Topic: Damali Ayo's Panhandling for Reparations
Questions:
How did the project go in the many other locations people panhandled for reparations?
Did the project raise awarness about slavery and reparations?
Will there be any lasting impact from the project?
Possible Articles:
Purposeful Panhandling: Volunteers gather money on Portland streets for slavery reparations by the Associated Press. Portland, Oregon newspaper.
Panhandling for Reparations draws ire but also discussion by Erin Hoover Barnett. Newhouse News Service. Portland, Oregon newspaper.
Interview: Damali Ayo on her Web site, rent-a-negro.com.(9:00-10:00 AM)(Broadcast transcript)(Website overview) by Tavis Smiley
Portlanders Beg for Reparations. Portland, Oregon newspaper.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Ericson and Ziegler
"Art in the public interest forges direct intersections with social issues."
The quote was found in Miwon Kwon's One Place After Another on page 105. It says that public art, such as the projects found in Culture in Action, can tie into and bring light to certain social issues. One such project was Eminent Domain, done by Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler (Kwon 102). The project consisted of color charts with different colors named after an issue with public housing in the Ogden Courts Apartments of Chicago (Kwon 122). Ericson and Ziegler said that "The chart would deal with some specifics about federall funded housing, demographics, etc. It would of course hopefully raise issues that are of concern to the tenants but it would also question the validity and morals of the suburbs which these charts often cater to" (Kwon 122). This public art project ties into social issues of housing with the names of the paint colors, such as HUD Cream, Homeless (which is sky blue), Scattered-Site Coral and FHA Gingerbread (Nesbitt). Because the paint charts were created by the residents, the ones who experience housing social issues such as problems with the FHA or being homeless, the project gave them a voice to raise awareness of the social issues. Their connection is direct, between the issues and the art, which is what public interest art is all about.
Kwon, Miwon. One Place After Another. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002.
Nesbitt, Lois. "Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler." Artforum International 32.n9
(May 1994): 104(1). Academic OneFile. Gale. Syracuse University
Library. 28 Oct. 2007 http://find.galegroup.com/itx/start.do?prodId=
AONE.
The quote was found in Miwon Kwon's One Place After Another on page 105. It says that public art, such as the projects found in Culture in Action, can tie into and bring light to certain social issues. One such project was Eminent Domain, done by Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler (Kwon 102). The project consisted of color charts with different colors named after an issue with public housing in the Ogden Courts Apartments of Chicago (Kwon 122). Ericson and Ziegler said that "The chart would deal with some specifics about federall funded housing, demographics, etc. It would of course hopefully raise issues that are of concern to the tenants but it would also question the validity and morals of the suburbs which these charts often cater to" (Kwon 122). This public art project ties into social issues of housing with the names of the paint colors, such as HUD Cream, Homeless (which is sky blue), Scattered-Site Coral and FHA Gingerbread (Nesbitt). Because the paint charts were created by the residents, the ones who experience housing social issues such as problems with the FHA or being homeless, the project gave them a voice to raise awareness of the social issues. Their connection is direct, between the issues and the art, which is what public interest art is all about.
Kwon, Miwon. One Place After Another. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002.
Nesbitt, Lois. "Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler." Artforum International 32.n9
(May 1994): 104(1). Academic OneFile. Gale. Syracuse University
Library. 28 Oct. 2007 http://find.galegroup.com/itx/start.do?prodId=
AONE.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Video and Resistance: Against Documentaries
Originally photography was intended to be visual replications of truth, however, this is not the case. The artists look at documentaries, and how they are supposed to be accurate representations of real life events, yet they are just another form of propaganda. Images and commentary are paired together to give the viewer a sense of only one view existing towards a story. The flow of a documentary gives the viewer no chance to question or interpret the story for themselves, and only to follow along.
The artists describe how photography's original purpose was to be concrete evidence for truth that cannot be found in people's memories. Memories are easily distorted, but with a photograph you get a true representation of a piece of history. Sontag shares a similar view of what photos are and describes them as "not only an image,...an interpretation of the real;it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask." Sontag also believes that "photographic images are pieces of evidence in an ongoing biography or history." According to the artists, that is the idea behind documentaries. Documentaries are a collection of images to display history as if one actually witnessed it. Both Sontag and the artists view photos in a similar way, as something more concrete than a drawing or a memory, but an actual replication of a moment of time and that photos are a powerful and versatile tool with many uses.
