| JANUARY
3,
2004 -- Now that the Lonely Pamphleteer Review website
is online, LPR (definitely not to be confused with NPR) wants to
thank some people. First, Todd Gelineau for designing the logos and
for putting me in touch with Terri Fassio (and SkullCo Technology
Solutions) who reserved the name, designed the page and the layout
with key help from Todd.
Also,
LPR wants to thank Gary Pontelandolfo, my editor at The
Voice (which
while gone might still be viewable at www.thevoicenews.com)
and Voice publisher Jedd Gould, who gave a lot of people without
access to
the main media the chance to get their voices out to the northwest
Connecticut community. I only regret that I got something of the
hang of e-mailing
only
after The Voice passed on. Sorry about
that Gary -- who had to suffer with my signle-spaced and faxed
pages, along with a great many photographs you did not discourage
me from submitting.
LPR
is a Federalist 57 publication. That is to say, it is committeed to
the counsel set forth in this vital document attributed to James Madison,
that our leaders should stay close to us, or else we are going to get
hit with tyranny. No. 57 opens by calling attention to people who seek
the "ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of
the few." These people are still with
us, two centuries and more after Madison wrote those words. That,
certainly, was indicated in the recent corporate disgraces.
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| This
is the parking sign that got me a second -- $115 -- ticket New
Year's eve. Motorists, particularly visitors to NYC, are advised
to read the parking signs very, very carefully. Don't focus just
on the hour part. There may be restrictions added, as on this
sign. (Photo Taken December 31, 2003) |
Among
other things, LPR continues a tradition started at The
Voice under
Gary Pondelandolfo's stewardship: running bunches of photos from me.
This LPR includes photos of crowds at Ground Zero on New Year's Day,
and photos of faces in the crowd, happy faces you will see, for the
most part, in the Times Square area of Manhattan's midtown. There are
faces from Australia and Canada, and Tampa, Florida, and Virginia,
and Holland, among other places. No sign on this occasion of concern
about the color orange in connection with warnings about terrorists.
Indeed, the only place the color orange caused some upset, New Year's
Eve, was on car windshields, orange being the color of the envelopes
accompanying parking summonses. (LPR has already requested information
from the mayor's press secretary as to parking violations statistics
Christmas and New Year's eves.)
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| Cyndi
Lauper entertaining the Times Square Crowd about 5:30 PM
New Year's Eve. (Photo Taken December 31, 2003) |
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| Shana
enjoying the festivities of New Year's Eve in New York City. (Photo
Taken December 31, 2003) |
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| Broadway
Newsstand with Happy New Year Hats. (Photo Taken December
31, 2003) |
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| The
New York Stock Exchange Tree on New Year's Eve Day. (Photo
Taken December 31, 2003) |
|
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| New
Year's eve eyeglasses of this type have appeared since 2000.
They are likely to appear, with variation on
the last number until 2009. What will they look like for
2010? (Photo Taken January
1, 2004) |
The
main media don't seem to take much notice of the vast sum of money
raised from parking fines in New York City -- some $440 million
annually at present. This amount might, in part, be attributed
to some confusing parking signs, some of those signs appearing
here. It is not clesr to LPR that a $65 fine for being overtime
at a parking meter, or a $115 fine for other infractions reflects
the consent of the governed -- unless, of course, motorists have
taken it on themselves to narrow the city's budget deficit.
Federalist
No. 57 urged our leaders to hold "communion of interests and
sympathy of sentiments" with the
people, if we are to avoid tyranny. It is not clear that our
leaders hold the view that they must rule over us and convince
us that what we need, each year,
are lots more rules to live by, with government being basically a law-making
factory, to apply to us, the people who get hit with higher and higher parking
fines.
LPR
recognizes that for some heavy hitters in government and in the
media, this kind of commentary will be "whining." LPR
says: show us people who sneer at us as "whiners" and
we will show you people who are far removed from the rest of us
and seek to be removed even farther, day by day.
More
than thirty years ago Supreme Court Justice Byron White recognized
that lonely pamphleteers don't have ready access to the media but
still have the same First Amendment rights of the powerful press.
When he wrote his opinion in the Branzburg case
that gave this website its name, Justice White placed lonely pamphleteers
next
to mimeograph machines. Now we lonely pamphleteers have the wonderful
world of websites which perhaps can be a modern-day version of
the committees of public correspondence that more than two centuries
ago got out the word about establishing government based on liberty
and consent. And perhaps in time it will not be accurate to see
ourselves as lonely in the fight to maintain liberty and government
based on the consent of the governed.
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| Police
Guards at Rockefeller Center. (Photo
Taken January 1, 2004) |
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| The
Rockefeller Center Promenade, located above the ice skating
rink. (Photo
Taken January 1, 2004) |
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| Are
these Ground Zero visitors looking at hallowed ground or
a construction site? There were lots of people at Rockefeller
Center, but note the large number of people at Ground Zero. (Photo
Taken January 1, 2004) |
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This
photo shows part of the Christmas tree in the lobby of Waterbury's
Municipal Building. The
tree is for the Christmas season. The poster, suggesting the
national impact of 9/11, is on extended display. (Photo
Taken January 2, 2004) |
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