Friday, March 14, 2008

RE, LE CITE:

I am delighted/horrified to discover it is ACTUALLY TRUE that expensive sandwiches are actively bringing about Harlem's demise. I recently found an old Curbed post which quotes Dept of City Planning Director Amanda Burden confessing that the notion of rezoning 125th Street first came to her when she found herself hungry after an Apollo concert and thought, "There should be a million different eateries around there." OMG MUST HAVE MOAR INCLUSIONARY ZONING NOW PLZ!!! (wait, that sounds just like someone else!)

Flatbush Gardener reports on a NYT article on Victorian Flatbush, not the least exciting bit of which is the included map which I believe may finally settle the age-old question of what fucking neighborhood do I live in (it looks like the answer is MIDWOOD PARK, but just barely). I did not know that my area is pending a historic designation. That is interesting.

ALSO: as an lolAJ tipster has pointed out, Scarlett Johannson is just like rain on your wedding day... considering current events here in NY, that is. Feminists have been quick to point out that $4,500 is not enough for a woman's body; surely we can all agree that $40k is PLENTY.


ALSO: Some gays think Gov. Pateron will be good for teh gays.

RE, LE QUEER:

I suppose I can't really NOT mention this extensive piece the Times magazine just ran, entitled, When Girls Will Be Boys." It is about transmen and genderqueers at the nation's top women's colleges.

Le sigh.

I think AJ's going to have to come back to this one later.


In the old news dept, I have had a minor debate with my BFF Nell about the content of the NY Supreme court's ruling against same-sex marriage. It turns out NELL WAS RIGHT (zomg!), by which I mean: part of the court's rationale to rule against gay marriage was that gay relationships tend to be more stable already and thus DON'T NEED MARRIAGE to ensure their longevity.

Quoth Nell, "it is such a great example of backwards logic making an important point about the problem of state-imposed marriage for the gays."

Or as I like to say, "LOL!!!! that is awsum."

Here is the ruling itself, if u r interested:

Argued May 31, 2006; decided July 6, 2006

Hernandez v Robles, 26 AD3d 98, affirmed.

First, the Legislature could rationally decide that, for the welfare of children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships. Heterosexual intercourse has a natural tendency to lead to the birth of children; homosexual intercourse does not. Despite the advances of science, it remains true that the vast majority of children are born as a result of a sexual relationship between a man and a woman, and the Legislature could find that this will continue to be true. The Legislature could also find that such relationships are all too often casual or temporary. It could find that an important function of marriage is to create more stability and permanence in the relationships that cause children to be born. It thus could choose to offer an inducement—in the form of marriage and its attendant benefits—to opposite-sex couples who make a solemn, long-term commitment to each other.

The Legislature could find that this rationale for marriage does not apply with comparable force to same-sex couples. These couples can become parents by adoption, or by artificial insemination or other technological marvels, but they do not become parents as a result of accident or impulse. The Legislature could find that unstable relationships between people of the opposite sex present a greater danger that children will be born into or grow up in unstable homes than is the case with same-sex couples, and thus that promoting stability in opposite-sex relationships will help children more. This is one reason why the Legislature could rationally offer the benefits of marriage to opposite-sex couples only.



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3 comments:

Jenn S. said...

If I don't hear "Quoth Nell" in every post from now on, I'll stop reading, I swear it.

Also, we technically live in West Midwood. If we lived across the street, then we'd be in Midwood Park.

lol, AJ.

AJ said...

no wai, look at the map. the south side of foster ave is clearly on the northern border of midwood park.

neway, i am quite certain that regardless of our nabe specifics, we are most definitely flatbush residents.

quoth wikipedia:

The southern border of Flatbush neighborhoods is approximately on the line of the Long Island Rail Road's Bay Ridge Line, which runs to the south of Avenue H, the campus of Brooklyn College, and "The Junction" where Flatbush and Nostrand Avenues intersect.

And from the Midwood article: [Midwood] is bounded on the north by the Long Island Rail Road tracks just above Avenue I and the Brooklyn College campus of the City University of New York.

Chris Kreussling (Flatbush Gardener) said...

Yep, y'all be Flatbushniks.

The West Midwood/Midwood Park distinction depends on which side of the tracks you're on. There, I said it.

And if your eyes won't bleed and your brain melt from looking at a realtor's web site, another map is available at http://marykayg.com/html/large_map.html which also links to more information about each micro-nabe.

PS: Neither Midwood Park nor West Midwood are in Midwood. To make things more confusing, what "we" here in Flatbush call Midwood, its residents, as they express themselves through the online Jewish press, blogs, and bulletin boards, call "Flatbush."

Oh, and South Midwood is north of Midwood, in Flatbush.

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AJ lives in Minneapolis and is interested in stuff that's political. AJ has a lot invested in his masculinity.

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email at lolajblog@gmail.com and be awsum!