This is an article about how New York was saved in 1975. No thanks to the federal government Continue Reading »

Stumble it!

Am I the only person who thinks Gail Collins looks like Laura Bush but has great things to say anyway? This is about the Supreme Court and equal pay for women. When it comes to money, I can be called a feminist to the core. The most senior woman at a corp made less then the most junior man. McCain would–read the article. It did make me remember why I’m a Democrat

This article shook me to the core. I’m reprinting it here as it’s so unbelievable, yet so America in the millennium.

The PEN American Center, the literary organization committed to free expression, is honoring an American most people in this country have never read or even heard of: Laura Berg. She is a psychiatric nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital who was threatened with a sedition investigation after she wrote a letter to the editor denouncing the Bush administration’s bungling of Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq war.

That’s right, sedition: inciting rebellion against the government. We suppose nothing should surprise us in these days of government zealotry. But the horror and the shame of that witch hunt should shock everyone.

Ms. Berg identified herself as a V.A. nurse when, soon after Katrina’s horrors, she sent her impassioned letter to The Alibi, a paper in Albuquerque. “I am furious with the tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence of this government,” she wrote. “We need to wake up and get real here, and act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit.”

Her superiors at the hospital soon alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and impounded her office computer, where she keeps the case files of war-scarred veterans she treats. Then she received an official warning in which a Veterans Affairs investigator intoned that her letter “potentially represents sedition.”

It took civil rights litigators and Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico to “act forcefully” in reminding the government of the Constitution and her right to free speech. The Department of Veterans Affairs retreated then finally apologized to the shaken Ms. Berg.

Even then, she noted, one superior told her it was preferred that she not identify herself as a V.A. nurse in any future letter writing. “And so I am saying I am a V.A. nurse,” Ms. Berg soon boomed out in a radio broadcast. “And some of my fire in writing this about Katrina and Iraq is from my experience as a V.A. nurse.” Thus declared Ms. Berg, well chosen to receive the new PEN/Katherine Anne Porter First Amendment Award.

•••••••••••••••••••••••
We need a president who will begin to undo the horrors of the past seven years. It’s more than a recession, a wrong war, the bungling of Katrina, Iraq and I will add 9/11. It’s the consistent undermining of our Constitution and its Amendments–the foundation upon which this country was formed.

More people would listen to Laura Berg if she identified herself as a VA nurse than if she didn’t. As bloggers we pat ourselves on the back for saying such profound things as “f–k Bush.” We believe we’re incredible for stating the obvious without putting our lives and/our careers on the line.

We’re not. Laura Berg is.

Stumble it!

I can’t think anymore. It has nothing to do with Southern heat as it’s not hot, and everything to do with fear. There were reasons I wanted my apartment on the market, earlier, very valid reasons. I wasn’t sure what was going to go wrong with the economy next but I had faith that it would tank.

I’m an American Jew and my loyalty is to America as are Obama’s. Jews, Blacks, and Muslims more than most groups should understand the question of “divided loyalties.” Nobody ever says to an Irish-American, “so you believe in Ireland over America?” Can we get over this and focus on the issues?.

Watching George W. Bush address the New York financial community Friday brought back many memories. Unfortunately, they were about his speech right after Hurricane Katrina, the one when he said: “America will be a stronger place for it.”
“You’ve helped make our country really in many ways the economic envy of the world,” he told the Economic Club of New York.

Read the rest of the article.
I’m selling the most adorable apartment in Manhattan. At this stage of my life adorable doesn’t cut it.

Not one politician has addressed what’s happened to New York since 9/11. But GWB’s the one who began the spiral.

All my single without children, girlfriends in the arts and “helping professions” left before I did. Nobody cares. There are rich people to take our place.

Collins doesn’t rant on that part. It’s a brilliant article on Bush’s non-responsiveness and really would anybody with half a brain give that speech yesterday?

The stock market has been tanking for months. Sadly the market is the heart and soul of New York. Yesterday felt like The Depression. It was another day filled with horror filled phone calls and emails. Everybody I know who works for Bear Stearns and I know a few–panicking. Everybody I know who has an account there is panicking. It’s a lot more than Bear Stearns.

