A good friend of mine got me the book Whatever It Takes for my recent birthday. It’s about Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children’s  Zone, an organization he created that takes a fundamentally different approach to fighting poverty than any other I’ve ever heard of.  The book is a) incredibly well-written, b) dealing with subjects that are both fascinating and vital, and c) the only book I brought on this trip, so I’ve now read it cover-to-cover 3 times.

HCZ was created out of a frustration with the way that existing social service organizations intrinsically single out subgroups within poor populations to receive aid.  This is especially true (and especially problematic) in education.

For example, I grew up attending two wonderful charter schools.  I wouldn’t trade the education I received at them for anything, but it’s a huge privilege to have attended.  Despite the fact that charter schools are open to anyone, it takes a certain kind of parent to investigate alternatives to a district school, to enter the charter school lottery, and to commit to the extra work that attending a charter school often entails (transportation, etc.).  At their best, charter schools are laboratories for new ideas in education, prioritizing community outreach and underserved populations, but at their worst, they reinforce existing class and race divisions.  Dedicated administrators, like those at the schools I attended, have their work cut out for them in trying to avoid the latter.

This dynamic is present in lots of organizations, and Geoffrey Canada wanted to change it.  HCZ is comprised of a series of programs (parenting help, preschool, elementary, middle, and high school, and more), designed to provide a seamless “conveyor belt” of social improvement programs for children from before they’re even born to the time they graduate high school, and beyond.  It’s based on the substantial research showing that the earlier you intervene in an underserved and underskilled child’s life, the easier it is to get them back on track.  Canada wanted to change the lives not just of a few kids who he happened to reach, but of the entire population of Harlem, in a rigorous and scalable fashion.  HCZ gets far closer to that goal than any other organization I’ve ever heard of, and is likely to be the only way to make any kind of serious headway on urban poverty.

So once the initial shock of being on the wrong end of a knife died down (and after realizing that my mugger probably needs the phone more than I do), I got to thinking about the sort of society that creates people like him.  Obviously, being poor doesn’t excuse turning to crime — but lecturing about the moral failings of the poor doesn’t do much for society either.  In Mexico, as in Harlem, there are probably specific interventions, especially in the lives of children, that could drastically transform the way society treats its poor, and drastically increase their upward mobility.  Effectively, HCZ is a systems thinking approach to poverty, and it marks a much more realistic way of looking at the problem, one that we upper-middle class white Americans should try to internalize.  Given the amount of resources we have available to deal with poverty, we should be doing a much better job of thinking about how to allocate them effectively.

The student who was staying with this family before I arrived (we overlapped by a day) remarked that it seems Oaxacans never sleep – it seems like there’s always some sort of celebration going on.  Based on last night, I’m inclined to agree.  I had an outrageously comical “first-night-in-a-new-country” experience.  Since it was a Friday night, folks were out on the street pretty late, but I was exhausted, so I went to bed around 10.  Pretty much as soon as I closed my door, an entire parade went by my window, complete with mariachi band and police cars.  They were even shooting off fireworks in the street!  And of course each time they did, every car alarm in the city would go off, and then all the dogs would start barking at the car alarms, and then parrots would start shrieking at the dogs.  It was about the noisiest welcome to Oaxaca I could have asked for!

We had orientation at the ICO this morning, and I had a delicious lunch in the Zocalo, a big open pedestrian square, with a lot of shops – somewhat touristy, but really fun (and made infinitely better by the two men playing ‘”Dance the Night Away” and Coldplay’s “Clocks” on a marimba the size of my bed).  I also got a chance to go inside the church of Santo Domingo, which is covered almost completely with gold leaf, and is just about the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen.

Tomorrow, to an archeological dig.  Classes start on Monday.  Vamos!

But I digress.

Sort of.

Because during that conversation, in which the gentleman I was discussing with said that we need to “break radical Islam”, he said something else that struck me: “You need to know who your enemies are.”  I responded by saying, “Sir, I don’t have enemies.  I have differences”.  But I’m not so sure that’s true.  In a way, my constant obsession with dialogue and discourse has blinded me to some important realities:

• The GOP, as a party, does not support health care reform.

The GOP is not interested in compromise.  They want to kill this bill (as many protesters today chanted) as a political tactic.  Now, I know this is nothing new in terms of political wrangling, but to pose as having legitimate opinions on reform is just deceitful.  Make no mistake: the GOP opposes reform.

• The GOP relies on misinformation and fear to keep its constituents behind it.

