Please Explain: Endangered Species

Picture of a ring-tailed lemur

Earlier on The Leonard Lopate Show they did a "Please Explain" on the Endangered Species Act, animals that are currently threatened with extinction and some of the things being done and have been done in the past to head off extinction.

Please Explain: Endangered Species

Do Some Fun Things This Weekend

Tonight is the final installment of the High Line's open-air rail-themed movie series.  They will be screening the Alfred Hitchcock classic thriller Strangers on a Train.  Screening starts at 9 p.m.  Go to thehighline.org for more information.

Saturday is the Korean Day Parade.  It will be along Sixth Avenue from 38th Street to 27th Street from 12-2.  It's organized by the Korean American Association of Greater New York.

On Sunday, Midtown Comics Downtown location, 64 Fulton Street in Manhattan, will be having an Archie Kids' Day.  From 12-3 kids will be able to get a free sketch of their favorite characters from Archie Comics with the purchase of any Archie comic.  Dan Parent (Kevin Keller), Patrick "Spaz" Spaziante (Sonic, Mega Man) and Fernando Ruiz (Archie) will be there.  They are also having a one day 20% off all merchandise sale.

Also on Sunday is the 27th annual Medieval Festival in Fort Tryon Park from 11:30 a.m. to 6. 

Also check out the New York Film Festival.  It starts today and will be continuing on through October 16th.  Catch films from all over the world.  New documentaries Tahrir, classics Ben Hur and Crazed Fruit from Japan, science fiction Melancholia, the thriller Miss Bala from Mexico and the drama Policeman from Israel are some of the films you'll be able to see there.  Go to the Film Society Lincoln Center site to find out more.

Off-Broadway Week is also still going on.  Go to nycgo.com for a list of the discounted off-Broadway shows and promo codes.

Above images from Policeman, Kevin Keller and Crazed Fruit.

Protest, Rewrite the Constitution, Get Brandwashed and Migrant Workers

Today on WNYC they had several great interviews you should definitely hear.

First up on The Brian Lehrer Show was How to Build a Protest Movement.  Chrystia Freeland, global editor-at-large of Thomson Reuters, and Todd Gitlin, professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University and author of several books discuss the protests going on over on Wall Street.  In addition, they discuss past protest movements, how to create one and much more.  Also hear what some of the protesters taking part in the Occupy Wall Street movement have to say.


Also on The Brian Lehrer Show, Constitutional Un-Convention.  Christopher Phillips, scholar, pro-democracy activist, founder of the Constitution Cafe Dialogue Movement and author of Constitution Cafe: Jefferson's Brew for a True Revolution, talks about traveling across America and asking people How would you rewrite the Constitution?  There are some pretty enlightening comments made, and some not so enlightening ones.  Like did you know Thomas Jefferson said that the Constitution should be rewritten every twenty years?


On The Leonard Lopate Show, there was Brandwashed.  Martin Lindstrom talks about his book Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy.  Learn about some of the psychology behind marketing that influences even those that think that they cannot be influenced.


And lastly, Underreported: The Lives of Migrant Farm Workers.  The food we buy everyday is picked by migrant workers.  We don't think about them, but we are so dependent on them.

Brooklyn Park Glass in The Brooklyn Paper

Sorry we've been away for the past couple of days.  Colds have been going around, but we're back to work now.

Our Brooklyn Park Glass clean-up that just wrapped up this past Sunday was recently featured in The Brooklyn Paper.  With all the great feedback we've received because of this article, we are planning on extending the length of the Brooklyn Park Glass clean-up.

We got a lot of glass this weekend, but unfortunately, there is so much more that needs to be done.  Hope some of you can make it out next time.

Park in Fort Greene Anything But

'Nuisance' Garden Update

Adam Guerrero, a Math teacher in Memphis, has received a reprieve for his garden. Guerrero has agreed to keep his front yard garden trimmed, install a bubbler, put mosquito-eating fish into the pond in his backyard, reduce the number of worm bins, and add mesh covers to his rain barrels.  In addition to that great news, the judge has "advocated finding a piece of blighted property for Guerrero to devote to an educational garden." Unfortunately, not everyone is happy with the ruling, but it is great to see the city of Memphis no longer pushing against front-yard vegetable gardens.

Read more at Memphis Flyer.

PCBs and Brooklyn Park Glass

This Sunday, the 25th, will be the last day of the Brooklyn Park Glass clean-up for the season.  As usual we'll be meeting in Fort Greene Park at the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument at one o'clock.  Email us at bklynbrokenwindow@gmail.com if you'd like to volunteer or just come and meet us.  We've made a lot of headway in the past three weeks, but there is still quite a bit of work that needs to be done and we could use all your help.  All collected glass will be sent for recycling at a local facility.  Make sure to check back on Monday with updates on the amount of glass we were able to get out of our beautiful park.

Also check out this interview on The Leonard Lopate Show with industrial hygienist Monona Rossol, author of Pick Your Poison: How Our Mad Dash to Chemical Utopia is Making Lab Rats of Us All, and Miranda Massie of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest about the recent reports of PCBs found in New York City schools.

PCBs in Schools

Disposable Diaper Alternatives

Having kids can be pricey.  One of the pricier aspects of having kids is diapering.  The average child can easily end up using 6,000 to 10,000 diapers before potty training and all that, along with your hard earned money, just ends up in a landfill.  There are a lot of great alternative to disposable diapers though.