Bush reacted as he did to 9/11, to Katrina–read the damn article. I’m too out of control and having to learn how to respond to tornado warnings to think about writing.

Read this article please. It’s brilliant.

Stumble it!

This is a very scary time for me. Getting ready to leave all that is known. I bitch about New York all the time but I have only lived here except for two years in Cambridge in my early 20’s–and all over the place before then. But I was young, very young and had few things. I was impulsive then and am so the opposite of impulsive now.
I don’t know how that happens. Becoming settled. Thinking of everything that can go wrong, when once I just did. I have such deep roots here yet I know it’s time to shake the roots.
Writing has become so important to me. Once it was a hobby. Something I did to amuse myself. Something I did better than other people at work or in school. It’s the anchor that’s almost making me do this. Lately I have been scared that I’m losing my talent or whatever makes me unique. I begin to think that I’m too old. That great books and articles belong to the young(er) and I never gave myself the chance before. Serious writing requires an organizational skill I lacked until modern computers.
I have an entirely different side. In person I’m funny. In many emails and some comments, but here…I think I need to be settled.

The title of this post refers to my great love of Frank Rich–and how he’s writing about people I can’t stand. I so hope Judith Regan is Rudy’s Linda Tripp. But often I think he should be the Republican candidate as nobody in New York can imagine him winning. We have been wrong before. I remember going to vote in 2000 and a woman said “if everybody on the Upper West Side stands a certain way we can win.” I thought she was crazy, but have thought about what she said she often–that was before that night, and the Florida results. Maybe we didn’t stand the right way.
The quote from the Frank Rich article is beneath all this–If anybody can explain how RudyG can be so truly devoid of morals yet be so popular when Clinton was crucified I would love an explanation.
and click the help stop global warming link
Have to decide what to give away and what to keep. Not easy. My apartment will be on the market shortly. I know there’s still a market in New York for apartments like mine. Not sure how to price it.
Help stop global warming. Got this from Little Luce who got it from her school.
Frank Rich on Judith Regan and Giuliani. Continue Reading »

Stumble it!

I’m trying to stick to fiction as it’s fun and right now I need all the fun I can get.
But sometimes…I do have three more chapters written and plans for many more. I made a page for it. And really like Wednesday’s chapter. Just need the words.
The only true way we can honor Vets and troops serving in Iraq is by ending that war now. Lately I have been thinking it’s easier to keep that war going than to think, or do anything, about the very real problems in America.

Wrong track is a euphemism. We are a people in clinical depression. Americans know that the ideals that once set our nation apart from the world have been vandalized, and no matter which party they belong to, they do not see a restoration anytime soon.

This is an especially wonderful article by Frank Rich. After three readings I’m convinced Rich is the person who can save the USA. OK, I worship him, but for a good reason. He’s a brilliant writer and thinker. Though I quote Senator Schumer in another post he has been one of the biggest disappointments to me. I won’t go further than that. Rich says it all.

Stumble it!

Here’s a love of my life, Frank Rich on Rudy and the end of our country’s being influenced by the radical right. Here’s The Evangelical Crackup People ask how I, a card carrying ACLU member can move to South Carolina. Bloggers taught me that to be an Evangelical doesn’t usually mean being a member of the radical right. My Evangelical friends have as much in common with them as I, a cultural Jew, have with the Ultra Orthodox Jewish fanatics. Blogging did open this country to me. It is because of bloggers that I can make this move. I am much more American than I was three years ago. I am also open to many more wonderful possibilities.

As it was the first real Fall day I spent it outside with friends. I had forgotten how wonderful Autumn crisp weather feels. We went to the weekly Sunday street fair at IS 41 off Columbus Avenue. Usually I dislike it but today it was fun and I know that when I come back to New York as a tourist it will be on the list of things to do. Oh I love talking to the people who have booths there. We speak the same language—New York but I will learn to speak other American languages.

