Max Rose for Congress - 11th District NYC

I live in The Forgotten Borough and have met Rose while campaigning.

Max has got the Moxie and energy to do the things he says he will devote his efforts in Congress to.

He is real.

Vote 4 Change. 

New York City NYC - 5 Boroughs - Topical

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Richmond Terrace - Staten Island New York - 1890

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Splainin Staten Island to a Stranger – Eric Garner’s Turf

Eric Garner Death Site - Bay Street
Google Street Map

It is hard sometimes to explain Staten Island to strangers. The area where Eric Garner was brought down to keep the streets clean of poor people selling loosie cigarettes or joints is a seedy area about three blocks from the Staten Island Ferry and Borough Hall.

Downtown Staten Island if you can call it that is a bunch of public buildings, small businesses, a Technical High School, an academic High School, courts, all up against the side of a hill, small mountain, steep as any street in San Francisco.

It is an area of high foot traffic during the day from those various high schools and courts. The Ferry building itself is a major transportation hub, the primary one, and second to that is first stop away from that transportation hub to areas south and west along Bay Street, the main coastal road to the Verrazano Bridge and Victory Blvd (the old Philadelphia Pike) - where Eric Garner was hanging out in his local free lance business activities.

Eric Garner was hanging around a seedy urban strip mall with hair dressing shops, fast food, Gypsy Cab Co., etc. and the center of activity across the Tompkinsville Park.  

This used to be the center of an old forgotten Victorian era town when Staten Island was still mostly farmland and small burb towns until 1964 and the opening of the Verrazano Bridge.  Even though looking seedy and having the feeling of a slum, the average house in this neighborhood, probably an old wood frame shingled house is $400-500K among the many apartment buildings. Location. Location. Location.

Across the park is the local Welfare and Food Stamp Office for the Borough in an old car dealership building on Bay Street.

Victory Blvd. Off Bay Street - Tomkinsville Park - Bus Stop
Google Street Map

A whole lot of activity during the day all about. And a lot of police in police cars patrolling from the nearby 20^th Precinct Building on Richmond Terrace – same street – Bay street with Borough Hall (local City Hall - Marriage Licenses, building permits etc.) at the Ferry Terminal the dividing line on that main coastal road on the North Shore of Staten Island.  

An area you might walk through if you want to, safe enough, but after 5 PM you don’t want to walk around the area.

A lot of police and firemen live in Staten Island. No indictment was possible on this Police home turf in their burbs and $700K+ houses beyond this coastal slum town by the Ferry.

Pan Around per Google from Eric Garner’s run in with the former mayor’s policy to sweep all poor people off the streets from 9 to 5 in this local hub of public buildings and government functions.

Google Street - 360 degree View:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.637197,-74.0765996,3a,75y,247.78h,83.83t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s4p-UCpLScJ2LWB92V9RR1A!2e0!6m1!1e1?hl=en

Google Maps

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Manhattan Viewing South Across Bay to North Shore Staten Island

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Michael Grimm Spoof - SNL - Melissa McCarthy

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Staten Island, New York's Magical Borough, Overrun with Wild Turkeys, Unicorns and Zebras

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last catholic standing in staten island* - *nyc – a rant

(photo op) - Abp.Timothy Dolan visits South Beath, Staten Island, NYC, Nov 17 12

A fork in the road...

So a depraved and decadent nation, including a majority of nominal Catholics, re-elected Nero to a second term. Now that they can't count on a deus ex machina in the form of a President Romney saving them from the consequences of their decades-long collaboration with Democratic evil, the big question is what the bishops are going to do about the Health Care contraceptive mandate. Are they going to stand up like men or will they lie down like lambs? Are they going to compromise with evil or are they going to lead our church in civil disobedience to this vile regime and its attempt to make Catholics pay for what is sinful and loathsome? The next four years will undoubtedly be horrific, but fidelity and martyrdom always produce great fruit for Christ's Church.

