Poster on 57th and 9th Avenue:

The 7th NYC Wedding March, September 26 @12pm in Foley Square.  www.meny.us/march

Corner of 57th and 9th Avenue.  Notice the bird coming out of “Joaquian Phoeniox”‘s brain.

After reading the New York Times article about the new skate park in Queens at Corona Park, I invited my nephews up to try it out.  Verdict: they loved it.  They had scooters, which is bigger in New Jersey than New York (a skateboarding city).  According to the Times, the City is trying to become the international center of the fast-growing sport.  They have been on a construction spree of skate parks (here’s a list).  The Corona Park one, however, was designed with skaterboarders and is judged to be the best for them in the city.  Scooters will still have fun at CP, but the park is really designed for skateboards.

Here are some Creative Commons shots (taken with my cameraphone):

The world-famous Unisphere from the 1964 World’s Fair.

The skate park

Matthew and Richard look on as Joseph jumps the stairs on his scooter.

Queens Theatre.

Exhausted on the subway from a day of scootering.

It was a beautiful day in New York yesterday, perfect late August: 85 degrees and sunny, with a slight sea breeze.

I took Little Man to my favorite park in New York: East River Park.  I love it because is in my neighborhood, and it’s rarely crowded so there are a lot of places Little Man can play and roll around in the grass.  The City has been paying a lot of attention to the waterfront of the New Yorkest of rivers, the East River.  The views of Brooklyn from the new esplanade are incredible, and the Williamsburg Bridge stretches over my end of the park.

I used my much-loathed Samsung Memoir cameraphone, which was able to produce a few good shots.

These are all licensed Creative Commons 3.0 attribution:

I dislike that opponents of the Cordoba House have won in branding it the ‘Ground Zero mosque’ – more evidence that it’s mostly non-New Yorkers, who generally prefer calling it the ‘World Trade Center’.

I ventured out to take some Creative Commons shots of the protesters and supporters of Cordoba House, but there were only a handful of supporters when I arrived at noon.   If people are not against Cordoba House and think it’s fine, they aren’t particularly enthusiastic with support.  That would explain the lackluster support turnout.  I would say there were about 500-1000 people who showed up for the actual protest.

These images may be re-used and cropped – they are licensed Creative Commons 3.0.  Click on the photo to enlarge it.

This was the small crowd of supporters of Cordoba House.

Below are shots of the protesters:

Click here to see more images of the protest at Flickr.

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I received a few e-mails from people wondering why I haven’t been blogging, and there isn’t really a reason.  I’ve been busy with work, I don’t have much to say and I’m in a creative rut.  I don’t enjoy writing about politics because of how absurd the national discourse is right now; it feels a little degrading to write when ‘terror babies‘ and U.N. conspiracies pass for mainstream issues.  If Jack Stuef and Josh Fruhlinger weren’t around, I don’t know how I would make sense of the right wing (Poe’s Law).  I’m in love with Jack Stuef.

Work is busy, though, and the few hours I’m not putting in at the office I am working on a story that’s been in my head for awhile.

I have, however, been keeping my Flickr Creative Commons photostream alive with randomness.  So, to fill the void in my political rants and meaningless observations, I include a few recent uploads.

COLD SPRING NEW YORK WITH SANDY ORDONEZ

If you are an old timer Wikimedian then you will remember the days when the public relations guru Sandra Ordonez was cutting her teeth at the Wikimedia Foundation in St. Petersburg.  Sandy and I have become good friends, and she and her husband José hosted a weekend retreat for various New York artists and intellectuals at their country compound in Cold Spring in the gorgeous Hudson Valley.

The property they rented for the summer has a main house, a four bedroom guest barnhouse, a boat house, and a private pond that you have to traverse by boat to visit the abandoned 19th Century graveyard that contains perhaps 30 graves.  All on their private property.

Above:  The boat house, with the main house in the background.  We were out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees, nature and silence (except for our loud laughs and conversation).

Above:  Dave and Sandy in the abandoned 19th Century graveyard across the pond on the property.  There were about 30 graves there of people lost and long forgotten (until we were there).

Above:  Sandy and Maria laughing late into the night by candlelight.

Above:  The Little Man enjoying the flowers in the country air.

See more Cold Springs photos at my Flickr

FIRE ISLAND BIRTHDAY 2010

I was kind of surprised at how “racy” my sister said she found my Fire Island birthday photos.  Actually, both of my sisters found them…<ahem>…racy.  I asked the one why, because there are no shots of anything salacious like people fucking or doing anything other than dancing and having a good time.  She paused for a moment to think about it, and then she laughed and said, “Yeah, I know, but I guess it’s what I don’t see.  The mind fills in the blanks.”

Ha!  I was a saint and just enjoyed hanging out with my friends.  Here are a few more shots:

Michael Lucas, Nonie, Rafael Alencar, David Shankbone and Ernesto Altamirano at the Hotel Belvedere.

Michael and Nonie at the Belvedere.

I don’t know what we were thinking:  Judas carrying crucified Christ.

Michael, Nonie and Ernesto trying to catch fish on the Great South Bay.

See more of my Fire Island Creative Commons photos at Flickr.

LITTLE MAN & THE PIGEON

Finally, below are two shots of Little Man’s unrequited dream captured on film.  His lifelong goal, since he was little (he’s five and a half now) is to catch a pigeon.  He tries often, and never comes close to succeeding.  Then one morning we leave the building for his morning walk and right outside in our alcove is a pigeon with a broken wing.  Helpless, hapless, flopping about.  Little Man was so excited he could barely contain himself.  Alas, I did not let him realize his dream because it was not a fair fight.

