Dear friends,
Yesterday, I discovered that the water fountains in Prospect Park are on. This is one of my favorite signs of spring. And beginning today, all New Yorkers age 16 and up are eligible for vaccinations.
Another thing that feels like a renewal is when something formerly believed impossible becomes possible. In this category are the following:
Infrastructure Week has finally arrived! The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that the Covid-relief bill passed last month can be amended and has left the door open to pass infrastructure legislation using the budget reconciliation process, i.e. with a majority vote. (I’m not going to pretend to fully understand Senate rules, but I am happy to celebrate the removal of procedural roadblocks for necessary legislation). Infrastructure investment is critical to New York’s recovery and offers hope to those of us who still dream of the city’s unified greenway of protected bike lanes.
“Nobody thinks you can get rid of a highway,” she said.
Stelly’s effort gained a considerable boost when the White House named the highway, the Claiborne Expressway, an example of a historic inequity that President Biden’s new infrastructure plan would seek to address through billions in new spending.
“I’m floored,” she said. “I’m thrilled to hear President Biden would call out the Claiborne Expressway as a racist highway.”
Infrastructure is not value-neutral, of course. It’s good to hear that out loud.
Amazon admitted that they lied when they ridiculed the remarks of Congressman Mark Pocan, who criticized the company for working conditions that require drivers to pee in water bottles. I know they only admitted it because the evidence came out, but we spent four years being lied to in the face of evidence, so I appreciate when the powerful fess up. They’re still not sure to whom they owe their apology, but they’re about to get clearer on this.
I still believe that the union vote in Bessemer will be a win for the workers. And Amazon is starting to see the writing on the wall.
Young people continue to redefine what is possible. Remember the Westinghouse Science Awards? They became the Intel awards and now they’re called the Regeneron Science Talent Awards. The student who won this year’s award, Iowan Dasia Taylor, developed a low-cost suture that readily reveals when a wound is infected.
In the lab, she observed that the beet-dyed sutures change “almost instantaneously” from that light purple to dark purple, almost magenta, when the pH level changes from healthy to infected, Taylor said.
According to the World Health Organization, 11 percent of patients in low- and middle-income countries who undergo surgery are infected in the process.
Dasia, 17, had learned that smartphones could be synced to high-tech sutures in order to detect infections. Her research was inspired by the desire to bring early-detection to people without “high-tech resources.” I was not surprised to see that Dasia is a person of color. It is possible for everyone to have nice things.
Last night, I participated in the six interviews of mayoral candidates seeking the Working Families Party (WFP) endorsement. I can’t yet say which candidate/s will get the WFP nod (there’s a committee process that must play out), but I can tell you that the visionary in the field was Dianne Morales.
Morales explained that the Economic Development Corporation functions as it was designed, which means that it serves the interests of a few. Her response to a question about how to make the EDC responsive was to propose the creation of a Public Development organization. Similarly, she understood and addressed a question about just transition for workers engaged in the carceral or climate-change inducing industries (Stringer was the other person who understood and answered that question). When she talked about NYCHA, I learned about the Section 3 mandate that requires the employment of some NYCHA residents when making major repairs or other capital improvements; Morales wants to activate Section 3, which has mostly been ignored. She understands co-governance — a main principle of the WFP — as a democratization of the city’s many agencies and the amplification of community voices.
It is possible for everyone to have nice things. Today was for reflection. Tomorrow, we get back into action.
with love,
L