(Nov.7.12) http://statenislandcatholic.blogspot.com/

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Guacamole - Staten Island Style

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Help Needed - Staten Island - Hurricane Sandy

I ran into this help site for Staten Island. 

https://statenisland.recovers.org/

The Borough President of Staten Island says to boycott American Red Cross

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/staten-island-red-cross-hurricane-sandy_n_2065209.html

Staten Island Hit Hard by Hurricane Sandy

A lot of damage to the plywood based houses on the South Shore. Living next to the ocean has its hazards. A lot of housing on the south shore by the ocean should have been left nature preserves or swamps and never built on IMHO.

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20121030/new-dorp/hurricane-sandy-called-mini-katrina-staten-island-south-brooklyn/slideshow/popup/297912

They just turned the electricity on about sixteen hours ago here.  We were out of luck for 68 hours in this little pocket on the north shore of Staten Island, the many times forgotten fifth borough of "New York City".  

The two streets in an island of other areas that came back sooner after a day or two was because a lot of big old houses on these two streets have 130 year old oaks that were supposed to be taken down by owners in the last year or two but did not or could not trim or remove older trees.

Kind of expensive if you are retired and appear to be well to do living in a big old house. I live in an apartment complex surrounded by the shabby chic of yesteryear glory in an old neighborhood.  

Twenty three trees bit the dust on these two streets. First the cut downs, then cutting up the trees, non-stop roar of wood chippers, the inspections, minor repairs, priority of Con Edison personnel in not being called elsewhere etc. The Ferry is still not working, no electricity in St. George at the moment.

No rioting but some looting at a nearby Lowe’s and Kohl’s right after the storm.

Kudos to NYPD on catching some of the perps.

Was able to buy candles at Lowe’s on Tuesday morning for cash, cash registers down with the electricity.

Was surprised they printed this.  About a mile from here.

http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/11/looting_on_staten_island_in_wa.html

Some running by my son back and forth to places to recharge cells and lap top and try to make deadlines with college homework, the college only open yesterday, today public schools open.

We got ice and the meat in the freezer stayed frozen enough to think it is still good. Water was on and gas in the stove, pilot light intact.  

Candles, a transistor radio and started to write the first two chapters of a long threatened novel.  

Someone I know spent three hours in line for a tank of gas last night after going to five closed stations. Some skank was hanging around the line offering gallon cans of gasoline at $60 dollars a pop.

All in all we were quite lucky. Compared to what I hear about Jersey.

The infrastructure and planning in the nineteenth century for a twenty-first century New York City SUCKS in the age of global warming and or climate change.

Trillions of dollars of over-inflated obsolete skyscrapers returning to the primordial swamp etc. in downtown Manhattan. Not a good investment friends.

Be well guys.  Civilization is indeed a thin veneer. 

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Snug Harbor - 22 Oct 12 - Staten Island

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Best Food in Staten Island – “Blue” Restaurant – Snug Harbor

"Blue" Restaurant - North Shore - Staten Island

Just had lunch the other day at “Blue” on the North Shore opposite the Snug Harbor Museum campus.

Snug Harbor

The old R.H.Tugs Restaurant jumped the shark in the nineties but ownership hung on to celebrate a twenty fifth year anniversary I guess for the sake of nostalgia and shabby chic?

This new restaurant with a basic Mediterranean cuisine actually surprised me along with a major interior architectural redo of the old basic structure. The Bar area is now doubled in size and more of a lounge complete with a few lounge chairs.  The restaurant is refreshingly bright with almost floor to ceiling picture windows facing the river and giving you a breathtaking, up front in your face, view of that major hidden forgotten asset in Staten Island, and that is of its long forgotten water front. 

The interior of the restaurant area is refreshingly simple. The walls are painted a Mediterranean color with Gothic Revival woodwork accents to match, compliment the hidden architectural gem of Snug Harbor across the street. This interior background tells you that so much thought and preparation went into this place. That forethought and care is also found in its fantastically fresh, tasty and excellent food.

