More Shots from Occupy Wall Street

One of the most interesting thing at Occupy Wall Street are the hundreds of cardboard box tops that have been taken up by pretty much anyone who wants with their thoughts and quotes. Passersby walk slowly through the area, reading all the signs, and sometimes adding their own.  Some people sit there holding signs, too. One lady's read: "I walk dogs for a living, and they have more health insurance than I do."

I was very struck by that quote in the center, not only because it's from Jefferson and seems so prescient to our struggles in recent years, but because some of the very bankers whose institutions have proven so destructive continue to take huge salaries, rake in huge profits for their business often at the expense of their consumers, and speak out so strongly against banking reform. In what other industry, I wonder, can you rip people off so fundamentally and be rewarded for it? The mob and political spin doctors are the only other professions I could come up with...

One of the other things I love about the stuff at Occupy Wall Street is its willingness to look beyond politics to the bigger human questions, as well. There's so much pressure to conform and to take jobs that are safe, to become cogs in the system. But I always think of the end of Mary Oliver's poem "The Summer Day": "Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?"