Community Activism - we need it!!!

When I think about it, there is usually someone (or something) that gains greater utility/profit from our actions than ourselves.

Because most people do not have the luxury of foregoing a gain merely to deny others a larger gain, the situation perpetuates itself.

It is a complex notion: By accepting that life isn't fair, people are simultaneously better off (and worse off) than they otherwise would be.

I do not believe altruism exists, and believe equal exchanges to be statistically rare.

Hence, I believe that without profit/exploitation very little would be accomplished.

here's the eyesore that MySpace and this guy: http://brooklynian.com/forum/prospect-heights/elcorno-martin

are jointly responsible for.

suggestions for how to reach MySpace management are welcome. clearly the CHCA knows how to get ahold of him...so...?

Eastbloc-

I hope you are wrong.

However, if you are right, I hope people see him as an individual and not as representative of a larger group.

MHA-

What will you do?

What would you like others to do in response to you?

No need for me to piss on the street or throw garbage.Your friendly neighborhood MYSpace can do that for you. Unfortunately ugly pictures of what the garden space now looks like cannot be uploaded. But, take my word for it, it's disgusting. Already behind that fence are various items of garbage, broken glass, and containers filled with water now ripe for mosquito breeding. If you are in the area and get bitten by a mosquito, just thank MySpace.

Unfortunately I cannot do that from where I am. I am on the corporate plantation. When I get back to mha livin' quarters I'll try.

Sure it's temporary.... Mosquitos in the meantime breed in temporary situations. And people who live on the remaining three sides have to view the temporary situation, and breathe in the lead and cadmium-laced dust from the temporary situation.. Ahh well...

Breathe deep people!

MHA said:

Sure it's temporary.... Mosquitos in the meantime breed in temporary situations. And people who live on the remaining three sides have to view the temporary situation, and breathe in the lead and cadmium-laced dust from the temporary situation.. Ahh well...

You can report standing water to 311 online here:

http://www.nyc.gov/apps/311/allServices.htm?requestType=listService&filterServ=Complaint&serviceName=Standing+Water+Complaint&intentId=3C132E8E-8138-11DE-8E9F-96DAE110FEB8

The City accepts reports of standing water where mosquitoes could breed during West Nile Virus season. Complaints are accepted about standing water on private and public property in the following locations:

Bird baths

Construction sites

Fish ponds

Fountains

Planters, oil drums and other water-holding containers

Ponds or lakes

Pool covers or unchlorinated pools

Roof gutters or puddles on roofs

Tires and other water-holding debris

Unmaintained lots, yards and other property

The Department of Health will investigate reports of standing water. You will receive a response within 10 days of the report if you provide mail or email contact information.

eastbloc said:

I anticipate MHA is now going to piss in the street and litter just to spite the whitefolk.

I really doubt that.

It does seem he realizes this is about green, and not black/white.

It might be someone his own color who winds up displacing him. Landlords don't care about much beyond that income stream, all money is green.

the scourge of mischief is roosted

in this arena

Cap'n Planet, I'm not up to it. I'm exhausted by it. I feel like an utter idiot to be honest. Believe it or not, I've done my fair share. Please, allow me to toot my sad horn:

I'm a bit of a night animal and I often go outside to get a late snack. Invariably the tattoed hipsters with their swinging earlobes are all about, smoking and getting to know each other, and besides using every dark corner as a urine depository, they have taken to use the very objects that have made the neighborhood ideal -- i.e. the attempts to beautify it -- as a means for their vices. Observe the planters on Franklin Avenue, many of them, mind you that I helped to move. Now let me be clear, here. I am not the only party who did this, and it is my assumption that others who too were morally vested feel similarly, and that is, it pains me to see these hipster doofusses pissing in them, throwing litter in them and flattening the vegetation lovingly planted in them. How do you compete with human pathos in any form? You control it, and you regulate it. You cannot wag a finger at it and expect it to change however, it never does.... I don't have the power nor the authority to do any of these things, and what history has proven, and whynot_31 points out, is that there is always a parasite waiting to benefit from your endeavors and good intentions.

Unlike eastbloc's eggregious presumptions about what I will potentially do to piss off the whitefolks, I too take issue with the consequences of vice bandied about. The only thing I will do to piss off the whitefolks is to constantly inform them of how the vestiges of white supremacy manifest in their daily lives, and that they have an obligation to be aware of it, though so few do. As a man of African descent, I see every moment how white supremacy seeps into mostly everything, and spoils it. Indeed, it's one of the worst poisons the world has ever given birth to, and I do my best to stanch it when I encounter it. I recall a time when I too felt it's paws in my brain. Like CTK I too saw the white woman as beauty's ideal -- though I was only 12 at the time -- but I've been able to see how beauty is in everyone, and now being an educated, CONSCIOUS Black man -- the result of my parent's endeavors -- how choosing to sleep with the daughter of my oppressor would be a slap in my hard working parent's face. Yea, I've learned the folly of walking in that valley of the shadow of death -- and fearing no evil to boot.