What I sampled was from the Lunch Menu BTW. The pasta entre with clams and shrimp was the best I have eaten in a restaurant anywhere.  Seafood, fresh, fresh, fresh (you can taste the sea). I also had a taste of my companions’ dishes. The Angus burger, exceptionally excellent. And a lunch time special pastrami sandwich which was a quality, light tasting, not standard heavy, meat sliced and served with a real sense of style and excellence across the board of a creative eclectic menu.

They have an impressive wine list. Lunch for three with two appetizers, crab fritters - yum, three entrees, two cocktails, and one desert, a key lime pie to die for, and coffees all around for desert was for present day standards reasonable and under one bill.  You pay for quality and believe me quality is far and some distance between in that forgotten (gem) of a borough. That quality is found here in Snug Harbor at "Blue".

Blue

1115 Richmond Terrace

Staten Island NY 10310

718-273-7777

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Staten Island GOP Skinnydipping Sausage Fest Orgy - Rep. Michael Grimm pees in the Galilee

On a Congressional fact finding trip to Israeli - how much did that cost taxpayers - GOP reps let their hair down and pants down in a late night skinnydipping sausagefest party in the Sea of Galilee.

The FBI probed a late-night swim in the Sea of Galilee that involved drinking, numerous GOP freshmen lawmakers, top leadership staff – and one nude member of Congress, according to more than a dozen sources, including eyewitnesses. 

During a fact-finding congressional trip to the Holy Land last summer, Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) took off his clothes and jumped into the sea, joining a number of members, their families and GOP staff during a night out in Israel, the sources told POLITICO. 

Other participants, including the daughter of another congressman, swam fully clothed while some lawmakers partially disrobed. More than 20 people took part in the late-night dip in the sea, according to sources who took part in the trip. 

“A year ago, my wife, Brooke, and I joined colleagues for dinner at the Sea of Galilee in Israel. After dinner I followed some Members of Congress in a spontaneous and very brief dive into the sea and regrettably I jumped into the water without a swimsuit,” Yoder said in a statement to POLITICO. “It is my greatest honor to represent the people of Kansas in Congress and [for] any embarrassment I have caused for my colleagues and constituents, I apologize.” 

Travis Smith, Yoder’s chief of staff, told POLITICO “Neither Congressman Yoder, nor his staff, have been interviewed by the FBI.” 

These GOP sources confirmed the following freshmen lawmakers also went swimming that night: Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) and his daughter; Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) and his wife; Reps. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.), Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) and Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.). 

Many of the lawmakers who ventured into the ocean said they did so because of the religious significance of the waters. Others said they were simply cooling off after a long day. Several privately admitted that alcohol may have played a role in why some of those present decided to jump in.

New York - Where is the Victims Monument at Fresh Kills Staten Island?

Ran into this 1910 picture of a monument to dead Firemen in Philly on Girard Ave. Don't know if it is still there.

Which makes me think that is time we were putting a fitting monument on all the remains of the dead of 911 still out there in the hallowed ground of Fresh Kills garbage dump in Staten Island.

I like the design of the above obelisk.  Say fifty feet high and in white stone or concrete and visible from the nearby highway.

They can spend billions over in Manhattan for show (the tourists).  How about tossing a bone to the forgotten borough regarding the forgotten dead - the unknowns?


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911 - World Trade Center - Memories and Reflections

ghosts of 911 - reflections and memories of September 11, 2001

Reflections and memories of the events leading up to and following 911, by a resident of Staten Island working in mid-town Manhattan. Dealing with the immediate consequences of a city brought to a standstill by an act of war and living in and traveling through the war zone for months to come. This includes memories of the old World Trade Center before its destruction as well as points of views from different communities and their dealing with the tragedy.

There is also a tribute to Father Mychal Judge, Fire Department Chaplain, listed as casualty number one of a long list of victims on that day. There is hope in the building of a Peace Garden in Snug Harbor Gardens in Staten Island, which had the highest percentage of Fire Department deaths of any of the five boroughs of the City of New York
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There is a poem Opede rededicated to the spirit of rebuilding which the author originally wrote in 1978 and rededicated to the spirit of that building of a New World Trade Center out of the ashes of the old.

