February 28, 2003
"I am just like everyone else."
But he isn't, and for that we are very happy. This story about Detective Francis Coppola and his firefighter partner Eddy appeared in The Hartford Courant this week. Maybe it's a little hokey, but that's part of its strength.Divorced, Coppola...
cyclist wins asylum but remains in jail
In fact he has always been truly free, but the great and tender soul of Reza K. Baluchi was officially granted political asylum yesterday by U.S. immigration judge LaMonte Freerks. Today his body remains in jail, because the INS itself...
Valentine's Day art massacre
Nicolás Dumit Estévez and his performance piece, his art, was assaulted by New York City Police on Valentine's Day. They succeeded in shutting down his activities for the day, but the artist and the work somehow survives. Here he describes...
February 27, 2003
repeat after me, once again, "war is peace"
The little big brother* just doesn't quit. Yesterday Bushie announced once again that we are going to war to make peace. *The three slogans on the white face of the Ministry of Truth: WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE...
seeing more Blue
The Blue Button Project is beginning to take on a life of its own. I've watched it as it evolved out of frustration and horror into a resolve and finally a tool with which to do something about the terror...
profundity from the sports pages
I do look at the sports pages! It's just that I don't look for what most everyone else looks for. Sometimes it's an item about culture, the large-mouth bass, a really hot photograph, a heart-warming human vignet, and sometimes it's...
February 26, 2003
fingering the terrorist promotes terrorism
Some mornings really manage to do what mornings are supposed to do: restore your faith in the world, its beauty and its possibilities. Today I read a NYTimes follow-up on the story of the Michigan high school student who is...
fascism, not democracy, is the natural state
Norman Mailer argues in the International Herald Tribune that "the Bushites" really believe that the only way to save America (from the decadence whose mention makes their "conservative" partners slaver and drool) is to build a military empire. That our...
February 25, 2003
"I have something for people. Love."
A charming and winning young Iranian who knows about war was arrested in Arizona last November as an "illegal" after pedaling around the world for six years in the name of peace. He may be deported.Originally, he planned to end...
February 24, 2003
Bush's binary world
A really snappy OP-ED piece from a, er, Frenchie, was jumping off the page in Sunday's NYTimes. Régis Debray asks when will Washington learn to count to three.["Old Europe"] now knows that the planet is too complex, too definitively plural...
February 23, 2003
liberties enjoyed for two centuries now cancelled
Harvey Wasserman, activist and longtime leader of the anti-nuclear movement, says that, "in terms of basic legal rights and sanctuary from government spying, Americans may be less free under George W. Bush than as British subjects under George III in...
February 22, 2003
Salon is in trouble, perhaps of its own making
In an open letter to the online magazine, Atrios shows that he understands at least part of the reason they aren't making enough money to survive. . . . I have to say that your continued promotion of incoherent lunatics...
NYers smarter than most Americans
And those who live in New York City are the smartest of all. Recent Gallup and Siena polls, when compared, show that the prospect of bombing and invading Iraq is less popular in New York State than in the nation...
instant gratification in Paradise
Musicals bore me, but I love Keith Haring. I also remember the Paradise Garage. So I went to the spanking new musical, "Radiant Baby," last night at the Public Theater. Second row. One of the characters in the production yells...
Joe Ovelman's queer wacky beauty
Joe Ovelman opened a really, really great photography and video show at Daniel Silverstein Gallery last night. We've followed Joe's work, and enjoyed living with a lot of it at home from the very first time he exhibited, so we...
returning to "de jure" racism
I went to the INS Building this morning to be a part of the demonstration against "Special Registration." What I really did was join about two hundred people who are willing to make at least a small fuss about the...