The artists describe how photography's original purpose was to be concrete evidence for truth that cannot be found in people's memories. Memories are easily distorted, but with a photograph you get a true representation of a piece of history. Sontag shares a similar view of what photos are and describes them as "not only an image,...an interpretation of the real;it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask." Sontag also believes that "photographic images are pieces of evidence in an ongoing biography or history." According to the artists, that is the idea behind documentaries. Documentaries are a collection of images to display history as if one actually witnessed it. Both Sontag and the artists view photos in a similar way, as something more concrete than a drawing or a memory, but an actual replication of a moment of time and that photos are a powerful and versatile tool with many uses.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Essay Revision
Cristina Posilovic
October 14, 2007
Superfund and Onondaga Lake
The industrial age in America resulted in many consequences, one of which is toxic pollution. Thousands of areas such as lakes, rivers, and pieces of land were polluted by the waste of many companies. These areas pose problems to human health and safety, animal health and safety, and the cleanliness of our environment. In 1980, a government program called Superfund was created to help clean up the most polluted areas in America.
According to the EPA website, Superfund is an environmental program that was established to provide funding to clean up hazardous waste sites (EPA). It was established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, which taxes oil and chemical companies and gave “authority to respond directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment” (EPA). The money from the taxes was the main source of income for Superfund to clean up the waste sites (EPA). The act also holds the companies that dumped the pollution responsible for payment of the cleanup, and uses the money in the trust fund for places where the polluter has since abandoned the area or gone bankrupt (EPA). Ultimately, Superfund exists to remove toxic waste in our environment to protect the lives of people and animals and make the world a safer place.
On November 4, 2003 an article came out in the Christian Science Monitor by Brian Knickerbocker called “Superfund Program: A Smaller Cleanup Rag” that addressed problems with Superfund. It begins by saying that the fund is now virtually bankrupt, and that it is becoming more difficult to clean up other sites. It also states that the amount of sites cleaned per year by Superfund has been declining for the past three years. Since the program began, 886 sites have been cleaned up, but 1,203 still remain on their list (Knickerbocker). The article talks about Superfund’s policy of making the polluter pay, but also mentions about the large number of so called “orphan sites” where the companies responsible are now bankrupt or have since abandoned the area (Knickerbocker). Knickerbocker writes about the tax placed on oil and chemical companies that was once the main contributor to the fund, but that the tax has not been reinstated since 1995. Taxpayers are now contributing 53% of the cost compared to 18% when the taxes were still in place (Knickerbocker). Many still agree with the polluter pays policy, but it does have its drawbacks. The companies tagged to a site are given full responsibility of the cleanup, and in some cases they go and sue other companies that they can find that tie into the polluted area in one way or another (Knickerbocker). Oftentimes, more money is being spent for legal purposes rather than to clean up toxic waste sites (Knickerbocker). These problems are inhibiting the cleanup of numerous toxic pollution sites in the United States.
One such polluted area is Onondaga Lake, considered by many to be the most polluted lake in America (Landers 64). The 4.6 square mile lake is found just north of the city of Syracuse and is contaminated with numerous substances that were discharged by a few companies in the late 1800s to the mid 1900s (Landers 64). In the late 1800s, the Solvay Process Company produced soda ash, with “1.1 pounds of sodium chloride and 2.2 pounds of calcium chloride produced for every 2.2 pounds of soda ash”, which was pumped into waste beds along the shore of the lake (Landers 64). The wastes increased the salinity of the lake, which has killed many forms of marine life (Landers 64, 65). Between 1917 and 1970, Allied Chemical further contaminated the lake by adding contaminants such as mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls, which are considered to be carcinogenic, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are also known carcinogens, and chlorinated benzenes, which can affect the health of humans and fish (Landers 65). The Metropolitan Syracuse Wastewater Treatment Plant also added to the pollution of the lake. Since 1920 they have discharged chemicals such as phosphorus and nitrogen into the lake, which caused a rapid growth of algae in the lake, and reduce the amount of dissolved oxygen into the lake, which can kill marine animals (Landers 69).
