VIDEO : Explosion and Boom from Russian Meteor Strike

MOSCOW – Bright objects, tentatively identified as fragments of a meteorite, streaked through the sky in western Siberia early on Friday, accompanied by a boom that damaged buildings across a vast swath of territory. Around 500 people were reported to have been injured, most from breaking glass. (The New York Times)

Middle Class Anger Toward Christine Quinn Mayoral Campaign

Two very insightful letters published by The New York Daily News, which continues to reveal voter anger toward the corruption by New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has lost touch with reality of the challenges facing average New Yorkers :

Chris cross I

Brooklyn: Re “Begin the Quinn spin” (Feb. 12): Middle-class housing for a family of four with an income of $103,000 to $142,000. If that is middle class, where are my food stamps, Medicaid card and free housing? Those amounts are not the middle class that I know. Christine Quinn must have been making a joke in her State of the City speech, right? Clifford F. Zeman

Chris cross II

Richmond Hill: Has City Council Speaker Christine Quinn convinced herself that she is a fair, honest and ethical leader who is worthy to hold the office of mayor? In 2006, she approved a generous pay raise for herself and the entire Council. Then, she extended her own patronage-appointed, cradle-to-grave city career by changing the laws of term limits for dictator Bloomberg. The final betrayal was her denying a vote on paid sick time for the working poor. Clean up your act, Empress Quinn, and withdraw your deeply flawed candidacy. Adele DeLeva

Brooklyn Hospital Closings Update - LICH

NY State and @nygovcuomo want to end acute healthcare access to poor people in Brooklynbkbureau.org/dueling-prescr… @cdcmmwr @american_heart

— StopNYMRT (@StopNYMRT) February 14, 2013

Bed Bugs Infestation at PS 69 in Jackson Heights

NEW YORK (MYFOXNY) - Bed bugs have been found in 15 classrooms in P.S. 69 in Jackson Heights, Queens, according to DNAinfo.com.

New York News | NYC Breaking News

The Department of Education says the problem has been going on since September, but denies there is an infestation.

Some parents see things differently. They say the school has a history of bed bugs. And to make things worse, the kids end up bringing them home.

Andrew Cuomo and the Neoliberalism Spree of Hospital Closings

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is closing hospitals, cutting healthcare, and attacking the social safety net in a spree of neoliberalism to "window dress" the New York State budget. His plan will make him look good, but it comes at the risk to public health. What are you going to do about it ?

Eleven hospital closings in New York City alone, since 2006 :

- Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn voted to be closed down under pressure from the Department of Health in 2013 ;

- Peninsula Hospital Center closed by the Department of Health in 2012 after it filed for bankruptcy ;

- North General Hospital in Harlem declared bankruptcy in 2010 ;

- St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village was shut down in 2010 to become luxury condos built by the greedy Rudin family ;

- St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst went bankrupt in 2009 ;

- Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica, Queens, went bankrupt in 2009 ;

- Parkway Hospital in Forest Hills, Queens, closed in 2008 ;

- Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan closed in 2008 ;

- Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, closed in 2008 ; and

- St. Vincent's Midtown (f.k.a. St. Clare's Hospital) closed in 2007.

We are at the point right now where there are not enough hospitals left in New York City to deal with a mass civilian trauma event, natural disaster, or epidemic.

This year's flu season was aggravated by the temporary closing of these hospitals, which sustained major damage from Hurricane Sandy :

- Bellevue Hospital ;

- NYU Langone Hospital ;

- New York Downtown Hospital ;

- Coler-Goldwater Hospital ; and

- Coney Island Hospital.

And the only functioning hospital in all of Lower Manhattan was Beth Israel, but it was functioning for a time solely on back-up generators.

Is this the kind of healthcare system that we can rely up on save lives in times of a medical emergency ?

In response to Facebook.com censorship, can SumofUs.org rollout a social networking interface ?

So, Facebook.com likes to censor its users, who post information, links, or other media, such as photographs or videos, which are deemed too political in nature (or, more appropriately, too offensive to its advertisers or tax authorities). Facebook sometimes suspends user accounts for a period of time, mainly, for 30 days, according to recent examples of two of my "Facebook" friends. Considering how short-lived Myspace.com was, for all its clunky and anti-music file sharing obsession it became in its final years of relevancy, many users on Facebook.com look forward to the emergency of a new Web site, to which disaffected Facebook.com users can migrate.

For all those activists, who are "superusers" of Facebook.com, who use features like creating events for demonstrations or meeting planning, creating pages for activism campaigns, for creating groups of like-minded activists, and for creating public (or private) profiles for doing all this work, perhaps one emerging suggestion may make sense :

Seeing as how new Web sites, such as SumofUs.org, are emerging, where activists can participate in some limited function online activism, it might be fascinating to explore whether the owners-developers of Web sites, such as SumofUs.org, could add on social networking and other social app-like modules, extensions, or functionality, so that disaffected Facebook.com users can just abandon Facebook.com and just embrace one, fully-dedicated non-profit Web site, such as SumofUs.org, for their online activism and social media experience.

Imagine what online activists could do in a Web-based environment, which supported a safe space for online activism and social networking ? We wouldn't have to deal with the arbitrary censorship by Web sites, such as Facebook.com, we wouldn't have to deal with ever nebulous privacy policy changes to placate advertisers, there wouldn't be tracking, surveillance, or face recognition issues....

I imagine it would only take a small team of creative minds to mount an effort like this....

Then, we would have a newly, self-empowered community for online activism. And we could let our old Facebook.com accounts join our old Myspace.com accounts in the digital morgue of the past.

