The Maul Of America

A “city within a city” it’s not

Great Lakes Bulletin News Service

If you only have $269 for a 15-minute wedding and don’t mind renting a bridal gown on the spot then The Chapel of Love at the Mall of America is the place to tie the knot. After the first kiss, the matrimonial celebration can include strolling through any of 520 stores, dining at 50 restaurants, taking in a movie on 14 screens, or riding the roller coaster at Camp Snoopy.

The Mall of America calls itself “a city within a city.” But the Drew Carey Show snuggled just as close to the truth when it said heaven was “the only place other than the Mall of America that actually lives up to the hype.”

Indeed, the nation’s largest shopping center, which last month celebrated its 12th birthday, claims it has everything a visitor could possibly want in an urban environment. Nonsense. The mall boasts none of the real and durable civic equipment that an authentic city can offer — green spaces, outdoor cafes, bike lanes, quality jazz clubs, sporting events, or a river running through it. What the mall presents, besides The Chapel of Love, is a climate-controlled 4.2 million square-foot retail riot large enough to house 32 Boeing 747’s, and so busy that the building is now one of the top tourist attractions in the United States.

Assessment: Consumerism and Escapism
But step back and really look at this enormous building, with its skylights and carpeted halls, and crowds. There is no doubt that the Mall of America is a ready display of American culture’s addiction to consumerism and the myth that personal possessions will boost self-esteem. It’s also an outpost of a half-century of urban design predicated on the notion that America has enough room, energy, wealth, and moxie to continue building drive-up giant market places that sooner, rather than later, get thrown away. The idea has real resonance here. The nation’s first fully-enclosed shopping mall was actually built 50 years ago at the nearby Southdale Mall.

The Mall of America also represents the gradual failure of that idea. Although Southdale is still going strong, dozens of older malls across the nation have closed or are in economic trouble. Not far from the Mall of America, the 43-year-old Apache Plaza in St. Anthony Village closed earlier this year. The reason: its design, like other malls, did not provide for the flexibility to readily adjust to changing retail markets and consumer tastes.

The developers of the Mall of America tried to respond to this nagging little flaw by joining three of the top American recreational priorities of the moment — shopping, eating, and access to a well-equipped amusement park. But even amid the din of the thousands of people who visit every day, it’s easy to predict that this distinctive mix has a limited life.

The Anti-Mall: Cities are Alive
The same is not necessarily true for cities, which are experiencing an awakening in the United States. New York’s population is growing. Chicago is a showcase of cleaner and greener design principles built around providing residents more access to fresh water and the Lake Michigan shoreline. Instead of mere sources of constant stimulation, cities offer a durable setting for another human priority that is gaining favor in America: the notion of being around other people in beautiful urban places with parks, and trees, rivers, buildings, music, and art. What Americans take away from a day in the city does not just fit into a shopping bag.

The two major cities that overlook the Mall of America also are among the best places to live in the United States, in part because they possess an interesting past, a vibrant present, and a promising future. Minneapolis, and its twin brother St. Paul, offer an experience no mall can match — whether you’re interested in partying with the posh young folk in Minneapolis’ Uptown district, taking a leisurely bike ride along the Mississippi River or even attending a live broadcast of Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion at the historic Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. In fact, these cities boast the most theaters per capita of anywhere in the world other than Manhattan. And that makes the Twin Cities something of a well-kept cultural secret in the Midwest.

Cities More Competitive Than Malls
Cities like Minneapolis and St. Paul also are much better positioned for the meta-economic, demographic, fiscal, and lifestyle trends that will reshape the United States in the 21st century. The American population is expected to soar to 420 million people by mid-century, according to the U.S. Census, 140 million more than today. Energy costs, led by crude oil shortages, are expected to continue climbing rapidly, putting the nation’s drive-through economy at risk. Fiscal restraints caused by voters unwillingness to invest in energy-efficient transportation — like light rail and high-speed trains — will make urban centers that already have that equipment less mired in traffic congestion, less expensive, less stressful, and more economically competitive than the grid-locked suburbs.

Perhaps that is one reason why the Mall of America attracts 37.5 million people annually. It’s a fantasy setting thoroughly disengaged from what’s coming. This monumental collection of stores, restaurants and amusements under one roof clearly represents an era’s reaching for values that appear fleeting. Though filled today, the Mall of America seems destined to be emptied sooner than its builders ever imagined.

