News, politics, commentary, and cultural reporting with a New York perspective.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
OWS NYPD Police Brutality Protest at Union Square
Term Limits Extension Protest
Protest to mark the Third Anniversary of the Term Limits Extension
2011-10-23 Term Limits Protest - Third Anniversary
Bloomberg and Quinn sold the lie that they would save the economy. Have they helped you with the economy ?
Taxpayers and voters are gathering at City Hall Park on Sunday, Oct. 23, at 2 p.m., to commemorate the three-year anniversary of “The Day That Democracy Died” : when Speaker Christine Quinn strong-armed the City Council to extend term limits, allowing herself, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and others to run for a third term in office.
“Since they changed term limits, more people are living in poverty in New York City. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg’s wealth has grown over three-fold while has been in office,” said Louis Flores. “With Christine Quinn’s help, Mayor Bloomberg has been laying off police, firefighters, and teachers ; closing senior citizen centers ; cutting childcare ; and closing hospitals – just basically shredding the social safety net. Also, how is Mayor Bloomberg allowed to make money from inside information through his new company called Bloomberg Government ?”
Protesters will hold a rally, make speeches, and distribute voter registration applications, so that Speaker Christine Quinn and other City Council Members, who passed the term limits extension, can be voted out of office in 2013.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
St. Vincent's Trauma Exercise
A Mass Civilian Trauma Exercise was held outside St. Vincent’s Hospital.
One of the participants at last night's "mass civilian trauma exercise" at St. Vincent' Hospital asked, "Where is Christine Quinn ?"
As part of the "mass civilian trauma exercise," many participants wore surgical masks and paper signs around their neck. The signs indicated what accidents, diseases, or emergencies they "have." Then, the "sick" participants "waited" for emergency medical treatment on the sidewalks outside St. Vincent's. No emergency help ever came, precisely because there is no longer a hospital in the Lower West Side. Some participants did not "make it." After the "mass civilian trauma exercise" came to an end, team of "survivors" marched to Grace Church, 86 Fourth Avenue, Tuttle Hall, to ask for help from Jason Mansfield, the chair of CB2's Environmental, Public Safety & Public Health Committee.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Jason Mansfield #OccupyCB2
You are invited to participate in the enactment of a mass civilian trauma exercise on the sidewalk outside St. Vincent's Hospital.
Watch this YouTube documentary for background information about the controversial Rudin condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's Hospital :
Join community members as they plan to organise a field hospital on the sidewalks, form into make-shift blood donation lines, visualise what it would look like to set up alternative decontamination showers, help each other to tie on surgical masks to protect each other from air-bourne particles, and finally to think through what steps would need to be taken to request provisional mass casualty tents.
Some of the participants will ''not make it,'' because there is no Level 1 Trauma Center below 14th Street. And it probably takes ambulances over 30 minutes to respond to the Lower West Side of Manhattan, and then it would probably take another 30 minutes for ambulances to drive through busy cross-town traffic to any of the hospitals on the East Side. The ''survivors'' will have to figure out what to do with the “injured” participants.
Then, a team of survivors will walk over to Grace Church, 86 Fourth Ave., Tuttle Hall, to ask for help from Jason Mansfield, the chair of Manhattan Community Board 2's Environment, Public Safety & Public Health Committee. Community Board 2 is about to approve the rezoning of St. Vincent's to allow the billionaire Rudin Family to convert the hospital into luxury condos. Community residents hope that this civilian trauma exercise will educate and mobilise the public to stop CB2 from approving the dangerous Rudin condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's Hospital.
The community's goal is to keep the real estate zoning intact, to attract new hospital investors to restore a full-service hospital at the former site of St. Vincent's.
2011 10 17 RE ACT OccupyCB2 Flyer2011-10-17 Stop the Rezoning of St. Vincent's Hospital Flyer #OccupyCB2
Monday, October 3, 2011
Bloomberg Tech Deal Waste Continues
The New York Times exposes another failed tech deal under the Bloomberg administration's mismanagement of large taxpayer-financed tech deals.
