InTheFray Blogs

Most have at some point volunteered at a food pantry or a homeless shelter, but the roots of these problems in and of themselves are rarely understood, despite the pervasiveness of these issues in our communities. And fundraisers are always easier to organize than actually confronting the situation at hand and forming a solution for fixing a system that lets thousands run through its cracks every year.

It seems like a funny contradiction because, in the United States, it’s not difficult to hear about the abject poverty that others live in across the world, and while the degree of poverty may appear worse in other places, the fact remains that poverty is poverty, and many assume that in the United States somebody somewhere — be it a government agency or the welfare clinic — is picking up the slack. Unfortunately, for those who do not meet the often strict guidelines for government aid, they are stigmatized by the public as having problems with drugs or mental illness.

That's why I decided to investigate a small meeting on Medary Avenue the other day in my city of Columbus, Ohio, called Columbus Housing Justice. 

Gathered in the living room at 9 p.m. with a small group of equally curious and homeless people alike, we listened as we were not bashed with a certain doctrine, but introduced to three people who decided to open a conversation in the community about the lack of public housing in our city and what could be done to solve the problem.

In recent years, internationally renowned groups such as Amnesty International have opened up the definition of human rights to include economic and social human rights, which brings up the question: What are our fundamental rights as human beings? And in a society that values self-building, are individuals actually inherently entitled to things such as guaranteed housing and food?

These are all fundamental questions in addressing issues such as homelessness and ones indeed that need to be addressed before you can confront the slashing of government funding of Section 8 vouchers and public housing in recent years.

Jane, who’s been homeless for five years after being kicked out of her house by her son, said being homeless in America is a sort of catch if you don’t have a child or a mental illness or some sort of record and are eligible for welfare. Because in America, if you don't have an address, you can't get a job. And if you don't have money, you cannot afford rent. Section 8 vouchers, which were originally intended to help people through these periods until they could get back on their feet, have been closed to new applicants and even those eligible could wait for five years. In addition to these issues, housing complexes accepting the vouchers are being relegated to suburban real estate where public transportation is often poor as suburbanites flock to newly renovated urban housing.

So where exactly does this leave a population with limited options and a department so underfunded it’s no wonder it’s so difficult to receive benefits? 

Organizations such as Columbus Housing Justice join other groups such as South Florida’s Take Back the Land and others in major cities nationwide in confronting the fundamental need and problem of housing in our own backyards. In an age where people are beginning to realize that the way we approach our basic needs, such as responsibly produced food and housing, has an enormous impact on larger conflicts and global issues, confronting issues such as homelessness and public housing gets pushed to the forefront of national agendas.

In the end, however, Columbus Housing Justice decides to confront the issue of homelessness. Perhaps the most important aspect of this grassroots movement is simply organizing a conversation about a broken system that is in clear need of repair.

Every year for the past four years (this year marked the fourth and counting), Ryan and Austin Eilbeck of the DIY punk group Delay, as well as a few others, take on the task of organizing Berea Fest: a two-day event featuring more than 30 bands from around the United States who gather in the dining hall of St.Paul's to bust out everyone's favorite punk and folk tunes for an enthusiastic and appreciative crowd who've traveled far and wide to hear their favorite groups. Ryan once told me that the whole reason they started organizing shows, and later the fest, was because they were tired of being turned down by venues and wanted to create spaces where people could play for their friends and on their own terms.

It's an unusual event in the sense that the network of DIY groups around the country is closely knit although usually spread out, so organizing in one place is a rare occurrence.  

Those expecting a Bonnaroo or Pitchfork will be sorely disappointed.  Because Berea Fest isn't organized just for music, but to bring a community together — something you can feel in the groups who gather in the parking lot between sets to chat or the dedicated few who donate and cook vegan fare for weary bands who have traveled from opposite ends of the country to gather on the shores of Lake Erie.

I'm always disappointed that many tend to look at the punk scene with a mix of trepidation and romanticism- rejecting at the same time the exclusionary 'damned-be-all-attitude' of supposedly what it means to be "punk" (not entirely undeserved, and many of the self governing philosophies of the DIY punk movement do go against mainstream political and economic mind frames).

And yet looking around the tightly packed room, you start to notice something. Ghost Mice is finishing their set and, as everybody stands around, the feeling of solidarity is palpable. These aren't people who've come to see their favorite bands not to destroy equipment and not to start fights. They come not as fans, but as friends. And in the end, that's what Berea Fest is all about.

As someone who periodically posts in blogs I should probably be the last person to admit that I'm not actually a fervent blog follower let alone a fervent follower of vlogs. And despite the fact that I've always had an enormous respect for rap and hip-hop artists, actually following hip-hop blogs has never been something on the forefront on my day-to-day radar.

But pushing all my ill-formed daily habits and tendencies aside, I'd like to bring up  an intriguing hip-hop vlog that I recently stumbled upon: "The Ill Doctrine" (http://www.illdoctrine.com/), run by John Randolph, founder of New York's longest running hip-hop radio show, "The Underground" on WBAI, and who more commonly goes by the name Jay Smooth.

Perhaps what's most  unusual about this hip-hop blog is that it's not just about hip-hop. Well sort of. Wait...

