New kid on the Block
We have a new kid on the block. A bright orange compost bin on the corner with Broadway. It’s a “smart” bin that opens with a phone app. There are instructions on the side about what to, and what not to, compost and It will be interesting to see how the scheme takes off.
One step further north and restaurant row, These dining sheds are all over the city now, offering semi-outdoor dining and a serious challenge to pedestrians in some places.
Progress or Regress
School is closed for the winter break so this photo was taken earlier. I love this collection of colorful scooters, bikes, and helmets.
“The LGBTQIA+) Headed Families Affinity Group, created in 1999, is a group of queer, trans, and non-binary families and allies who come together to talk about and identify common needs, interests, and goals. They also support each other and consider ways to increase visibility and voice within our own community.”
Perhaps it’s unintentional, but it rather looks from that list that lesbian and gay parents have been erased. New homophobia, just like the old homophobia, now with forced teaming.
This is a school that ends at 8th grade and there are two “Gender Spectrum Alliance” affinity groups. One for Fifth and Sixth graders and another for Seventh and Eighth graders. From that use of the word “spectrum” I assume that they teach, or endorse, the notion of gender identity rather than diversity and non-conformity.
I wonder if the school is familiar with the writing of Linda Selin Davis. Her School as Church article would be very relevant here.
I wonder too whether they are familiar with the Cass Report – the Independent review of gender identity services for children and young people The Interim report came out in February. There’s a good summary of the school-relevant aspects from Safe Schools Alliance here. It covers the basics of social transition, affirmation, and the connections with autism, neurodiversity, and other factors.
Basic recommendation: Caution advised.
A little further north, on Amsterdam Avenue at 119th Street, a public school – Columbia Secondary School – has transformed a vacant lot into a school-community garden. It has raised beds, container growing systems, a compost project, and chickens! It’s always fun to watch chickens.
Signs of Our Times
The chickens would probably approve of the Vegan signs stamped onto sidewalks across the neighborhood. They are probably indifferent to the graffiti on one of the walls of Teachers College. And neutral on the testing tents by Columbia University that proliferated as the vacation – and travel home – drew near. Six by the entrance on Broadway at last count.
And for those with contagion-related cabin fever and/or unrequited wanderlust, here is the window display at Jack’s Art Gallery and framing store.
Also just to the south – and under yet more construction scaffolding – the Turkish fruit and vegetable stand at Broadway and 110th Street.
The featured image is the waterfront at Nyack looking east across the Hudson. In the distance is the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge formerly known as the Tappensee,
““The LGBTQIA+) Headed Families Affinity Group, created in 1999, is a group of queer, trans, and non-binary families and allies who come together to talk about and identify common needs, interests, and goals. They also support each other and consider ways to increase visibility and voice within our own community.”
Perhaps it’s unintentional, but it rather looks from that list that lesbian and gay parents have been erased. New homophobia, just like the old homophobia, now with forced teaming. ”
Ain’t THAT the truth. Homophobia now comes draped in baby blue and pink stripes and under the guise of “inclusion”. Orwellian – that’s for sure.
These schools have NO CLUE what they are doing by encouraging kids into “gender identities”. SO dangerous. SO damaging. SO destructive.
Hi James – I have become increasingly concerned about what is happening in schools. And the more I learn the stronger I feel that something has gone very wrong.
Sophocles: ” Evil appears as good in the minds of those whom god leads to destruction” (in ‘Antigone’}.
As an eminentent psychiatrist once suggested, the tiny minority who have had their misconceived ideas enshrined in now “orthodox” doctrine & inflicted on the rest of us, could justifiably be diagnosed as displaying severely disordered personalities.
It is arguably a form of child abuse.
[It has been alleged that a party not unconnected with the London charity “Mermaids” arranged for her teenage son to travel to the Far East to be castrated, surgery illegal (currently) in UK].
Trouble is there is no such thing as critical thinking these days.
Very true. And more than alleged. Boasted about in a TEDX Talk!
I am hoping we will all begin to walk up to reality in 2023 and stop the barbarism.
Love your photos!
Good Morning! Writing from damp and dreary West Sussex in the UK. As a currently self-identified, non-binary Brussels sprout I’d like to add my vote for the appreciation of chickens. I’ve been caring for my own and my neighbour’s small flocks since the start of the lockdowns in 2019 and have come to value watching the sheer, uncomplicated nature of their daily lives. They forage all over large gardens, go to sleep in a secure coop when it gets dark, get up and go out when it’s light – and, occasionally, produce very tasty eggs. Having established the pecking order early on, they seem to have placid and happy daytime lives and cuddle up together at night. They even seem to have friends – maybe just foraging buddies? Anyway – in my opinion chickens are a good thing and should be cherished wherever they are found. PS None of the chooks in my care have self-identified as a turkey…. Is it something I did? Maybe they went to the wrong school?