All in all, this is a series of short stories and reflections on various real people and unknown heroes of that infamous day in September 2001. I think your reading of this will help in the healing process and contribute to awareness of what some would label the beginnings of a New Global Culture. 


Available on Amazon Kindle:

Rapture Cancelled – by This Cultural Christian

Talk about the rapture happening, whatever that is, on May 21, 2011, is just that - talk.

I just got word that it is not a sure bet. So what the heck, here goes.

The Rapture IMHO as predicted for May 21, 2011 is hereby cancelled.

You can quote me!

I called my friend Jesus, a retired dude in Vegas, to get the odds at one of the casinos on the end of the world as a hedged bet.

“Waste of money dude! The world ain’t gonna end anytime soon. It is the end of your world that you should be thinking about, preparing for mentally and spiritually.

“Rapture. What the hell is that? Where in the funny book is it written down that the world ends on Saturday?”

To which I replied .

“Okay dude. Chill. But there are an awful lot of fairytale Christians running around thinking they are getting a free ride to heaven on Saturday. “

To which he replied.

“Ain’t no free lunch on earth or any free rides to heaven. They should now that. You want to go to heaven – you’ve already arrived - heaven is here on this earth. Worry about the life after when you get there. We all got reservations don’t you know? I got to run. General Hospital is starting. Bye guy.”

I just also heard from a friend of a friend of a friend that some poor fool on Staten Island just paid $140,000 of their life savings to pay for billboards around New York City in support of this Rapture Rumor BS thing. Quick! Try and get your money back.

A lunatic or I should say Fairytale Christian Harold Whathisname should be indicted for fraud or at the very least lose his tax free religion status in punishment for this malicious superstitious pagan prank on humanity.

April Fool’s day is supposed to be April the first.

Whatever.

Have a nice day and a full nice weekend.

P.S.

May 24, 2011

Brother Harold was wrong and now he is resetting God's clock to end on October 21, 2011.

This Cultural Christian hereby cancels the Rapture and or the End of the World on October 21.

My friend Jesus (Hay-soos) in Vegas agrees with me on that according to the betting odds at the casinos there.

Have a nice life you old fraud Harold.   Don't fleece too many sheep this time.  LOL

Bread and God

The man with answers has no answers. People assume that God has all the answers. Does he?

I got into a short but strange conversation by way of compter translation with a person who contacted me on Facebook, one of those social networking websites that wants you to show a lot of photos.

The person for some reason mentioned to me my love of God. I guess he saw the name of my blog This Cultural Chrisitian and assumed that I was a full believing Christian.

Anyway, the person on the contacting end also mentioned the word “Mafia”. I assumed he was responding to one of my favorite movies being The Godfather. I joined in the conversation via a translate function and well, I did not get into good communication with this person.

He thought The Godfather was an bad movie glorifying evil. He was right but I also thought it a classic and great work of cinematic art. In any case, I did not get much out of his French except the literal computer generated translated meaning of words. I also got the sense of how closed belief is on subjects related to God, and not knowing his religious beliefs.

His translated words to me said something like he wanted to talk about God and that I wanted to discuss bread. Thus the beginning of this discussion based on two different human beings thinking that they are looking at the same object or subject and two different people getting two separate translations of the same thing according to individual prejudice.

The bread referred to in this Internet conversation/translation was about the Wedding Cake in the movie and the one I bought from the same bakery in Staten Island that made the one in the movie. Ours was a bit smaller. I wished to express my own interface with scenes in the movie and the identification with visual sites I know from Staten Island and put in the film as labeled as Long Island etc..

But it, the conversation, was a good beginning. Do we talk about bread or God when we join together and talk about God?

The Our Father speaks of our daily bread. In reality the nitty gritty of life is not God but Bread.

God is intertwined with all living things. Bread is life. God is life. We are life.

