Law of Hum:

As I’m taking summer class at Hunter College this month I’ve been commuting into Manhattan every morning, meaning for the past month I’ve been biking from my house to the station, taking the metro-north into grand central station, then riding the 6 subway to Hunter. Borrrrrringg

So on Wednesday I decided to spice up my commute and bike from my house to class the entire way. It would be a 25 mile ride that looks like this:

Armed with some water, my notebook, and a camera I woke up at 5am (the earliest I’ve been up since finals week last semester) and left my door at 6. I kept the following mental log of adventures I came across along the way:

6:00am: Left house in musty 60 degree weather as I made my way across to Yonkers.

6:30am: Rode down Nepperhan Ave In south Yonkers. It was really quiet as no shops were open yet and traffic was minimal, but homeless old people were everywhere, moping around aimlessly. I felt like I was biking through a deserted city of flesh eating zombies. One homeless guy I passed tried to casually break into what he didn’t realize was an unmanned undercover cop car. When he found the doors were locked, he just walked away slowly with his head down in shame.

7:00am: Crossed the Broadway bridge from Riverdale into the very tip of Manhattan, which is just a bunch of trees:

7:05am: All these trucks parked in the bike lanes made biking in them near impossible. Those bastards.


7:15am: Found a dock with scenic view of Hudson river and George Washington Bridge. This is what my beast of a bike looks like:


7:20am: Continued down a dirt path two joggers were coming from, until I came to the end of it which was a hole in a fence that put me right on the Amtrak train tracks. Whooops. Well I had to backtrack a few miles but it was worth it because I came across some sweet graffiti pieces, including a tag by the famous REVS.

7:40am: Found my way to the West Side green way, a two-way bike/walk path that spans the entire west side of Manhattan along the Hudson river.

8:00am: Came across this huge Civil War memorial:



8:20am: Crossed over to east side on 69th and rode through Central Park. Saw a large group of people cheering in a courtyard with bright lights on. It’s the set of the “Early Show!”:

8:30am: Arrived at Hunter College with over an hour until class started at 9:50. Ate a bacon egg and cheese sandwich and sipped on an ice coffee; the perfect reward for a successful workout.

Overall the ride was a great experience and was pretty safe as there was little traffic so early in the morning. It was my first ride into Manhattan, and definitely not my last. After going down the wrong path for a while the entire trip ended up being closer to 35 miles and probably would’ve taken less than the 2 1/2 hours it took me door-to-door had I not gotten lost. The neatest thing about biking to Manhattan was seeing stuff I never would have seen otherwise in a city I’m fairly familiar with. It was also great to not be sitting behind a window and actually biking along the Hudson river for a scenic view. To anyone who road bikes regularly, 35 miles probably isn’t much, but for me it was a step up from just biking around town.

Thus concludes another page in my bike diary. I’ll definitely bike down to the city again a bunch until class ends, maybe even taking different routes. Either way I’ve still much exploring to do in the Jungle that is New York City.

Ok, not really. But I did find myself floating around on the ocean that is the internet in a game of “where’s waldo?” with myself on flickr, literally:

And how perfect because I googled myself and found that I was mentioned in an article for Chelsea Now, a local New York City newspaper, from when I was interviewed after getting a traffic ticket at the Critical Mass in NYC 20 minutes after the photo above was taken:

Meanwhile, the Critical Mass ride had splintered and was running into some roadblocks. A half-dozen cyclists were stopped and ticketed on Eighth Ave. at 16th St.

“I’m really quite bummed,” said Hum, 20, a Boston University student from Westchester. Hum was ticketed for riding outside the bike lane—he and others had been riding on the opposite side of the street from the bike lane.

Hum has been participating in the Boston version of Critical Mass for years and said the police have never hindered a ride there. As he stood contemplating his ticket, word of more riders being ticketed came in, including a group at Madison Ave. and 42nd St. Most of the evening’s citations were for riding without a signaling device or riding outside a bike lane.

[Here's the rest of the article]

To the uninitiated, Critical Mass is “an event typically held on the last Friday of every month in cities around the world where bicyclists and other self-propelled commuters take to the streets en masse.” I attended Critical Mass in Manhattan last month where I was hoping for a glorious bike ride with hundreds of riders like it is in Boston, but ended up getting a ticket instead (note I was not there to see Al Sharpton, I was there for a fun-as-hell massive bike ride)

Too bad I didn’t have anything interesting to say; I was so pissed I was at a loss for words. I didn’t understand why cops had been tailing us the entire time until I learned about the RNC 2004 debacle when cops were ordered to clear the city streets and arrested hundreds of Critical Mass riders when thousands of Critical Mass riders rode on the streets anyway. Since then it seems cops have instated an anti-critical mass policy to give Critical Mass riders traffic tickets in an effort to bully riders and gain control of Critical Mass.