In 1994 Onondaga Lake was added to the National Priorities List, also known as Superfund (Landers 65). In 2005, the cleanup plan for the lake, known as the ROD, was finalized (Landers 66). According to the ROD, “2.7 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment and waste” will be dredged from the lake and “disposed of at an off-site facility” or in a sediment consolidation area (Landers 66). These sediments will go through a new water treatment plant and decontaminated until it fulfills discharge limits and then returned to the lake (Landers 67). 425 acres of shallower areas of the lake will be covered in a multilayered isolation cap to prevent “upward migration of contamination” (Landers 67). In deeper areas of the lake, a total of 154 acres will be covered in a thin-layer cap for the same purposes as the isolation cap (Landers 67). Deeper lake areas will only have a thin cap, while shallower areas will have a thicker cap due to erosion (Landers 67). In addition, barrier walls will be built to collect groundwater to be sent to a treatment plant before entering the lake. The total cost of this plan is 451 million dollars.
According to the Onondaga Nation, a tribe of Native Americans who hold the Onondaga Lake as sacred, the plan is nowhere near suitable. There is an additional 18 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment that will not be dredged under the ROD. The plan only dredges in certain areas, instead of removing the entire in lake waste deposit (Onondaga Nation). They also say that caps are not reliable, because at some point the cap will move or erode and the chemicals will be re-released (Onondaga Nation). Viewing the diagram in the New Life For Onondaga Lake article, caps will only cover a very small area of the lake, while the rest of it will hopefully be covered by clean sediment. This is an unrealistic approach, to hope that one day uncontaminated sediment will cover the entire lake bottom and will always contain the chemicals in the sediment beneath it. It will never happen. The Nation says that the entire lake bottom is contaminated with mercury, and unless it is removed or fully contained it will continue to be in the lake’s ecosystem (Onondaga Nation). In addition, the plan involves treating water according to certain discharge limits (Onondaga Nation). This means that not all of the pollution will be removed from the water and sediments, and some of it will be re-released right back into the lake. This plan will only slightly reduce the amount of pollution in the lake and hope that the caps installed will contain the chemicals, instead of finding real solutions to get rid of all of the contaminants or to contain them properly in a way that will not fail in years to come. The cost of a real cleanup, according to the Nation, would be around 2.16 billion dollars (Onondaga Nation).
The plan outlined by the ROD cuts corners, takes shortcuts, and hopes that the problem of contamination in the lake will be resolved. A thorough cleanup is possible for the lake, however it seems that money is the reason why Onondaga Lake will not receive a worthy cleanup. Due to the lack of funding received by Superfund, Onondaga Lake is not getting the proper cleanup it should, and this is probably the case with numerous other sites around the country. According to an article in the Washington Post, Superfund’s budget has “declined by 34 percent over the past decade”, adjusting for inflation (Eilperin). With budget shortfalls, the lack of the tax on chemical and oil companies, Superfund will never be able to offer timely and worthy cleanup plans for the many toxic waste sites around the country, and it will be the people, whose taxes now pay for a large portion of Superfund projects and those that live near sites that are given inadequate cleanup, that will suffer.
Works Cited
"Basic Information." Superfund. 21 Sep 2007. EPA. 8 Oct 2007
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/about.htm.
"CERCLA Overview." Superfund. 17 July 2007. EPA. 8 Oct 2007
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/policy/cercla.htm.
Eilperin, Juliet. "Lack of Funding Slows Cleanup Of Hundreds of Superfund Sites."
Washington Post 25 Nov 2004 A01. 14 Oct 2007 http://www.washingtonpost.com/
ac2/wp-dyn/A11246-2004Nov24?language=printer.
Knickerbocker, Brian. "Superfund Program: A Smaller Cleanup Rag." Christian Science
Monitor 14 Nov 2003 07 Oct 2007 http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1114/p02s01-
usgn.html?related.
Landers, Jay. "New Life for Onondaga Lake." Civil Engineering (American Society of Civil Engineers) 76.5 (2006): 64,71, 86.
