Greeting from Scott Turner: Vibrant Emotions and Dark Matter

Once again a missive from Scott Turner, who runs the pub quiz at Rocky Sullivan's, graces this blog. As always, these greetings are brought to you by the Red Hook t-shirt queen, Miss Wit.

Greetings, Pub Quiz Appalachian Trail and Argentinian Explorers...

There are a lot of comets flying through our sky.  They don't trail tails made of ice particles and dust, but rather tales made of vibrant emotions and dark matter.

Hence, this week's Pageant of Short-Shrifted Wonderments...

Frank McCourt died this week.  He was a great writer and a better teacher, and he gave life and dignity to a lot of peoples' least favorite Irish city, Limerick.  (Frank did nothing, though, to stop the preponderance of "there once was a sailor from Nantucket" giggles.  And that includes last week's Rocky Sullivan's Pub Quiz -- see below.)  Gave a lot of life to that other Irish city, New York.  His three books -- Angela's Ashes, 'Tis and Teacher Man -- was a triptych that didn't just talk to us, it talked with us.  Frank McCourt was a man who inspired kids one on one, enthralled pub patrons circled around him, and reached readers in 30 languages.

Frank McCourt, who outlived a lot of people before writing Angela's Ashes

Mayor Bloomberg whined this week.  The most recent tantrum from His Holiness is a broken promise from Albany lawmakers that they'd vote for his city schools/mayoral control law before breaking for the summer.  They didn't -- because of the mayor's wealthy. entitled bullying, because under Bloomberg city school teachers have been coerced into teach-to-test formulas rather than actually teaching, and because Albany is a dysfunctional hornets nest of idiots.  Not all of them, but a lot --including the ones actually holding sway up there.

The whining reached a fever pitch when Bloomberg stamped his feet and yelled at Governor Paterson to use state troopers to bring everyone back to Albany.  To effect democracy?  To serve the people?  To vote on a wide-ranging collection of bills and laws?  No, no and no.  Just to vote on Bloomberg's mayoral control bill. 

The mayor produced a letter signed by top Dems saying they'd have a vote.  You know what, Mike?  You're the king of broken promises.  Ask parents, union workers, poor people, parks advocates, hospitals, small-business owners -- all the people you vowed to side with and instead have left in the lurch these last seven years.

Hey, minions, remind me again -- who's this chick?!

Certainly everyone fighting overdevlopment in this city -- Atlantic Yards, the West Side Stadium, new Yankee Stadium, new Shea Stadium, Greenpoint/Williamsburg rezoning, Coney Island, Columbia expansion, 4th Avenue Brooklyn upzoning, Willets Point and a thousand other points of darkness.  We have an East River's worth of broken promises from you.

You have a letter with a broken promise?  Boo frakkin' hoo.

The North of Ireland blew its lid this week.  Well, in the Ardoyne neighborhood of Belfast, anyway.  The still contentious issue of Orange parades wreaked havoc. In Ardoyne and dozens of other places, the Orange Order and its offshoots march through nationalist Irish neighborhoods.  When this happens, there's no way around the triumphalism and taunting the marches inflict of local residents.  The six northern counties still have sectarian issues, no-go zones, "peace walls" that divide communities, mistrust and a political vacuum that the British government refuses to address.  Downing Street's intransigence in Ireland makes the gang in Albany look like the pinnacle of responsibility, progressiveness and accomplishment.

The Ardoyne anger, and one of the reasons they're angry.  It goes beyond bullyboy bands.

Walter Cronkite also died this week.  He was great.  Cronkite came from a time before focus groups, marketing consultants and newscasters who spent more time on their hair than the story.  He spoke out against Vietnam when it was hard to.  He showed emotion when handed the flash bulletin of JFK's death, and giddiness when the Eagle landed on the moon.

Cronkite was "America's Most Trusted Man."  (Apparently, trustworthy women weren't even on the radar for the polling company back then.)  Diane and I talked about this last night.  We challenged each other to come up with someone today we thought qualified for this colossal honorific.  We couldn't.  Not a one.

Uncle Walter lookin' mightee trustworthy, announcing a president's death, on the radio

Henry Louis Gates got arrested this week.  Gates is the director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.  He'd just returned from China.  He and his driver were trying to force open the jammed front door.  Big, nice yellow wooden house in Cambridge.  A neighbor -- Gates' neighbor -- saw two Black men trying to break into the house.  Cops are called, arrive, and arrest Gates even after he'd proved he lives there.  Cops' reason for the arrest?  Uppityness, apparently. 

The charges have since been dropped.  The cops?  Maybe they were doing their job, and maybe they weren't.  The neighbors?  Not exactly Welcome Waggon mettle.  The Cambridge police and Henry Louis Gates' neighbors didn't get the memo about the glories of post-Obama America because no such memo exists, and there's no one to send it just yet.

the more things change...

Finally, there's a meeting in Brooklyn tonight.  It's about Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project.  Yes, that thing, which still lurks and still needs to be put down.  Ostensibly it's an informational meeting for the community.  Come see Bruce's latest designs!  Come learn why this time -- no, really, THIS time it's gonna be great for Brooklyn!  Ratner's people will be there, as will officials from government agencies aiding and abetting Ratner.

Of course, the community won't be allowed to actually speak with these people -- all questions must be submitted in writing before the meeting starts.  Pretty neighborly, huh?  It's like Ratner lives next door to Henry Louis Gates.  Look -- if Atlantic Yards isn't stopped, if something better isn't built there, then Ratner's gonna be every one of our neighbors.

Join Brooklyn Community Boards 2, 6 & 8 at an Informational Meeting to hear an updated presentation on proposed modifications to the Atlantic Yards Development General Project Plan. At this meeting proposed modifications to the plan will be presented by representatives for the New York State Empire Development Corporation and Forest City Ratner Companies. Following the presentation there will be an opportunity for questions (to be submitted in writing) and answers.

Meeting will be held 6:00-9:00pm on July 22, 2009
at Long Island University's Zeckendorf Health Sciences Center, Room 107
(enter Dekalb Avenue, off Flatbush Avenue)

If you wanna ask questions, I suggest you do it with actual human talking.  Works better than index cards.

All of these comets colliding.  It's been that kind of week.  Maybe next week I'll take John Yearley's advice and submit for your approval all the things I like about today's baseball.  John thinks I can't do it.  I think I can.

It's only one comet, and its tail will be bright and effervescent.