The New York Times reporter David Halbfinger spoke with Brian Lehrer from WNYC about Mr. Halbfinger's recent article about the New York City Automated Personnel System (NYCAPS) and the problems with the Bloomberg administration's wildly over-budget personnel tracking system. Nine years after work began, the Bloomberg administration has spent $363 million on the NYCAPS tech deal — and the work is far from done.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Bigot Bell - Episode 3 - Discrimination Policies Violate Our Values
Bigot Bell - Episode 3 - Discrimination Policies Violate Our Values
Members of #ConnectingRainbows release Episode 3 of #BigotBell YouTube Campaign against #Yum!Brands and #TacoBell.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Women Pepper-Sprayed by NYPD
Peaceful Female Protesters Penned on the Sidewalk and Pepper-sprayed by the NYPD in a Show of Excessive Force.
Is City Council Speaker Christine Quinn going to denounce the NYPD for their use of excessive force against unarmed women ?
Friday, September 23, 2011
Troy Davis Protest NYC
Video of the flashmob protest one day after the execution of Troy Davis, a man believed to be innocent of the crimes charged against him. Protesters were harassed by NYPD, pushed and shoved, and one protester was peeled away from the crowd, shoved the floor, and arrested.
Is Mayor Michael Bloomberg sanctioning this kind of behaviour by the NYPD ? What is City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's opinion about the NYPD's use of weapons and vehicles against passionate citizen assembly in protest of the death penalty ? Activists worry that Mayor Bloomberg will again resort to mass arrests, the same way he wholesale violated due process and civil liberties during the 2004 Republican National Convention.
Sarge Shriver is Rolling in his Grave
Melanie Meyers, a real estate partner at the former law firm of Sarge Shriver, makes part of her case in this excerpt of her FAR Rezoning presentation before Manhattan Community Board 2 on behalf of the billionaire Rudin Family. Ms. Meyers is lobbying, on behalf of William Rudin, to demolish many of the buildings that comprise the St. Vincent's Hospital campus, so that Mr. Rudin may build luxury condos in the heart of the West Village.
Decades ago, Greenwich Village survived plans by Robert Moses to demolish a wide swath across the Village as part of his foolish plan to construct a cross-town highway to the East Side. Now comes Mr. Rudin, with his heartless desires to gut the core of the Village and replace it with more useless luxury condos.
During Troy Davis Protest, NYPD Use of Excessive Force
NEW YORK CITY (22 Sept 2011) -- At a passionate, yet peaceful flashmob protest and march, activists against the death penalty demonstrated yesterday in New York City one day after the execution of Troy Davis, a man believed to be innocent of the charges that lead to his execution. In this exclusive video, watch as how officers from the New York City Police Department carried weapons, used excessive force, and made at least one violent arrest during yesterday's demonstration.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
At The Riverside Church, A Covenant To End DOMA
Invitation to Wedding and Covenant to End DOMA at The Riverside Church (Fundraiser)
On Sunday, October 30, 2011, TJ Williams and Brad Hover are to be married at The Riverside Church in New York City in a ceremony, which will include a prayer -- calling on President Barak Obama to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) before the end of his second term in office. TJ and Brad are calling this special prayer a Covenant to End DOMA.
"My partner and I started planning our wedding before we even knew that marriage equality would be made legal in New York State. But we had faith that the laws would be changed in our endless effort towards achieving equality," said TJ Williams.
To raise money for the wedding and for the Covenant to End Doma, TJ has released the above YouTube fundraiser video. TJ and Brad need your help to gather leaders and speakers and others for a civil rights event, where President Obama will be asked to covenant with our nation's communities and its leaders to end DOMA before the end of his second term. All donations will be used for this service and for purposes of community-building around social justice.
Under the discrimination of DOMA, no state is required to acknowledge the legal same-sex marriages, even if they are legal in other states. Participants in the Covenant to End DOMA are also hoping that this event will spur a conversation that would encourage unity between the African American community and the LGBT community, as we face the 2012 election year.