By Michael Calleri

Blood is the new currency in Hollywood.

But it might be a currency that needs to be recalled. The recent crop of action movies are riff with bloodletting. However, if the lukewarm audience reaction to these films is any indication, this pumping up of the flow of blood is a plot device that needs to be seriously reined in.

When a masterful visual stylist like Quentin Tarantino approaches violence, the result is much different from how less-talented directors attempt to score points by ramping up the carnage. Tarantino advances his stories with blood and madness. Others take delight in merely offering slaughter for slaughter’s sake, more often than not throwing aside the story to mistakenly concentrate on bullets and bombs.

NO NO NO - DON'T SELL -by Snowshoefilms.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fqKSQCX5xGc#t=6s

In January 2013, the Chautauqua County legislature voted not to sell their state-of-the-art public nursing home to a Chicago based nursing home chain. The Republican majority announced Monday, February 12 it will attempt to change the law requiring a 2/3 vote for any decision to sell county assets -- to a simple majority -- at the February 27 legislative meeting. The vote to change the law requires a simple majority.

The Chautauqua County Nursing Home (CCH) is described on its website as a: ”216 bed facility in Dunkirk, New York, in a rural setting; our staff provides a home-like atmosphere for our residents. The 280 member staff provides around-the-clock medical care as well as physical, occupational and speech therapy.”
New York State is pushing to sell off publicly owned nursing homes. With the federal government, it is coordinating a drive to force counties to divest themselves of their historic responsibility of providing a last-resort safety net for their incapacitated elderly and severely disabled.[1] County legislators are being herded into enabling a privatization agenda, the further dismantling of the social commons.

Watching the plight of publicly-owned nursing homes over the last few years, we[2] have heard from hard-pressed legislators from three western New York Counties (Steuben, Ontario, and Chautauqua) that “in just a few years, there won’t be anything left of county government.” Services are being “contracted out,” sold off, closed down. The centralization process will induce the further depoliticization of the population and loss of public assets.[3]

For the Third World, the same sort of privatization process was conducted via the IMF and the World Bank through imposing ‘loans’ with the proviso that the governments require the respective nations to cripple or outlaw their unions and sell their public assets (the commons). Those were the ‘conditionalities’ imposed.[4]

By Parker Whitley

As American political discourse spirals into the abyss, the complete and total destruction of racial harmony seems assured. The amity that has existed among equally intelligent whites and people of color is threatened to its very core. Anyone with his or her ear to the ground hears daily the drumbeat of “no no no” to the Presidency of Barack Obama from a cadre of allegedly loyal Americans, most of them elected Republican officials.

President Obama may have been re-elected with stunning numbers, but there are hardened Neanderthals in the Republican Party who still can’t accept that he is the titular leader of the Free World. It’s almost as if the white Protestant bigots and wealthy virulent haters of the Know Nothing Party of the mid-1800s have returned to Earth as zombies of racial destruction.

The Know-nothings were men who hated immigrants, hated Roman Catholics, hated anything that went against the British roots from which they were descended. These Anglo-Saxon sycophants are now being mirrored by a group of political thugs who seem not to have read American history. Or, if they read it, learned nothing from what they read.

The article below was written by two independent media partners. We are currently based out of Toronto, Canada but are presently covering the blockade in east Texas of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Dear New York Times,

This letter is in regards to the article you published today on the Texas Tar Sands written by Dan Frosch (“Last-Ditch Bid in Texas to Try to Stop Oil Pipeline,” October 12, 2012). (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/us/protesters-gather-at-keystone-xl-si...)

Mr. Frosch’s portrayal of the blockade, activists’ efforts to stop the pipeline, and the depiction of TransCanada are misleading. The story is missing facts. I was with the NYT reporter Dan Frosh on October 9th and 10th when he visited the Tar Sands blockade in Winnsboro,TX. My partner and I were doing independent media at the same time and same place.