And Good Morning to you too Teena, or afternoon as it now must be.
You are clearly vegetable fluid as a few weeks ago I have it on good authority (yours) that you were considering identifying as a cauliflower and intending to enter the village horticultural society competition. I do realise that Brussel spouts and cauliflower are of the same species, but I have to ask: Whatever next? Will your next whim be to announce yourself kohlrabi or kale or collard greens? This self-id fad is seriously erasing important boundaries.
Agreed on the chickens. My mother kept a whole host of them and claimed they were most interesting to talk with. Sounds like the ones you tend have a good life.
All the very best for the holidays.
Re. Vegetable identity fluid – I thought being a Brussels sprout was more appropriately festive for the time of year. I may well decide to be a vegetarian haggis in about 8 days time. (That may only make sense to Brits…)
I see from the latest weather news that you might be about to enter the next ice age. My nephew is hoping to fly into Chicago tomorrow then will try to fly to New York 3 days later. Please return him if you find him frozen to a fence somewhere on one of your walks….
I hope you manage to stay nice and warm and cozy and get to eat lots of seasonal food and binge-watch dreadful TV. (Just like us!) Have a good one, Josie! Tx
You’ve got an interesting neighbourhood. Lots of convenient things nearby.
I swing between being boiling mad over gender-identity ideology and the numpties who are buying into it like it’s the new currency; and then wanting to wash my hands of it all, letting things go to the pack over it, and then watch as they agonisingly right themselves – again. So far, the former retains the upper hand for the most part 🙂 Teaching kids that they can’t rely on something as fundamental as what sex they are is a recipe for disaster. Will those kids end up needing more looking after than any generation ever due to being taught that nothing is real? That philosophy might sound good in the heads of those who teach it, but without firm foundations in life we wobble.
I understand that swing. And partly because the state of utter disbelief that anyone could believe and espouse such utter nonsense can on;y be maintained for so long. That and the outrage.
That children are being taught they may have been born in the wrong body because they do not conform to sexist stereotypes and play with the “wrong” toys or want to wear the “wrong” clothes is astonishing. That children are led to believe they can change sex is mind-boggling.
There we all were making some small but steady progress toward greater equality and opportunity when along comes the most regressive, misogynist, and homophobic ideology and captures institutions and organizations under the guise of inclusion and diversity. The setbacks to women’s rights, gay rights, and the safety of children really demonstrate what is behind this pushback.
Not to be the “gotcha” type, but you misspelled “stickybeak” in this post.
Sue sent me a link, and for both of you, thanks.
I remember in the 80s asserting to an unconvinced Hampshire College student that “gender” was a linguistic, not a biological, term. Your opinion is happily validating. The fashionable preference seems to elevate two syllables over one, reminding me of that euphemistic age when one could perspire but never sweat and a glimpse of stocking was something shocking.
Not sure how gay and lesbian parents have been excluded from a group that includes “queer.” I thought that was the catch-all, but what do I know?
Enjoyed the tour, though it did inspire some envy from a graffiti-weary Villager.
Thanks, Curt!
I have now fixed the stickybeak typo (what a great and useful word that is!)
Back in the day when “queer” was a nasty homophobic slur, gays and lesbians took to the streets to chant; “We’re here, we’re queer. Get used to it.” It was a camp(ish) act of defiance against oppression. You want to call us queer? Then we will embrace and celebrate that.
These days the “queers” are heterosexual folks who don’t want to be considered boring. It’s about hair color, and men painting their nails and wearing a frock. Basically about being “edgy” and not being confined to the traditional norms expected of men. I can understand that.
Some wag has said that all the folks to the right of LGB in the alphabet stew are heterosexual. That seems about right.
I am guided by a couple of simple facts:
1. We are all male or female and no one has ever changed sex. and
2. We are all hetero-, homo-,- or bi-sexual.
The rest is fantasyland.
Women’s rights matter. Gay rights matter. Safeguarding children matters.
There are infinite ways to be a man. Ditto a woman.
“Man” and “woman” are not confining categories when it comes to how we function, dress, and act in the world. That said – sex does matter. (Think sports where male puberty confers physical advantages that no hormone applications can match.)
