Chester Soria: A Texas Native Tries On New York Politics For Size.

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Coming from Texas, Chester Soria, a first year student at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York City, is not a stranger to size. Standing at well over 6 feet tall himself, Soria is a native Houston, Texas, the largest city in the 2nd biggest state of the union.

With a passion for all things political, Chester presently writes for ‘The Local’, a New York Times blog about Clinton Hill and Fort Greene, in the very big borough of Brooklyn.

New York City News Service reporter Orlando Rodriguez caught up with Chester to talk about why he chose CUNY’s Journalism program above the much larger competition, his previous journalism experience and the big plans he has to make a huge splash on the craft.

Why CUNY J-School?
[audio:http://cdn.journalism.cuny.edu/blogs.dir/384/files/2011/11/Chester-Soria-Interview-part-1.mp3|titles=Chester On Why CUNY J-School]

On Politics In Texas
[audio:http://cdn.journalism.cuny.edu/blogs.dir/384/files/2011/11/Chester-Soria-Interview-part-3.mp3|titles=Chester Soria On Texas]

Learning The New York Political Landscape
[audio:http://cdn.journalism.cuny.edu/blogs.dir/384/files/2011/11/Chester-Soria-Interview-part-4.mp3|titles=Chester Soria Interview part 4]

The Relevance of ‘Hyper-Local’ Journalism
[audio:http://cdn.journalism.cuny.edu/blogs.dir/384/files/2011/11/Chester-Soria-Interview-part-2.mp3|titles=Chester Soria Interview part 2]

Fighting For His Individuality

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Hatuey Rodriguez, age 15, travels each day alone from the leafy suburb of Fort Lee, NJ to the rough and tumble streets South Bronx to learn how to fight at the Willis Avenue Boxing Club. President of his sophomore class, Rodriguez is more focused on attending college, than being popular in high school which he describes as not being easy. Boxing he says, has helped him feel more confident that the path he is choosing in the mist of a world of intense peer pressure is the best one for him.

Less work for less pay? Survey results say “No way”

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The results are in!

In late September I surveyed readers about my possible solution to the jobs crisis. Here’s a quick recap: lots of Americans are out of work — 15% are unemployed or underemployed, according to the BLS’s most important statistic — but at the same time, many people with solid jobs are overemployed. As analyst Juliet Schor noted in her book The Overworked American, Americans have come to work more hours per week and get far less vacation time than workers in most other industrialized countries.

I wondered: would people like to work less each week, for less pay? Or get more vacation in exchange for less pay? If so, could this help solve the jobs crisis?

Among our 28 respondents, the answer was a resounding, “No way.”

When asked whether they would like to work reduced hours for reduced pay, almost three times as many respondents said “No” than “Yes.” And while more than half of respondents said they don’t get enough vacation time, only a third said they’d be willing to trade less pay for more vacation.

You might expect that people working more hours would have greater interested in the kind of tradeoff I proposed. But surprisingly, at least among our unscientific sample, there’s a strong effect in the opposite direction. Those who work 40 hours or more are far less likely to be interested in taking a pay cut in exchange for working fewer hours:

And the same trend holds when I asked about vacation time:

Overall, respondents were pretty clear that the “less work for less pay” model was not a viable option for them. The issue may boil down to this, as one respondent commented:

Even though the tradeoff I proposed doesn’t seem to be a popular idea here, other comments made clear that not everyone is happy with their work-life-income balance.

 I may run a second survey that specifically targets folks who have jobs that both require many hours each week and pay enough that they could realistically consider a pay cut. This version might also try to segment the results by profession or job type. In the meantime, who’s got a different bright idea about how to fix the economy?

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The Timmy Loves Julie Show

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Timmy Wood and Julie Gomez are newlyweds. In their five years together (or six depending on which one you ask), they’ve gone through a period long-distance, a break up and a move to New York during one of the roughest economic climates. Through it all, however, they do the one thing that brought them together: laugh.

Wood is a comedy writer and improv actor, and Gomez is a producer at New York’s Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater. They met on stage when they were in their late teens in Texas, and continue to share the stage durin their occasional “Timmy Loves Julie” showcase.

In Times Square, the center of the comic-book universe

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“We’re too modest to say so,” says Gerry Gladston, co-owner of Midtown Comics, “but people tell us we’re the largest comic-book retailer in the United States.”

Below, Gladston gives us a tour of their Times Square store, where two floors are filled with everything from rare, vintage collectibles to the latest editions, which arrive fresh off the press each Wednesday.

Young Boxer Fights To Be Himself (Audio Slideslow)

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Hatuey Rodriguez, age 15, travels each day alone from the leafy suburb of Fort Lee, NJ to the rough and tumble streets South Bronx to learn how to fight at the Willis Avenue Boxing Club. President of his sophomore class, Rodriguez is more focused on attending college, than being popular in high school, which he describes as not being easy. Boxing he says, has helped him feel more confident that the path he is choosing in the mist of a world of intense peer pressure, is the best one for him.

A day in the life of Ollie’s Place

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Ollie’s Place, on E 14th Street between 1st Avenue and Avenue A, provides a home for about a dozen stray cats at a time. An offshoot of the dog shelter Mighty Mutts, the East Village location has been operating for the past several years after a former Midtown storefront caught fire. Ollie’s Place is a small non-profit entirely run by volunteers.

Kat Herskovits, who has been working at Ollie’s Place for nearly three years, talks about the shelter’s daily routine.

Halloween and Coming to America

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Rita’s family emigrated to the United States from Kharkov, USSR when she was three-years-old, hoping for a better life. Twenty years later her father is a successful IT expert, her mother is a renowned match-maker in Brooklyn’s Jewish community, her sister is a Wall Street attorney, and Rita is a rising star in the NYC fashion scene.

For her and many other immigrants, coming to master Halloween has been a big part of their assimilating to American life. She talks about this experience here.