Dear Authorities:

I would like very much not to have a revolution. I know that you don't want one either. I prefer my change peaceful and democratic. You, I suspect, prefer any changes to be strictly top-down, decided upon by the existing power structure. But neither of us want lawless, spasmodic change. So please take my advice: leave the protestors the hell alone.

When Henry Louis Gates was arrested, Barack Obama wasn't afraid to step into the fray and to speak his mind.  Yes, he was criticized for interfering in a local matter, but that always struck me as silly.  The President is, of course, allowed to speak up about local matters.  It happens all of the time.  Another criticism was that he was speaking off the cuff and didn't know the whole story.  Fair enough, though it seems his position was basically vindicated in the end.

 For a couple of months now, we on the left have been marking the heady, exhilarating, organic spread of the Occupy Wall Street Movement and getting it that something unstoppable seems to be happening.  Think of it: The dedication, the precision, the impossible successes coming from a movement organized by ordinary hoi polloi.  No backing by agenda-driven billionaires, no pseudo-intellectual input from think-tanks, no take-over by shady cabals.  It's the stuff of miracles.  

In The Watchmen graphic novel, the vigilante hero Rorschach is inspired by news of the real-life murder of Kitty Genovese, which occurred in public, while the residents of outer Queens neighborhood Kew Gardens watched from their apartment windows.  Nobody went out to the street to help her or called the police.  Some say nobody heard her screams for help, some say it's an example of the bystander's syndrome -- we tend to walk past the unpleasant.  Driven by a total lac

Enjoy...

The Inequality Map, a Rebuttal

David Brooks vs. Destor23

DB: Foreign tourists are coming up to me on the streets and asking, “David, you have so many different kinds of inequality in your country. How can I tell which are socially acceptable and which are not?”

D23:  There is no way this has actually happened to you.  Try again.

DB: This is an excellent question. I will provide you with a guide to the American inequality map to help you avoid embarrassment.

After one month or so of existence, Occupy Wall Street has finally added a layer of management.

Occupy Wall Street Debuts the New Spokes Council

Occupy Wall Street premiered their new governing apparatus last night in a sweaty high school cafeteria in Lower Manhattan. The Spokes Council, which passed with a large majority at a General Assembly in late October, met for the first time last night with the purpose of setting up what the SC will look like in future and who will be a part of it.

In contrast with the General Assembly, the Spokes Council uses actual microphones, meets indoors and operates on a "spokes" system: working groups that take part sit together and groups are arranged in a circle, like spokes on a wheel. Each working group is represented by an individual, or "spoke," who rotates every meeting.

Hello, GOP primary voters. I know you're feeling upset about the new and graphic charges against Herman Cain. And I know that many of you blame white liberals, like myself, for allegedly drumming up these allegations to keep Cain from winning your nomination. But let me say on behalf of my fellow honky pinkos that this one really, really wasn't us. Because, you see, we would love for Herman Cain to win your nomination. Oh please, please, please vote for him anyway. There's no one we'd rather see run against Barack Obama in the fall. We're willing to beg here.

Just took Lil Destor to the playground at Union Square Park.  It's a great facility and an example for me about how the city sometimes provides just what you need.  When I was in my 20s, it was an outdoor bar.  Now it's a playground.  Good timing, folks!

I'm not one to laugh at the plight of others, especially at elderly ladies whose family makes a request for meals on wheels, and I'm certainly not going to do it now, but can I at least laugh at the picture in my mind of people delivering those charity meals to limousines that will then whisk them off to a millionaire's mansion?

Last weekend, Hollywood released Anonymous, a costume drama whose promotional materials ask "Was Shakespeare a Fraud?" They're not really asking the question; the movie clearly promotes the argument that it was "really" Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who wrote the plays.

One doesn’t have to crawl far on the Web to run into stories or commentaries about whether or not the Occupy movement