February 21, 2003
we don't do nation-building anymore
This administration does martial plans, not Marshall Plans: billions for offense, not one cent for reconstruction.Paul Krugman speaks of the proud, generous and sensible postwar U.S. which, yes, reconstructed Europe and Japan from ashes, disgrace or penury, bringing victors and...
on why bomb the Iraqis
Barry posts this tonight:I think the logic of all of the people who say anti-war protesters are coddling (or appeasing) a dictator boils down to this: "If those Iraqis knew what was good for them, they would let us bomb...
February 20, 2003
leaving us with a little bit of rights
Isn't there another real New Yorker out there right now besides Jimmy Breslin? Today he writes, just before citing Wayne Barrett in this week's Village Voice, that he usually doesn't quote other people, "because as I have just said, I...
keeping silent about the occupying troops
We can't help Dan'l. Dan'l can't help us. It turns out that he was not being sarcastic when he ended his account of being handcuffed and searched by subway soldiers with assault rifles sunday night by saying, "anyway, i have...
not just for dancing
Great! You still have a chance to see David Neumann's brilliant creation, "Sentence," at P.S. 122. We were there tonight and I can honestly tell you that it was one of the richest theatrical performances I have had the fortune...
February 19, 2003
"GHETTOS'
What an incredibly powerful piece! Nathan Newman compares the new Israeli wall separating Arabs from the Jewish part of Bethelhem to the Warsaw Ghetto.When the Nazi comparison is made, Israel defenders mount the barricades, since the Palestinians are not being...
enlightened and pragmatic
The Israeli author Amos Oz explains why "many decent people of enlightened and pragmatic views oppose an invasion against Iraq."And I do object to an Iraq invasion — because I feel that extremist Islam can be stopped only by moderate...
aerial photographs?
The crowd count? I thought that I had already mentioned the really extraordinary absence of any aerial photographic evidence of the size of the massive New York anti-war protest saturday. I just checked however, and it seems that I had...
we've been blinded
Europeans aren't just being obstructive. Paul Krugman points out that it's just that they can see what is being kept from us. [That man is asking to be sacked!]There has been much speculation why Europe and the U.S. are suddenly...
Bloomberg penned in throngs as if they were cattle
Breslin says that George Bush, the Mayor and the Police Chief's "only excuse could be that they were practicing for the Republican National Convention. That one is going to be the great one." And, "They penned in throngs [Breslin says...
February 18, 2003
what, me worry?
Is it really so dificult to get a picture of the man that doesn't shout his stupidity? Or, is the media finally trying to warn the world? [Make sure you click onto the image for a larger, more delicious version.]...
curtain time!
Broadway is experimenting with earlier showtimes, meaning 7 rather than 8. The change might catch on and become general. Personally, I think 7 o'clock curtains are great! Lunch is normally between 2 and 3 for us, and I couldn't possibly...
"First, let us stop calling it a 'war'."
He's a Brit addressing the Brits, but the argument and the message is the same for us Yanks. John Pilger [excerpt]:First, let us stop calling it a "war". The last time "war" was used in the Gulf was in 1991...
our winter garden is wintry just now
See Barry's magical picture of the view out of our breakfast room window....
we're under occupation already
Barry and I saw soldiers in the subway on Valentine's day, in "camouflage" [no, they weren't wearing tar paper] and armed with assault weapons, but we thought they were, what, just window dressing for the White House's orange alert games?...
February 17, 2003
joy, not havoc
I just want to make it perfectly clear, and right now: I can't speak for the rest of the Northeast, but there is no "havoc" in Manhattan. There is only a beautiful winter wonderland and zillions of people outside enjoying...
February 16, 2003
risking the world just to save face?
We have to gasp involuntarily, both for our history and for our future, reading Maureen Dowd today as she attempts to describe why we will be going to war in Mesopotamia.The painful parts of Washington history have often been about...
happy day
I realize that my blogs about the antiwar events of yesterday may have sounded a bit grumpy all around, so I want to take this opportunity to say that we had a blast! Demonstrations are always good for both the...
a lesson from entertainment news
My nephew, who regrets the limited instrumental recital opportunities available in his home in Brownsville, writes about something like a voice debut, in southern Texas streets February 15.HEY, WHAT ABOUT MY OTHER TWO SECONDS?! Among the millions of peace demonstrators...
antiwarriors please Iraq
That's it? That's the story? The subject of the lead story at this very moment on the CNN site, which is viewed all around the planet, is the millions of people around the world protesting the imminent American war against...
vive La France!