The violation listed on my ticket was for “Not riding in bike lane when bike lane provided.” This is preposterous. New York City law essentially states that bicyclists will ride in a bike lane unless obstacles/obstructions prove riding in it to be unsafe. In my case, the cops were obstructing me from getting to the bike lane in the first place. I’ve plead “Not Guilty” and am awaiting my day in court on July 15th, when I plan on showing up in a full suit with suspenders and bow tie, a detailed written testimony backed by poster sized diagrams with circles and arrows, and plenty of fist banging with a large magnifying glass.

On a final note, the policing of Critical Mass NYC is quite a shame because Critical Mass is a great way to encourage people to have fun and bike. It’s also a huge waste of city resources to follow around hundreds of bikers every month just so they can give them bogus tickets. Sure they have a job to keep traffic in order but in the ten years before the RNC before cops policed it Critical Mass didn’t cause any more trouble than it did after RNC 2004. In other cities like Boston cops don’t care at all and it isn’t a problem. I remember being at the front line in April’s Boston CM and as we passed by a bunch of cops in Cambridge, riders began to run a red light and one cop jokingly started counting aloud, “One Red Light, Two Red Lights…Three Hundred Red Lights..”

In other cities like Boston police cooperate with the spontaneous ride and escort the ride peacefully instead of ticketing or arresting people. I probably won’t ride Critical Mass Manhattan again unless cops back off, but that’s probably never going to happen as long as these cops just keep asserting their big fat New York egos.

p.s. If you were paying attention this was the first post on my Law Blog to ever discuss anything about Law!
And if you had trouble finding me in that photo I’m the one in the awesome pink shirt.

Just when I thought I had escaped the phenomenon of the super competitive high school environment I so dearly miss, I found it shouting in my face today at the local library.

While working on summer econ homework in the library reference room, a high-schooler sat across from me to work on his junior year research paper. A minute later his mother plopped a stack of books on North American history on the table, sat down, and proceeded to read one of the books and take notes. After a few minutes she tried to explain to her son her notes to him, but he was obviously trying to find
something on his own because he tells his mother to shut up. She refuses. Pencil waving through the air, she furiously explained the list of topics needed for her son’s paper, until they both got into an argument over who knew what about historic New York. Library patrons pretended not to hear as voice levels rose and the mother’s attitude was likened to an obnoxious seven-year-old know it all. “It’s right here in the book. NEW AMSTERDAM,” She squawked. “Yeah?” her son snapped back. “Yeah.” She shoved her notes in his hands and he finally submitted, quietly reading as he began to work his mother’s notes into his paper. His mother continued to research and take notes, he continued to write his paper, and the cycle repeated for another hour until I left.

My hometown has a reputation for having a top-notch super-competitive public school. After all, our high school does have a close to 100% graduation rate, higher than the nation’s average student SAT scores, and yearly IVY League acceptances in the double digits to brag about. But where do you draw the line between helping and just outright doing work for other people? Isn’t the point of a research paper to learn how to find information on your own, take notes, then make sense of it? What good is learning if your mother is doing the learning for you?

Of course, parents just want the best for their children and have all the reason to help them succeed academically. Here that means paying a premium to send their kids to the best public school in the country and hiring tutors for class and/or SATs, which, unsurprisingly, puts kids at a competitive advantage. However, there’s a difference between providing resources and hindering your child to learn on his/her own. Finding relevant books on 18th century North America is one thing; that’s what librarians do. But this mother, who was note-taking and analyzing the information for her son was taking “providing resources” or “tutoring” one step too far when her son should have been doing all the note-taking and analyzing on his own.

It’s a little ridiculous what some parents will do to ensure academic success. Note that it’s absolutely unfair to generalize that parent-homework intervention happens just here or that it happens for everyone here, because that’s simply not true. However, I find it disconcerting to think that there are kids who rely on their parents to get them stellar grades in high school then get accepted into top notch colleges on their parents’ merit, or who, unprepared for the workload of college, depend on friends to do their work for them. The topic of where to draw the line between getting help and cheating has been touched upon over and over by educators who have the same concern, but to see it happen inches away from me, and the fact that it happens and tends to be more accepted in a competitive environment like the one high schoolers in this community are engaged in just makes me cringe.

As if the tears shed of seeing friends depart for the summer wasn’t traumatic enough, the other half of us still have to stress about finals until Tuesday, but that’s not enough to keep me away from forgetting it all and becoming distracted:

1) Ah the Japanese; they never cease to amuse me with their ridiculous ridiculous game shows and roll-junk-up-into-a-ball videogames, so I was delightfully captivated by Uniqlock, the latest video ad for Uniqlo(essentially Japan’s version of H&M) that never ends as long as the clock ticks. Thanks for showing me this Ted. I’ve spent so many minutes of my life watching nonsensical greatness. Plus the music is super catchy:

2) Facebook scrabulous=Internet Scrabble with your friends. So what I’ve lost almost every game I’ve played so far. So if you love scrabble, and you love your friends, add Scrabulous now and start a game with me:

well that’s all for now. BACK TO THE GRIND.

