Diane

About Diane Pagen

Diane was born in Queens, New York and grew up in Woodside Houses and later in Bayside and Lefrak City. She is a social worker, a social policy researcher, analyst and writer. She has taught social welfare policy to first year graduate social work students. Diane is particularly passionate about implementing ideas to improve and repair the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grants and educating people on the diversion of these block grants by state welfare bureaucracies, a phenomenon that has been aggravating poverty nationally since the 1990s. She loves to read and to write, and watch Scandinavian police and crime series and political thrillers such as Wallender and Baron Noir. Diane is fluent in Spanish and pretty good in French thanks to having lived in Puerto Rico for five years. Diane has a special passion for México and Central America, and would like to help make better U.S./Latin America policy as these are our best neighbors. She enjoys gardening, and reading and writing, as well as discussing politics with her students, her friends, and with just about anyone who can talk. In 2021, Diane was illegally fired from her job as a public servant school social worker when she invoked her rights and refused to take a Covid vaccine in New York City. She has been protesting the Covid19 vaccine mandatesand its continued violation of the Civil Rights and Constitutional Rights of New York's workers since 2021, working hard to help NYC workers be reinstated to the jobs they were forced out of. Her favorite part of The Bible is Matthew. She is an activist for a Universal Basic Income and part of Basic Income NYC, a bunch of people who get together to spread Basic Income to others. She supports Andrew Yang for the U.S. Presidency in 2020. Diane is a graduate of the Universidad de Puerto Rico, where she studied for five years and graduated with honors, and has a Master of Social Work from Fordham University (2004). Thanks to the UPR, she has learned to speak Spanish. She has also lived in Spain and in France, and wants to retire to Colombia if the US continues to fall into the toilet. She is working on a bunch of things including a book chapter for a book about UBI coming out in 2020. Diane lives in Brooklyn.

Congressional Spinelessness/Libya

Congress has once again disappointed the American public with its spineless refusal to put weight behind its words. Today it voted to "oppose" the war in Libya while continuing to fund it. Um, guess what? That is the same as supporting it. I am thoroughly disgusted by the state of foreign (and domestic) affairs in this country. [...]

By |2016-04-06T04:54:37-04:00June 24th, 2011|Uncategorized|2 Comments

Father’s Days

In New York City there is a Fatherhood Initiative. In 2010, the mayor of the city created a service program meant to help fathers be more involved with their children, particularly fathers who no longer live with their children because they are no longer in relationships with the women they fathered children with. One thing [...]

By |2016-10-23T02:33:06-04:00June 23rd, 2011|Uncategorized|0 Comments

More real news of the U.S.

Yesterday I learned that back in March, a U.S. soldier, Jeremy Morlock, was sentenced to 24 years in prision for his role in murdering Afgani civilians. The three victims were killed for entertainment. The soldiers, including Jeremy Morlock of Washington state, planned skirmishes that could later presumably justify using deadly force. Photos they took as souvenirs [...]

By |2011-06-22T12:51:00-04:00June 22nd, 2011|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Professor Java in Albany, New York

Dear Friends: The coffee house Professor Java in Albany promises to help patrons to escape reality. Today I really need to escape it! I just found out a few things. For one, when I got into the car in Delaware County at 11:25 to drive up here, Queens Congressman Anthony Weiner was still claiming that someone [...]

By |2016-04-06T04:53:33-04:00June 6th, 2011|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Black women’s reproductive rights

Now that that pesky billboard bearing awful news about the frequency of abortion among black women (59% of all pregnancies, according to the website it leads you to) has been removed, we can all go back to treating abortion as a sacred cow, not open for discussion lest the right to it be taken away. [...]

By |2016-04-06T04:50:03-04:00February 27th, 2011|Uncategorized|0 Comments

More about welfare bashing

Dear State Senator John Bonacic (New York): Thank you for your reply on October 8th to my letter regarding the distribution of a bit of extra to welfare recipients this summer. In response, I begin by drawing your attention to the opinion of prominent economists working at the international and national levels who are far [...]

By |2016-10-23T02:33:07-04:00February 19th, 2011|Uncategorized|0 Comments
Go to Top