Scavenger

Two deaths in the past week.  As a journalist, are you a recorder of history, or a scavenger?

You wait for the moment the widow breaks down.  Your frame is perfectly set up, adjusted for light, and you lie in waiting for that human element of misery.

Like the vulture waiting for the Sudanese child to die in Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer winning photograph.

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The first death was on Saturday, a B/M/27 stabbed multiple times on his torso:

Bernard “A’jah” Wannamaker was not a perfect man, but his story fits in well with the “just another black guy knifed in the hood” narrative.  At his wake, his family said that he was talented – he was a barber, a DJ, and “so fine” that girls dropped at his feet.  He fixed bikes, and got his GED in prison.  He was a month out of prison. People called him a thug, but he was so much more, his family members said.

He had a dispute with his ex-wife over a baby daughter – people in the area call it “baby’s mamma’s drama”.  He got stabbed multiple times at a block party by the ex-wife’s boyfriend.  Simple.  He was 27 years old, a month away from 28.  He died two blocks from the house he grew up in.  He hadn’t gotten very far in life.

Does his story deserve more than two sentences in the New York Post?  Or does it not?  Can you tell everything about this man because you have heard about him already, so many times, in so many places?  It is the same narrative.  It harkens to so much more – the poverty, the lack of opportunities in this land of opportunities and white picket fences.

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The second death was on September 11.  A construction worker fell five stories to his death.  He was was wearing a safety harness but had not tethered it to the building.  There were no nets:

Miguel Rodriguez, 38, was an undocumented worker from Ecuador.  He was a day laborer like so many in Jackson Heights who linger under the El on Roosevelt avenue.  They are picked up by contractors and taken to construction sites where they work, often without proper O.S.H.A. training (which requires documentation). Rodriguez is survived by his widow Berta and two children: 17-year-old Luis and seven-year-old Kevin.

Since January, 21 day laborers have died in New York from construction accidents; 17 of them were Latinos.

This morning, the assemblyman for the area (Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Corona) called a press conference about a new bill he is going to introduce to improve Occupational Health and Safety (OSHA) legislation.  The media showed up in full force.  Fox news was there, HDTV and a few spanish language channels, 4 newspaper guys and a couple of photographers.  And me.

Berta and Kevin Rodriguez. Photo courtesy New York Post.

I’m not judging but it’s so easy to judge.  The boy has just lost his father; the widow her husband.  While the politicos and officials pontificate about OSHA, Berta stares off into space.  She grips her son tightly.  She is a tiny woman, hardly five feet, dressed in black – a weary, faded black as though she threw on whatever she could find.  Kevin is handed a photo of his father as soon as they arrive – a newspaper cut-out of Rodriguez hastily thrust into a frame. They are made to pose for the TV crews and photographers, precisely.  Berta never relinquishes her hold on Kevin, and Kevin never relinquishes his hold on the photograph of his father.

The journalists are taking notes.  One perfectly dressed guy in a brown suit asks the widow to say a few words.  She doesn’t want to really but finally agrees.  The photographer hovers around finding the perfect angle.  He clicks when Kevin finally moves his head in a motion of grief.

I feel like a vulture by association.

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Kevin Carter killed himself eventually.

How the mighty fall: Capitalism’s hubris

It is stunning that the world’s greatest capitalist economy has become government-owned to such a large degree.  The Bush government’s proposal to purchase mortgage-related assets of $700b would usher in an era of greater regulation and government control of the markets.  It is easy to blame the greed of the Wall Street bankers, but isn’t their greed our greed too?  We live in a system that urges us to purchase more, save less and buy on credit using a virtual money we don’t yet have.

It is the system and the mindset that made people buy houses when they don’t have the money.  One of my sources talked about a painter he knew who bought a house for $750,000 in those years.  Thats most of a million dollars! What hubris makes a painter buy a house that he can never pay off?