Within the Grand Old Party, contradictions abound

From ketchup, to abortion, to invading Iraq, dissent permeates the RNC

Utne.com

NEW YORK (Friday, September 4) -- At the outset, my mission seemed like a tough one. Walking into the Republican National Convention on the very evening that the party’s appointed Christ-like savior, George W. Bush, would accept his nomination to occupy the saddle for “Four more years”, I didn’t expect to find contradictions and dissent seeping from within the bowels of the party into Madison Square Garden after a week of unified messages.

But there they were around every corner. In the Bell South Media Hospitality Lounge in the basement of the Farley Building, where journalists devoured their fill of hot dogs, chips, cookies, beer and soda all week, I pointed out to a Republican Party official the brand of ketchup lurking in the condiment tray. HEINZ Tomato Ketchup! “How did this get past security?” I asked incredulously. Fronting my best Texan dialect, I yelled, “Don’t you know that you are supporting Teresa Heinz Kerry’s cash cow?” I reminded him that the woman in question is married to the man whose manhood is being questioned by the politicians upstairs. The Republican returned a blank stair. “It’s just business as usual, sir,” he said.

Yes, indeed. I spent the rest of the evening jotting down names of corporations that helped foot the bill for both the Democratic and the Republican National Conventions.
Later, upstairs, I took advantage of free haircuts and manicures paid for by the Republican Party. Let’s see if I can rehash this, prose style:

“A matre’de with a hair dew primped up by gel and wearing a tight, silk shirt exposing much of his chest offered me a Stella Artois as I waited my turn in the barber stool. Ten minutes later the hairdresser (who requested to remain anonymous) gently chided me, and all the other out-of-town journalists, for my uncouth appearance. She told me I wouldn’t get far with a lady in Manhattan, or in Europe, looking like that. I thought, ‘can this really be the Republican National Convention?’

I apologized, pulled myself into interview form, and asked what she thought of the hairstyles of America’s leading politicians. “George Bush, he’s got to do something about that fuzzy thing he’s got on his head,” was her initial reply. “How about John Kerry?” I prodded. “For an old man, he’s got a good looking hairstyle,” she answered. Later I would learn that, from the hairdressers perspective, Dick Cheney was “hopeless,” John Edwards was “gorgeous,” and Donald Rumsfeld was “definitely NOT sexy.” I didn’t ask about Paul Wolfowitz applying his own hair spit in “Fahrenheit 911”.

Onwards, in search of the truth.

Just as they were at the DNC in Boston, the bloggers offer intelligent and sincere perspectives, regardless of their political affiliation. Josh Trevino, who writes the conservative online diary RedState.org, admitted that he and his colleagues wouldn’t have been invited to the RNC had the Democratic Party not beaten the Republicans to the chase. There was one glaring difference, though. The Democrats accepted credential applications from hundreds of bloggers, eventually inviting more than 35 to their gala in Boston in late July. The Republicans then handpicked 15, based on the political sway of their content. Needless to say, I didn’t expect Trevino to offer any criticisms of the Bush administration. I was wrong, though it’s no secret whom he’ll vote for in November.

“Shocking as it may seem to Utne’s readership, I don’t think Bush is actually conservative enough,” Trevino said. “The critique that he has grown government far too much without finding a way to pay for it is entirely valid.

“Socially and foreign policy-wise he’s pretty good. However, I would not say that the administration’s justification for (invading Iraq) is the same as my justification. When the Saddam-Bin Laden link is invoked, it’s certainly invoked in the context that Saddam had something to do with 9-11. And that’s not true.

“There needs to be a proper reorganization of what’s going on in the Middle East. (This war needs to be) properly executed, with maybe three times as many troops.” (Are you listening, Mr. Rumsfeld?)

I asked several Republican delegates about the decision to invade Iraq given what information we have now, and most of their answers always seemed incredibly rehearsed, as if they had recited them each morning upon waking up … or heard them rehearsed on Fox News. Nowadays, most delegates paid as much attention to the question of the Weapons of Mass Destruction as they would a tip jar at a café.

