amstel89

FULTON STREET IS NOT THE NEW GCT, AND OTHER FISH TALES

While many species of New Yorkers qualify for the "worst" title, none even come close to real estate developers and their minions.  They take hyperbole to places no man has ever gone before.  They invent neighborhoods that never have, do not now and never will exist in order to justify higher rentals and sales.  They create irritating and pretentious nicknames for neighborhoods that give natives digestive disorders.  MiMa and FiDi are recent examples.  The latest horror is the recent promotional language invented by these con artists and slavishly repeated by corporate media to describe the new Fulton Street subway hub.  It's clean, it's attractive, it's convenient, it's functional and it even has ONE dramatic and interesting architectural detail, the Fulton Street Eye; but it is not the "new Grand Central Terminal."  It  is NOT an exciting new "Grand Central Terminal go to" landmark that will "draw tourists from around the world."  Inside is a Jersey-style shopping mall wannabe and temporarily spit, rat poop, urine and vomit free subway platforms.  Inside is the Fulton Street Eye.  Very beautiful.

 Looking much better in photographs than in person.  And the outside, unlike the gracious, stately and iconic Grand Central Terminal, is a piece of architectural shit.

KILLING THE MAGIC

As someone who has loved Central Park as an oasis of spirituality, mystery, serenity and nature for all of my 66 years, the angry truth is that bicyclists and runners have come very close to destroying the wonder of this mythical and magical garden. Early Saturday and Sunday mornings are now a combination of swarming life-threatening high speed bikes and endless bull-horn driven charity and fitness marathons assaulting a once quiet island with rallying cries, screams and horns.

BENIGN RACISM AND THE "REST OF US"

There are all those horrible racists in the GOP and the Tea Party and then there's the rest of us;  the rest of us who love our President because he's black.    Obama is a man who played his race card to overcome a complete lack of relevant experience in a sexist crusade to discredit and defeat a brilliant woman who should have been our current leader.  This is a man who through lack of political cunning, leadership and strategic focus squandered control of Congress just two years after taking office.  This is a man who promised universal, not-for-profit health care that is now lining the pockets of the for-profit insurance industry and denying healthcare to milions of Americans.  This is a man who puts on a great show but has failed to pass any national legislation providing enduring liberty, civil rights and anti-discrimination protections for gay men, women and children.  This is a man who has done more to damage the future of democracy and freedom than George W. Bush every imagined.

But this is a man who is black, so we love him.  Had this been the record of a white President, can you imagine the uproar from "the rest of us?"

ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN!!!

Shocking new statistics vindicate gays as destroyers of American society!  It's the fucking uppidity bitches!  FOXNEWS launches canpaign to reclassify women as property.

 

 

CARDINAL DOLAN TO NEW YORK GAYS: DROP DEAD

The nation's top Catholic, New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan has "responded" to the  unprecedented wave of anti-gay violent crimes in Manhattan, including one cold-blooded murder, by calling for a month of anti-gay hate rallies at Sunday Mass.  The edict of course coincides with Pride Month.  He hopes that Catholics will fight for traditional marriage, one bloodied faggot at a time.

CATHOLIC MYSTERIES

The Roman Catholic Church portrays itself as full of mysteries.  

So here's a doozy of a mystery.  

Why are known child molesters on the Church's payroll as practicing clergy?  

In the secular world when an adult male molests a child, he goes to prison.  In the Catholic clerical world when an adult male molests a child, he is politely asked to stay away from children while he goes about God's work.

The Pope calls that moral relativism and religious freedom.

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF AROUSAL

Am I the only one fascinated by the fact that millions of Americans believe that if the sex organ of a member of the opposite sex makes you moist,  you have a Jesus-given right to cancel democracy?  From whence does this belief derive?  Do Priests hold up giant pictures of vaginas at Sunday services and then tell all the men in the church that if they are experiencing an erection they are legally exempt from Constitutional law?

IDOL WORSHIP

Lacking a scientific understand of the phenomenon of culture, I'm nonetheless fascinated by the degree to which AMERICAN IDOL metaphorically reflects American politics, foreign policy and religion. Loud, garish, superficial, combatative, persistantly mediocre and lacking any strategic or qualitative compass. And perhaps nothing says a 'society in crisis' more than a vacuous Mariah Carey staggering on stage to shower a Karaoke version of a lounge singer version of third-rate Black Diva with glitter.  I believe there's a Commandment against Idol Worship.  We should heed it.

BLOOMBERG'S FANTASYLAND AND FREEDOM TOWER

As wise and as clever as I am, I've never fully understood the generally acceptable and very broad gap between official "truth" and reality.  Some days you find yourself staring directly into the sun while our politicians confidently describe it as the moon or even a turnip.  No one questions this.  The press reports it as a turnip while the blazing sun burns their collective retinas to a crisp.  I have no idea why I thought of a turnip; perhaps it is because a turnip metaphorically makes as much sense as the nonsense daily dished out by American officialdom.  The latest case in point is the once ridiculously named Freedom Tower aka the world's largest target, commonly known as the World Trade Center.  Today's New York Times suggests what has been obvious to anyone with eyes for about ten very long years.  

New York City's Mayor of Fantasyland, Mike Bloomberg has been boasting for a decade that he is not only restoring the world's most famous symbol of freedom, he is rebuilding neighorhoods, returning the vibrancy of New York street life to this former war zone.  In reality, his neo-fascist administration has built a fortress memorial to freedom, a concept long since buried under a mountain of national security measures, laws, regulations, drones, cameras and armed goons.  

The vibrant New York City neighborhood street life translates into barricades, barriers, securty cameras, concrete and steel walls, heavily armed uniforms, endless security checkpoints and the occasional garden of barbed wire.

Mike's revitalized lower Manhattan neighborhood is a ne0-fascist high tech security zone.  Kudos to the johnny-come-lately New York Times for finally realizing this.

NEW STARTLING DISCOVERY ABOUT MARIJUANA!

Once again a group of scientists has spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours  to prove something known to every teenager in America.  Smoking marijunaa helps you deal with crap.