I confess. [But is it ego or wanna-do-good works?] I've always felt that if I'm going to a protest or a demonstration and I don't intend to do something which would risk arrest, I've got to sport a good hand-lettered...
February 15, 2003
the City's shameful role today
Whether there were half a million or a million out there in the sub-freezing wind of the Manhattan canyons today, we should be enormously proud of the achievement, but we can only be horribly ashamed of the city's role in...
February 14, 2003
we're going to peace tomorrow
I'll be starting here. If you're interested in getting a Blue Button, we just updated the web site with more information on how to get one, including a list of galleries that have them. More to appear on the site...
everybody should celebrate in their own special way
MAKE LOVE NOT WAR Yup, this really is the front page of The Mirror today. [Thanks, Otto, John and Howard.]...
February 13, 2003
says Senate is "sleepwalking through history"
Gads, I wish I could have heard the hoary stentorian himself, Senator Robert Byrd, when he was delivering this oration!To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands...
terrorists in the White House
Why are we expecting an imminent low-tech assault, a missile-launcher, a piloted plane missile, an atomic or radioactive dirty bomb, a chemical or biological attack at this time? What has happened to this country that we could completely lose our...
February 12, 2003
"the country we almost made for you"
We saw Lanford Wilson "Fifth of July" in a wonderful production at Signature Theatre tonight. It's just a magnificent play, and it still stands tall and bright in the strength of its political conscience even twenty-five years after it was...
February 10, 2003
CARNIVAL BLOC FEEDER MARCH
The march. Barry and I will be here, in front of the Main Branch of the New York Public Library late saturday morning with the fabulous people of the "CARNIVAL BLOC FEEDER MARCH." If any of our friends are going...
GAY SHAME
It's almost certainly not what you think. GAY SHAME is actually the provocative name of a beautiful group of radical queers in San Francisco which opposes the mainstreaming of the gay community, or what they call "the gay shame." The...
Bush must be made to feel our social threat
This is an excerpt from as essay on ZNet by Michael Albert. It puts the current unprecedented threat to our world into its proper perspective, and it is intended to bring us all into the streets at noon this saturday.Despite...
"America as a gated community won't work"
A piece in TIME on January 20 by Brian Eno [yeah, Brian Eno] represents the argument of a reasonable European who understands and admires America but is very concerned about what's going on here. I won't excerpt it, but will...
living in terror of our own terror
Joan Smith in The Independent asks when we're going to get over it.If anyone had told me, in the autumn of 2001, that we were less than 18 months away from what might become the world's first nuclear war, I...
February 9, 2003
but don't do as we do
Let us get this straight. The Bushies are going into Iraq to prevent that country from using weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear devices and chemical agents. But they have already said that to do so they may use nuclear...
February 8, 2003
excuse me, ah, excuse me, but . . .
Rahul Mahajan in a response to Colin Powell:If one believes everything Colin Powell said to the Security Council yesterday, one's first response ought to be that there's no reason to fight a war, since U.S. surveillance capabilities are so awesome...
sorry, no permit
FREEDOM ITSELF IS ON AN ORANGE ALERT On friday New York City authorities, threatened by the Justice Department in Washington, testified in court about why they are refusing to allow an anti-war march and rally at the UN on Feb....
February 7, 2003
the Olympic spirit
Is this part of the many blessings being promised to New York if certain interests succeed in bringing the Olympics to the City in 2012?Government troops massacred student protesters in Tlatelolco Plaza in Mexico City that night, on the eve...
the nation of New York City
City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. wants the City of New York to leave the State of New York. "We send Albany $3.5 billion more than we receive back," Vallone said. "The state has treated us like an unwanted orphan for...