“So what if we didn’t find the WMD’s. Freeing 25 million people is justification alone,” said Bruce Motheral, a delegate from Texas. Helen LaRue, an alternate delegate from New Jersey, said she didn’t want to get into a discussion over the war in Iraq, just seconds after admitting to me that, “we do lack debate here” at the convention. “Iraq is a tough topic,” she said. “I don’t want to discuss it because I know that not everyone agrees with me, and I don’t like to debate. But I do have my personal feelings.” She followed that with, “I’m not saying we shouldn’t talk about it, but my personal opinion is that we have very good elected officials who know all the ins and outs of this situation. They’re the ones who should be on top of it. I believe in George W. Bush.”

Huh? Who’s the flip-flopper now?

Other issues that created rifts, though subtle, especially among female delegates, were abortion, gay marriage and children’s education. A delegate from Utah, who spoke to me on the subway under the condition that she remained anonymous, told me she has definite issues with the administration’s No Child Left Behind act.

Kerry Brownson, a young delegate from Idaho, offered a poignant criticism of the nature of the convention. “I personally think I might like a little more debate,” she said while getting out of her tour bus at Madison Square Garden. “You kind of hear the same things over and over again. They attack the other party over and over again without stating differences between the two.

“Specifically, I have mixed opinions on the abortion issue. And I do support gay marriage, whereas the Republican Party doesn’t. I would like more debate about those issues, because I think if I was more informed (at the convention) I might be able to understand where the party is coming from. Also, I think that (the invasion of Iraq) needed to be done, but not under the pretenses that were used.”

Debbie Turner, another Texan, also admitted that she “has trouble with the pro-life stance.”

What also baffled many Republican delegates were the protestors all over New York City. To many, they apparently seemed like unwashed, uneducated anarchists just released from the zoo who exalted a common platform of primal ignorance. Brownson said the protestors “provided for great entertainment” and called them “the highlight of my week.”

Turner didn’t think that many of the protestors were from New York in the first place. When told that many of the protest organizations that marched last week were based in New York and that more than 80 percent of New Yorkers registered with a political party are Democrats, Turner answered that, “Just because you’re a Democrat doesn’t mean you are going to be a protestor,” adding that she didn’t pay much attention to them because, “most have no idea what they are protesting about, They were just protesting.”

Though I didn’t agree with his politics or his perspectives, my heart went out to Johnny Horn, who I found staring toward the arena of Madison Square Garden with tears streaming down his cheeks. Horn is an African American, a Vietnam veteran and a candidate for state representative in Chattanooga, Tennessee on the Republican platform.

“My emotions were set off out watching the protestors,” he said candidly. “I’m perplexed that we’re not all one accord like in every other war we’ve fought except for maybe Vietnam. The Republicans are saying we have to proactively fight terrorism. The others are saying we have to take a softer approach. But what happens to the guy in the middle? Many people have no idea how ruthless our enemies really are.”

Horn vehemently disagreed with the scenario I described in “Fahrenheit 911” in which blacks in Florida are victimized as their votes are disproportionately nullified during the 2000 election. And he applauded Bush for going into Iraq because now the terrorists “are busy defending their home turf in Iraq, so they can’t focus on us in New York.” Horn is convinced that if John Kerry wins the election in November, “they” will strike within six months.

Amidst all this doomsday talk, I listened eagerly for Bush to drop hints as to the whereabouts of the big fish, Osama bin Laden, during his acceptance speech. I was left wanting. I hadn’t learned the location of the terrorists, but I did know where the dissent and contradictions were. Right here at home.

Mammoth security force, aggressive police can’t stop protestors

Code Pink “Cinderella” loses her shoe at the ball -- tackled, escorted out by Secret Service

Utne.com

NEW YORK (Friday, September 3) – Activists who had hungered all week for a victory in their cold war against the New York Police Department and the massive security force that engulfed this city like a plague during the Republican National Convention finally notched a couple symbolic wins on its final day.

Outside the gala, anti-Bush protestors gathered at the Criminal Courts Building celebrated judge John Cataldo’s decision to hold the city in contempt and fine the NYPD $1,000 for every demonstrator jailed during the week without charges who had not been released by 6 p.m., Thursday. The crowd congregated near Centre Street to show solidarity with their fellow activists who had been arrested for protesting the Convention and held, sometimes for as many as 60 hours in sickly, unsanitary conditions at Pier 57 or in the Criminal Courts Building.