Cloth Diapers  Cloth diapers are nothing like they used to be.  Companies like FuzziBunz, BabyKicks and Bummis make diapers that look like disposable diapers, but are in fact cloth and come in many colors.  On top of that there are many different types of cloth diapers you can go with.  The initial cost of a cloth diaper may seem pretty pricey at $16 or more per diaper, but these are diapers that you'll never have to throw away, drastically driving down diapering costs.  You buy them once and depending how long before you decide to potty-train, you may not have to buy new diapers again.  Diapers are washed just like normal laundry (we recommend adding a little vinegar to the wash and occasionally doing a bleaching here and there) and if you just don't have time for laundry at all there are diaper services here in New York.  Another great benefit of cloth diapering is kids that potty-train sooner than those that use disposables.

Hybrid Diapers  If cloth seems like too much of a big step, you can always go with hybrid diapers.  These are generally made up of reusable outer shells, that also come in many great colors, and disposable inserts.  Many hybrid diaper makers make their inserts flushable, upping the convenience even more.  And some even offer washable inserts.  Check out companies like gDiapers or GroVia.

Elimination Communication  EC is a more old-fashioned way to go and is still used all over parts of Asia, Africa and South America.  Also known as diaper free or diaper-less training, EC takes a little more work since the parent and/or caregiver will have to learn the signs of when the child will need to go.  Essentially, elimination communication is just very early potty-training.  EC is commonly used in many parts of the world where diapering is not an option for most parents.  Even though it can be tough to do in the modern Western world, it is making a comeback with families on this side of the hemisphere.

You don't have to pick only one over the other.  A parent can easily start out with hybrids, move to cloth and then eventually EC or use a combination of EC and cloth diapering.  It is all about what is best for your family.  There are many resources out there to help you make the best choice for your child and your family.

Kelly's Closet carries both hybrid and cloth diapers that you can even purchase in bulk to lower the cost.  They also frequently have great sales and advice for parents new to cloth diapering.
All About Cloth Diapers is a blog dedicated to giving advice and recommendations for cloth diapering.
Diaper Free Baby is a network of free support groups that promote elimination communication.
Natural Baby World has advice on elimination communication.
New York Family Guide has a list of recommended diaper services in the New York area.
Yelp has reviews and ratings of different diaper services in the New York area.

And be sure to check out this article at Ecopreneurist about a diaper recycling facility that recently opened in the United Kingdom.

Above photo care of Lifehacker.

Vegetable Gardens a Nuisance?

With the economy not doing too well and unemployment still high, many people are looking for affordable alternatives to feed their families.  Rather than go the route of fast food and packaged foods, some are making the healthy choice and growing their own food.

During World War II they were called Victory Gardens, but now some people are looking at them as a nuisance.  Recently, Julie Bass of Oak Park, Michigan was facing the possibility of being sent to jail for over ninety days for her vegetable garden.  Bass had placed her vegetable garden in the front yard in an effort to be a good example and inspiration for her neighbors.  The city argued that her garden went against code that said "a front yard has to have suitable, live, plant material."  According to Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski: "If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster's dictionary, it will say common.  So if you look around and you look in any other community, what's common to a front yard is a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers."  Though he is right that front lawns are common, there is the unfortunate fact that maintaining lawns as what people see fit in this day and age leads to lots of pesticides and fertilizers that run off into our water supply.  Bass decided to do something great and different and they tried to punish her for that.

A nuisance lawn?  Photo care of Julie Bass.

Thankfully, since Bass stuck to her principals and so much media attention was brought about by the uproar over the garden, Mayor Gerry Naftaly got involved and stated that she would not be facing jail time and instead the city was actually considering reworking the ordinance to allow front-yard vegetable gardens as several cities have also followed suit and done in the recent past.

Sadly, this same story is being repeated in Memphis, Tennessee.  Math teacher, Adam Guerrero has been told to remove his urban garden by a judge because it was deemed to be a nuisance.  Better yet, he was told that he failed to maintain "a clean and sanitary condition free from any accumulation of rubbish or garbage."  Since when were seven-foot-tall sunflowers "rubbish or garbage"?  Guerrero has used this garden as a teaching tool for his students and that could be soon put to an end, because he is expected to return to court September 23rd to "demonstrate that he has complied with the judge's orders."

Oddly enough, a lot of these ordinances came about after World War II when soldiers were returning home and starting families in the suburbs.  Many of the same ordinances that ban goats, chickens and bee hives along with front-yard vegetable gardens were put in place to further remove us from the idea of this being an agrarian society.  But with the ever increasing populace and growing demand for food, putting up a definitive line between where you can live and where you can grow is becoming more and more unmaintainable.  We as New Yorkers are quite lucky that we can do things like have roof gardens bees and chickens.  Sure there are still landlords out there that push against those ideas, but at least the city of New York is not against us in this case unlike so many others across the nation.

Photo care of Buildaroo.

Celebrate Art In New York

The Affordable Art Fair has started today.  Go today, between four and nine p.m., and you do not have to pay admission.  Tomorrow will be the first day of the Dumbo Arts Festival.  Check out local artists all over DUMBO all this weekend.  There will be music and performances in addition to activities for the whole family.  Head over to Madison Square Park to see sculptures by Alison Saar, now through December 31st.