-fold in Laos and Cambodia, five-fold in South Africa and three-fold in I Brazil, El Salvador and Nicaragua, more than doubling in Dominican Republic.
In 49 LDCs it is a principal export (#1 in 37). But it uproots indigenous people, causes social and cultural disruptions, and destroys nature. There is a need to protect nature’s biodiversity by integrating tourism planning. Some 700 plus threatened species of nature remain totally unprotected: 223 bird, 140 mammal and 346 amphibian varieties..
As an outsider, one wonders whether the tourists are getting too much unilateral criticism. Runaway economic development, industrialization attempts and population growth, trends that have destroyed fragile sub- Saharan agriculture, do not seem to come in for criticism from this group of ecologists. The fact is that funds from tourism and environmentalist enthusiasts awakened by what they have seen on trips account for substantial funds volunteered to protect the areas. While Cancun was inhabited by 12 families before 1970, it is now visited by 2.6 million vacationers a year. Tourism has brought money to help in feeding Mexico. The barrier island’s mangrove and inland leafy forests may have been cut and sewage treatment is inadequate for the settlements, but there would not have been any, and no wages at all except for the foreign money.
Herewith some statistics of conservation. A total of 102,102 areas are protected , such as World Heritage Sites and biosphere reserves, 1.4% of the planet’s land area, 18 million square kms, a little more than all of Russia, or a little less than the US and Canada combined. In Europe there are 43K protected areas, 18K in Northern Eurasia, 13K in North America (just over 18 percent of its land area) , 9K in Australia/New Zealand, 9K in Africa, and some 4K in marine areas.The largest ten are Greenland’s National Park (348K sq. km, equivalent of California, Oregon and Nevada combined), Texas-size An -Rub-al-Khali wildlife area in Saudi Arabia (247K sq. km), the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia (132K sq. km), the same-sized Northwestern Hawaii coral reef ecological system , nearly same-sized Amazonia forest reserve in Colombia, Quiang Tang nature reserve in China (96K), Cape Churchill wildlife system in North Canada (54K), another Saudi northern wildlife protection system (39K), the Alto Orinoco-Casiquare biosphere reserve in Venezuela/Bolivia (Maine-size, 8K) and the similar, Velo de Javari in Brazil. Much of the national recognition of nature’s needs for protection has come after 1960, and much of it is in name only. That leaves the ecologists unsatisfied, particularly since five of the 14 biomes, or major terrestrial ecological communities identified in a key 1992 World’s Park meeting have not been protected. The tropical humid forests of Amazonia are 23% protected, and the warm and arid deserts (e.g. Sahara), the rain forests and the “mixed island systems” (Indonesia) are well. But, lake systems, temperate grasslands, cold winter deserts (Gobi), temperate leaf forests (North America, North Europe), needle leaf forests (Scotland, Scandinavia) have not secured protected area status. The rich countries are not taking care of themselves.
