Palace in South Norwalk

Why would this multi-million dollar production facility, for over a decade now, keep its marquee looking like their theater was abandoned? That really looks good for the community! Sigh...

CAN Documentary Films Screening at the Letelier Theater in Washington DC. Friday, Sept. 21 6:30pm

Facebook is how most of the Coalition Against Nukes (CAN) organizers communicate, and how the DC Rally For A Nuclear Free Future is coming together, for the most part. I can understand the aversion to facebook, many people can’t stomach it. I for one, think none of what CAN, or the rest of the anti-nuclear community has accomplished since the Fukushima accident, without a dime in its pockets, would have materialized without it.

I don’t care if the CIA reads everything I post, let them see it all, bring it on. There’s so much information out there now, they couldn’t make heads or tails out of it, reach a productive analysis, if they had all the NSA computers tied together in a bundle, they still won’t understand what’s going on! You know what they say about hiding something in plain sight? Well that’s what this is.

Most of the CAN community has met via facebook, friends introducing friends, activists from all over the country, the world, creating the CAN facebook network. There’s nothing else like it… and if tomorrow, facebook yanked the plug, no doubt we’d be scrambling for alternatives. But right now, this is the best tool we have to beat them at their own game, their multi-million dollars video conference calls, their lavish convention center resorts symposiums, their sales and marketing motivational seminars… which is how the nuclear industry thrives.

This documentary film screening event at the Letelier Theater in the heart of Georgetown in DC, just a few blocks from the University, the Center For Strategic Studies, think tank of the Trilateral Commission, showing the Atomic States of America and the Radioactivists, promotes the CAN rally as much as the CAN rally promotes the screenings.

We know how these DC media and socialite types can be… they look down on “activism” and “protest” like it’s beneath them, but they are there with bells on when it comes to eco-chic and green stuff… something they consider a “positive force” for change. They'll read about it on Huffington Green, but will dismiss it coming from a less well traveled blog.

But we know better, nothing really changes until and unless we can work all these fronts together. So while the rally promotes the screenings, with much of DC media, the screenings will now promote the rally, because that’s how it works in that community, don’t forget Washington is Hollywood for ugly people! ;o)

There’s so many places around DC and Georgetown who will now promote the Letelier event, who otherwise would not have paid any attention to a grassroots protest rally… in turn, the DC political scene will come to learn about the nuclear briefing sponsored by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, the rally, and all the other events taking place around it for three days, between September 20th and 22nd, that CAN has been organizing, struggling to get just an ounce of mainstream press.

With the DC media types feeling obligated to list the Letelier screenings in their event sections, because it’s at the “Letelier”… pronounce that with a thick French snobbish accent… we can sneak awareness of the CAN DC Rally for a Nuclear Free Future through the back door, like a Trojan horse.

Greendrinks on Wall Street!

Shut Down SDIPN Now!

(wrong approach!)

Professional New Yorkers have nowhere to turn if they want to shut down Indian Point! The only New York City based organization working on the issue is so profoundly anti-capitalist it prevents businesses, especially green businesses, from joining. It's time for a new, green business friendly group to emerge.

Entergy, the company which owns and operates Indian Point, funds powerful pro-relicensing business associations in the Hudson Valley, like the Business Council of Westchester and the New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance. Without similar strong green business coalitions opposing the relicensing, Entergy controls the political process. 

The first meeting of Shut Down Indian Point Now! was held March 28th 2011 at Green Spaces, the entrepreneurial collective on Broadway. It was spearheaded by Rosie Tovi, a figure skating champion, who had launched a facebook page and website.

People started walking out when the radical left overpowered the meeting by wanting to exclude businesses from the organization. In essence preventing solar companies, LED companies, organic farmers, eco-friendly stores, etc... from joining the organization, insulting the green business professionals in attendance.

Many came from the New York chapter of the Green Party and Time's Up which had already been organizing shut down Indian Point protests throughout the City, but also use the issue to promote their own narrow socialist agenda.

They label sustainable fashion and green beauty companies as "sexist" which is not conducive to enlisting the enthusiastic participation of such companies, who are otherwise quite supportive of our effort.

Rosie Tovi quit. She kept the facebook page and website she designed to herself. The remaining members created a new website and facebook page, with the same name, which is why there are now two different Shut Down Indian Point Now groups in New York.

The splintering of the shut down Indian Point community in Manhattan over this issue is costing the movement to shut down Indian Point precious time and resources.

Riverkeeper and Clearwater, have also not worked to form a green business association against the relicensing of Indian Point, leaving the road wide open for Entergy to influence the political process.

Green Drinks, a popular host of social networking events, held promise if members could be reached and organized. Instead it has played host to ConEd representatives touting energy efficiency at the expense of any mention of Indian Point. In fact, many attending Green Drinks now in New York, Weschester, and Connecticut, work for the utilities.

Large trade events like Go Green Expo and Green Festival were shunned by Shut Down Indian Point Now for green washing rather than used as an opportunity to gain more support, recruit volunteers and gain sponsors.

My own organization Rock The Reactors, which since 2006 has brought wide attention to the dangers of Indian Point, producing over 100 intervention papers with FUSE USA, is penalized by Shut Down Indian Point Now for selling t-shirts, promoting LED lighting, and partnering with soft drink and nutrition bar companies.

It's time we change all this, bring the shut down Indian Point movement to those who can really make a real difference, New York City green business professionals!

Do we want to shut down Indian Point or do we want use the Indian Point issue as a means to promote a radical feminist agenda? Can't do both and be successful I'm afraid. 

Green Beauty Team interview with May Lindstrom

May Lindstrom is currently featured on the new cover of Organic Spa magazine

Why Is Indian Point Still Open?

