Hi friends,
I took a few days off from New York City and much of the world. The world did not stop, of course, and it’s been a rough reentry.
About a year ago, I wrote a post about the problem that often crops up when we are called on to “think of the children.” One ethicist has warned that the phrase is a tried-and-true debate-stopper, because it can “inhibit rational thought.”
As the same ethicist notes, however, it is also true that
[c]hildren routinely have to suffer the consequences of adult incompetence, recklessness, stupidity, dishonesty and irresponsibility.
Young activists demanding climate action, an end to gun violence, and an end to the war in Gaza have been telling us this.
So, today, we really are going to think about action in support of young people.
A study has confirmed what we already knew: the end of pandemic-era anti-poverty policies caused a sharp rise in the percentage of people unable to afford basic necessities like housing and food.
This is predictable and astonishing at the same time, especially if you’re familiar with the work of Matthew Desmond.
[W]e have entered a social contract where some lives are made small so others may grow. And we like it. Race plays a huge role in this story, and it always has. But the bottom line is . . .the countries that are like ours, the advanced democracies that have far less poverty, they collect a lot more taxes than we do. And they can make much deeper investments in the public good.
But many of us have accepted this kind of relationship of private opulence and public poverty. . . . And so the least we can do for poor families in America is just be honest. Right and be like, Yeah, we like it like this. This is how it's going to be. I think many of us are pining for a different kind of America and do not want to be embroiled in this morally compromised situation.
One need not look far to see the truth. Even though there continue to be extraordinary delays in the processing of SNAP and cash assistance applications, NYC is closing a public benefits office in the Bronx, the county with the highest unemployment rate in the state.
Tell Mayor Adams that delivering timely assistance is a choice we want to make.
Another glaring failure to provide needed government services is the insufficient maintenance of smaller, neighborhood parks. There is a vast gap between the funding for local parks that have few or no concessions, and major parks — like Madison Square Park and Central Park — which have conservancies in addition to significant revenue, which they do not share.
The chair of the parks committee, Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, is working on a bill that would change parks funding by requiring every park to contribute 20 percent of its revenue to a fund that would provide smaller local parks with more resources.
“When our city significantly underfunds its parks, the harmful impacts aren’t felt equally across the city,” said Krishnan. “Where they’re felt most are in communities of color like my own that already have very little access to green space.”
I would go further, and demand a tithe from the conservancies that generate millions in donations, too.
On the first leg of my mini-break, I had the pleasure of hearing a talk by Ned Friedman, the Director of Boston’s Arnold Arboretum. He spoke passionately about the beauties of the arboretum in winter and the importance of access to nature as a public health issue.
If you live near a lovely green space, as I do, you know the truth of this in your body.
Let your city councilmember know that you want every New Yorker to enjoy clean, well-maintained parks.
Four months after a 14-year-old was killed in a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, lawmakers there are working to ban assault weapons. We shouldn’t be doing this state by state. Twelve children were among the wounded in the Kansas City Chiefs parade shooting.
Call on Congress to ban assault weapons. This quick action is from March for Our Lives.
Meanwhile, our congressional representatives ignore their constituents, who support a ceasefire. I will risk reducing a complex situation to a simple fact:
Join Jewish Voice for Peace to protest AIPAC this afternoon in midtown.
A beautiful young person, Nex Benedict, died earlier this month after enduring months of bullying and a fight in a school bathroom. The cause of Nex’s death is not yet clear, though the climate of anti-trans rhetoric and policy is unhealthy for children.
Just two weeks before Nex’s death, the Oklahoma’s schools superintendent, Ryan Walters, appointed the far-right social media influencer Chaya Raichik to the state committee that reviews the appropriateness of school library content. Raichik runs Libs of TikTok, an anti-LGBTQ+ social media account.
In a video released by the Oklahoma department of education last year, Walters described trans children as a danger to their classmates who put “our girls in jeopardy”.
We have to do better, everywhere. Here’s a wonderful young person I met in Vermont. Damon listed so many issues of concern that it took a while to pick one to write on their sign:
with love,
L