Dear President Obama,

I am writing to you (and to any other American who wishes to share in this) because I, like many Americans, want to help our country get back on track. Call it a cry for help or a public plea of a distressed citizen, but I digress.

My personal situation is hardly the worst it could be: I’m a graduate student living with my parents and partially self-funding my education with my own personal savings (I’m taking out loans for the rest). On the other hand, I graduated in May of 2010 and have worked a total of only five months since then at a variety of jobs, always for $12 an hour or less. Compared to other people my age, I consider myself to be incredibly lucky.

I did not know what to expect when I decided to go to New York on Saturday to check out Occupy Wall Street. In fact, I had only opted to go after seeing the now famous footage of police brutality, courtesy of inspector Anthony Bologna aka “Tony Baloney”(video). I had originally planned to go with a couple of friends, but that did not pan out. For a moment I was hesitant to go by myself because I rarely travel to New York City, let alone get involved in a protest in which people have been beaten, pepper sprayed, and arrested. But I decided to go anyway.

I avoided the enigma that is #OccupyWallStreet for nearly two weeks, despite it essentially taking place in my backyard. However, this past Friday I made my way down to Zuccotti Park around 2pm, to experience it for myself. Well, that is not completely true. I originally left work early on Friday, with a Canon 5D Mark II (with a 70-200mm 2.8 L lens) and Nikon D3s (with a 35mm f/1.4 lens) in hand (how’s that for democracy?!), at my boss’ suggestion, due to circulating rumors that Radiohead would be performing in the park around 4pm. I was to shoot the show, if it happened, for Sound and Vision Magazine. Those rumors proved false—and that is probably for the best.

Time was when your family could make something or buy the somethings your neighbors made, hang a sign on the front of your house and enough neighbors and visitors would walk by and step into your mom-and-pop store that you could make a decent living being a “merchant”.

I have been struggling all week to write about the Rally to Restore Sanity, which Alex and I attended in Washington D.C. last Saturday. At first I thought I was just tired after having driven one thousand miles to D.C. from Boston and back. I had many conversations with people about the Rally, and was able to speak about it with ease. Why then could I not strap down my thoughts to some loose leaf? Why?

New Jersey State AFL-CIO Touts
Labor Gains in Tuesday’s Election
TRENTON – Charles Wowkanech, president of the New Jersey State AFL-CIO representing one million union members, today pointed to Linda Greenstein’s capture of a 14th District State Senate seat held by Republicans for two decades as a referendum on Governor Christie’s policies and as evidence of organized labor’s electoral strength.
“Governor Christie himself said on Sunday that ‘the most important race in New Jersey was  Tom Goodwin in the 14th District’,” Wowkanech noted. “We agree. And yesterday, voters in the 14th District …

Hello and welcome to JVP Speaks! In this soon-to-be-a-recurring-feature, contributors will kick-off a discussion on a particular topic by writing on a single prompt. This week the JVP asked itself: are you voting? Why or why not? Feel free to answer the question yourself, comment on any of our answers, and to generally get the ball rolling on this important topic! Here’s what we had to say:

Here is a short photo series from the Rally to Restore Sanity. More pictures to come this week. Expect to see an article from me as well. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these pictures. I hope they make you feel as though you were there.

Sincerely, Matia Guardabascio, Editor-In-Chief

To me, voting seems like less than the least that one can do. And to say that this sort of sentiment breeds apathy is mistaken. You can be civic-minded and active and still not vote. In fact, I’d take a community of people who care about each other and are active participants in each other’s lives over a community of voters any day of the week.

“I think fourteen-year-olds should be allowed to vote,” I told my girlfriend. “Why not thirteen-year-olds?” she asked. “Sure, they can too.” “Twelve-year-olds?” “Sure, why not?” “Eleven-year-olds?” I paused to think. “You, know, I’m not sure how long someone should be a part of a rigorous education system before they’re critically thinking.” “Then how about you can vote when you think you’re ready to vote?” she asked. “Perfect!” I said.