Categoria "Si mai du-te si-n p. ma-tii, nu stiai ca sunt crestin ? Si-nca unul foarte moral, baga-mi-as p. in ma-ta"
Io: "Desi crestineste sunt împotriva clonarii pe care o dezbateai mai jos aici, totushi cercetarea stiintzifica n-a facut niciodata stop în fatza preceptelor considerate foarte morale la un moment dat."

Categoria "Tovarasa educatoare, uitati la acesti boi, cacati, valahi imputiti, p.lici imbecile de emigranti flamanziti, vaquite, securisti jidani, curve, pi.dulici necotsaite, javre de americantzi platiti cu dollari-CIA, ma jignesc asa fara motiv, in loc sa ma tzuce-n cur :((("
Io: "Domnule Ober, individul care se semneaza cu pseudonimul C&A (vedetzi va rog postarile de mai jos semnate de C&A , dar mai ales aceasta ultima, Marti, 16 Aprilie 2002 17:13:42 (GMT-7) , întrece cam binishor deja baremul minim de exprimare în cafenea si ma jigneste în fel si chip, numai asa "de amorul artei" . Plus ca n-are niciun subiect de discutzie, pur si simplu navaleste aici si ma-njura."

Categoria "Cine a spus ca daca esti un batrin prost si complexat nu poti avea idei ?"
Io (catre un doctor in biologie cu aproape 20 de ani mai tinar): "Am idee ce-s "Stammzellen", din care obtzii orice fel de celula a corpului omenesc, mai frizerule!"

Categoria "Ce stiti voi, bashini verzi care va varsati cacatul pe pagina asta, despre puritatea mea sufleteasca, echilibrul meu interior si lumina constiintei mele ?"
Io: "... dar cum esti un bou de amator cacat si împutzit si habar n-ai de meserie, tot pe-aici pe la amarâta asta de bashina verde de amatoare o sa-ti versi cacatu din suflet".

