Category Archives: Emergency

yet ANOTHER Feitelberg against the war

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the director asked if it would matter if she left the politics out of Marie Antoinette 

I was quoting this for some jaded youth on Boris‘ blog when I thought I might as well post it here. It is the winning essay from last year’s Vanity Fair Essay Contest, and the subject was, basically, what in tarnation is up with kids today? the real cris de coeur coming from the fact that, like frogs in a slowly warming braising pan, nothing at all, no matter how severe, seems to bother them.

I cannot understand why prophylactic tranquillizer sales are so high when, in fact, nothing seems to upset these people because nothing whatsoever seems to register. Maybe the answer is in here:

Another Feitelberg Against the War

…We are spoiled realists. History has funneled us into deeply individual, almost solipsistic lives. We’re a generation that doesn’t expect, in its wildest dreams or worst nightmares, to be directly affected by something so oblique as politics. When my sister’s reserve unit was called up to serve in Afghanistan, I was flabbergasted that her life should change or suffer because of her moment in history. Not particularly optimistic (as our 60s-era parents were), nor particularly well equipped to deal with hardship (as our grandparents were), we have learned history’s lessons about the way things really work, yet have no real need to put that knowledge toward any great cause. Oh, sure, we have plenty of promise, but, as yet, haven’t been given a screen to project it on.

We don’t have a common enemy with a greasy handlebar mustache, although Dick Cheney does come close. Not that we want one. But, as a result, we don’t always know who the bad guy is.

We do know from our parents’ divorces that marriage actually isn’t forever.

We know that free love isn’t a great idea and can kill.

We know that Democrats lie and Republicans lie. We know that good presidents lie as much as the bad ones do.

We’ve learned from cheap furniture, the sprint of technology, and the pendulum of fashion not to get too attached to anything…

Which is as good a point as any to note that Vanity Fair no longer has this essay on its website. This link goes to the Google Cache version, and how long that remains useful is anyone’s guess.

Things get unsurprisingly complicated, and still our rage is bloodless…

PSA: Empress Hotel to close: City to play along

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Sound familiar? It should by now, but it’s going to get a damn site more familiar as we approach the Olympic construction deadlines.

From the Pivot Newswire:

October 18, 2006

Empress Hotel’s new owner plans to shutter it

Employees of the Empress Hotel, a landmark low-income rental building in the DTES, are reporting that the new owner of the hotel has told them they are fired, and that he intends to evict all of the tenants within three months. The Empress Hotel has 74 rooms available to Vancouver’s poorest residents.

“He told me that my job was over, and that he was giving all of the tenants three-month eviction notices,” said Charles Humble, an employee and resident of the hotel.

The new owner has apparently applied for a business license to continue operating the hotel as a low-income rental building; however, the story being told to employees of the building is a different one.

“This is just like the American Hotel,” said David Eby, lawyer with Pivot Legal Society. “The owner says one thing to city hall, and a different thing to the rest of the world. The American is now closed because the City refused to look beneath the surface or act when everybody else was telling them that the building was going to close. The same thing must not happen with the Empress.”

This week is Homelessness Awareness Week, an ironic twist on the recent news coming out of the Empress Hotel. In addition, on Thursday a motion is coming before city council to ban the conversion of low-income housing in the DTES to other uses.

“When these 76 rooms close, which is clearly the owner’s intention, those people who live in the Empress and have lived there for years and years will be living on Vancouver’s streets,” says Kim Kerr of the Downtown Eastside Residents’ Association. “The residents of the DTES are tired of their housing being closed while council waits for funding that is never going to come. Council must act to protect this housing from conversion immediately.”

The 74 rooms in the hotel represent more than 1/3 of all of the 175 wet/cold weather shelter beds opening for this winter in Vancouver. Current vacancy rates for housing available to people on welfare is near 0, as reported in Pivot’s recent report on housing in the DTES “Cracks in the Foundation” which found only two rooms available in the entire city for people at the current welfare shelter rate.

