Bumped - Bouldin

Mermaid Parade Queen's Bid To Save Coney Island Gains Support While Coney Sellout Recchia Under Investigation For Conflict Of Interest Loan

NEW YORK – It's been a long, media blitz weekend for Savitri D, Queen Of The Coney Island Mermaid Parade and Director of Reverend Billy and the Church Of Stop Shopping, as her hunger strike to save Coney Island enters its fourth day.

Her vigil without food, while living in the window of the Sideshows By The Seashore building and broadcasting live over webcam, aims to draw New Yorkers to a June 24th Community Meeting at Lincoln High School to halt a reduction of Coney Island amusement space from 60 acres to 9 acres. The hunger strike has won the hearts of thousands of New Yorkers, with appearances on television, print, radio and the blogosphere.

Speaking of the surprise proposal to replace large swaths of Coney Island with high-rise “hotels” and a shopping mall, Savitri remarked in a recent interview:

One of the most important points illuminated in Al Gore's groundbreaking documentary on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," is the simple fact that there is no scientific debate on global warming. In fact the scientific community and virtually every bit of scientifically valid research is unanimous in its conclusion that global warming is well underway. The only "debate" is the spin war waged by self-serving, dishonest or ignorant politicians, certain corporate interests and their media lackies. The "scientific" debate on the issue as protrayed in the media is completely fabricated.

The same paradigm is in play with homophobia, with big business replaced by certain players in big religion. And again, the media is very much the culprit in this dangerous and harmful game, relentlessly portraying homosexuality as a hotly contested scientific debate. In fact, there is simply no science that in any way suggests the homosexuality is a form of mental illness or moral dysfunction. And no number of declarations from mentally ill and self-loathing public figures like Ted Haggard is going to change that.

So it was with some pain and great disappointment that I read today's "New York Times" article on homosexual "reparative" therapy: "Reining In Desires Proves Complex At Best."

This should be muy, muy fun.

The man who slapped down Sue Kelly for not wanting to debate John Hall has requested our presence in his show. Yes people : Richard French of RNN's Real Live Politics wants to have me and other notables share their insight about 2006's highs (and lows) in New York politics and what we forsee for the new year.

I have a good idea where to start. I will be pulling out links to our most excellent stash of posts for 2006 --and boy do we have embarrasment of riches in our archives.

At random I can think of my calling first Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency after she hired Peter Daou. We also called here Havesi's win and eventual resgination. How about our stellar coverage of CD-11?

I still want to hear from you. What do you think are the highs and lows of politics in New York state? And what do you see in your crystal ball?

Oh and by the way, if you want to enjoy French at his snarkiest, we've got it after the jump.

Republicans for the Reelection for 34th State Senate District, Democratic State Senator Jeff Klein.

Republicans from The Bronx and Westchester part of the 34th senate district will be endorsing, campaigning and fundraising for Senator Jeff Klein of the 34th district.

Somtimes we have to cross party lines for the right person to represent us in Albany. Jeff Klein has rose through the ranks as a seasoned politician and is more than qualified than Bronx GOP leader Jay Savino, who has never held any type of elected office and just wants to shoot to the top, before you walk, you have to crawl, Jay Savino. We need someone in this everchanging society with the experience, knowledge and know how and that is why we want Senator Jeff Klein, plus there are just to many skeletons in Jay Savino's closet??? More info to come.

Democrats and Rupublicans in the 34th senate district: let us unite and support and vote for Senator Jeff Klein in 2006, the right choice.

Yesterday, the Yvette Clarke campaign, recovering from the scandal of Ms. Clarke's lying about graduating from Oberlin, announced a "Town Hall Meeting" featuring Congressman John Murtha. The topic of that "Town Hall Meeting" will be "Stand up to End the War in Iraq."

A worthy thing, no doubt! Brooklyn SHOULD have such a Town Hall meeting. Problem is, it seemed as if the Clarke campaign was hijacking this "Town Hall meeting" for its own political purposes, in effect implying (wrongly) that Ms. Clarke was the only "anti-war" candidate running for CD-11.

Every reacted yesterday to the appearance that Ms. Clarke was using Murtha's appearance at a Town Hall meeting for her own gain, in effect implying an endorsement that wasn't there...something she has done in the past even with a NY Times endorsement. Multiple calls to Murtha's Washington office and campaign office got nothing but confusion at the idea that Murtha might be endorsing a local candidate...in fact one person got precisely the answer that "The Congressman doesn't get involved in local politics."