When I put the apartment up for sale in a few weeks I will probably go to Myrtle Beach so as not to mess it up. it’s easy for me to keep a townhouse looking company ready and oh so difficult to keep two and a half rooms in perfect order

Hopefully I will find a person or persons who will go into contract quickly, but you never know. Then they have to prepare the Board package, the Board has to review it and interview them. That process will take at least six weeks which will give me time to see all the doctors I need to see before a move to South Carolina which in some ways does feel like a foreign country to a Fourth Generation New Yorker. Though many people have told me medical services are better and have the personal touch I so miss, it feels strange. I am so ready for this move and so fearful.

I fear my apartment being judged by realtor’s and prospectives buyers. This fear is worse for me than most people because I live in fear of being judged. But I fear it less since learning about Non Verbal Learning Disorders

I am woefully behind in everything that I have to do but feel an energy surge coming on.

I dared not go out from Thursday through Saturday for the rain at time was a fierce pouring one and all I could think about was my stress bronchitis turning into pneumonia. Any other time I would have risked it but this coming Saturday is my niece’s Bat Mitzvah and I come as both myself and my late parents older daughter. That thought is causing me joy, sadness, and more than a bit of nervousness as many of the guests are from my sister and my extended family.

I was asked to go on a cruise this spring that begins in South America and ends in Europe. I felt too unsettled to say yes. People tell me not to buy for six months at least but I have become used to home ownership even if it’s in the form of shares in a corporation. I have checked the owner box for so long, I will probably forget or feel like a vagrant or weird somehow. Though it will be nice to have the false feeling of being rich when I look at the balance in my brokerage account. False cos I ain’t, not in this world at least and that’s one reason I’m making this move.

People here do act as if money is made by the ATM and I fall into that warped mentality at times.

I have been writing fiction, experimental to the edge fiction. I have four more chapters to my 3WW. If I didn’t have so much else to do I could work on it all day and night. It’s made me love writing once again.

When I move I hope to work on it constantly. I hope I have room in the condo or hopefully townhouse for a studio to paint and play with photographs

I will very much miss this apartment. In the morning sun streams in so strongly I feel as though I’m getting a tan. My bedroom is perfect. It feels like a jewel box but really how much time do you spend in one? I watch TV in it. When I move I will watch big screen TV in another room and the bedroom will be used for the two functions a bedroom is supposed to be used for

I am beginning to feel psyched again both about moving and life. I made it in New York. I can make it anywhere I used to feel that I felt so at home and made friends so easily here because it was the only place I knew well. That’s partially true but I’m friendly. When I would make friends other places I would put it down to the phases of the moon and many other variables.

The street face I wore too well for too long is gone replaced by a smile that can’t get me in trouble as I am a New Yorker, street smart and wary.

Everything I have to do will fall into place quicker than I think. I don’t know why I believe what so many people have been telling me but I do. After the Bat Mitzvah I can focus full time on the move. What seemed so overwhelming just a week ago seems almost fun now—but I was having my yearly stress bronchial attack so….I wish my body could be satisfied with stress headaches.

Stumble it!

First here’s a link to an article by Paul Krugman that speaks much truth
I love Frank Rich. It is sorta ironic that my mom turned me onto him, or maybe I did to her, but she would talk about that young theater critic and how amazingly perceptive he was. Think she would be proud of how that “young critic” turned out. In this week that doesn’t belong to Bush or Iraq but me and the people of New York, and all people who were personally affected by 9/11 which is all of us, he speaks not of 9/11 but 9/8/02, and I consider it my duty to reprint his article. Times Select articles are available for free to all people for two weeks
IT will be all 9/11 all the time this week, as the White House yet again synchronizes its drumbeating for the Iraq war with the anniversary of an attack that had nothing to do with Iraq. Ignore that fog and focus instead on another date whose anniversary passed yesterday without notice: Sept. 8, 2002. What happened on that Sunday five years ago is the Rosetta Stone for the administration’s latest scam. Continue Reading »

Stumble it!