Avi Amon | Musician

Posts tagged "politics"

submitted by aviamon

So this is a thing that happened.

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submitted by aviamon

Understanding PIPA/SOPA & Why You Should Be Concerned

Really well done video. I don’t condone theft (especially as a young artist) but there must be a better way to deal with this issue. Watch.

Created by NewLeftMedia

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submitted by aviamon

#453: Nemeses →

This American Life

This week, stories where a longtime standoff keeps both sides coming back for more. Including a story about the time in Poland’s recent history where the country’s two political blocks came together and believed, however briefly, they’d be able to set aside their differences. And another story about a college rivalry gone viral, and personal.

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submitted by aviamon

If 7 Billion People Lived in One City, How Big Would it Be?

Fascinating stuff to think about as Earth’s population continues to grow. More info here.

(via FastCompany, National Geographic, and Per Square Mile)

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submitted by aviamon

Some NY bullshit for ya’ll

So last night after seeing some friends and doing school things I was riding the N train back to Brooklyn. It was about 2:30 in the morning and I was REALLY tired. Tons of work this week, combined with the fact that it was 2:30 in the morning. So I feel a sleep and slumped over into the seat next to me. Pretty cut and dry. Next thing I know, a police officer wakes me up, pulls me off the train, and begins to question me. I wasn’t drunk or loud, nor did I smell bad so I was a bit confused at first.

He asked, “You know you’re not allowed to fall asleep taking up more than one seat on the train, right?” As I looked back at the near-empty subway car, I told him that I did not. Now, I realize that ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law, but really? I explained that I was new to the city and was a grad student at NYU working late nights. I just wanted to get home and go to sleep (all true). And there was nobody else there! It’s not like I was lying down on a bench with 27 people standing… He asked for my ID and began calling it in to write a ticket. It was now 3:00 in the morning and the train had since rolled away which meant that I had to wait an ADDITIONAL 30-40 minutes in the stupid subway station waiting for the next train.

I gave all the usual “but officer…” arguments but with no success. He kept saying that this is “100% enforcement night” which in my mind reads as “we’re using no logic or sense in anything we do.” He said I could call a number on the back of the ticket to contest it. I argued that I’d like to contest it right here, because that would take time that I don’t have. I started to talk to him about how the system is built to discourage protest by creating innavigable circumstances that frustrate citizens into submission. But then I stopped because he clearly didn’t care. He’s just doing his job, I understand and respect that. We’ve all been in situations where we’re just following protocol, the validity of the rule aside (though honestly, seems to me like a waste of the government’s time to be thinking up rules like this).

I think this is exactly the reason things escalate in high-pressure situations so quickly - too many people have had such poor experiences in low-pressure situations. The label of authority for authority’s sake doesn’t command respect. Commanding respect commands respect. I would never argue against the bravery and service the police force offers this great city, that is undeniable. A great majority of the time, they are doing their job well, with the utmost care and dedication. I am simply suggesting that the cops use the one thing that they have over a machine: a human element. We have the capacity for REASON and patience and understanding. Yes, the law clearly states that a person shouldn’t take up more than one seat on a subway but in my mind, the police force is a mini check-and-balance for the nonsense our lawmakers come up with. Things shouldn’t be so cut and dry. Why not give a an educational warning to the person who just moved here? How about dealing with the drunk girl throwing up two cars down (actually happening) instead of writing the grad student who fell asleep on the empty train and wasn’t obstructing or harming anyone? Or at the VERY least, hurry the fuck up so I don’t have to wait all that extra time at such a ridiculous hour in the morning.

So I find myself in a lose-lose-lose situation: forced to waste more of my time already (including writing this really important tumblr post. ha!), either spend hours dealing with the bureaucracy that is the NY public transit system, or pay the fine and be $50 poorer. Haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet. Send me your thoughts.

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submitted by aviamon

#439: A House Divided →

This American Life

Stories about people who find themselves either unexpectedly being singled out or doing the singling out. Including one story about nine public officials whose constituents are trying to throw them out of office, and another story about a man’s very physical battle with himself.

submitted by aviamon

SLAM Tuesday Week 7 - “Must be a Generational Thing”

You know,
It’s nothing new all this tweeted-up hype
and transatlantic skype
ripe with the second’s hottest headlines

quicker, sure
but the desire, not so sure
we’re on the logarithmic upswing of an iceberg
who’s peak I can only begin to describe

I think about information on fingertips
and all you can eat data plans,
of the different bricks and flips I’ve carried
and snapped in half
and washed in machines
and transferred phone books,
heart pounding that I’d lose all contact instantly
if it didn’t happen instantly.

I think about the first piping sounds of 24.4 bits
rushing through old telephone wires
thinking, “Holy shit!”
I can do ANYTHING I want,
or really, just chat with my friend down the street
because there was literally nothing else to do.

I think about getting an at sign after my name
or memorizing my home phone number
or finally getting cable with all of 20 channels,
each of them fuzzy
and before that I think about Mozart E-minor sound-waves
in 150,000 mile minivans
with mom and dad and brother and sister
on the way home from a Friday night service

I think of grandmas
sitting in garage-sale
Kale-colored wing-back chairs,
staring at memories in ill-fitting frames with those eyes
those longing eyes that could kill a man
because he knows that’s where time leads him
to a point where time can’t lead him anymore.

and those ladies will hawk-watch you
watching them from the periphery
without shame or an ounce of embarrassment
the sacrament of that moment.
Just happy to know that I knew about
Love in another life
and dancing like a fool
and family trees cut short
and making the funniest inappropriate jokes on the beach
while friends-turned-spirits giggled.
As if sins didn’t exist of ever exist
and as if Fathers didn’t know how to disapprove.

all of these things.
just without wi-fi
or a Nokia
or even a fucking beeper
electro-communicating life and words and pain and
meaning.

I think about 2011 and 1911 and 1811
and all the other 11’s going back deafening eons to
Jacob’s Eleven plus One and
One million 11’s before that technicolor dreamcoat
caused all kinds of problems you can read about in some other book
some other time.

I think about these things because I want to,
because I like to.
I think about these things because I have to,
because I am a product of my very own wonder years -
of immediacy
and failed diplomacy.
Of credit cards
and stained dresses
and seeing Kevin and Winnie locking lips like they should have been
from the very beginning.
Of the double-down
look at me now
book of faces creations
ready and willing to go Rodeo.

But no.

This is no victim, no slave,
no hooked on it and that’s it kinda situation
because in my generation,
we’re just the next iteration
of the same conversations,
the same lack of patience,
the same things we’re facin’
day out and day in.
The same can you believe it, yes I can
No I won’t
wait, what’s his name?
The Same
The Same
The Same
The Same.

And I’m OK with it,
because at this point,
at this second,
at this juncture of the ever-expanding blogospheric omniverse
it’s the best we can do.

So my friends, let’s cheers -
To the next Hundred years.

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