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Does this happen to you? Like a lot of things, I put this blog down for a minute a while ago and it’s been hard coming back around to pick it up again. A lot of the info on throughthewalls.org right now is out of date.  I have my own health issues I”m wrestling with but I’m not sure if that’s the problem. It’s hard to keep anything in perspective.

While it didn’t destroy my immediate surroundings or jeopardize my life, Hurricane Sandy rattled me, as it rattled a lot of people in the NYC/NJ area. My priorities and outlook have shifted. I’ve done some relief work and some donating but not much– not nearly enough.  I have lots to say about it and now that I’m finally in the blogger machine again, I don’t know where to start.

source: wpix.com

The whole business of the elections distracting from real-life politics has never been so stark to me as it was just now– with pockets of NYC and NJ surviving ongoing inequality compounded by ongoing disaster and everybody chattering about the elections. Some people are still chattering about the elections, bursting with pride and celebration over the man who signed the NDAA into law and may keep more people in cages than anyone on the planet.

It’s crazy how parts of NYC are almost totally fine, almost totally back to normal, while other neighborhoods are living in the cold and the dark without water, sometimes with health needs and trapped in apartments or displaced by desolation. The establishment and the rich seem to be counting on the fact that if enough time goes by, people with privilege will lose interest in the disaster and let it go out of sight and out of mind. This is the way oppression, disaster, and inequality persist in the first place. This is how things really are all the time. Crisis and disaster and everyone walking around and many not immediately threatened pretending everything is fine.

This is how it often feels to read about Gaza and that’s particularly true now.

“A family rests on the rubble of their home in Jebaliya.”
source: time.com

And yet everyday life has to be lived. Jobs have to be worked, sometimes, for now, health has to be tended to, when possible, and the causes I normally work for still exist and still matter.

Most people don’t follow me for news. If you’re up on things, there are better sources. Mostly I connect dots or maybe provide a perspective in a bigger conversation. But on a few specific things, I occasionally  bring you news. And I gotta update it. So stay tuned while I catch up. May take a sec.