May 31, 2003
photographs of Israel's wall
At the time I posted the May 26 item about the separation wall being built by the Israelis I was unable to locate good images. I have those now. See these three images of the wall in the area around...
May 30, 2003
"it's show business"
As the truth becomes more available, and indeed more unavoidable, (at least in the alternative and foreign media), "For the time being," Paul Krugman writes "the [American] public doesn't seem to care - or even want to know." He does...
Reza in Arizona
Reza Baluchi has been cheered along in Arizona on his run to the World Trade Center site, although by now he may actually be in New Mexico. Dave Hyslop, who has been sending these reports and who seems to be...
May 29, 2003
this nun matters
Joan Chittister, OSB, writes in the National Catholic Reporter, "Is There Anything Left That Matters?" Her honest dismay means that she expects the question will be answered.This is what I don't understand: All of a sudden nothing seems to matter....
the smallest subway buffs
Sorry, but I seem to have gotten to the site too late to be able to link to the story with photos of these kids. But the story more than stands up by itself. I grew up crazy about cars,...
"this is a very legitimate point"
One of today's top stories on Reuters shows us that all is going according to plan (see the post below):WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Thursday denied suppressing a report that projects the U.S. government faces a long-term budget...
May 28, 2003
ah hah!
Their cover is finally blown. It's now in the NYTimes - an explanation for the idiocy of the Bush administration's economic policy, one which is dominated by an $800-billion-plus tax cut delivered to the super-rich in the midst of soaring...
May 26, 2003
Pepper's gone
And the paper of record remembers her.Pepper [LaBeija] was the last of the four great queens of the modern Harlem balls; Angie Xtravaganza, Dorian Corey and Avis Pendavis all died in recent years. These four exuded a sort of wild...
Sharon's "reservations"
The Israeli government has a "road map" of its own.After 11 months of work, Israel is close to completing a first phase of a barrier to wall off most of the West Bank. Israel's government says the barrier - which...
memorials
Shouldn't we ask, "why?" each time there is a call for war? The Vietnam War continues today for many. Some of its service victims lived for decades with major physical injuries to accompany the psychological pain. Some live still. Neither...
May 25, 2003
loving neither peace nor freedom
It's Memorial Day weekend in America, and we should be remembering the people who have died in over 200 wars we have fought since 1776. Today however we read that the Bush regime is about to begin another one (it's...
May 24, 2003
another way to security?
Jonathan Schell's new work, "The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the People," proposes a "revolution against violence" in world politics, but he doesn't explain how we are to get there given the current realities of power and...
May 23, 2003
the new Downtown
A wild turkey on the 28th-floor balcony of an apartment on West 70th Street? The healthy-looking female has now taken up residence in the more interesting environs of Chelsea and the Village, and we hope she's happy. Unlike most Downtowners...
May 22, 2003
"I have 50 guys who will kiss me like that"
No wonder New York is such a goldmine for Hollywood! You don't have to know Brooklyn or Italians in Brooklyn, and you don't have to know about Marlon Brando, but maybe it's better if you do. Now, if only the...
F.B.I.-run gay bordello in New York
In his obituary today in the NYTimes, we are reminded that C.A.Tripp's ground-breaking 1975 book, "The Homosexual Matrix," reported that during World War II the F.B.I. ran an all-male bordello in New York "staffed with homosexual agents charged with extracting...
Ved Mehta
Ved Mehta, talking wistfully about the house he did not get:"Really, I wanted to buy an old house and adapt to it," he said. In America, everyone thinks he can build his own dream house. In the rest of the...
May 20, 2003
Spring!
The picture's about a month old, but it is still Spring. The image is that of the little Shadblow Serviceberry tree outside our back windows on the "roof terrace." The name supposedly comes from its habit of blooming at...
I thought we were supposed to be safer now
We've just been told the terror alert has been raised nation-wide to the color orange once again [Although it's actually been orange all along in New York]. As in the past, I don't know whether I should be more scared...
May 19, 2003
accidental anarchists
I've found the phrase which describes my present political posture. "Accidental anarchist." It's an interesting development for a democrat. In "The Big Chill," a piece which appears only in the print edition of the current The Nation, Alisa Solomon examines...
May 17, 2003
but it's not a war on drugs
It's a war on colored folk.A 57-year-old Harlem woman preparing to leave for her longtime city government job died of a heart attack yesterday morning after police officers broke down her door and threw a concussion grenade into her apartment...
New York - police city
Some worry about the nation's movement toward a police state, while overlooking the police city we already have. Emmaia Gelman, like many of us, has had first hand experience with New York City police assaults on dissent, but she's doing...
May 16, 2003
Hollywood White House action trailers
Reagan came from Hollywood (in fact, he never left it), Bush Senior picked a Hollywood face for a vice-president, Clinton had beds filled with Hollywood chums, but Junior Bush has converted the White House into a movie trailer production company....
May 15, 2003
no complaints, ever, from Reza
I can't recommend it enough. If you want to feel good, about Reza, yourself and the whole world, write to this address, rbaluchi@yahoo.com, and ask to get regular email updates on his run across the country to New York. There...