Genevans see the light
There is a very moving paid announcement on the top right corner of page A8 of today's NYTimes. It consists of the text of a resolution passed by the government of the City of Geneva for submission to the federal...
"because of the people who don't do anything about it."
The complete quote, Albert Einstein's words, goes, "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." Well some righteous and very brave...
are the Kurds the new Poles?
The members of the administration in Washington are either reading their history these days, or they're definitely not. Poland was partitioned and occupied by three autocracies beginning in the eighteenth century and simply disappeared until the end of the First...
Colin Powell is no Adlai Stevenson
Adlai Stevenson's son puts the White House's "good cop" in his place in an OP-ED column today. The administration and the media would like to sell Powell's appearance before the Security Council this week as an "Adlai Stevenson moment." His...
February 6, 2003
war is peace
"The community of free nations can show that it is strong and confident and determined to keep the peace." This is Bush speaking in Washington thursday, just after Colin Powell returned from New York and his mission to pressure the...
"The problem with war is the winner"
Thanks to Thomas Scott Tucker for introducing me to A.J. Muste."There is no way to peace—peace is the way"and, in an ominous warning,"The problem with war is the winner."...
John Cage goes on and on and on
He never stops making us smile, and laugh.The first notes in the longest and slowest piece of music in history, designed to go on for 639 years, are being played on a German church organ on Wednesday. The three notes,...
February 5, 2003
end the manned space program
I have as much of an imagination and as much hope for the possibilities of our species as the next person, and I believe in a space program. I just cannot understand how we can think that incurring the unnecessary...
"Parade For a World Without War"
Ok, this is the one, this is the one! This is where we want to start to stop the war--and Bush! Meet on the steps of the New york Public Library Main Branch at 11:30, saturday the 15th. From the...
I'm losing patience with my neighbours, Mr. Bush
Once one sixth of Monty Python, but still a sage today, Terry Jones had a piece in London's Observer two sundays back. It's very good, but really no laughing matter.And let's face it, Mr Bush's carefully thought-out policy towards Iraq...
we are America, for now
We are America. We are a nation created by an idea, composed of people who did not start out as neighbors and who couldn't speak the same language, the fortunate child of change. If we do not remain a nation...
February 4, 2003
government knows best, thank God
Now we are even being told by the police state how we can remember the dead. It's bad enough that our putative secular authority can only speak in religious imagery, and only Christian imagery, when he can get away with...
U.S. thinks "Guernica" too offensive
Could the White House have done anything else to draw a more dramatic parallel between its policies and those of Nazi Germany? We have no doubts about at whose behest the image was removed.NEW YORK.- The "Guernica" work by Pablo...
they ain't seen nothing yet!
The hawks are afraid, as their continued fighting delay shows. They aren't afraid enough however, and in that lies their undoing, even if it may mean they will unleash a holocaust first. Washington is making a very big mistake. We...
"giddy indifference to musical polemics"
A magnificent man is gone. Lou Harrison died sunday evening at the age of 85, but no, of course he's not really gone. His music and his work as a gentle artistic, social, political, earth and gay activist, will reverberate...
Cinderfella
Love Arthur Aviles! He's at Dance Theater Workshop this week and next, and the company was reviewed by Anna Kisselgoff in the NYTimes monday.In "Arturella," he has choreographed a not-so-campy take on "Cinderella" set in a Puerto Rican ghetto. There...
without minds, they're just jocks
What planet am I from? I had a quick glimpse of this segment of the ESPN subway advertising campaign just the other day, but I didn't believe the text was serious! This item from today's "Metropolitan Diary" feature in the...
February 1, 2003
a poets' resistance
I don't think we should be surprised to find that it is the poets who may showing the greatest courage in the face of tyranny in the White House.Laura Bush has postponed a White House symposium on the works of...