1st U.S. Female President - Diane Savino?

All the Haters and Fox News lovers today are out in full force to celebrate the "defeat" of the same-sex and or gay marriage bill in the New York State Senate yesterday.

The Hate Non-Profits won this one out of their petty cash box. To quote Scarlet O'Hara - Tomorrow is another day. - Boys!

One Bright Note - out of this minor defeat in a perhaps long campaign for true equal rights for gay people on all levels of government and society - is the speech on the floor of the New York State Senate by Senator Diane Savino of Brooklyn and Staten Island.

I thought I was finished on this subject but surprisingly I ran into another blog running the spirit and justice and fairness of Same-Sex Marriage on You Tube by of all people my state senator in New York - Diane Savino. God Bless her

This is an Obama like introduction speech to the future of the nation and the Democratic party and by someone who belongs on the national scene.

When I say national scene, I mean U.S.Senate and eventually the White House.

Minarets Here There Everywhere

I waited for the Swiss plebiscite on the banning of Minarets at Mosques to go off the front page of the news before writing this.

In short, the Swiss, a country with three languages and cultures, German, French and Italian decided that it would be okay to ban Minarets, the Islamic Tower attached to a Mosque, from all future construction in the country. Traditionally the Minaret is a place where Muslims are called to prayer by human voice, Mohammed did not like bells.

There are already four minarets in Switzerland. I don’t know how many Mosques or Islamic Centers there are but out of a population of approximately eight million Swiss, three to four hundred thousand are Muslim. From the news I have read, most of these Muslims are Albanian and many of them refugees more than likely escaped from the Kosovo conflict in the breakup of Yugoslavia of a decade ago.

From what I have read, these Muslims are quite secular, not fanatical. In appearance and dress they are like everybody else.

So what’s the problem? I would have to imagine it stems from the fact that Switzerland has over twenty percent of its permanent and temporary population as non-Swiss born foreigners. The Swiss in a global world are having to deal with cultural shocks that Americans takes mostly in stride with it diverse history and population.

Perhaps a minaret painted or decorated in bright middle-eastern colors conflicts with the dull gray tones of traditional Swiss architecture. In any case, this ban is symbolic of a resistance or a grass roots feeling that change is not a good thing in Switzerland.

Even if Islam is not overtly threatening to the average Swiss citizen, there must be overflow of media from Germany and France where tensions with Muslims exist. The Germans have a large foreign based worker population and in particular from Islamic countries. The French are obsessed with Muslim women wearing traditional headdress in every day society. With the French I have wonder if their attitudes would change if Muslim women wore designer Hermes scarves – oh just a thought.

In all fairness to the Swiss there is no reciprocity in Saudi Arabia where only a few churches are allowed, without bell towers for diplomats and foreign workers only. Even then these plain church buildings are usually out of sight and reached down low traffic streets and alley ways. But the Saudis are not really the issue here.

Europe is changing. The world is changing. Even in the Muslim world, westernization continues in some degree, if only in the use of western style technology and the Internet, even if there is not outward signs of change. East meets West. West meets East and frictions exist.

The picture of a mosque above is of the local one here in Staten Island, not the only one in New York City. The building you see is a recycled factory. The Minaret is non functioning. It is decoration and a recycled chimney from that old factory. Albanian Muslims also escaped here to America from Kosovo. They are European in outward appearance and they have revitalized a dying neighborhood, saving it from urban blight.

I remember after 911, Police cars were parked in front of the gates of this complex 24/7 for a few weeks. The Police were there is insure the freedom of worship clause not directly mentioned but inherently implied in our Constitution. Other than that I do not think many people notice or care that the building is there. It blends in with the rest of a mini-global culture of everyday America.

Day by day and year by year we are all becoming more alike in a Global sense. The ride from here to the future can at times be bumpy. In the future the road gets paved and local customs and habits will still exist but more or more people will be thinking globally and still acting locally. That may seem to be a strange paradigm and dynamic. But that is the likely energy flow of things going forward to a global culture and future.