This one:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Or this one?

Send A Message from Bob Turner for Congress on Vimeo.

"It's been ten short years. Everyone remembers," the ad says, with dreary music playing over images of smoke billowing from the World Trade Center. "Some, though, want to commemorate the tragedy by building a mosque on Ground Zero."

This is not just a partisan thing, though I'm obviously a Democrat. It's a question of values. And my values tell me that trying to skate into Congress in a low-turnout special election based on (deceptively) bashing a vulnerable minority, in this case Muslims, is reprehensible. New Yorkers deserve better than this.

David Weprin for Congress

Go vote on 9/13.  read more »

I mean SERIOUSLY? Paladino? Horse Sex Paladino? Is Rick Lazio such a loser that he can be so soundly beaten by blatant and proud racist and bestiality admirer Paladino?

Last night the New York Republican Party nominated one of the most disgusting teabagger candidates for Governor. Carl "Palomino" Paladino, the darling of the teabaggers, makes former Republican Congressman Vito "Two Family Values" Fossella look moral by comparison.

Back in April, Republican Paladino was caught gleefully forwarding emails that included racist pictures, called blacks "niggers," and had bestiality videos.

The new "morality" of the teabagger Republican Party in NY State is racism, pornography and bestiality. This is what Republicans nominated in NY State last night.

Remember when Republicans wanted to impeach President Clinton because he had consensual sex with a woman other than his wife? They portrayed themselves as champions of morality. Well, that facade is long shot away by people like Newt Gingrich (abandoning his wife for a younger woman while his wife was ill with cancer), Congressman Don Sherwood (abusing and attempting to choke the woman he was having an extra-marital affair with), Congressman Mark Foley (soliciting sex with a 16-year old man), well...need I continue? For the strong of stomach, here is a list of Republican sex scandals, almost all of which make Bill Clinton's consensual affair look very tame by comparison.

Well, here in NY State Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino was in the habit of emailing racist emails and videos as well as videos of bestiality and pornography. (as well as an email I saw this morning), Paladino has sent emails that include:  read more »

One of my favorite things about NYC is the diversity and considerable (if sometimes reluctant) tolerance for that diversity. But there is a very disturbing trend in Staten Island that seems to reflect the growing intolerance across the country. This comes from BBC News:

Since April there have been 10 reported incidents of violence against Hispanic immigrants on Staten Island, a borough of New York City.

The attacks have all occurred on the island's North Shore, principally in the community of Port Richmond.

The most recent attack came on Saturday, when an 18-year-old student was beaten and robbed by a group of young African-American men while on his way home from working at a late-night restaurant...

Today the fastest growing minority group in Port Richmond is Mexican.

Mexico's Consul General in New York, Ruben Beltran, says he is "angry and frustrated" at the string of attacks.

Earlier this week, he sent a consular representative to support Mexican immigrants in the neighbourhood.  read more »

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.

By now, any sentient being in North America has likely heard of Arizona's draconian new immigration law. Briefly, the new law allows state police to challenge anyone they see fit to produce papers establishing that they are in the country legally.

There's a lot that is wrong with that, not least that in a practically all-white state like Arizona, the only reasonable target population is almost exclusively Latino. There's also the likely fact that the law is prima facie unconstitutional, certainly if you take a look at the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. And if you dig even deeper, the idea that officers of the state can subject random individuals to search without probable cause violates Anglo-American legal bedrock, namely the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 and the Magna Carta of 1215.

For the citizens of a City that would not exist were it not for immigrants - we have a statue in the harbor about that - Arizona's law shouldn't be something that just happens in flyover country, out of sight, out of mind.

So here's what you can do. Email Arizona's governor Jan Brewer here, and let her know what you think. If you're on Facebook, join this group. Another online campaign is here. Let the Latino New York legislators planning to travel tto Arizona for some civil disobedience know you support them.

This is America. We're better than this.

So I was walking home from the train today. A rather disheveled looking person, who I immediately and rather unfairly (I thought) pegged as borderline crazy person was coming up the stairs. He was either talking into an earphone/mouthpiece phone which I couldn't see or talking rather coherently to himself. At first it seemed to be about an altercation that he characterized as "not clearly being any one person's fault." I walked on.

Somehow our paths were overlapping. I kept crossing paths with him and overhearing part of is rambling conversation with someone or with himself.

"All they want is the fall of Western Civilization. If it falls, that's okay with them. If not, well that's okay with them too."

Who is he talking about, I wonder. Teabaggers? Republicans? Those cross my mind given recent events both during the Bush administration and now. I'd think al-Qaeda except the last part of "if not..." doesn't seem to fit.

"All they want is to make as much money as they can."  read more »