"Onondaga Lake ‘Clean-up’ Plan." Onondaga News. 11 Dec 2006. Onondaga Nation. 14 Oct 2007 http://www.onondaganation.org/news.cleanup1.html.
October 14, 2007
The industrial age in America resulted in many consequences, one of which is toxic pollution. Thousands of areas such as lakes, rivers, and pieces of land were polluted by the waste of many companies. These areas pose problems to human health and safety, animal health and safety, and the cleanliness of our environment. In 1980, a government program called Superfund was created to help clean up the most polluted areas in America.
According to the EPA website, Superfund is an environmental program that was established to provide funding to clean up hazardous waste sites (EPA). It was established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, which taxes oil and chemical companies and gave “authority to respond directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment” (EPA). The money from the taxes was the main source of income for Superfund to clean up the waste sites (EPA). The act also holds the companies that dumped the pollution responsible for payment of the cleanup, and uses the money in the trust fund for places where the polluter has since abandoned the area or gone bankrupt (EPA). Ultimately, Superfund exists to remove toxic waste in our environment to protect the lives of people and animals and make the world a safer place.
On November 4, 2003 an article came out in the Christian Science Monitor by Brian Knickerbocker called “Superfund Program: A Smaller Cleanup Rag” that addressed problems with Superfund. It begins by saying that the fund is now virtually bankrupt, and that it is becoming more difficult to clean up other sites. It also states that the amount of sites cleaned per year by Superfund has been declining for the past three years. Since the program began, 886 sites have been cleaned up, but 1,203 still remain on their list (Knickerbocker). The article talks about Superfund’s policy of making the polluter pay, but also mentions about the large number of so called “orphan sites” where the companies responsible are now bankrupt or have since abandoned the area (Knickerbocker). Knickerbocker writes about the tax placed on oil and chemical companies that was once the main contributor to the fund, but that the tax has not been reinstated since 1995. Taxpayers are now contributing 53% of the cost compared to 18% when the taxes were still in place (Knickerbocker). Many still agree with the polluter pays policy, but it does have its drawbacks. The companies tagged to a site are given full responsibility of the cleanup, and in some cases they go and sue other companies that they can find that tie into the polluted area in one way or another (Knickerbocker). Oftentimes, more money is being spent for legal purposes rather than to clean up toxic waste sites (Knickerbocker). These problems are inhibiting the cleanup of numerous toxic pollution sites in the United States.
One such polluted area is Onondaga Lake, considered by many to be the most polluted lake in America (Landers 64). The 4.6 square mile lake is found just north of the city of Syracuse and is contaminated with numerous substances that were discharged by a few companies in the late 1800s to the mid 1900s (Landers 64). In the late 1800s, the Solvay Process Company produced soda ash, with “1.1 pounds of sodium chloride and 2.2 pounds of calcium chloride produced for every 2.2 pounds of soda ash”, which was pumped into waste beds along the shore of the lake (Landers 64). The wastes increased the salinity of the lake, which has killed many forms of marine life (Landers 64, 65). Between 1917 and 1970, Allied Chemical further contaminated the lake by adding contaminants such as mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls, which are considered to be carcinogenic, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are also known carcinogens, and chlorinated benzenes, which can affect the health of humans and fish (Landers 65). The Metropolitan Syracuse Wastewater Treatment Plant also added to the pollution of the lake. Since 1920 they have discharged chemicals such as phosphorus and nitrogen into the lake, which caused a rapid growth of algae in the lake, and reduce the amount of dissolved oxygen into the lake, which can kill marine animals (Landers 69).
In 1994 Onondaga Lake was added to the National Priorities List, also known as Superfund (Landers 65). In 2005, the cleanup plan for the lake, known as the ROD, was finalized (Landers 66). According to the ROD, “2.7 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment and waste” will be dredged from the lake and “disposed of at an off-site facility” or in a sediment consolidation area (Landers 66). These sediments will go through a new water treatment plant and decontaminated until it fulfills discharge limits and then returned to the lake (Landers 67). 425 acres of shallower areas of the lake will be covered in a multilayered isolation cap to prevent “upward migration of contamination” (Landers 67). In deeper areas of the lake, a total of 154 acres will be covered in a thin-layer cap for the same purposes as the isolation cap (Landers 67). Deeper lake areas will only have a thin cap, while shallower areas will have a thicker cap due to erosion (Landers 67). In addition, barrier walls will be built to collect groundwater to be sent to a treatment plant before entering the lake. The total cost of this plan is 451 million dollars.