First, Mr. Frosch failed to mention that he and a NYT photographer were detained and handcuffed while covering the story, allegedly for passing an “arbitrary boundary” stipulated by TransCanada. I was there immediately after they were released. The detention and handcuffing of the NYT reporters is significant because there has been serious media censorship and repression surrounding the Keystone XL Pipeline blockade.

I first met Mr. Frosch the night of October 9th. On that evening, two livestream bloggers who were in the tree sit, Elizabeth Ace and Lorenzo Serano, were arrested despite the fact that they held official press passes. This fact does not appear in the NYT feature.

Privacy info. This embed will serve content from youtube-nocookie.com

A secret audio recording of a stop-and-frisk in action sheds unprecedented light on a practice that has put the city's young people of color in the NYPD's crosshairs. Read the full story at The Nation

October 6, 2012

By Charlie Bowman

Last night's (Oct 5) Occupy Buffalo's all night celebration in Niagara Square was a wet one. The event honored the action by of a lone individual, Joe "Food" Fitzerald. On this date last year he pitched the first tent in Niagara Square. In doing so he acted against the decision of Occupy Buffalo's General Assembly. Joe's action unleashed the absolutely wonderful -- well supported -- many-tent occupation of that public space.

Sometimes the majority gets it wrong.

Last night between 10:30 PM and 12:30 AM -- during a lull in the rain -- I was in Niagara Square at Occupy Buffalo's Joe "Food" Fitzerald vigil. About 20 people were standing on the sidewalk and grass - some holding signs - some groups of people engaged in conversation. An occasionalfriendly honk from a passing car, and a less frequent display of the index finger from an uneducated person -- and Occupy Buffalo's wonderful response: "We're Number One!".

It was then we got waterboarded.

The underground sprinkler system suddenly popped up spraying those who happened to standing on the grass. It wasn't as if the plants and grass needed it: he ground was already super-saturated with water from the day's stormy weather -- the grass and plants seemed very happy and hardly in need of any watering. Nonetheless, the sprinkler system activated. Having no place to go, the added water simply ran off the grass onto the sidewalk, thence onto the streets. And yes, the coats of many Occupy Buffaloeians were already saturated with rain water prior to sprinkling.

No one could remember the sprinkler system being activated last year during Occupy Buffalo's Occupation of Niagara Square. Indeed, Occupy Buffalo did not know there was a sprinkling system at Niagara Square.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Olivia Leirer (646) 479-3426
oleirer@nycommunities.org

Buffalo Sides with New York Homeowners, Closes $45 million JP Morgan Chase Account in Protest
Buffalo becomes 7th New York municipality to divest from JP Morgan Chase in protest of the banks foreclosure policies
The city of Buffalo announced it would close its $45 million account with JP Morgan Chase in protest of the bank's foreclosure policies Wednesday afternoon. City funds will be shifted to a new account at First Niagara Bank.
“I think this move was both a fiscally-responsible, smart decision and also a socially-conscious, community-minded one. The two are not always at odds and I’m pleased that the City will be investing more in a local bank that has demonstrated its faith in Western New Yorkers and a commitment to helping our region grow,” said Delaware District Councilmember Michael LoCurto.
“We hope this move will make JP Morgan Chase take a hard look at their role in the community, and decide to play a more active role in improving conditions in the places that they do business,” said Masten District Councilmember Demone Smith.
The decision is a result of pressure from members of New York Communities for Change, the Occupy Buffalo movement, the Working Families Party and other community and activist organizations.
“My community is suffering at the hands of banks like JP Morgan Chase, who took advantage of homeowners, gamed our economic system and are still reaping the benefits,” said Eddie France, a member of New York Communities for Change’s Buffalo Chapter. “I’m proud that my city has taken a stand on the side of the people.”

http://www.buffalogreencode.com/
We’re preparing a new zoning ordinance to shape Buffalo’s future. It’s designed to build on the land use plan that was developed last year, and to make our shared vision for the city a reality.

The zoning ordinance contains the specific and detailed laws that will govern development in our city. Please join us at an upcoming Open House to learn more about how this will benefit your neighborhood and let us know what you think.

Plan to attend the open house where you live or work – June 4-9.