MRM's blog

On Wednesday evening I went to a meeting of the Federal Legislation Committee of the New York City Bill of Rights Defense Campaign (NYCBORDC). The talk was of how best to educate and mobilize people about the PATRIOT Act -- get people to lobby their elected officials, generally make our fellow citizens understand what's at state in terms of threats to our civil liberties. Discussion was spirited. When do we try to "reform" something we're against (or publicly support one mediocre option just because it's better than the alternative), and when do we stand firm and say we will settle for nothing less than, say, the repeal of the entire PATRIOT Act?

I biked from work over the Manhattan Bridge (taking care to note the new gaps in the Brooklyn side anti-bike barriers [see Infoshop story for related communique]). It was close to 7:30 by the time I crossed Houston on Lafayette, and instead of riding all the way up to Union Square, I latched on to a group of 30 or so cyclists I encountered as they were heading west. We rode through the West Village and SoHo for a while, periodically whooping and cheering and dinging our bells, getting smiles and thumbs-ups and the occasional angry honk -- all in all, a very pleasant springtime Critical Mass experience.

Rethinking Schools has published an interesting article on military recruitment in high schools and a Portland, Ore., high school's unit on these recruitment techniques and the reality of enlistment.