According to the Onondaga Nation, a tribe of Native Americans who hold the Onondaga Lake as sacred, the plan is nowhere near suitable. There is an additional 18 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment that will not be dredged under the ROD. The plan only dredges in certain areas, instead of removing the entire in lake waste deposit (Onondaga Nation). They also say that caps are not reliable, because at some point the cap will move or erode and the chemicals will be re-released (Onondaga Nation). Viewing the diagram in the New Life For Onondaga Lake article, caps will only cover a very small area of the lake, while the rest of it will hopefully be covered by clean sediment. This is an unrealistic approach, to hope that one day uncontaminated sediment will cover the entire lake bottom and will always contain the chemicals in the sediment beneath it. It will never happen. The Nation says that the entire lake bottom is contaminated with mercury, and unless it is removed or fully contained it will continue to be in the lake’s ecosystem (Onondaga Nation). In addition, the plan involves treating water according to certain discharge limits (Onondaga Nation). This means that not all of the pollution will be removed from the water and sediments, and some of it will be re-released right back into the lake. This plan will only slightly reduce the amount of pollution in the lake and hope that the caps installed will contain the chemicals, instead of finding real solutions to get rid of all of the contaminants or to contain them properly in a way that will not fail in years to come. The cost of a real cleanup, according to the Nation, would be around 2.16 billion dollars (Onondaga Nation).
The plan outlined by the ROD cuts corners, takes shortcuts, and hopes that the problem of contamination in the lake will be resolved. A thorough cleanup is possible for the lake, however it seems that money is the reason why Onondaga Lake will not receive a worthy cleanup. Due to the lack of funding received by Superfund, Onondaga Lake is not getting the proper cleanup it should, and this is probably the case with numerous other sites around the country. According to an article in the Washington Post, Superfund’s budget has “declined by 34 percent over the past decade”, adjusting for inflation (Eilperin). With budget shortfalls, the lack of the tax on chemical and oil companies, Superfund will never be able to offer timely and worthy cleanup plans for the many toxic waste sites around the country, and it will be the people, whose taxes now pay for a large portion of Superfund projects and those that live near sites that are given inadequate cleanup, that will suffer.
"Basic Information." Superfund. 21 Sep 2007. EPA. 8 Oct 2007
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/about.htm.
"CERCLA Overview." Superfund. 17 July 2007. EPA. 8 Oct 2007
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/policy/cercla.htm.
Eilperin, Juliet. "Lack of Funding Slows Cleanup Of Hundreds of Superfund Sites."
Washington Post 25 Nov 2004 A01. 14 Oct 2007 http://www.washingtonpost.com/
ac2/wp-dyn/A11246-2004Nov24?language=printer.
Knickerbocker, Brian. "Superfund Program: A Smaller Cleanup Rag." Christian Science
Monitor 14 Nov 2003 07 Oct 2007 http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1114/p02s01-
usgn.html?related.
Landers, Jay. "New Life for Onondaga Lake." Civil Engineering (American Society of Civil Engineers) 76.5 (2006): 64,71, 86.
"Onondaga Lake ‘Clean-up’ Plan." Onondaga News. 11 Dec 2006. Onondaga Nation. 14 Oct 2007 http://www.onondaganation.org/news.cleanup1.html.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
CSM summary
The article is basically about the government program called Superfund, which helps to clean up heavily polluted bodies of water, and how it is going bankrupt. The fund was based on the idea that the polluter should pay the price to clean up the damage, but in recent years money has not been coming from corporations but from common taxpayers. Many of the companies that caused the pollution are now currently closed down or bankrupt, so Superfund has been unable to receive money from them. On top of this, Congress never renewed the extra income tax on oil and chemical companies, which up until 1995 provided much of the funding for the program. In recent years, the amount of pollution cleaned up per year has decreased drastically due to the lack of income, and there are still a lot more high priority areas that desperately need cleaning. With little money left in Superfund, and no way to raise more money, the future for many highly polluted areas looks grim.
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