For more information contact:

Kim Kerr – DERA – (604)785-0009

Charles Humble – Resident and employee of the Empress – Room 701

David Eby – Pivot Legal Society – (778)865-7997

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About Pivot Legal Society

Pivot’s mandate is to take a strategic approach to social change, using the law to address the root causes that undermine the quality of life of those most on the margins.   We believe that everyone, regardless of income, benefits from a healthy and inclusive community where values such opportunity, respect and equality are strongly rooted in the law.

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Pivot Newswire, just send a note with that subject line to newswireatpivotlegaldotorg.

Plane hits building in NYC

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Not many details at this point. It was a private plane helicopter a $187,000 Cirrus SR20 belonging to Cory Lidle, a professional baseball player with the Yankees, it hit the 20th floor, the building is on the Upper East Side (ie richville). MSNBC has the scoop:

MSNBC pic of small plane crash in NYC

There was no immediate word on any deaths or injuries. A U.S. official told Reuters there was no reason to believe the incident was terrorism-related…

Video from the scene showed at least three floors in the high-rise engulfed in flames. A column of gray smoke rose over the city, and raging flames could be seen in four windows on two upper floors.

The building has 50 stories, and is surrounded by highrises, so if a plane were to fall out of the sky by accident, it’s likelier in my mind that it would have hit a higher floor. Takes maneuvering to get down low. The building also has a hospital on the lower floors, undoubtably evacuated now because of the threat of the oxygen exploding. The plane hit the hospital section 20th floor; apartments begin on the 22nd floor.

Updates, from Gothamist via Gawker:

  • the building is 524 East 72nd Street

  • several apartments on a number of floors are burning

  • at least one person is dead, several are trapped in the building

  • the FAA still says it was a fixed wing aircraft, not a helicopter

  • a helicopter was in the area, on a photography tour, but there’ s no confirmation this is the same one

  • there is a huge crowd of people in the street, some taking pictures, but burning debris is falling and if they don’t haul ass, Darwin will have his revenge for the teaching of Intelligent Design in US schools.

  • the building is all apartments, no hospitals. The Hospital for Special Surgery is at 535, not 524.

  • The FAA has banned flights within a mile horizontal radius of the site and 1500 feet above.

After

More Updates:

  • two were confirmed aboard the airplane: Lidle’s passport was found in the street, and the governor has confirmed that one person was a flight instructor and the other a student.

  • witnesses said the plane appeared to be performing aerobatic maneuvers and pulled a sharp right dive into the building

  • According to Gothamist, The plane’s route from Teterboro: Statue of Liberty, then up the East River, past the 59th Street bridge where it lost radar contact.

  • a distress call was made from the plane prior to the crash

  • the building is structurally still sound, as the plane was too small and light to do significant damage, and people are moving back in

  • Although the FBI stated there was no indication of terrorism in the crash, Drudge misreported this, dropping the “no.”

Cafferty: what are we becoming

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Cafferty struck a somber tone tonight after the House passed legislation that includes a war crimes immunity clause. He rightfully asks, “what are we becoming?”Cafferty: President Bush is trying to pardon himself. Here’s the deal: Under the War Crimes Act, violations of the Geneva Conventions are felonies, in some cases punishable by death. When the Supreme Court ruled that the Geneva Convention applied to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, President Bush and his boys were suddenly in big trouble. They’ve been working these prisoners over pretty good. In an effort to avoid possible prosecution they’re trying to cram this bill through Congress before the end of the week before Congress adjourns. The reason there’s such a rush to do this? If the Democrats get control of the House in November this kind of legislation probably wouldn’t pass.

You wanna know the real disgrace about what these people are about to do or are in the process of doing? Senator Bill Frist and Congressman Dennis Hastert and their Republican stooges apparently don’t see anything wrong with this. I really do wonder sometimes what we’re becoming in this country.

America 1776-2006: R.I.P.

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Patriotboy's America

Head over to Jesus’ General and pay your respects.
If you have no idea what this is about, check out this remix of a classic, by Karl, one of the General‘s loyal soldiers, or the Colbert Report below it.

As long as we’re rewriting the values our nation has so long held dear (from liberty and justice to tyranny and oppression), perhaps we must also rewrite our songs. My humble submission:

America the Beautiful

My country tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty tyranny,
Of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died!
Land of the Pilgrim’s torturer’s pride!
From every mountain side,
Let freedom screams of the tortured ring!