Bran, Bananas, Chat and Live Video

This morning I had my Brantastic cereal with bananas sitting in our dining room with the rising sun watching live streaming video from the environs of Zuccotti Park, NYC, whilst chatting with Fred.

Before you think I am living in some strange Clue game board reality distortion field: if you have been to our flat, you know the dining room in morning.  Fred was on Google chat still awake, though he knew he shouldn't be (direct quote), after a life sci exam. The live video was from The Other 99 and this is the cereal.

As I took in my tasty fiber and 1-of-5-a-day fruits, I watched police call for the campers to leave Zuccotti Park, then surround the place and carry out those few that would not leave.  The garbage trucks came in to collect all the detritus, then the park was power-washed. Zuccotti Park now is clear.

From The New York Times

I saw a fair amount of taunting on the live stream. Some indignation, some cooperation and understanding.  Mostly people were standing around wondering what was happening and what to do next. Raw video can provide ground truth as well as misinform. We see certain police getting really rough with some people. We also see smoke from cooking fires with people standing around wearing goggles in an attempt to (falsely) communicate that police are using tear gas.

Mayor Bloomberg (known as "Billionaire Bloomberg" by the Occupiers) issued a statement early this morning.  He thanked the police, fire and sanitation departments for their professionalism and reminded us:

No right is absolute and with every right comes responsibilities. The First Amendment gives every New Yorker the right to speak out - but it does not give anyone the right to sleep in a park or otherwise take it over to the exclusion of others - nor does it permit anyone in our society to live outside the law. There is no ambiguity in the law here - the First Amendment protects speech - it does not protect the use of tents and sleeping bags to take over a public space.

No right is absolute and with every right comes responsibilities.  Hmmmm. Why is it that certain segments of our society think that their cause is absolute (of course you want to help starving AIDS babies in Africa) and in their championing, they are above the law and outside the rules?

This bias starts in the schools in a well-intentioned but misguided attempt at community service where, say, students collecting socks for the sick are exempt from rules because, well, come on, they are collecting socks for the sick.  We don't want to be seen as restricting their wonderful intentions or limiting resources for the sick, do we?

We then release these young people into the world with an inflated sense of their self-worth, few group coping skills and without the ability to operate in a genuine democracy.

Fred reported that, as of last night, Occupy Harvard was still there (The Crimson has been faithfully covering events, be sure to read the comments) and one of the biggest impacts was limiting access to the Yard-- the Harvard admin has closed all the gates and are checking IDs.

As of 1500 GMT today Occupy Norwich was still there too.

[sigh] onwards...