Today, I saw a lot of smart, educated people, who were very afraid.  I saw children younger than my youngest sister screaming hateful slogans.  What is it that makes these people want to live like this?  It’s the media’s willingness to pander to make money, and the GOP’s disgusting willingness to capitalize off of that.  Spreading fear of socialism is not constructive.  I had an entire crowd of people chanting “Get-A-Job” at me today, as I yelled through a megaphone about my MassHealth and my experiences with the system.  And when I talked to people afterwards, they said “You’re a Marxist”.  I said, “I’m not a Marxist, I believe in the free-market.  But you can’t turn peoples’ health into a profiteering racket”.  And then they said “What are you doing here?”  I was stunned.  I said “This is a free country.  All ideologies are welcome.”  The GOP should hold itself in higher esteem than to court the values of xenophobes and racists.  Being insular is not a political philosophy, it’s a moral shortcoming, and one that the GOP is exploiting for political gain.  That being true, I will call the GOP what it is: an immoral organization with no regard for real progress of any ideological flavor.  It is a self-serving organization, not one that exists for its constituents.

• There are people who will do anything to make you feel as though your opinions don’t matter.

I was decried as a Marxist, a Communist, and (along with my Jewish friend next to me), an anti-Semite.  These are accusations meant to take away from the substance of the argument.  This is not an ideological issue.  This is not a political issue.  If you believe that everyone has a right to health, there is no more debate except on how.  But that’s not what these people are debating.  When someone stood in front of me and said “I worked for my health insurance, and they should to”, I said, “So you are calling 47 million people slackers?  Are you prepared to stand by that?”.  They said, “Well, not all of them.”  So I said, “Then what about the ones who aren’t slackers?  How many are there?”  He couldn’t answer.  When faced with the reality of the issue, that millions of people who work just as hard, if not harder, than any of us, do not have the insurances we do because of disadvantages and fundamental inequalities that they have no control over, they can say nothing.  He tried to change the topic, he fear-mongered some more about my religion.  I told him I was quite comfortable with my existence as an American Jew.  He said, “Then why do people die trying to come to this country?”  I said, “Because there is a promise.  A promise of opportunity.  And the current health care system is a fundamental betrayal of that promise.”

I don’t mean to just write about my exploits, but I am coming to realize that not being able to negotiate is not a bad thing.  When you’re facing people who don’t want to talk, people who don’t respect progress or change, when people like Senator Enzi walk away, you have to cut your losses sooner or later.  This bill is going to happen.  And if we have to do it without the naysayers, so much the better.  Anyone who has something to contribute is welcome to join.  Welcome to talk to me or any other Democrat in the entire country any time.

But if you don’t have anything constructive to say, your time is over.  Fox News may be filming you, but they’re not making the policy decisions.

I’m extending a hand.  Will you take it?

I was soon to find out.  The Micky’s truck appeared next to me, and honked its horn loudly.  It pulled up closer to the Triple A truck, and honked again.  The Triple A truck skulked away.  I, of course, was ecstatic.  I had just witnessed a tow truck battle!  Over the right to tow me!  What a sight!  Now the whole thing was worth it.  I felt so proud, to be the subject of a confrontation between two grease-covered burly men with chains and pneumatic lifts!

Except that then the tow truck driver told me there was, by virtue of a state contract between the Highway Dept. and any service truck, a $175 fee for being towed off the freeway.  This was an issue.  I dropped a whole lot of money on fixing my dad’s car the other week, after a minor scrape that did some serious damage to the steering (although no one nor any property was hurt at all), so I didn’t really want to pay.  Fortunately, the police officer arrived at the same time, and extremely kindly offered to push me off of the freeway.  So, with my sister hyperventilating in the passenger seat and the Micky’s truck preceding us with flashing lights, the cop bumped and shoved our beat-up Nissan pickup all the way off of the freeway.  From there, the tow truck brought us to a gas station.  And when I asked him what we owed him for the tow (expecting to have to bargain down from $175, since he had essentially towed us), he said “Don’t worry about it”!  I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

And now it gets interesting.  After shelling out $50 for a full tank of $3.15/gallon California gasoline, I got in the car, and was ready to head back to the house to rendezvouz with my aunt and uncle and head out to their purportedly-really-awesome friends’ house for dessert.  ”Don’t worry,” I said jauntily to my sister as we buckled up.  ”We’ll be home in five minutes.”  Everything was just fine.

Just fine, that is, until I turned the key.

The engine sputtered.

It coughed.

But it wouldn’t turn over.

I was flabbergasted.  The other night when I took this ancient jalopy out for the first time, we had had to jump it first, but since then I had been using it to drive back and forth between my aunt and uncle’s place in Alameda and my grandparents in San Francisco with no problems.  I asked the gas station attendant for a jump.  They didn’t have one.  I asked security (we were in inner-city Oakland).  They didn’t have one.  So I called my uncle, who was on his way home from a late day at work, and he said he’d come by.  So we waited.  I tried cleaning the battery terminals with a cardboard coffecup thermal holder, but to no avail.  That Nissan wasn’t budging.

Eventually, of course, he arrived, and we jumped the car with no problems, and drove home.  So ended the saga.

It was a damn long night.  We had to cancel the dinner plans, and were unable to reschedule them for tomorrow as had been hoped.

So it goes.

At some point in the future I’ll be updating my biographical information, but right now I am here with the intention of posting about something very specific.

