Ayn Rand Destroys America

In the PBS Frontline Documentary “The Warning” we see the disciples of Ayn Rand turn back regulations that would have saved America from the horrible melt down that Obama is trying to get us out of.

Yes that’s Alan Greenspan with Ayn Rand who's ideology he worshipped and lived by.
Watch the documentary.

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oing

oing

one!

Thanks to Daily Drop Cap

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50 Years Ago Today

HOWELL RAINES writes in Todays NY Times
On the morning of Feb. 1, 50 years ago today, four black freshmen at North Carolina A&T State University seated themselves at the all-white lunch counter in a Woolworth’s dime store in Greensboro. Within hours, news of this bold act by the Greensboro Four, as they would come to be called, had grapevined its way from A&T to the campuses of historically black colleges in Atlanta and Nashville.

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Shelter Boxes Donate Now

Shelter Box is making the lives of of Haitians bearable now.
Donate to Shelter Box
Watch the video and see what your money can provide.

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Justice Stevens is Clear

In his dissenting opinion of CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N shows that Chief Justice Roberts is an activist judge.

Justice Stevens writes;

"This brief tour of alternative grounds on which the case could have been decided is not meant to show that any of these grounds is ideal, though each is perfectly “valid,” ante, at 12 (majority opinion).16 It is meant to show that there were principled, narrower paths that a Court that was serious about judicial restraint could have taken."

And in my opinion Chief Justice Roberts is a judge who lied to get on the court and has every intent to re-write the constitution to the neo-cons wishes.

Maya Lin - Unchopping a Tree from What is Missing? Foundation on Vimeo.

DO NOT SEND CANS OF FOOD!!

Today President Clinton asked people to donate money.
Sending goods is creating bottle necks.
He said the money will help much more than sending items.

It’s a matter of bulk and logistics.
Let’s assume you go through your cabinets and come up with some cans of creamed corn, green beans, etc. totaling a retail cost of $10.
That same $10 sent to a pool can be used to buy food at wholesale that is ready for transport for at least 50 cents on the dollar. Twice the food same price.
But there is more.
Where you drop off the cans, a staff member or volunteer has to get the goods to go on a truck, that truck goes to a distribution center that has to repackage the goods into type then those packages have to be brought to a deployment area and put on planes that are trying to land on the limited runways (just one?) in Haiti.
All of that took paid people and or volunteers’ time and effort.
However $10 donations pooled together in substantial amounts can buy pallets of baby formula and water that are ready for transport from huge warehouses.
And there are people who have worked on disasters before and know that the combination of baby formula and water will keep more children alive than 3 cans of green beans, and 4 cans of chef-boy-are-de.
I know bringing canned goods and blankets makes you feel better but money will keep more people alive.

A Revelation

This is an education as well as a recipe book.

1958 Edsel Commercial with Wagon Train sponsor ID

It was 50 years ago Thursday that Ford announced it was ending production of the Edsel.

What will we celebrate as a flop 50 years from now?

Develop Don’t Destroy Destroys Their Clients (victims) Lives For The Holiday

Develop Don’t Destroy has become the ultimate Grinch who stole their clients Christmas.
The court has disallowed all their idiotic motions and Barclay's Center is set to move forward.
As this blog has reported the clients (victims) of Develop Don’t Destroy
Have lost their opportunity to cash in and buy decent homes. They will now be thrown out with no compensation. The insensitivity to the plight of these poor people rests soley on Develop Don’t Destroy and of course the vehemence of Mr. Odor of Atlantic Yards Report.
Their behavior is reprehensible. Their clients (victims) deserved better.
Barclay's Center will proceed and Brooklyn will be better for it. Too bad Develop Don’t Destroy decided to ruin peoples lives in the process.

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White Christmas

If no one is caroling in your neighborhood enjoy this.

Cortelyou Vintage

With the fabulous SpankyTomato

They're Every Where

We have two on my block alone. And it is getting so you see them on many blocks in the city.

It just makes urban sense.

Blind Spot

Richard Serra may be the most ornery artist working but his shapes can make you cry.

Patti Smith - Because The Night

Watch Bono, the Boss and Patti do this on HBO's footage of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert.
We had no idea at the Mud Club.

Shameful

Another failure by DDDB to stop what will be a great asset to Brooklyn.
The misguided opposition to the development of the Atlantic Yards by Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn and the vicious Atlantic Yards Report and Mr. Oder has seen another failure.
DDDB has now wasted the poor defendant’s final appeals and left them with NOTHING!!
The last holdouts who depended on DDDB good judgment will now lose their homes and realize that the generous buyouts they were offered are long gone.
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn is a huge misnomer. They NEVER wanted to “develop” anything. They only wanted to stop any possibility of Brooklyn moving forward. Like the Republicans and healthcare there was never any way they intended to find a way for all of Brooklyn to prosper.
Worst they used the people living there and ruined their opportunities to find decent housing elsewhere that Ratner would have paid for.
That is shameful.

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Update: Al Gore

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

Au Revoir Jeanne Claude

Christo was never far from Jeanne Claude and she was the bull dog getting the projects done.
With "The Gates" we may have seen the last of the great Christo projects.

The Death Penalty Experiment Has Failed

In Callins v. Collins, Feb. 22, 1994 Justice Blackmun wrote;

“From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored...to develop...rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor...Rather than continue to coddle the court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved...I feel...obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies... Perhaps one day this court will develop procedural rules or verbal formulas that actually will provide consistency, fairness and reliability in a capital-sentencing scheme. I am not optimistic that such a day will come. I am more optimistic, though, that this court eventually will conclude that the effort to eliminate arbitrariness while preserving fairness 'in the infliction of [death] is so plainly doomed to failure that it and the death penalty must be abandoned altogether.”


President Obama will have two more opportunities to keep the extreme right wing activist justices in check.

Flatbush Artists Studio Tour: the video

Another plus for this great neighborhood.