Dave Debusschere
There were 147 graduating seniors in the all-boy, Austin Prep 1958 graduating class. Dave DeBusschere was class president - it had not been a contest, and even I had voted for the big sports guy. Dave was a gentleman. He...
our own "Devil's Island"
The notorious Guyanese French prison, Devil's Island, is now a resort off the coast of French Guiana. According to an on-line tourist guide, "Visitors can make the crossing easily from Cayenne by motor launch or catamaran, enjoy lunch and tour...
patriotism is slavery
Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable meaning is nothing but an instrument for the attainment of the government's ambitious and mercenary aims, and a renunciation of human dignity, common sense, and conscience by the governed, and a slavish...
Vonnegut envies Twain's wit and Lincoln's tongue
Included in a Clemens Lecture presented in April for the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, by Kurt Vonnegut:What other American landmark is as sacred to me as the Mark Twain House? The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Mark Twain...
on fascism, er, totalitarianaism
A sober reading of the contemporary American political scene, from Sheldon Wolin in The Nation this week.The increasing power of the state and the declining power of institutions intended to control it has been in the making for some time....
May 14, 2003
the most subtle form of censorship
Today [actually it was yesterday] our intrepid columnist asks the question: Why is the BBC generally regarded here, in Britain and around the world as a critical and impartial source of news, while the American media is considered a flag-waving...
Reza Baluchi
For those who wish to contact Reza, this is the best email address for the purpose: rbaluchi@yahoo.com And no, I don't think he's running with a cellular modem, but I'm pretty sure he'll get your message eventually....
May 13, 2003
White House September 11 coverup?
Now that we've started three wars, destroyed any hope for our own security or that of any part of the planet, can we please listen to a question first asked September 11, 2001? And that is, "how did this happen?"...
a nation of cowards
cow·ard (kou' erd) n. One who shows ignoble fear in the face of danger or pain. I've argued for a year and a half that the only explanation for what has become of America since September 11 is its fear....
May 12, 2003
update on Reza, now on foot
Reza Baluchi has now left Los Angeles, and this time he's travelling on foot on his long journey to New York City.So this morning, Mr. Baluchi began the fulfillment of that jailhouse promise. Wearing new shorts, new running shoes and...
May 11, 2003
anywhere, anytime, and for any reason he chooses
I logged the post which appears below this one before I had read this piece by Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation. I might have saved myself the outrage. It seems that there can no longer be any argument about the...
the A train as troop train
We went through several mid-size hells on the way to and from Brooklyn last night. Surely, if there were a hell, the anteroom would be the car of an MTA A train locked at both ends during the trip under...
May 10, 2003
huh?
New York City has spent $1 billion on antiterrorism efforts since the Sept. 11 attacks. But the city says it has yet to receive a dollar of antiterrorism money from the federal government. Washington has provided millions to help clean...
update on Zackie
Five months ago I wrote about Zackie Achmat. The good news is that he's still alive. The bad news is that about 100,000 other South Africans have died unnecessarily in the meantime. Zackie is slowly dying of AIDS, but he...
erasing cultures and dissent
Artists Against The War is inviting artists and art lovers in New York to gather all day next saturday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new exhibition, "Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium BC from the Mediterranean to...
May 8, 2003
tell Egypt we care
If Amnesty International can make it an important part of its agenda, New York queers and those who love or respect them, but of course anyone with a love of liberty and humanity, can make it over to the Egyptian...
remember Jenin?
For the same reasons which make us ignorant of our own and everyone else's past, most Americans don't remember the Israeli invasion of Jenin just one year ago. But now there's a book out in English, and it gamely attempts...
May 6, 2003
'I can put little baseball players all over it?'
Tony Kushner and Mark Harris met five years ago. Last month they affirmed their partnership before friends in Manhattan. The occasion made the "VOWS" feature in the NYTimes Styles section this past Sunday.They started planning their commitment ceremony soon after...
"a guitar's all right John,"
John Lennon's boyhood home, a modest 1930s semi-detached just outside of Liverpool's center, has opened to the public with an English Heritage plaque on its facade. It's now a museum. Yoko Ono bought the house in 2001 and donated it...
May 5, 2003
update on Reza
The Iranian cyclist arrested and held by our immigration authorities for about four months this winter is now in California and about to begin his last sprint to New York City, completing an odyssey of six years. The short...
the silence of the sheep
The entire text of a letter in this week's The Nation:Skokie, Ill. With the shooting over and the oilwells rescued from a despotic regime, it's time to consider what posterity will think. An illegitimate President wages an illegal war, hijacks...
May 4, 2003
not on our side
I think both the country and the state of New York would be better off having at least one empty senatorial seat than have it continue to be occupied by Hillary Rodham Clinton, and I could easily add the chair...
May 2, 2003
once again, wine from Pompei
"It is our humble homage to a site which is part of the heritage of the entire world. Vine growing began here, and here, after 2000 years, we once more propose a wine made in Pompeii."Senor Mastroberardino exaggerates a bit...
no patriots they
The Bush administration and leading Senate Republicans were defeated (this time) in a rather sneaky attempt to introduce the C.I.A. and the Pentagon into domestic surveilance.The proposal, which was beaten back, would have given the C.I.A. and the military the...
"it doesn't have to be a battle"
The story is fascinating. The feature article by Jane Perlez visits an aristocratic Iraqi family which in this century alone has survived (no, somehow flourished under) an Ottoman Caliphate, a British Empire, an Arab monarchy and a Baath Party coup...
Congress owes us
Congress must pay whatever it costs to protect New York City from terrorist attack. It's in the Constitution. This is an abstract from an April 24 OP-ED piece in the NYTimes by Jason Mazzone:Op-Ed article says Constitution requires Congress to...