Edge of bankruptcy

New York Stock Exchange

As Lehmen Brothers, the 158-year-old investment bank teetered on the edge of collapse this weekend, the financial district wore a solemn look.  After failing to find buyers, the bank is expected to file for bankruptcy tomorrow.  What will happen to its 25,000 employees?

NY Times: In Frantic Day, Wall Street Banks Teeter

Exiled Burmese question Junta’s legitimacy at U.N.

By Gayathri Vaidyanathan

"Free Burma" demonstration outside the United Nations headquarters in New York on Sept. 9, 2008

A group of Burmese exiles formally challenged the legitimacy of Burma’s military government to represent the nation at the United Nation’s General Assembly on Sept. 9.

Pouring rain did not keep away the approximately 40 demonstrators.  They huddled within the sheltered sidewalk opposite the United Nations, and framed by the flags of the 192 member countries, they talked of displacing a regime that they term illegitimate.  The true representatives at the United Nations should be themselves, said the exiles, since they are the democratically elected Members of Parliament from the 1990 Burmese election.

A coalition of exiled Burmese leaders including Members of Parliament Union-Burma and the Sasana Moli International Burmese Monks Organization were present at the demonstration to hand over a letter to the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon challenging the credentials of the Burmese Junta.

The exiles said that the junta is not fit to represent Burma given its track record of misrule and oppression at home.

“Burma was richest country in Southeast Asia.  Now it has become poorest country in Southeast Asia because of illegal rulers.  [The junta] should get out of our country,” said Ashin Kawwida, an elderly Burmese monk present at the meeting.

In Sept. 2007, the Junta cracked down on Burmese monks and civilians protesting drastic increases in fuel and food prices.  The U.N. Human Rights Council said that 30 to 40 monks and 50 to 70 civilians had been killed.  In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis wrecked havoc in Burma, leaving 78,000 people dead and 56,000 people missing.

Ko Ko Lay, spokesperson for Operation for Credential Challenge Campaign cited the crackdown on monks and other protestors in 2007 and the junta’s inability to deal with the consequences of Cyclone Nargis as reasons why the exiles have chosen this year to go ahead with the challenge.

The challenge signifies the initiation of a “new and aggressive approach” by the elected members of 1990 to represent the people of Burma, according to Paul Williams, Executive Director of Public International Law and Policy Group, a Washington-based legal group that is advising the Burmese exiles.

The challenge may take a few weeks or even years but the exiles are hopeful that the international community is on their side.  “It’s become apparent to the U.N., to the Secretary General, to the members of the international community that previous efforts of the past decade have not worked,” said Williams.

However given that China and Russia have vetoed nearly every Security Council resolution concerning Burma, this challenge may be ineffectual.  The 2007 resolution calling for a cessation of violations of human rights by the Junta against ethnic minorities was vetoed by China and Russia on the grounds that it did not constitute a threat to international peace and security.

Maureen Aung-Thwin, Director of the Burma Project/Southeast Asia Initiative, which supports a range of programs to help Burma become an open society, was critical of whether the efforts of the exiles will be fruitful.

“We don’t regard the Burmese regime legitimate, they took over power by force.  They lost a democratic election in 1990.  However, knowing the reality of the makeup of the U.N., and…knowing the history of how difficult it is to unseat a de facto government…[the credential challenge] is not something that I can afford to spend the time working on or supporting [financially],” she said.

Officials at the Burmese Embassy were unavailable for comment.

The Credentials Committee, which will review the letter submitted by the exiles, will be comprised of nine member states of the General Assembly, and will be chosen when the Assembly reconvenes on Sept. 16.

The Burmese Junta took power in a 1962 coup and has kept it since, despite losing a 1990 election to the National League for Democracy headed by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.  In 2008, the regime came up with a seven-point roadmap to democracy, which included a recently concluded 14-year convention, and a constitutional referendum in May 2008 in the midst of the devastation of Cyclone Nargis.