Cindy E. Rodríguez

The beta site for my class website is up: LincolnSquareNews.org.

It’s under construction. Under my list of things to do: create a nicer header with perhaps a logo. Or maybe a header that is a mashup of photos taken by my students?

I still want to move around some content and add better widgets. I’m on the lookout for a news ticker that would give me local feeds, with a dash of national and international headlines. But I must get back to my master’s thesis and once I’m done (end of August!), I’ll be able to spend more time playing with the CSS.

We’ll be running a hyperlocal site that focuses on the historic neighborhood of Lincoln Square. Heck, it’s so historic, I didn’t even know it was an official neighborhood. It’s always been lumped into the Upper West Side. The boundaries have changed a bit since it was first declared a neighborhood, back in 1906. Back then, it was a short square, confined by Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues between 63rd and 66th street.

Today, the Lincoln Square Business Improvement District has a map that defines it as starting at Columbus Circle, moving north along Broadway to 70th street, then back down south, along Amsterdam, but the city defines it slightly differently, and so do realtors and Almighty New York Times, which has kept better historical records of the city than City Hall.

Besides, a square isn’t a square unless it’s a square. So, for the purposes of this class we’ll be defining it as the same way the Times does, from 59th Street on the South, to 72nd Street to to north, along Central Park West on the East, and the Hudson River on the West.

New York Times graphic

And now to answer the question… Lincoln what, Lincoln who? Guess who Lincoln Square was named for?

It’s a mystery, according to this cool piece that ran in the NYT last year.  You’ll find it right after the jump. Continue reading →

I had to share this Tweet®* from FakeAPStylebook. I like their definition for pay walls.

But perhaps that is the best way to monetize news websites that specialize? Those who think it’s the way to go don’t care so much if the number of page views plummet, as long as the willing handful pay up. In some ways, pay walls are elitist. Aren’t we supposed to be informing the citizenry so this can be a stronger democracy?

* I don’t want to get a cease a desist letter from Twitter, claiming I infringed on their trademark, hence the capital T on Tweet. But why do they even get to register it, anyway?

I am a product of the Roman Catholic Church. It was my birthright: my parents were Catholic, and so where my grandparents. The Church had a monopoly in the countries my mom and dad came from — Puerto Rico and Cuba, respectively.

So, even though I grew up in Manhattan — a vastly different island with countless other faiths to choose from — my parents, understandably, raised me Catholic. They baptized me, paid for Catechism classes, and sent me to Catholic schools, where the curriculum was infused with Church teachings. There, I also had to attend church with my class every Friday and still attend Mass on Sundays.

I like to say that I put in my time, spending years of my life understanding Church doctrine. But the perpetual hypocrisy of the Church gnawed at me until I decided I could not longer be a part of an institution that has not atoned for waging war in the name of Jesus, enslaving others, and its brutal treatment of Jews and other “non-believers.”

Read the rest of this blog entry on HuffPo: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cindy-rodr/why-fallen-catholics-like_b_531673.html

Ten simple things you can do to help save the Earth

1. BYOB. (Bring your own bag to supermarkets.) Reject plastic bags; on your way out tell the store manager that plastic bags that are not biodegradable are harmful to the environment. I’m shocked at how often I encounter someone who doesn’t know this. It’s our duty to help inform people. Continue reading →