Because of guys like this who grade your bike locking job:
(click to watch)

gatherings of epic proportions like this:
(click to watch)

and kids who think they can tour with the bigs guys. Hey is that a guy in a chicken suit?:
(click to watch)

On the topic of bikes, I’ve been biking here in Boston since January and haven’t loved biking so much since sixth grade when I thought I would grow up to become Dave Mira on my BMX. Since I bike to work everyday I’ve spent $0 on cabs/bus/T and it’s great. Not to mention I’ve learned a lot about bike maintainable, after replacing almost all the parts on my current ride. Monthly Boston Critical Mass group rides are the icing on the cake. What can I say, city biking rules.

I’ve discovered the East Coast Greenway effort, basically a collective effort to map a seamless and traffic-less bike route spanning all 3000 miles of the US east coast from the tip of Maine to the bottom of florida. So when I get home I plan to do some serious biking on my free time, at least biking from Scarsdale to Manhattan and back following the greenway routes through New York or local Scarsdale routes others have sketched out on MapMyRide.com.

If you’ve seen me biking and constantly bug me about wearing a helmet (yes, you. Caroline), know that I’m aware of the dangers of getting hit by cars and dragged on the pavement and do plan on making a hair helmet soon.

Oh, and come May 30th I’ll be at Critical Mass, this time in Manhattan. It will be epic.

Sudhir Venkatesh, a sociologist who for seven years studied violent crack dealing gangs by joining and eventually leading one, asked gang members and friends what they thought about a new law that makes it illegal to recruit someone into a gang:

Darnell (32 years old, African-American) said police should be more creative.

Let’s say you catch one of us — I’d make the boy wear a dress and makeup. Maybe for two weeks. Let the boy go to school looking like a girl. Let him walk the streets looking like he’s gay. I guarantee you, we’d have a hard time holding on to n–rs if you do sh–t like that!

Well said, Darnell.

It’s also worth checking out this NPR article and audio interview of Sudhir Ventakesh in which Ventakesh recounts some of his experiences following around the leader of a violent crack gang. Or if you’re really interested here’s a vid of him do a read from his latest book Gang Leader for a Day followed by a Q&A.

Just look at that badass.

Sweet ginormous roller tags by Gaia and Deep both of which were picked up by Bombin’ Magazine Online.

As long as it’s under a speed of 15mph, that is.

A gutted Buick turned pedal powered shell gets pulled over and cops charge driver with “operating unsafe vehichle.” The drivers went to court and argued their vehicle was not any less safe than bicycles, horse-drawn buggies or a rickshaw, all of which are street legal.

Well the judge recently ruled in their favor so pedal powered buicks are now legal to drive around Toronto. Huzzah! From a news report on the trial: “the defence made a special point of asking the police officer if he had ever stopped a rickshaw or a horse and buggy. To which the officer sheepishly replied that he had never seen a horse-drawn carriage in Toronto.”

Here’s a video of the drivers driving and getting pulled over (click to watch):

yabbadabbadoooo

Until I think of more interesting things to blog about, I’m just going to keep plugging all my friends’ artwork:

My good friend Dan MacDonald, who plays by the name Spitzer Space Telescope, was recently featured in BU Today’s arts section as “BU’s one man band.” He writes and plays energetic folk music inspired by folk of the 60s and 18th-19th century Ireland-a unique fusion indeed.

I just love how Dan managed to incorporate his love of sci-fi into a song he wrote called Mynocks in the Garden. (Mynocks are those little bastard creatures that chew on the Millennium Falcon’s powerlines in Star Wars Episode V). When was the last time you heard a folk song about Star Wars? Dan just makes wonderful music with a story to tell. Even ones about made up mythical creatures. Be sure to check out his Myspace

And I’m not the only one who loves his music. Another friend Callum Hanlon used Dan’s music in his entry for this year’s Boston Campus Movie Fest, where competing teams had one week to write, shoot, and produce a five minute long short film. This year teams were asked to submit their films online at a site called Ourstage so viewers could rate them. Cal’s Movie, titled “Hello, Love,” (the title taken from one of Dan’s songs) as of writing stands #1 in most views out of the 128 other campus movie fest movies submitted online. We’ll find out how they fare at the BU finale this friday and if they advance, also at the Boston finale on the 26th. If the film wins anything Dan will get tons of exposure and Cal and his team could be in for some prize money
.

-Gorg

Welcome welcome to my Harvard Law Blog which may or may not have anything to do with Harvard Law.

As for a first post, here’s a fabulous collaboration of sorts between my two favorite street artists DEEP and Gaia located in Scarsdale NY.

-Greg