Gentrification is the process by which Real Estate Management displaces less fortunate tenants in order to renovate units in the interest of aristocratic clientele. The word “to gentrify” is derived from the Norman (French-English) word “gentry.” The “noble gentry” descend from the Norman Conquest (of the British Isles) in the year 1066 A.C.E. The word “gentlemen” is of course another derivative. Chairman Mao Tsetung, father of Modern China (1893-1976) often makes references to “The Evil Gentry” in the English translation of The Selected Works of Chairman Mao. The famous Robin Hood (1280-1346) fought tenaciously against the Norman invaders of Britain. Below is a case history of Evil Gentrification:

The author of this article moved into the Flamingo Motel in Berkeley with one of his girlfriends on January 1, 2006. (The Flamingo Motel is located at 1761 University Ave. Berkeley, CA, 94703). They split the rent 50/50. (The rent was $1100/month. Each paid $550.) The couple paid the rent dutifully and on time from January, 2006 through April, 2006. In April, another lady decided to move in. She paid one third of the rent, giving the author a sixth and the other lady a sixth. The Evil Gentry Manager at first raised no objection. Then, in the middle of April, he declared eviction of the new lady after all of her money was depleted. The eviction of the third person caused a reaction/reverberation which led to all three of the tenants’ being forced to sell back the remainder of April. By this time the author and his main girlfriend had established legal residence. They couldn’t leave the new lady strapped with nothing. As they had depleted their unemployment insurance (SSI) funds as well, they were forced (yes, forced) to acquiesce to the managers’ oppressive pressure and sell back the remainder of April. (The author of this article signed “under protest!”)

But the Evil Gentry didn’t stop here: Every tenant was forced out of the Flamingo Motel, including the maid, Anabelle. What’s worse, the author’s unemployment entitlements have stopped arriving at the address. The Robber Barons are breaking the New Deal. Death to the Evil Gentry!

Note: (For more information on the historical Robin Hood, please refer to the book Mysteries of the Unexplained.)

Tired and thin, she walked hesitantly down the alleyway. In the weeks since she had been thrown out of the car, Maggie had searched for food and a safe, warm place to give birth…. Barely more than a [child] herself, she found life on the streets to be hard. She had been chased away from the little food she did find by other[s] who claimed it for themselves. And trying to find a place to sleep that was protected from the cold night air was just about impossible.

She found herself alone in the alley behind the diner. Attracted by the smell of food coming from a nearby garbage bag, Maggie clawed through it, devouring the thrown-out food from the kitchen. Her stomach full for the first time in days, she curled up in a crushed cardboard box behind the dumpster and had her first real sleep.

Young, abused, knocked up, then abruptly and brutally abandoned to the harsh realities of life on the streets. It’s a grim depiction of an even grimmer reality.

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Congress recently passed legislation known as “Real ID.” This legislation puts a halt to the aspirations of millions of immigrants to obtain a driver’s license, or any document allowing them to board an airplane or open a bank account.

This is the latest among many discriminatory laws passed by the lawmakers in this country.

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I once saw a woman lying on a pile of rags that was her bed, in an abandoned storefront doorway that was her home. She appeared to be somewhere between 40 and 60 years of age, but really, it was impossible to tell. Her face had that puffy red look that comes only from years of cheap wine consumption and neglect. Her eyes were a dull and lifeless shade of blue and seemed to be floating in puddles of pastel yellow paint. There were scabs and open sores oozing pus all over her arms and legs. Rags adhered to her by dried pus clung to her body like wallpaper. Although her hair was matted to her head and her eyebrows, it moved in the wind like it had a life of its own. As I looked closer, I could see that the movement of her hair came from the thousands of bugs that infested her head. Her legs and feet were so swollen that she may have suffered from elephantiasis. The covers on her feet (I wouldn’t call them shoes) were split on the sides to accommodate her puffy feet and turned up
at the toes like fairy shoes. The part of her feet that was visible was encrusted with dried skin and dirt and cracked in a pattern like reptile scales. I thought, “This is America, how could this be?”