For urban planners and elected officials, the destruction of the World Trade Center has provided an almost unfathomable opportunity to reconsider and reshape the future of one of the most distinctive neighborhoods in the world: 16 acres of land in the heart of downtown Manhattan.
And with the site virtually cleared, some officials are speaking of bold strokes and grand opportunities in describing a vision for a new downtown, a sweep of land that, from this ambitious perspective, starts at Chambers Street and extends south to the tip of Manhattan Island and from river to river.
"We're going to make Lower Manhattan a far stronger and better community in every sense than it was on the morning of Sept. 11," Gov. George E. Pataki said in an interview. Carl Weisbrod, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York, said the events of Sept. 11 "took the lid off downtown's potential."
Still, for all this language of transformation and opportunity, the contours of a reconfigured downtown that are emerging, as described in conversations with political and civic leaders over the past two weeks, are notable more for their caution and adherence to tradition than for any attempt at innovation or experiment.
For better or for worse, there is no talk, for example, of using the hand of government to push the frontier of conventional urban planning, or to distinguish downtown with a pioneering if unconventional work of architecture. Instead, the emerging consensus would permit Lower Manhattan to continue along the tracks of transition that it was following well before the attack.
Many decisions remain to be worked out, including the precise mix and density of residential development and offices. But the overall vision, as described by everyone from community leaders to planners to Mr. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, is of Lower Manhattan as a neighborhood of office buildings, to reclaim corporations that fled the area; apartments and converted lofts, to accommodate a growing residential population; and stores and restaurants, to ensure a lively neighborhood presence after dark.
The most distinctive element in the mix would be the memorial erected to the victims of the attack, and consequently the way the neighborhood adjusts in its transformation to, inevitably, one of the most visited historical sites in the nation.
It is a matter of debate whether this conservatism is a good thing or not, whether a city that has been so traumatized would want to embark on any kind of experiment in urban planning at this of all places, and at this of all times.
There are, on one hand, some people who suggest that if this really is an opportunity - the cleared plot of land surrounded by downtown skyscrapers is twice the size of Bryant Park - it may someday be remembered as a missed one.
But the extent to which there is already agreement about the broad picture is striking. And while there are surely some political considerations at play - Mr. Pataki is not particularly eager for a fight over this site in the midst of his re-election campaign - it seems clear that the most powerful force here is the common judgment of elected officials, community leaders and planners that this is the ideal and natural way to develop the tip of Manhattan.
"You shouldn't be surprised that there is a broad consensus," Mr. Bloomberg said in an interview yesterday. "All the city planners have been saying the same thing. And it makes sense."
Louis R. Tomson, president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, said that when he attended a meeting of the local community board in January, "there was a great uniformity of outlook, even then."
"There is a common feeling of all the people down here," he said, "that after all the years that this was talked about as a vibrant 24-hour community, and a lot of people came down here seeking that, that it really was not."
In fact, many city planners suggested that the tragedy of last fall had in many ways eased the transformation that urban planners had foreseen for decades. Given its sheer bulk and windswept isolation, the trade center had long been viewed as an obstacle to the kind of downtown that planners had been envisioning for more than 10 years.
"It may be blasphemous to say, but the World Trade Center was an anachronism both in scale and the architecture it represented," said Meyer S. Frucher, former president of the Battery Park City Authority.
It is notable that one of the first decisions about how to prepare the area for development was one to rectify what many people saw as an unfortunate byproduct of constructing the towers: the elimination of the street grid. And two other critical moves that are now being examined - burying West Street, and bringing commuter rail lines from either Long Island or Westchester into the financial district - have gone from being far-fetched planning exercises of the 1990's to realistic possibilities.
"The issues that we focused on in '92 are very much the issues that we are focusing on today," said Richard L. Schaffer, who was chairman of the City Planning Commission when it issued a plan for developing Lower Manhattan in 1992. "When we looked at it in 1992, we saw that the transportation issues, the broader infrastructure issues, were critical."
"Obviously, you weren't going to get the grid driven through the World Trade Center while it existed," Mr. Schaffer continued. "Some of these things were just prohibited by cost. But now, you have a cleared site."
Immediately after the attack, some spoke about simply rebuilding what had been destroyed, and of protecting the continued existence of New York's financial district. But in truth, it has been a long time since the financial district could rightfully claim to be the financial district of New York. Businesses had been settling in Midtown since the opening of Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station, to accommodate commuters from the suburbs.
"A cynic would say, `What are you talking about, rebuilding?' " said Mr. Bloomberg, whose own corporate headquarters is at Park Avenue and 59th Street. "It wasn't really there before."
And if Lower Manhattan was losing its distinction as the city's financial district before the attack, the number of people who were making Lower Manhattan a place to live had been rising. In 1970, it was home to a mere 833 people; as of September, its population was 25,000. The residential population in Lower Manhattan jumped 60 percent over the past six years alone.
If there are disagreements in the future - and surely, there will be some - they will be on the margins: the precise balance between office and residential development.
Even here, though, there is general agreement between what might seem to be potential adversaries.
"I don't think we should look at just replacement of commercial space," said Madelyn G. Wils, the chairwoman of Community Board 1. "I think we should absolutely look at more residential."
Charles A. Gargano, vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and New York's top economic development official, said that while he expected that the vast majority of the buildings on the site itself would be office space, there would be nowhere near the number of square feet there was before.
Similarly, government leaders are talking about the mix of businesses in a reconfigured downtown New York. Gifford Miller, the speaker of the City Council, said, "Part of the city's fiscal problems is that we're run so cyclically on the basis of the financial sector, and we ought to be making a commitment to new types of industries, so we have a broader base and a more stable overall economic structure."
For many planners, these are relatively minor concerns, which will be resolved less by the city than by the marketplace. For them, the real question is what, if anything, New York might or should do to shape its future. "This is the kind of thing that happened in Chicago in the 1870's when the fire burned it down: It gives you a chance to think afresh," said John H. Mollenkopf, director of the City University of New York's Center for Urban Research.
The question, though, is whether anyone in this still very shaken city is ready to seize the opportunity.

Sursa: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/10/nyregion/10SITE.html

De ce suntem saraci ?