Last night I talked to several people in Ms. Clarke's campaign. First of all, they are angry at Daily Gotham for not checking with them before writing about them. Second, as Room Eight also reports, they are saying that Murtha really will endorse Yvette Clarke and that is what the event is all about.

The plot thickens people.

I have yet to hear from anybody over at The New York Times or from their most notorious consultant, the blog 'evangelizer' and publisher of Buzzmachine, Jeff Jarvis. Jeff is the same guy that led campaign against Dell for, of all things, ignoring his comments and criticisms about the company.

Irony works in mysterious ways.

The news of my wandering around their blog has been reviewed, newsed, gawked, slated and wired, to say the least. Here's the current list :

Daily News | Daily Politics
The Times uninvited new blogger

Lisa Stone
Surfette: Remember "Step 1: No more rookie maneuvers"? Here's how NYTD can avoid delivering Exhibit C.

Online Journal Review
NY Times leaves backdoor open on new politics blog?

Doc Searls
The Doc Searls Weblog : Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Life Of Rubin
Wednesday Morning Link-a-thon

Gawker
Remainders : Toos is a virgin who can't drive

Slate
Fast and sloppy rules

Wired
All The News That Anyone Can Log In and Print

Metroblogging NYC
Security Blooper at NYT political blog in development

Jossip
NYT political blog needs better homeland security
**Best. Title. Ever.**

Bloggy
New York Times Working on a NY politics blog

Room Eight
New to blogging?

Editor and Publisher
Blogger Gets Sneak Peak at New 'NY Times' Politics Blog

I want to do a follow-up experiment. I would like people to submit the story to Boing Boing. And I want to wait and see what happens.

BoingBoing is now managed by a company called Federated Media. Federated Media got an initial round of funding from ...

wait for it ...

wait for it ...

I was looking for something on The Politicker last night; I forget what it was, but it required me to take a look at the various categories into which that blog groups its content. I noticed there is a separate category for 'conservatives', just as there is for 'republicans', 'Democrats' and other areas of lesser or greater interest; but there is no separate category for 'Progressives'.

Seems like a bit of an oversight, considering that 'conservatives' in New York really don't matter all that much, while we Progressives are on the cusp of a historic election victory and have spent the last few cycles sweeping away heavily gerrymandered conservative bastions.

I'm sure this is just an inadvertent oversight, but it does speak to something larger: the difficulty the media have in discarding their over-arching paradigm of conservative dominance. Today, conservatives are as bereft of ideas – even the god-awful, twice-hashed-over ones like, say, privatizing Social Security – as they are ethically and morally compromised, with scandals washing over them as regularly as the tides. Meanwhile, the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party is flexing its muscles and winning the battle of ideas – on everything from energy independence to homeland security to health care to budget policy.

Problem is, you'll never hear about it, since it doesn't get covered. Why, you ask? Because the press isn't asking the right questions or looking for stories in the right places. Instead, the media keep on publishing stories that portray tired conservative retreads as the only game in town.

Parents to Begin Telephone Campaign to Seek CFE Money.
Tell NYC's Four Republican State Senators to Fund Our Schools.

Please join AQE, Cynthia Nixon, Public Advocate Betsy
Gotbaum, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer,
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, City
Council Education Committee Chair Robert Jackson and
others to kick off 1-866-KIDS-NYC, a new hotline AQE
is setting up.

The hotline will be available for anyone to call and
will direct calls to the four NYC members of the State
Senate Majority. We will also be launching a new web
campaign on www.ourkidscantwait.org to generate faxes
to these four senators. We hope that calls and faxes
generated over the next week will push the Senate to
build a CFE solution into this year's state budget to
be voted on by April 1st.

Please join us to launch this exciting new campaign!
Thursday, March 23, 11:45 - 12:45 PM (*please note
slight time adjustment)
Steps of City Hall
Take the R/W to City Hall, 4/5/6 to Brooklyn Bridge -
City Hall, 2/3 to Park Place, or A/C/E to Chambers
Street

Must. Stop. Peeing. On. My. Self. From The gossip column of the now-editorless NY Press:

What well-spoken conservative Republican senator who is often mentioned as a possible replacement for Vice-President Dick Cheney—should Cheney’s health decline further—is, as they used to say, a “confirmed bachelor