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Right around the time we push aside our piles of newly-acquired Christmas cheer with our cool new remote-controlled bulldozer, our thoughts turn to what we’ll be doing for The Eve of the New Year. Will we be trapped once again before the boob tube, counting Dick Clark’s wrinkles? Will we spend obscene amounts of money to impress a bunch of pompous boors who think nothing of us anyway? Or will we really do it this time? Will we buckle down and put those New Year’s resolutions in writing (not just leave them up in our head, where they get all musty and dusty), post them near the bathroom mirror or on the fridge, and actually make some sort of effort to change our behavior for the better over the next twelve fun-filled months?

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The tradition of honoring the dead is part of the culture in Latino-America; in some countries, families prepare altars to their relatives who are gone. These altars include flowers and the favorite dishes and drinks of the deceased. In some other countries, part of the celebration is to stay overnight in the cemetery and share food and favorite drinks with the dead, this is a joyful celebration in which people get close to the dead and at the same time celebrate life.

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La tradición de honrar a los muertos es parte de la cultura latino-americana, en algunos países se preparan altares con ofrendas de las comidas y bebidas favoritas de los que ya se fueron, en otros se llevan las ofrendas al cementerio y se pasa la noche al lado de las tumbas de los seres queridos en un ambiente de alegría y tertulia.

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It’s been two weeks since the relapse and Vinny trudges blankly down the avenue pushing his shopping cart. A police cruiser crawls up alongside the sidewalk and rolls down the window. “Hey Vinny, c’mere for a second.” Vinny drops the can of Colt 45 into his pile of earthly possessions and prepares to receive his third pink violation slip of the week. Three more lands him another expense paid trip to Riker’s Island. As he reaches into his pocket to pull out his ID he hears, “Yeah Vinny, how much you want for one a them books? Oh yeah, and could you sign it for me?”

Motivated by a desire to shed light on the enigma of street life in the world’s richest city, in 2001 I began tape recording and editing the life stories of people living on the streets around Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Two years later, what had begun as a casual experiment had evolved into a 300 page book, Stranger to the System: Life Portraits of a New York City Homeless Community. Since publication last July, homeless vendors have sold over 6,000 copies on the streets of New York.

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As I was sitting in my neighborhood Coffeehouse, after another one of my countless interviews that will most certainly not lead to an offer of employment, I started to reflect on my apparently never-ending job hunt, and on how much energy all of this nonproductive work was draining the life-force from my soul. How do so many folks keep up the brave face in this madness? How can you really find the strength to keep on going to Interview after Interview, come home empty handed, and head back out to do it again? I often wonder, how folks just keep on keeping on?

Doesn’t it get tiresome sometimes to try and always come up with a novel way to tell a prospective Employer why you’re so very interested to work for their company, when the truth of the matter is all you want to do is have job. All you really want to do is make a fair wage for an honest days work, and that you really never dreamed of putting plastic tips on Shoe Laces, like your prospective Employer apparently did. Where’s the honest in the Job Hunting process? Most of us aren’t working at our “Dream Jobs,” we’re working at the jobs we were fortunate enough to get hired for when we needed the work.

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As the U.S. observes another Fourth of July, Americans across the board concede that our nation is in trouble. With an economy still in the doldrums and the can of worms that we opened in Iraq, there seem to be few things to be proud of this year. Not that we need actual achievements for the Fourth of July: as a rule, what we honor on this day is not what America currently does, but our idea of what America represents. It is due to the damage to this very idea that this Independence Day should give us pause.

No matter how you felt about Iraq, there was something about the prison abuse scandal that hit straight in the gut, that made you feel ugly to be American. The pictures were dark and disturbing, and they seemed to show everything that was wrong with this war. While Americans can bear to be wrong, to be criticised and even condemned, it has not been since Vietnam that the nation has felt such collective shame. It is a bipartisan shame, gripping Democrats and Republicans, greenies and independents, as well as the half of this country that doesn’t vote (when Rush Limbaugh tried to play down the abuse, I could tell that he felt it too).

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