Constantin Tanase

Potrivit ultimului sondaj de opinie, moldovenii au cea mai mare încredere în Biserică şi în comunişti. Sociologii şi filozofii n-au explicat dedesubturile acestui fenomen. Şi e păcat, pentru că am fi înţeles şi noi de unde vine respectul nostru faţă de creştinism şi comunism. Cu certitudine, luna mai va întări încrederea moldovenilor în Biserică şi comunişti, deoarece în anul acesta maiul este luna când creştinii şi comuniştii prăznuiesc, într-o succesiune calendaristică plăcută sufletului şi trupului, 1 Mai, Paştele, 9 Mai, Paştele Blajinilor - două săptămâni încheiate de guleaiuri. Ca să nu ne întrerupă petrecerea, guvernul ne-a dat liber şi la 10 mai - dacă-i bal, bal să fie!
Două săptămâni de sărbători în cea mai săracă ţară din Europa. Nu e prea mult? Sunt atâtea de făcut în ţara asta, iar noi intrăm într-un guleai-maraton de două săptămâni. Şi apoi ne plângem că suntem (după ce am fost cei mai viteji dintre traci) cei mai săraci dintre daci. În general, chestia asta cu sărăcia noastră mi se pare un pic suspectă. Noi am elaborat, pe parcursul secolelor, o adevărată filozofie justificativă a sărăciei, un eşafodaj şarlatanesc al sărăciei, am glorificăt sărăcia şi am transformat-o dintr-un viciu într-o virtute. Este foarte comod să te declari sărac - eşti căinat, îţi mai pică nişte ajutoare umanitare; ţara care umblă cu mâna întinsă după ajutoare umanitare practică aceeaşi meserie ca şi şarlatanul din stradă, numai că la nivel naţional. Sărăcia noastră e o şarlatanie şi noi suntem exact atât de sărăci, cât ne convine nouă să fim.
Nu înţeleg, cum pot exista şomeri într-o ţară ca a noastră, semiruinată, unde este atâtâ de lucru. Şomeri pot fi în America, Germania ş.a., pentru că acolo oamenii au terminat lucrul, acolo toate-s aranjate la locul lor, economia funcţionează ca ceasul. Dar la noi? În mod normal, Moldova ar trebui să fie ţara cu cel mai mare deficit la capitolul braţe de muncă. Mai ales că, cică aproape un milion de oameni lucrează peste hotare. Dar, ca să vezi, la noi existăn şomeri şi ne plângem că suntem cei mai săraci din Europa. De unde să fim bogaţi când umblăm cu limba scoasă după praznice şi guleaiuri? În context, îmi permit încă o observaţiune neplăcută. De unde am luat noi că toţi trebuie să fie bogaţi şi să trăiască în îndestulare?
Dumnezeu nu i-a făcut pe oameni egali - există oameni harnici şi lenoşi, deştepţi şi proşti, energici şi papă-lapte etc. De ce lenosul, care doarme până se ridică soarele, are pretenţii s-o ducă tot atât de bine ca şi harnicul, care se scoală cu mult înainte de răsăritul soarelui? E corect, creştineşte oare, ca braţul de fân să fie împărţit "echitabil" între boul care trage şi boul care doarme? În definitiv, cam de ce harnicul bogat ar trebui să-l hrănească pe leneşul sărac? De ce societatea trebuie să-şi construiască viaţa pe o asemenea filozofie strâmbă, de încurajare a lenei, mediocrităţii şi şarlataniei? Şi tot în context: de ce lumea normală construieşte imperialismul multilateral dezvoltat, ultima fază a capitalismului, iar noi, moldovenii - socialismul multilateral mutilat, ultima fază a debilismului? Aşadar, ce e sărăcia noastră - o dramă, un viciu, o şarlatanie? De aici pornind, mă mai întreb: de ce oare moldovenii au cea mai mare încredere în Biserică şi în comunişti? Nu sugerez nimic, pur şi simplu întreb. Oricum, dacă am intrat în sărbători, vă zic: Hristos a înviat, iubiţi creştini! Cu maiul, dragi tovarăşi, cu maiul, cu paiul, cu naiul, cu alaiul, cu guleaiul sau cu ce doriţi dvs...

Dear ...,

Thank you for your note. Liuba was quoted directly, and I concede your point. I have spoken with her again and she says she did mean to say Romanian but was probably nervous during the interview, which was not conducted in her native tongue, and inadvertently omitted it.
We have corrected the story.

Thanks,

Preston

-----Original Message-----
From: ...
Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 7:05 AM
To: Preston.Mendenhall@msnbc.com
Subject: unbelievable

Hello,

In your article "Sex Slaves", about human traffickimg in Eastern Europe, a certain Liuba Revenko is quoted as saying: "Moldovans are a hybrid population of Russians, Jews, Ukrainians and Bulgarians". This is really unbelievable. Moldova is a former province of Romania and 65% of its population is Romanian (even if Stalin invented the "Moldovan" nation and language). The first time it was occupied by the Russians in 1812. In 1918 it rejoined Romania. In 1940 it was again excised by USSR.

Excerpts from CIA World Factbooks (http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/md.html):
Ethnic groups: Moldovan/Romanian 64.5%, Ukrainian 13.8%, Russian 13%, Gagauz 3.5%, Jewish 1.5%, Bulgarian 2%, other 1.7% (1989 est.)
Languages: Moldovan (official, virtually the same as the Romanian language), Russian, Gagauz (a Turkish dialect)

To describe that population as a hybrid without saying a word about Romanians is simply stupid. I'd appreciate if in one of the next articles you'd fix this error. An opinion not reflecting the truth shouldn't be quoted as it is.

Best regards,