The Bronx

The Bronx, my childhood home, and one of the five boroughs of New York City which more often than not gets a bad rap, an unfair reputation of being a not-so-nice place.  Certainly not a place to raise your kids.  Fortunately for the United States, a one Mrs. Sotomayor found the Bronx to be a fine place to raise her children.  From the Bronx to the United States Supreme Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor sits on the highest court in the land.

1090 Rosedale Avenue, Bronx, New York, the childhood home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor

A New Day!

Eight long, painful years are finally behind us.  The day the world has been waiting for is here!

Folk Art for Inauguration Day 2009

A Salute to American Small Businesses (and Pizza!)

As Americans get robbed by corporate treachery, and as our taxes get funneled to bail-out the destruction caused by monumental greed, it is still small businesses that are at the heart of the U.S. economy.

Small business owners are hard-working people many of whom provide local services.  And they are everywhere, from small towns to large cities.  They have no hidden agendas; there is nothing underhanded going on.  Your hard-earned dollars are exchanged for their hard-earned services.  It’s the proverbial “win-win” situation in its most basic form.

We can all live, and live much better, without “upper echelon” corporate criminals and the politicians that enable them to prevail.  But we can’t live without the small businesses that provide us with so many essential products and services, many of which, quite simply, make us very happy.  Like pizza!

New Yorkers will argue that the best pizza in the U.S. is made in NYC. Among themselves, of course, New Yorkers will argue about just where in NYC that pizza is made. Manhattan? Brooklyn? Queens? Staten Island? Jersey, even. Well, you can find great pizza pretty much anywhere in NYC (even in Jersey). But the best...that would be the pizza in The Bronx! Pictured here is the pieman from this Bronx native's favorite pizzeria in all of NYC.

H8

Supporters of lesbian and gay marriage in cities and towns throughout the United States simultaneously staged protest rallies against the passage of California’s Proposition 8, also known as Proposition Hate, or simply H8.  Electing the first African-American U.S. president while at the same time voting into law a proposition which strips lesbian and gay citizens of equal civil rights epitomizes extreme irony.  And hate.  Let two things be known from this moment on–Whatever religious mask the haters wear, it will be torn away and your true ugliness revealed, AND, and the fight for true equality, justice and civil rights for our LGBT brothers and sisters will go on, in full force, until it is won.

Some photos of Proposition Hate protesters in White Plains, New York, in solidarity with supporters of civil rights throughout the United States on National Day of Protest, November 15, 2008–

A Constitutional reminder

Truly Christian

Fighting for justice

Calling it what it really is: Proposition 8 = Hate

Jesus was the ultimate civil rights supporter

And in the end

A reason to smile again as Barack Obama wins the U.S. Presidential election

After laboring through eight years of a disastrous presidency, Americans can once again go forward with hope as Barack Obama wins the November 4, 2008 U.S. presidential election.

“That One”

How about John McCain start focusing on THIS one?!!!

An American worker watches her retirement investments vanish as the Dow Jones Industrials plunge nearly 778 points on September 29, 2008.

When the Dow Jones Industrials plunged nearly 778 points on September 29, 2008, many believed the financial markets had hit their bottom.  Many were hopeful that the “bailout,” or “rescue” package which was finally reskinned and signed into law would begin to turn our financial crisis around.  Since then, the Dow has lost over another 800 points, and markets worldwide are plunging to greater and greater depths.

Against this backdrop of financial turmoil, while people are seeing their retirement investments and education investments for their children dissipate, Republican presidential candidate John McCain, with outrageous audacity and sheer disrespect, flippantly referred to his Democratic opponent Barack Obama as “that one” during the October 7, 2008 presidential debate.

It is that very attitude of disregard, disrespect, and overwhelming hubris that has defined the Republican administration for the past 8 years.  John McCain, with that one insulting, childish, mean-spirited, and quite revealing remark, has sealed his place as a representative of ALL that is and has been wrong with our government for a long, long time.