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Abe Foxman, who is supposed to be one of the main public voices of tolerance, is a complete disgrace to the Anti-Defamation League.  It’s bad enough that he joined in the blinding bigotry of those who oppose the Cordoba House (the “Ground Zero mosque” – New Yorkers generally dislike calling the World Trade Center ‘Ground Zero’).  But he also completely mischaracterized history in doing so.

The other day on NPR Foxman talked about his opposition to the Cordoba House, claiming it was an analogous situation to Carmelite nuns who wanted a convent right on Auschwitz.  This is what he said:

NPR: What about this specific building or its specific location or its specific design makes it seem a little too in your face?

FOXMAN: Well, it I don’t know about the design. I don’t know about the for me it’s similar to a position that the Jewish community took, oh, about 15, 20 years ago when there was an effort by the Carmelite nuns to build a convent in or around Auschwitz. And we then said we welcome your love, we welcome your prayers, but please don’t do it on this site. This was a controversy for eight years.

We in the Jewish community, we in the ADL got accused of being bigots, that we are opposed to Christianity or the Catholic Church. And eventually the pope understood and said, OK, build it a mile away. [NPR]

This is not what happened at Auschwitz with the Carmelite nuns.  This is what happened:

In 1984, a group of Carmelite nuns opened a convent just outside of the gates of Auschwitz — in a building that was part of the original death camp and which housed the gas often utilized by the Nazis and their sympathizers to carry out the extermination of the mainly Jewish prisoners. The nuns said they intended to pray for the souls of all who had died and make atonement; Jews erupted in protest over the convent, which was — again — in a building that was part of Auschwitz. Three years later, the groups reached an agreement that the nuns would move, but they never did. It was actually 9 years after the convent opened, and only after Pope John Paul II — a Pole — ordered the nuns to relocate, that the convent-at-Auschwitz closed its doors. [....]

A little history lesson might also be in order. Around 960,000 Jews died at Auschwitz alongside 125,000 people of various nationalities, most of whom were not Catholic. Jews were a minority population in a majority Catholic country and faced extermination at the hands of the state (and, in many cases, their Catholic neighbors) because of their religion and race.

As a result of the attacks on September 11th in New York, 2,749 people died (excluding the hijackers). Those people came from 77 countries, though the majority were American, and approximately 60 of the victims were Muslim.  [TPM]

At Salon’s War Room, Michael Barthel explores Foxman’s unpalatable (for a civil rights leader) words and behavior:

Running parallel to this history of laudable public service, however, is a darker story centering largely on Foxman. The ADL’s private domestic spying operation had been going on since its inception, but after Foxman took over it engaged in operations like spying on anti-apartheid activists and other non-extremist groups. Foxman and the ADL became worried as much about direct domestic persecution of Jews as they were about opposition to Israel, and began to equate anti-Zionism with anti-semitism. Certainly, anti-Zionism can bleed into anti-semitism, but Foxman has taken this to a cartoonish degree, demanding apologies from Americans for expressing views on Palestine that would be well within the mainstream in the context of Israeli domestic politics. [....]

Foxman’s conservatism is clear in his selective outrage. He refused to condemn anti-semitic statements by Sun Myung Moon’s Bush administration-allied Unification church, declined to protest Fox News’ frequent use of Nazi imagery for the purposes of political vilification — and, of course, in contrast to his opposition to an anti-Mormon film, he’s happily gotten on board with the anti-Islamic sentiment that even he acknowledges is key to opponents of the Park51 project near ground zero.  [Salon]

Don’t expect me to listen to anything the Anti-Defamation League has to say as long as Foxman is at the helm.  I agree with Richard Silverstein: Abe Foxman is a Jewish dinosaur.  A disgraceful Jewish dinosaur.

Last night a good friend of mine scored me a free ticket to see Lady Gaga at Madison Square Garden for the Monster Ball.  I hate to sound trite, but words don’t do Gaga justice so I will just say that it was amazing.

When I go to events like this I struggle with whether or not to sneak my good camera in so that I can take some nice Creative Commons photos of one of the most inspiring artists working today.  To bring a clunky DSLR means that I no longer feel like a spectator to the event as much as a documentarian.  I don’t sit back and enjoy the show (or dance in the aisles as I did last night) but instead I’m always on the lookout for crisper photos, better angles.  It can make an event I am in the middle of feel far away.

Since my Creative Commons project is more-or-less officially over (with exceptions), I left the DSLR at home and brought my Samsung cameraphone.  Obviously, the photos aren’t so great, but my own personal experience was so much better without the DSLR.

Me and Brooke with Gaga in the background.  Thank you to the security guard who took this photo and then promptly told us to go back to our seats.

She is actually playing the piano she is on top of in the photo above.

Brett and Brooke having a blast.

I stumbled across this unlucky fat fellow on East 6th Street on my way to breakfast this morning.  I would estimate that he was about two to three pounds.

Licensed Creative Commons 3.0 attribution

This man is not a neo-Nazi; he was at the Festival of India in Washington Square Park yesterday.  The swastika on his shirt is an ancient symbol (though obviously a little jarring to see).

I thought it was funny that there was not one other person at the Indian festival that wore this symbol except this white guy. Hipster Hindu with ironic Whole Foods bag juxtaposition – only in New York.

From Wikipedia:

Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period in Ancient India. It occurs mainly in the modern day culture of India, sometimes as a geometrical motif and sometimes as a religious symbol. It remains widely used inIndian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Though once commonly used all over much of the world without stigma, because of its iconic usage as Hakenkreuz in Nazi Germany the symbol has become stigmatized in the Western world, notably even outlawed in Germany.

Here are a few more photos from the festival, licensed Creative Commons 3.0

This photo below was on the side of a tent promising some multi-media mind expansion experience, or something.  This mural was particularly strange.  It shows the stages of life:

If you click on the mural and blow it up, the last stage right before death looks particularly gruesome: