by Alyssa Goldstein
For the past few days, this video of writer Greg Karber giving Abercrombie and Fitch clothes to the homeless has been going viral on my Facebook newsfeed. Karber started this project in response to A&F CEO Mike Jeffries’ statement that “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids….We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.” In order to take A&F’s cool factor down a notch, Karber went to his local Goodwill, bought all the A&F clothes he could find, and distributed them to the homeless. More than a dozen of my friends have shared his video, many of them leftists. It’s not hard to see why Karber’s response might seem appealing: Jeffries certainly deserves to be condemned (though reprimanding a grown man for being an exaggerated stereotype of a middle school bully is not exactly a controversial stance), and embarrassing him while helping others seems to be a worthy goal. I can usually appreciate trolling the rich and powerful, but at whose expense does it truly come? [click to continue…]
It’s February, early evening. I’m on the Q train heading home. A young man in a beat-up, threadbare coat with a large backpack gets on at Union Square. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he announces. “It’s your money, and I know you’ve worked hard to earn it. You don’t have to give it to a homeless guy. There’s a hostel I’m staying at, and it’s going to be cold tonight. If I get twelve more dollars, I can afford a room.” I give him a dollar before he can finish his spiel. He smiles. “God bless,” he says.
I’m standing next to two young women, about my age. “Bullshit,” one of them says loudly to her friend. “He’s just going to get wasted. That’s what they do. They make so much money on these trains. I know it for a fact because my boyfriend used to do it. None of them actually sleep on the street, they just stay at their friends’ houses and get wasted all day.” The other woman nods enthusiastically. I say nothing to them. I go home and write them this letter instead. [click to continue…]
It’s not hard to imagine that anyone who skimmed the news this week might get the impression that something uniquely terrible is about to happen in Midwood, Brooklyn. “We’re talking about the potential for a second Holocaust here,” Assemblyman Alan Maisel warns. Assistant Majority Leader Lew Fidler and other New York City politicians write a letter to the Brooklyn College president threatening the school’s funding and claiming that their constituents feel “targeted and demonized.” “Jew-bashing grows in Brooklyn,” the New York Post proclaims. “Brooklyn College, a once-esteemed campus in the City University system, this week joins a long list of enemies — from lefty denizens of the Park Slope Food Co-op to Iranian madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — who crave wiping the state of Israel from the map.”
Mental images of Ahmadinejad picking up some kombucha at the Park Slope Food Co-op aside, the level of hyperbole might make one wonder if Brooklyn College is hosting a neo-Nazi revival weekend or passing nuclear secrets to Iran.
Read the rest over at the Verso Books blog!
“. . . You don’t have to be an Old Testament prophet to see what’s going on all around us. A desperate lower class demanding handouts. A rapidly diminishing middle class crippled by police state bureaucracy. An aloof, ruling elite that has introduced us to an emerging totalitarianism which seeks control over every aspect of our lives.”
After reading that quote, you may not be surprised to learn that its author is trying to sell you something. What is he hawking? Guns? Gold? Basement bunker kits? Try organic heirloom vegetable seeds. For the super low price (not really) of $150, you can buy your own survival seed bank: a can stuffed with a variety of veggie seed packets. (If $150 seems like a lot to you, the website reminds you that “For the general public, the price will be a fat $297.00 — no discounts . . . even to FEMA or military personnel.”)
According to one TV news report, there are dozens of companies that sell these survival seed kits. Some of them appear to be more hucksterish than others. For example, Solutions from Science claims there is a massive shortage of non-hybrid seeds. Surivalseeds4patriots.com likewise asserts that the seeds most seed companies sell are “genetically modified ‘franken-seeds’”–in fact, if you go to your local garden store, none of the vegetable seeds will be genetically modified, and many of them are heirlooms, even if they aren’t marketed as such.
One survival seed pamphlet claims that “open-pollinated plants are free from pesticides [and] chemicals.” Of course, any plant is free of pesticides and chemicals if you don’t put pesticides and chemicals on it. The same pamphlet also claims that beans will cross-pollinate and must be planted far apart (not true), but neglects to mention that this is the case for squashes. Of course, who cares about things like “scientific facts” when you can just say stuff like this:
Remember, non-hybrid seeds can be grown practically anywhere and have the ability to assimilate mineral and trace elements from the soil that man made plants just don’t seem to have. That’s because they were created by God as we read in Genesis.
[click to continue…]
For the past few days, this video of writer Greg Karber giving Abercrombie and Fitch clothes to the homeless has been going viral on my Facebook newsfeed. Karber started this project in response to A&F CEO Mike Jeffries’ statement that “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids….We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.” In order to take A&F’s cool factor down a notch, Karber went to his local Goodwill, bought all the A&F clothes he could find, and distributed them to the homeless. More than a dozen of my friends have shared his video, many of them leftists. It’s not hard to see why Karber’s response might seem appealing: Jeffries certainly deserves to be condemned (though reprimanding a grown man for being an exaggerated stereotype of a middle school bully is not exactly a controversial stance), and embarrassing him while helping others seems to be a worthy goal. I can usually appreciate trolling the rich and powerful, but at whose expense does it truly come? [click to continue…]