Being a pluralistic community, the Summer Institute (which I’m currently at) has some interesting halakhic quirks.  For the members who don’t carry items on Shabbes, we create an eruv, a quasi-physical boundary around the campus that halakically turns the campus into one building, thus allowing those people to carry siddurim, a talit, and so on, between buildings.  For several years, I’ve been a coordinator of this construction process, and I’ve learned a lot from it.  BZ suggested I write a post about this, as a sort of “DIY eruv”, which is a very good way of putting it, so here it is.

The essential idea of an eruv is a series of simulated doors.  To do this, we use a series of lecha’in (singular lechi, which translates as “doorpost”), with string run over the tops, representing the header of the door frame.  There are various other components of the eruv in addition to sticks and string.  For instance, a hill can act as a natural boundary around an area if it is steep enough.  Part of the campus here is on a steep hill, so we can place a lechi at either end and use the hill as a go-between.  Additionally, an existing cable such as a telephone wire can be used if alechi is placed below it and the cable sags less than about eleven inches (inaccuracy due to conversion from biblical units of measure).

What’s interesting about the process we’ve gone through is that neither myself or my friend with whom I coordinate have a great deal of experience with this halakha.  We’ve learned it from those who do, we’ve internalized it, and at this point it’s become a DIY ritual more than anything else.  Without having a pre-existing complete grasp of the spiritual and traditional elements of the eruv, we are able to create one that is completely in line with all of the requirements.  Also, it’s pretty fun.  We stay up late drinking tons of caffeinated beverages, drive around in a golf cart with lumber and power tools, drive around the perimeter with one of the halakhic experts to verify the whole thing, and then sanctify it by saying a blessing (al mitzvat eruv) over a “communal meal” (in today’s case, half a bagel left over from yesterday’s sunrise hike up Mt. Monadnock).  That meal is then eaten after the eruv no longer needs to be sanctified (although I anticipate the bagel being rather stale by then).

So, starting from a mere interest in construction, and with the counseling of some persons with more halakhic knowledge, we’ve learned a lot about the practice, had a bunch of fun, and helped some of our co-Institute-goers observe Shabbes more easily.

If you have the opportunity, I’d highly recommend getting involved in the construction of a local eruv.  It’s a fabulous way to learn about some very interesting halakha and its modern implementations, as well as explore a host of pluralistic issues.  Great all around.

That’s all for now.  It is time to light candles here, and I must away.  I hope this first post is food for thought, and I’m really looking forward to writing here.  Shabbat shalom!

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

This evening I was in Natick seeing Cadence with two other members of 5-Alone.  The show was excellent.  They did a lot more jazz standard and barbershop type stuff than I was expecting.  It was all good, but some of it felt a little recursive after a while.  Except for the Cole Porter.  Cole Porter is really the best.  You just can’t beat him in terms of standards.  Fabulous.

It has been an extremely successful day.

The concert was amazing.  The orchestra itself was really cool; a blend of people from all different countries.  The conductor, Michael Tilson Thomas, was incredibly fun to watch.  He had more expression than almost anyone I’ve ever seen before.

Four ten-thousand-watt (I think) projectors covered the entire ceiling and back wall of the stage of Carnegie Hall.  Before each piece, they would show maps of where the composer lived, as well as periodically showing videos about select performers from the orchestra, compilations of audition videos during intermission, and some really cool multimedia stuff during a few pieces.  During John Cage’s Renga and Aria, for instance, they projected the shapes and syllables he used to notate the piece, which is pretty cool sounding.  Will and I got a look at the control room for all of the video, and it was intense.  There were racks and racks of complicated audio-video and computer equipment, and all sorts of things we didn’t understand at all.

The orchestra also played Ride of the Valkyries, which is pretty much the most epic piece of music ever.

For me, the two highlights of the performance were the Internet Symphony No. 1, Eroica, composed and guest-conducted by Tan Dun in its world premier, and a piece they did with Mason Bates, a really awesome electronic DJ.  He played with the full orchestra.  Dun’s piece had a part for car rims which were played with ball-peen hammers.

The irony of wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt in a concert hall named after Andrew Carnegie did not escape me, and I think it was responsible for my being rejected by an interviewer from the BBC, who I guess was looking for people more well-dressed than us.  We were a rather odd-looking group.

We hung out in Times Square for a while beforehand, got some excellent food from a street vendor, bought some hip-hop (which we listened to on the way home), and almost purchased some Obama condoms (“Michelle approved, ladies and gentlemen”, and “Create your very own stimulus package”), but they were $5, which was not practical.

The YouTube Symphony Orchestra is a historic event, but not for the reasons I had originally been thinking of.  In terms of the formation of musical groups, the real democratizer was the recording process.  In that respect, this is really no different.  But it does really represent the way that classical music, and, indeed, the idea of collaborative music in general, is changing in response to this type of technology.  It opens up new ground for the way music can be composed, put together, and performed.  I am excited to see where it goes from here, and I am proud to have witnessed this event.

Also, this post has more categories than any I have ever written before, I think.  It is just that awesome.

The show is at seven-thirty, so we are going to be back pretty late.