Long Island College Hospital - Vote by SUNY to Close

SUNY board unanimously approves closure of LI College Hosp and crowd erupts "Shame! Shame!" yfrog.com/oe7kepij

— FRED MOGUL (@fredmogul) February 8, 2013

David France, Ed Koch, and AIDS

David France, whose doc How To Survive A Plague is nominated for Oscar, speaks about former NY mayor Ed Koch, who reviewed the film for a local NY paper and who was not an advocate for Gay NY back in the day.

Does anybody have an update to the Lenox Hill Hospital EMS Paramedic Layoffs ?

Lenox Hill Hospital ended its paramedic service to the #UES and turned in its licenses. @micahkellner @billdeblasio

— Sarah Steiner (@Sarahgoat) January 14, 2013

Ed Koch Rudin Family Quinn Pro Quo ? Posh Apartment - St. Vincent's Hospital

Rudin family offered #EdKoch posh apartment.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/nyr… ; Koch promoted Rudin condo plan for #StVincent's. dnainfo.com/new-york/20110…

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) February 3, 2013

Closeted Mayor Will Eulogise Another

At tomorrow's funeral service, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to deliver the eulogy for former Mayor Ed Koch, who passed away on Friday at the age of 88.

Mayor Koch has been the subject of harsh criticism on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media Web sites since his death, for what critics see as his damning role in the spread of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980's, while he was mayor.

It's more than just a bit ironic that Mayor Bloomberg, who some say is gay, will eulogise Mayor Koch.

At tomorrow's service for #EdKoch, one #closeted mayor will eulogize another. Or will @mikebloomberg use occasion to finally come out ?

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) February 3, 2013

To distract from his sexual orientation, Mayor Koch made a game of appearing to have had a pretense of a relationship with former Miss America Bess Myerson, whilst Mayor Bloomberg uses Diana Taylor for similar purposes.

No word, yet, as to the subject of Mayor Bloomberg's farewell remarks.

Seven Brides for Seven Corporations (a Citizens United Wedding)

Get Money out of Politics - visit Move To Amend : https://movetoamend.org

Ed Koch and the AIDS Crisis - A Historical Fact Checking Duel Between NYT and YouTube Videos

In response to the biased "praises" and instant beatification of Ed Koch, I made a YouTube video set to music by Dalida, to help visualise former Mayor Ed Koch's complete failure on the AIDS crisis.

My video was made in response to the video promoted by The New York Times, which whitewashes any responsibility or culpability of the AIDS crisis away from former Mayor Ed Koch :

I'd love to hear what folks think ?

Ed Koch, the Closet, Neoliberalism, and AIDS

From The Nation

The instant beatification of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch has a lot of folks itching to do some grave dancing. Leftists will denounce Koch because he was one of the original neoliberal mayors, ushering in a regime of gentrification and finance-driven inequality that defines the city to this day. Minorities regard him with suspicion because he marginalized the city’s black and Hispanic leadership and inflamed racial fault lines to corner the white vote, presaging the Sister Souljah moments that would come to afflict the national Democratic Party. And yet even there, among the new Democrats, Koch was never a stalwart, breaking with the party to endorse George W. Bush for president in 2004 and flirting with the neocons over Israel late in his life.

All that said, there is a special place reserved for Koch in gay hell—because he was mayor during the onset of the AIDS epidemic, which he is widely seen as failing to do enough about, and because it’s commonly assumed that Koch was a closeted gay man. “I hope he’s burning next to Roy Cohn”—or sentiments quite like it—have appeared frequently on my Facebook feed, especially from vets of ACT UP. ...

Read more : Ed Koch and the Cost of the Closet (The Nation)

Ed Koch dies unforgiven by AIDS activists (except by Christine Quinn, who is turning his death into a crass voter outreach opportunity).

@chriscquinn Don't let history sanitize the past. #EdKoch was silent while 1000's of LGBT NY-ers fought and died from AIDS. @tlrd @joemygod

— ACT UP New York (@actupny) February 2, 2013

From Gay Star News :

After lesbian NYC mayoral candidate Christine C. Quinn released a statement calling Koch a 'great mayor' and a 'great man,' LGBT activists pounced. Among those critical of Quinn is Peter Staley, one of the key members of ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) whose activism and innovation is credited with playing a crucial role in HIV-AIDS going from a death sentence to a manageable condition with the help of certain drugs.

'I'm supporting Christine Quinn for mayor, but this mass email she just sent out is completely tone deaf to the generation of gay New Yorkers who worked tirelessly to throw (Koch) out of office (and we succeeded),' Staley writes in a Facebook post. 'We will never forget his contemptible legacy of neglect during the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis.'

Read more : Former New York Mayor Ed Koch dies at 88 unforgiven by AIDS activists. Many say he was closeted gay man who didn’t do anything on AIDS when his constituents were dying of disease.

I'm a supporter, but @chriscquinn's mass email is tone deaf to the gen. of gay NYers who fought Koch's AIDS neglect twitter.com/peterstaley/st…

— Peter Staley (@peterstaley) February 1, 2013

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

REALITY CHECK : Christine Quinn is not tone deaf. Instead, she is taking for granted that the LGBT community will vote for her. Therefore, she is taking us for granted. She is playing politics with Mayor Koch's AIDS responsibility in order to appeal to voters in the run-up to this election year. When will people wake up to this fact ?

@chriscquinn I'm a bit shocked by this.Koch is a TRAITOR to New Yorkers and Democrats.He can rot in hell for all I care.

— New Yorker (@vesnawasrobbed) February 1, 2013