This ideology threatens all of that with its determination to erase boundaries.
Josie, If there is daylight between your view of sexual and social realities and that of a certain Ms Scheid, I can’t detect it. We had several edifying conversations in which the edification was pretty much one-way. After a naive statement of mine once, she enjoined me to “do your homework” on the issues and supplied some links. So I found out about the irreversible surgeries done on early teens who have no real judgment yet of who they are, among other extremes engendered by our precipitous, out-of-control culture, and am still agog at the craziness to which I wasn’t paying much attention. And by the way I’m glad to be far away from the teaching game nowadays, not least because my ignorance hasn’t done any discernible harm!
I share that sense of relief at not having to deal with this in the ed world. I saw it beginning to brew up a decade or so ago but now it is in full bloom and it’s not pretty. To challenge the orthodoxy would be – in the words of a school administrator who shared his thoughtcrime tendency with me in confidence – “a career-ender”.
One can only hope the fever breaks soon. There are the beginnings of some encouraging signs that at least we are beginning to develop the antibodies to the virus. Too late for too many.
Why did the ‘gender war’ thing blow up so suddenly? It looks suspiciously like the newest version of ‘keep women in their God-alloted place’ from annoyed males. Thank goodness for a little sanity with chickens, seagulls, and vegtable stands. I miss those vegtable stands!
This is the thumbnail version of my current theory on that:
It was brewing for a long time in the ivory towers of academia (with post-modern queer theory) and then -when it saw its moment (the general acceptance of gay marriage) – it swooped in to capitalize on that and then capture the well-intentioned but weak-minded and vulnerable.
Plus, there ended up being some serious money behind it, and after that it really took off.
I think we all need to know more about that. the money – where it came from , why and how it’s been used. Do you have any good sources for that?
There are a few, but the one that comes immediately to mind as being the most well researched is the ’11th Hour’ by Jennifer Bileck. At first look, it may seem a bit suspect as to its’ veracity, because what is being written about is almost incredible beyond belief, and yet it is happening. Nothing Jennifer has investigated and written about has been disproven, and the results of her investigations are widely considered credible.
https://www.the11thhourblog.com/
It’s so nice to enjoy the sights of New York without having to actually be there! Thank you! Not that I had anything against Mr Cuomo but I rather liked the old name of that bridge. Tappensee was a good name for a bridge. The other is such a mouth full. As for what they have done in Scotland….I thought we had all the raving lunatics on this side of the Atlantic. Clearly not. I am so very grateful not to be a child at this point in history. They will need a lot of luck.
Good posts with great photos.
Do you think schools have actually thought through the nonsense they are promoting with “gender'” and “inclusivity”? Are they being naive or should we suspect that this is all a plot to undermine women’s rights and gay rights? Why are they such science deniers here and yet claim to follow the science when it comes to climate change?
Whatever the intention the result is the same. And all in the name of DEI. Schools should be ashamed of themselves for promoting such totally unscientific and harmful nonsense. (And the awful thing is – these are the ‘good’ schools. you know – the ones that believe in child development. WTF has happened to them? Have they lost their collective minds?
Still pondering this one Jen.
Am leaning on the side of good intentions laced with unconscious homophobia.
Whatever the intentions though – the impact is deadly for children. Especially those who do not conform to stereotypical sex roles (aka most kids who will grow up to be lesbian and gay.)
Keep them well away from this ideology.
I clicked “Like,” but it wouldn’t ‘take.’
I’d try to fix it, though it’s not my mistake….
But I don’t have the means, and don’t have the ways.
But, at least I can wish you HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
So sorry you are having the problem mistermuse.
But, what’s in a ‘like’?
A like by any other name (like ‘comment’ ) would be just as good and even better.
And as Abba sang: “Thanks for all the music…”
I just watched the national UK news and saw the report about what happened in Scotland today and thought I might find some respite from gender issues! Maybe it’s an age thing or maybe people’s ideas just left the planet along with Captain Kirk and what’s his name….begins with a B? 🤔 Maybe I’ll just have another glass of wine and stop caring about humanity. Can I say that word? I hear there’s a list of words in your country (I believe you’re not allowed to call it A…..a any more) that will upset some people, maybe even cause a riot! Words, words, words! What’s that old line: sticks and stones…….!
Homophobia, misogyny, and men’s rights are always in fashion. But at least there are chickens!
Thanks for more lovely glimpses of the upper west side of Manhattan!
Thanks for this enjoyable wander around your neighbourhood