Fascinating Story of Environmental Injustice

Native Americans, racism, the Mob, lead poisoning, strange cancers, undeclared Superfund site, Ford: sound intriguing?

Read it and weep.
http://toxiclegacy.northjersey.com/

And then make a small gesture:
http://www.change.org/petitions/protect-the-ramapough-mountain-indian-tribeclean-up-the-ringwood-superfund-site

Summery (sic)

It’s been a great summer up in Boston; I’m currently on my way home and I’m sad to be leaving. Especially since there are still so many things left unexplored. The better you know a place, the more things you realize there are to do. But it will be great to spend some time with the fam, some friends & take a break before things get heinously busy again. Part of me is ready to be done with college: I’m past the point where getting dressed up in ridiculous costumes to greet freshmen or sitting around playing frisbee have much appeal. The other part of me is terrified: there are still so many classes I want to take, internships I want to do, professors & friends I want to know better, research I could do. qué será será though, I really need to calm down about everything.  

Anyway, here’s a brief retrospective of the summer: goals vs. what actually happened. 

1. Have a cool internship

Check. Working with Cultural Survival was really great and I’m going to miss them tons. I’m thinking of coming back to help out in the fall if some other plans fall through.  

2. Read a lot. 

Check. 33 books and counting. 

3. Learn another language!

This goal failed epically. I have no idea when I thought I would have the time to do this. This was partly me thinking it would be cool to study Portuguese again and partly this one week where I decided I should learn a language my ancestors spoke. I decided Hungarian would be cool. There is a basic Hungarian course downloaded into my iTunes. However, I still speak 0 words in Hungarian. 

4. Go on a hiking trip.

While I did finally get around to exploring the Fells, a nature reserve right next to Tufts, I never made it on a backpacking trip or anything more extended than a long walk in the woods. I did however, travel home on 3 separate weekends, to Western Massachusetts for a family party, to Falmouth, MA/Tiverton, RI for my internship and to Nantucket. Not to mention getting to know Boston & Cambridge better. And I went on an epic 30 mile bike ride to the North Shore to work at a wedding. So not a terrible summer for adventuring. 

5. Drink at a rooftop bar.

Boston has a lot of really cool rooftop or patio bars. Never made it to any of em. 

6. Learn to Dance

Despite making it to several “Salsa Abajo las Estrellas” events, I still am a pitiful salsa dancer. At this point, I think the only thing that will really redeem this would be to end up in a serious relationship with an extremely patient Latin American dancer. Which seems rather unlikely at present. I also never made it to any of the African Dance classes at the Dance Complex that I had been dying to go to.  

7. Grow vegetables.

I found some free vegetables in the street once, and was going to have a small garden except the plants died on a hot weekend when I was home. Oops. 

8. Be economically self sufficient. 

This is sort of a misnomer since my parents are still footing tuition, healthcare, cellphone bill and probably a bunch of other things I’m forgetting about, but I had hoped to be able to cover my rent for the summer. This went well for the first two months, until I ran out of hours at my various jobs and needed a bailout package. At least I’ve cooked for myself for the last 6 months or so. 

9. Vegetarianism 

In my opinion, summer is one of the hardest times to be vegetarian. On the plus side, there are tons of delicious vegetables. On the negative side, people are always barbecuing delicious things. My (delicious) infractions: linguica stuffed clams (I mean come on!!), mussels, chicken filled spring rolls, shrimp, clam chowder. But hey, what are principles without a bit of flexibility?

Feliz Dia del Niño

Check out this amazing album of photos from Chile's continuing protests for free education, an interesting observation of El Día del Niño. I'm not 100% sure on context bc I haven't checked with any friends yet, but I'm guessing there were many symbolic layers to the event. Obviously, education is very much about families and future generations. Secondly, I would guess that the presence of children in the streets was meant to counter the violence and police brutality that have characterized much of the ongoing standoff. Lastly, Día del Niño is basically a very comercialized holiday, another day to buy presents for. So- taking your kids to a protest= promise of future education and advancement/a way to fight back against the commercialization of everything.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2316542752452.141225.1215963344&type=1

Wishing I were in Chile right now...

Completely contrary to the US students passive acceptance of massive debt, Chilean students are literally fighting for their right to quality education as a state function. Man I want to write about this more, but it's so late.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14412646