Like the more politically charged subject matter of his topic of choice, Smooth uses his video blog to critically address the often charged issues of race, feminism, and homophobia by posting videos that consistently address his nuanced take on these issues in a meaningful and humorously engaging way.

Not one to be exclusionary in his critiques, Smooth often turns his eye towards his own hip-hop community, criticizing artists such as Charles Hamilton, and includes posts such as "An Old Person's Guided to No Homo," which takes a look a hip-hop's often homophobic content.

In the end, perhaps one of the most endearing aspect of Smooth's work is the fact that rather than focusing on directing content towards or against anybody's agenda, Smooth simply wants to be part of the global conversation.

As he recently told NPR's "All Things Considered," "I try to set an example for being kind to people, and critiquing them while still being aware of their humanity." And in today's world where people are constantly interested in promoting their own agendas, that's a bit refreshing, isn't it?

Check out his work at:

http://www.illdoctrine.com/ and http://www.hiphopmusic.com/ 

Always seemed to me such a social thing.

Let's break some bread, turn on the oven. Hover over the stovetop and inhale the delicious aromas together. Chop the eggplant? Thanks.

Pass the pie? Yes, please.

I find that when it comes to watching documentaries I have the general (if not misguided) tendency of avoiding documentaries focusing on wars and armed conflict. I don't think that this is necessarily because I'm uncomfortable with the subject matter, or even the quality of the films themselves, but more that  these films often focus on the political cause and effect, while inevitably coming to the conclusion that the war was either justified or that it wasn't.

However, as I walked into my local cinema the other week, I found myself buying a ticket to see Israeli documentary maker Avi Mograbi's latest film, Z32.

Mograbi's latest work is different from most war-related documentaries in that it focuses on a young man who was formally a member of the IDF and an elite unit of the Israeli army that was involved in a revenge operation resulting in the deaths of six Palestinian officers. The film is divided into two main sections: in one, the man confronts his girlfriend about his past actions and asks for forgiveness in a confessional-type setting; in the other, Mograbi offers his own musical commentary, accompanied by a small orchestra seated in his living room.

But what makes this film so riveting is not the idea of revenge or the issues behind why the killing occurred in the first place, but rather what lies in the aftermath of violence — how do you reconcile the fact that someone you love has killed, and does the adrenaline hierarchical context in which war-related violence happened matter or automatically justify forgiveness?

Mograbi expertly crafts these confessions by making the viewer painfully aware of the process of forgiveness. In experimenting with masking the man and his girlfriend in various manners, he wrestles with issues such as the responsibility to portray a  man's identity who otherwise might be brought to trial and the importance of individual identity in the context of war. After all, the soldier's face behind the mask could well be that of any other.

What Z32 accomplishes is not finding an answer to the question of whether crimes committed during war carry the same responsibility as crimes committed otherwise or even seeking forgiveness for a man whose actions were no different than the orders carried out by thousands of other soldiers. What Mograbi's film does do is appeal to the viewer to confront these moral dilemmas with him.

Z32 has been featured at various film festivals during 2009, including the San Francisco and Venice Film Festivals, and is currently in theatres worldwide.

The beaconing white twin longhorns of the aptly named Texas Grill, located half a kilometer from my apartment, could very well be located off any interstate from Oklahoma to New Jersey.

The promise of one-inch-thick steaks and the carved wood totem pole outside in the parking lot remind me of restaurants we used to make pit stops in on the long drives down to Florida from Ohio.

But the Texas Grill I'm referring to is not a highway pit stop for weary travelers. In fact the restaurant in question is approximately a four-minute walk from my local boulangerie in a city called Dieppe. In upper French Normandy. In France.

The extent of proliferation of American culture into others often astounds me. Not that in this day this is all that surprising, but for a culture that is notoriously protective of its traditions, the Americanisms that have wheedled their way into the French periphery are, as many would argue, some of the worst. McDo is a favorite among teenagers, and KFC has become an increasingly popular lunch spot in Paris.

The Texas Grill, with its red roof and painted white bull, claims to offer up hearty American food, fresh from the ranch, in a commercial, outside mega-center complete with the Wal-Mart equivalent, Carrefour, and outlet stores selling everything from electronics to house furniture.

That isn't to say on any level that France is not entitled to partake in the idea of bulk convenience or even in culturally themed cuisine such as the Texas Grill. (The United States is guilty of everything from Don Pablo's to Hunan Express, after all.)

But from a foreign perspective (or I guess my foreign perspective), this side of France, it doesn't tend to register immediately in my cultural constructions. One of the ways we differentiate culture is to do exactly that. Register the differences. How is Spain different from Hungary, or different from Indonesia? And these lines tend to blur once we enter the world of globalized mega-markets and strip malls.

About two months ago, I found myself for the first (and last) time eating lunch in a restaurant called Flunch that is the French take on the infamous buffet.

As I sipped my coffee that mysteriously came from a token machine, my friend Andrea looked up at us mid-conversation, forkful of frites halfway to her mouth and exclaimed,"We could actually be anywhere in the world right now in this restaurant."

And it's true. I swear I've seen the same carpets in the Wendy's across the street from my old high school—the same porcelain coffee cups, the same yellow -wallpapered walls.