“There was a big crowd of protestors in the courtroom who weren’t allowed to cheer because it was a court environment, but after my hearing took about 30 seconds, I turned around and they all gave me a thumbs up and a smile,” John Cheatwood, an activist who traveled here from Florida and missed his ride home because of his incarceration that lasted almost two days. When Cheatwood exited onto the street he was met by cheers and well-wishers. “It really helped being in there knowing that all of these people were out here fighting for us. We weren’t just forgotten.”

Upwards of 2,000 detainees, some of whom were not protesting, simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and corralled into the NYPD’s orange netting during numerous police roundups, were forced to sleep on cement floors reeking of oil, other chemicals and asbestos in the now infamous pier on the Hudson River, and given mostly stale bologna sandwiches to eat during their ordeal. Many, though, were vegetarians.
The incarcerated found other uses for the paltry food. They reportedly played soccer, using the bologna sandwiches as goalposts and paper cups rolled up into soccer balls. Singing and dancing also helped keep up their spirits.

A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union explained to the crowd waiting outside the Courts Building for the release of their friends and family that the detainees essentially “didn’t exist” and “had no rights as citizens” until they were formally charged by the city. Once they regained their rights as citizens, some protestors faced prosecutors for as few as14 seconds before they were released onto the street, uncharged.

The anti-Bush army registered another victory inside Madison Square Garden on Thursday night as two members of the feminist, anti-war group, Code Pink, evaded the secret service’s Iron Curtain grip on security and found strategic seats. Jody Evans was in the press section under a giant Fox News skybox, and June Brashares, also affiliated with the group Global Exchange, made it to the arena floor, sitting with the California delegation a mere 50 feet from George W. Bush. According to plan, they waited until Bush mentioned Iraq in his nomination acceptance speech, as the clock ticked toward 11 p.m., and then attacked -- first Brashares, then Evans.

Brashares had been waving an American flag and yelling in support of the Republicans all night, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, when she suddenly jumped up on her chair that California Governor Pete Wilson had vacated for her, and yelled “Bush Lies” while touting a homemade banner. Shortly thereafter, Evans removed her dress to reveal a pink slip and the words Fire Bush -- Women say bring the troops home now. Each was drowned out by the crowd chanting “Four More Years” at an inopportune moment in Bush’s speech.

Within seconds Evans and Brashares were tackled by beefy secret service agents as if the women were running toward the end zone with oblong pigskins in their hands. Both were dragged out of the arena immediately, arrested and held overnight. Evans left her purse, her cell phone and her shoe behind in the scuffle, but, more importantly, made her mark on the evening. Though brief, the disruption poked a symbolic hole in the Republicans’ belief that they could hold their convention in New York City and avoid all dissent within their gala.

Calling the secret service’s tactics this week strong-handed would be a gross understatement. Time and time again the feds employed an aggressive, football mentality to deal with dissenters who found a way into Madison Square Garden -- not to harm anyone, but to exercise the First Amendment. Under the guise of preventing terrorist attacks, the men with phone cords protruding from their left ears were given free reign to treat others as they liked.

Code Pink founder Gael Murphy, who snuck into the Garden on Wednesday only to be tackled by security, worried that Brashares would be charged with assault for simply trying to break free from her assailants.

This journalist was also assaulted and detained by feds and ultimately escorted out of the convention center by five cops on Wednesday night, for merely trying to enter the arena floor with a pass that confined him to the perimeter of the Garden.
In the end, the secret service will not face any repercussion for their over-paranoid, brute tactics in New York this week. On the other hand, the law brought the NYPD to its knees with its verdict at the Criminal Courts Building in lower Manhattan. And the symbolic right to free speech had won out over the feds.

A stone’s throw from Ground Zero, the pain endures

Inside the Garden, the Republicans capitalize on New York’s pain. Outside, the police cause more anguish by clamping down on dissent

Utne.com

NEW YORK (August 31) — Stand in the middle of Central Park and rotate ‘round and ‘round, blinking your eyes continuously. You’ll see shirtless Asian boys learning to kick box, Latinos jamming to a boom box, an older white couple sharing a bottle of Chardonnay, Africans playing chess. These are snapshots not of America, but of New York, the world’s city that culturally belongs to every nation and no nation at the same time.

