This is such an excellent album. I will miss the ladies of s-k, I wish them well....Thanks for all the wonderful music over the years.
Thursday, July 22, 2004 at 10:25AM One of my most favorite thinkers is Noam Chomsky. My favorite quote is from his (and Edward Herman's) book titled Manufacturing Consent:
The manufacture of consent is the heart of democracy.
That one sentence couldn't be any more true right now.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004 at 10:04AM If your commute takes you through 34th St., Herald Sq. then you've probably seen the "Jews for Jesus" t-shirted people passing out flyers about the Messiah. It's not the fact that they hand out these flyers that irritates me. What bothers me is that passers by automatically take a pamphlet (like they're programmed to do so no matter what the pamphlet entails) and then a few feet later drop it on the floor of the terminal. The floor is transformed from the normal dull, grey tile to either yellow, purple or pink pieces of paper in a matter of minutes.
My point to my fellow commuters: don't take the pamphlet if you're not truly interested. And please stop littering...you're driving me crazy.
Monday, July 19, 2004 at 11:12AM This morning in Newsday I read that the city government will spend $15-20 million on security equipment (and personnel) for the upcoming Republican National Convention. In March and April alone the city spent $3.2 million on "...several custom-built mobile command centers, which resemble large buses and sell for about $400,000 each, for the Police and Fire Departments, the purchasing records show." The city is concerned about safety/security on two fronts. As far as I can discern, there are two things the city is worried about, 1.) protecting people from a purported terrorist attack ("$182,089 was spent on "a mobile lab that is 'specifically designed to detect chemical and biological warfare agents in the civilian theate....'", and 2.) demonstrators. Lawrence Loesch a former NYPD Deputy Chief is quoted as saying "Demonstrators always find ways to make it more difficult, and the Police Department has to compensate."
Uh, what the fuck?
As you might have noticed, I'm a little pissed off. I don't want the RNC here.
This brought to my mind a few questions
1.) Will the city be reimbursed by someone? Be it the GOP because they *chose* to have their fucking convention here, or the federal government, because of the precautions the city is taking for a supposed increased terrorist threat? Though, we'll probably get cheated out of the money due to us just like we did post-9/11.
2.) Where did the city get all this money from? They can't afford to fix dilapitated school buildings in the Bronx, or pay teachers a decent salary...but all of a sudden they come up with millions for the RNC?? In another Newsday article it states that "teachers have been without a contract for one year, while firefighters and cops have been working without one for two years."
3.) How can cops in good conscience want to work during the convention? Don't they have more in common with demonstrators than the Republican Party?
So, way to go Bloomberg! Nice way to prioritize the budget!
More thoughts on this later...right now...I'm continuing to research this issue.
Sunday, July 18, 2004 at 08:19PM alec is patiently trying to help me set up this website....it's a good thing he hasn't killed me yet. :)