The Brooklyn College show will have a re-opening on May 24th from 6-9PM at 70 Washington Street in DUMBO. James has an update.
Note that none of the artists have been able to see their works since they were taken away by Brooklyn College without warning.
As always, visit the Plan C(ensored) blog for continuing updates.
Liza Sabater of CultureKitchen and Daily Gotham, was checking out her stats when she noticed a link from the New York Times. Like a good blogger, she went to check it out, and learned they had a test blog set up, using Word Press, for a new New York politics blog. They left the user registration system, open, so she registered and gave them a post to let them know they should secure their new blog.
Her initial post is here.
Follow-ups:
Originally uploaded to Flickr by Siarhei Leuchanka
I’ve been looking at photos tagged with “minsk” on Flickr to see the demonstrations in Minsk, Belarus. The above image from from a set by Siarhei Leuchanka.
If you’re wondering what this is all about, here is a recent story from the BBC. I don’t think this is getting much coverage in the American press.
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Check out this story from Reuters, the bold is mine. Note that our “liberal media” feels the need to say “legislators” as if it’s a bipartisan thing. Apparently there are no Republicans that are disturbed by our voting for proposals supported by Iran, China, Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe. The statement at the end is another reminder of why I’m a big fan of today’s Germany.
The Bush administration’s support for Iran’s proposal to bar two gay rights groups from a voice at the United Nations sparked a demand from U.S. legislators on Tuesday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repudiate the action.
The January 23 vote denying “consultative status” at the world body to the Belgium-based International Gay and Lesbian Association and the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians was a “drastic reversal” of Washington’s previous stand on the issue, the U.S. House of Representatives members wrote.
Nearly 3,000 nongovernmental organizations have such status, which enables them to distribute documents and speak at meetings of some U.N. bodies and conferences.
In voting for Iran’s proposal, “the United States joined some of the world’s most oppressive regimes, among them China, Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe” and demonstrated “a reprehensible inconsistency” in the protection of rights based on sexual orientation, the lawmakers said.
Among the 44 Democrats and one independent signing the letter were Democrats Eliot Engel of New York, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Tom Lantos of California, Rahm Emanuel of Illinois and
Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.They called on Rice to publicly repudiate the action and support pending applications by three other gay rights groups.
The vote occurred in the U.N. Economic and Social Council’s Committee on Nongovernmental Organizations.
U.S. officials said the United States had opposed the Belgian group in January due to its previous ties to the North American Man/Boy Love Association, which condones pedophilia.
But the United States had voted in 2002 to approve U.N. ties to the group. At that time, a U.S. diplomat told the committee Washington was convinced it no longer condoned pedophilia and praised it for its life-saving activities in the struggle against
AIDS.Despite U.S. support, the group failed to win enough votes to win consultative status in 2002, and the January 2006 vote had been its first chance since then to try again.
On January 23, the United States first abstained on a motion to deny a hearing to the two groups. That motion carried.
Washington then voted in favor of Iran’s proposal to deny their applications, which carried 10-5 with three abstentions.
Following the vote, German envoy Martin Thuemmel said the committee decision “will haunt us for a long time” because it sent a message that it was acceptable to discriminate on the basis of an individual’s sexual orientation.
From Steve Gilliard, I see the Bush administration would like a “permanent uniformed police force” provision added to the PATRIOT Act. They would be answerable to the Dept. of Homeland Security, and known as the “United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.” The proposed language says they could
make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony
Goodness, couldn’t they at least find a name that doesn’t include SS?
Attention wackos: I’m not comparing the GOP to Nazis yet. I think they’re closer to Franco or South American-style kleptocracy/fascism. I know none of them (except perhaps Dr. Rice) know any history, but really! What a terrible name!
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Voltaire (age 41) by Maurice Quentin de La Tour [source]
Voltaire was 250 years ahead of me.
I’m currently reading a new biography of Voltaire, titled Voltaire Almighty, by Roger Pearson. In the discussion of his writing Candide, he says something that I have said about dealing with our appalling government. Quoting from Voltaire Almighty, p. 261:
The French — and not only the French — were much more likely to condemn the horrors of war and religious intolerance if these were made to seem absurd. Don’t rant and rail: just show people what’s dumb. Horrors and injustices are always someone else’s problem, but none of us wants to look foolish. As he told Damilaville, a fellow-philosophe, ten years later: “I have only ever addressed one prayer to God, and it is very short: ‘My God, please make all our enemies ridiculous.’ God has granted my wish.”
I wish we had the option of engaging in electoral politics to fix the mess we’re in, but I don’t see that happening.
We live in a country where a senator named Rockefeller kept quiet when he learned of secret, warrantless wiretaps of American citizens. If he can’t oppose this President, who can?
We live in a country where the Senate continues its normal business as we learn of how this administration lied about Iraq, about Abu Ghraib, and about wiretaps without a warrant.
We live in an era when the Democratic party has “leaders” such as Hillary Clinton who thinks the solution to Iraq is more troops, or Joe Lieberman who hasn’t announced how he’ll vote on Alito.
I’m not lifting a finger to help the Democrats take back Congress if a “victory” means those people, who voted for the Patriot Act and the Iraq War, are in charge.
If pro-torture Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General, or a Supreme Court Justice Alito aren’t a good enough reason to filibuster, then the Democrats are almost as guilty as the GOP. They have failed us.
Ridicule them all.
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[Disclaimer: this post is a bit of a mess and I keep revising it to try to say what I really think.]
It’s Steve and Jen’s news blog, especially since Steve and Jen disagree on the strike and are both writing about it.
I started reading this blog again after Tom Moody wrote about the strike and linked to it.
I will say I think the union is managing its PR and strategy rather badly. We should be reminded constantly of how incompetent/devious the MTA executives are, including their ability to “find” an extra $1 billion in the budget once in a while, or the fact that in a time of supposed terrorist threats, they are closing token booths and forcing us to rely on turnstile exits that will cause a huge number of deaths in an emergency. See more by Ray Sanchez on MTA security. Now would be an excellent time for Bloomberg to start pushing to have the MTA become a city-controlled agency, rather than a state one, but he’s busy acting more like a billionaire than a mayor at the moment.
I will say I’m troubled by the actual strike. I don’t think it had gotten to the point where a strike was necessary. I don’t know what leverage a union has in this age, but a strike by transit workers hurts so many working people in the city.
Go read Sir Pinter’s speech while I’m working on my Miami posts.
Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant.
Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats.
“This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It’s letting the terrorists know we are out there,” Fernandez said.
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Steve Greenfield
This makes me very happy. I don’t know why so many liberals, including homos, think she’s great. She says she likes the Defense of Marriage Act, she doesn’t think public health insurance should cover abortion (Viagra seems to be OK), and she voted for both the PATRIOT Act and the Iraq War.
Steve Greenfield is challenging her in the Democratic primary. Here is an excerpt from his web site:
Are you troubled by the notion that a Democrat who favors the war in Iraq, favors continuing the occupation and increasing troop levels in Iraq, favors the USA PATRIOT act, favors expanding nuclear power and weapons development, favors the death penalty, favors corporate welfare, boasts of having cosponsored more Republican initiatives than any first-term Democrat Senator in history, and who represents a state where upwards of 80% of the registered Democrats are opposed to her positions was expected to run unopposed in her primary race next year? Is this democracy?
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