I am blessed to live again, and I will teach my young seedling the value of living with integrity. That's my priority; no longer will I make attempt to align with the interests of the propertied, or the merchant class unless like them, I too prosper from my endeavors.

The MySpace ilk have no love for anyone in this neighborhood. Their plan is no different than the objective of anyone who ever played Monopoly. And all whom have played that game know that once the board is all bought up, the game is over. If you don't believe me, then talk a nice walk to Lefferts Place between St. James and Franklin and see, yet again, another example of the objective of 722 Franklin LLC -- which seems to be buy it, sit on it, and wait.....

Karl the Druid said:

the scourge of mischief is roosted

in this arena

Are you talking about Jay Z?

karl is druish

MHA said:

Invariably the tattoed hipsters with their swinging earlobes are all about, smoking and getting to know each other,

MHA said:

and besides using every dark corner as a urine depository,

MHA said:

see these hipster doofusses pissing in them, throwing litter in them and flattening the vegetation lovingly planted in them.

I almost want to say you're lying, but even if we give you the benefit of the doubt, why direct your anger at them, when folks of your own skin color are damaging the neighborhood one hundredfold? You feign outrage and stereotype those who don't look like you based on one or two bad apples, but close your eyes and ears or express sympathy/understanding when your own people do the same thing. White guy pisses in a pot, its heartbreaking. Black guy pisses on a stoop, MHA swoops in with the cape

MHA said:

Unlike eastbloc's eggregious presumptions about what I will potentially do to piss off the whitefolks, I too take issue with the consequences of vice bandied about. The only thing I will do to piss off the whitefolks is to constantly inform them of how the vestiges of white supremacy manifest in their daily lives, and that they have an obligation to be aware of it, though so few do. As a man of African descent, I see every moment how white supremacy seeps into mostly everything, and spoils it. Indeed, it's one of the worst poisons the world has ever given birth to, and I do my best to stanch it when I encounter it. I recall a time when I too felt it's paws in my brain. Like CTK I too saw the white woman as beauty's ideal -- though I was only 12 at the time -- but I've been able to see how beauty is in everyone, and now being an educated, CONSCIOUS Black man -- the result of my parent's endeavors -- how choosing to sleep with the daughter of my oppressor would be a slap in my hard working parent's face. Yea, I've learned the folly of walking in that valley of the shadow of death -- and fearing no evil to boot.

I am blessed to live again, and I will teach my young seedling the value of living with integrity. That's my priority; no longer will I make attempt to align with the interests of the propertied, or the merchant class unless like them, I too prosper from my endeavors.

The MySpace ilk have no love for anyone in this neighborhood. Their plan is no different than the objective of anyone who ever played Monopoly. And all whom have played that game know that once the board is all bought up, the game is over. If you don't believe me, then talk a nice walk to Lefferts Place between St. James and Franklin and see, yet again, another example of the objective of 722 Franklin LLC -- which seems to be buy it, sit on it, and wait.....

Classic MHA

Hipsters are latter day white negroes. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Negro]

They may not see themselves as such, but alas, that's the connection. Hippies, Yippies, White Rastafarians, Jack-Kerowackians,-- them all -- They all associate their version of subversive behavior with that of the American Negro and his brethren in the worldwide Black Diaspora. And,to add insult to injury, what they associate with Black subversive behavior is always the chaff of Black political thought and never the 'wheat'. So, say, you go to Argentina for instance, and you encounter the White hipsters there -- and they are there -- thay embellish themselves with the accoutrements of Rastafarianism (the colors, the music and the smoke), but leave out the core elements of Rastafarianism -- Pan-Africanism, Black Nationalist sentiment, Black businesses working in tandem, building the Black family, etc -- what ironically enough would be considered conservative family values. the cult of the hipster is no different than that of any cult -- in essence fitting into to herd, and moving up the hierarchy. It's just another way of sublimating the typical human need to feel empowered. And in true American fashion, the hipster ethos is all about celebrating the ego, appropriating what seems (and is deemed) cool, all in the name of Hipsterdom. Thus, contemporaneously, the enlarged earlobes, the dreadlocked hair, the torn and worn clothes aesthetic. It's a way of BEing without any historical memory of how it came to BE. Hipsters don the look of a man/woman/child on hard times because the assumption is, like Maya Angelou said, caged birds sing the sweetest.

So yeah, I hate the attempt to once again appropriate Black existential pain specifically for the sole purpose of ego aggrandizement. I hate the attempt to appropriate existential pain generally, for the same purposes.