But listen to the rhetoric seeping out of Madison Square Garden this week, more specifically the words of Michael Bloomberg and Rudolph Giuliani, and you may trick yourself into believing that the Big Apple represents the United States, or that most New Yorkers actually feel a connection with Iowans, Texans or Idahoans, the likes of whom have invaded Manhattan this week for the Republican National Convention.


George W. Bush’s supporters from the heartland hark back to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 compulsively, as if their right to continue breathing fresh air after this November depends on it. But many of the outsiders swarming the streets don’t seem to get the message that New Yorkers have for them: “Don’t use our pain for your political gain!”

The gaping hole that was created in lower Manhattan almost three years ago left a void in the hearts and psyche of many locals. Most cried; many screamed; some chanted “USA, USA, USA” where the World Trade Center towers once stood; and many supported the Bush administration’s decision to invade Afghanistan to root out the culprits. But a Republican National Convention boasting an oversimplified message to reelect an unpopular incumbent blending into New York City’s worldly, progressive and complex culture is like oil and water mixing. Don’t count on it.

“If using the legacy of September 11 is a publicity stunt, it’s a bad stunt,” said Dorsett Santos at the Poor People’s March on Tuesday. “This is the only thing Bush can write on his presidential resume. But New York does not want to be known for that.”

Larry Nodarse touted a sign at Ground Zero yesterday reading, RNC delegates, Stop exploiting the mass murder of 2,749 people on September 11, 2001. He talked to me about his rage as a homeless man nearby played “Amazing Grace” on his flute:
“Using the deaths of people to further a political cause is disgraceful. I don’t think that any political party should have held their convention here. It wouldn’t be quite as appalling if the Democrats had because they’ve done it before. At least they have a history of embracing New York.

“The Republicans have never embraced New York. I’m not talking about all conservatives, but a good majority of conservatives, especially in the heartland have always looked down on New York, seen it as sin city, Sadom and Gomorrah — little lefty, pinko, Commy town. Suddenly when September 11 happens they try to embrace New York and make it their own, and try to adopt it as the symbol of their party. I think it’s sick that they tried to push the calendar as far back to nearly coincide with the anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

“Rudolph Giuliani’s speech (Monday night) really offended me, talking about a guy who jumped out of the 102nd floor (of the World Trade Center). How dare he use somebody’s death to push forward George W. Bush’s reelection. Who knows whom that guy was.”
At St. Paul’s Cathedral next to Ground Zero, yesterday, protestors from New York and the United States alike clashed head-on with the black-and-white message the Bush administration has forced on the people since that awful day three years ago: “You are in constant danger. Obey orders, and above all, conform.”

New York City Police arrested upwards of 200 activists who sought to march from St. Paul’s Cathedral, next to the epicenter of the post-September 11-world, to Madison Square Garden to protest the Republican Party’s abuse of this city’s pain as a means to get reelected in two months. Though they didn’t have a permit to March, organizers were given temporary permission to do so by the NYPD as long as they stuck to the sidewalks and didn’t disrupt traffic. After walking one block, the arrests began.

In what have become ordinary scenes all over New York this week, the police roped in protestors with an orange net, slowly condensing the crowd as if they were rounding up cattle, then made them wait for hours as paddy wagons and tour buses with NYPD labels on them came to take the activists away. Some were not even part of the march, just unlucky pedestrians caught up in a police action whose message was handed down through the Secret Service in Washington, which takes over for local police whenever the president is coming to town. Representatives of the National Lawyer’s Guild in their light green baseball caps were also among the fenced-in.

A young man wearing a Fuck Censorship shirt yelled to journalists, “I don’t think Bush should be here manipulating 9-11” as the police handcuffed him.

All over the city yesterday, anti-RNC activists were getting the picture. Now that the Convention has started, there would be no more permits, no more marching, no more opportunities for mobile free speech. Sunday’s successful half-a-million-man march was a thing of the past. A four-block area around Madison Square Garden had been closed off, and the city’s police force had been ceded to the Republican Party. Battle lines had formed.

Police arrested more than 900 in a single day, The New York Times reported — at the New York Public Library, at a “Die In” protest on 28th Street just south of the convention, at Ground Zero, even inside the Garden, where Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin got within spitting distance of Dick Cheney before she was subdued.

And with two days left before George W. Bush would take the stage at the Garden to accept his party’s nomination amidst the cries of protest all over New York City, the police paddy wagons waited to fill up another batch of upset activists.