- Michael Leonardi

Indian Point is still open because of the sheer madness of a system propped up by the machinations of an Industry that finances the political bureaucracy and keeps organized labor as a parasitic appendage that cares about nothing more than paychecks. It is still open because the most powerful organizations that say they want it shut down are compromised and their leadership and members unwilling to come out of their elitist comfort zones to really do what it takes to inform and galvanize the masses into shutting down New York City with a mock evacuation that would take say a week.

It is still open because of the taxpayer subsidies to Entergy and the fact that too many stupid people have been drinking the radiaoactive Kool Aid that convinces them that Nuclear Energy is "Safe. Secure. Vital." It is still open because too many well meaning people in a position to get it Shut down are too fucked up and embroiled in their own personal soap operas to be able to effectively engage with reality.

- Gloria Albasi

Due to a lack of serious education on energy issues in this country, the general population is perhaps ill-equipped to take a step back and look at the Big Energy Picture? While nuclear power plants were once thought to be the future of energy, we have since learned the risks far, far outweigh the advantages. If more people understood the nuts and bolts of why the risks are so great, more citizen advocacy might have already led to Indian Point's 'closure'. Instead, a general malaise or ignorance in this area has allowed it to stay open.

Dr. Helen Caldicott might suggest that Indian Point is still open because a nuclear reactor meltdown has not yet occurred in the USA. She expressed at Columbia University recently that some international nuclear power experts fear that only when an American reactor experiences a meltdown, will the US seriously implement a countrywide plan of phasing out nuclear reactors. And that the world might then follow suit. A frightening thought.

- Andrea Kalkstein Lieberman

Indian Point is still open because the feds want it that way. any more questions?
Indian Point is still open because the federal gov't has a need to nuke new yorkers?
Indian Point is still open because Entergy, the feds, their $$$ billions and minions have the POWER.

- MaryEllen Marucci

Because the Attorney General will not ask the hard question. Proof of how the ISO manipulates what type of power gets bought.

After Fukushima, I contacted the Coalition Against Nukes facebook community about Millstone suggesting more focus on Indian Point. Millstone would be much harder to shut down since its surplus power is used by the military bases, nuclear sub base, Electric Boat and other military contractors. Also many of the residents are used to a military focus to their economy.

Before the first CAN rally in NY, I called the NY AG office, as my conscious was bothering me. I could not remember if Indian Point was built at the same time as Haddam Neck (aka Connecticut Yankee) where they falsified earthquake analysis because they did not know at that time how the special metals used in the spent fuel racks would behave. The people doing the analysis substituted the behavior of what they assumed was a comparable metal. Haddam Neck was closed early because the corporation (Northeast Utilities) did not want this public, and to go for an extension of life for that plant would have required at that time a full public hearing.

So thinking that Indian Point would be one of 16 or more plants built around the same time as Haddam Neck, I called and spoke to a woman within AG immediate office. I told her what I wrote above, and asked if she knew when the seismic studies were done. She said there were no seismic studies! I said then "What are you waiting for, shut it down now! Get an injunction and shut it down!" There was silence at the other end and and then I said, "Are you worried about where the power is going to come from?" She agreed that was their concern.

I then suggested that the AG go after the Power Pool (ISO) and get their records to see how they manipulate the purchases to prove that IP is a necessary part of the mix. She thought that would be a good idea. I do not know what NY AG is doing, but I do not think he has gone after ISO. It can be the state is hesitating because certain industries suck the grid when usage is low and they do not want to be cut off from their free or cheap power. I suspect it is both the military and nuclear industry that is the end user of this surplus. Along with other industrialists tied to the same industrial, military, sickness industry.

- Barbara Warren

Indian Point is still open because this country is in denial about the seriousness of the Fukushima catastrophe. The only regulatory body allowed to deal with safety issues in this country, the NRC, is in denial about the significance of the danger for the US. The NRC was largely captured by the nuclear industry and is functioning as if it was a PR firm, doing damage control not by increasing safety, but by controlling the media messages.

Protecting Entergy and other industry participants has clearly become more important than the safety of twenty million people. Indian Point will not be closed until people rise up in their outrage and demand more accountability from their elected leaders and a REAL SAFETY AGENCY that can see danger and act accordingly.

- Well, as for myself, I think that as long as the Buchanan/Peekskill hosting community itself kowtows to Entergy by naming its PR director grand marshal of their St. Patrick's Day parade, allowing Entergy to lavish local arts and medical institutions with millions of dollars in annual donations, it will be impossible to pry neighborhood residents away from its dirty cash addiction.

If you'd like to contribute something constructive to this conversation, please comment below, thank you.

Small Luxurious Eco-Houses

We live in an area of the United States, Fairfield County, constituted of 23 communities of around 20.000 inhabitants, where the median home income exceeds $250.000 a year, and the median home value nears $900.000, this often on parcels of land legislated to a minimum of 2 acres.

The trend over the last decade has been to tear down or transform existing 3 or 4 bedroom, 2 car garage dwellings, into vast, mansion-like (often nicknamed McMansions) 6 to 8 room, 4 car garage estates, seldom housing more than a two children family unit.

This would seem preposterous to anyone outside our country, even in the most affluent of regions. Nowhere on Earth is there such a concentration of inconspicuous wealth, yet, little is made of it, despite growing accusations and concerns that US citizens consume much more than their fair share of resources.

As population grows, gap between rich and poor widens, scarce comes access to land offering such an over copious amount of fresh river, spring and well water, there needs to grow a novel approach to residences meeting the needs of more than simply those who can afford such excesses, without disturbing the current illusion of security provided by the isolation of individual properties.

Changes in planning and zoning requirements, as well as the arbitrary, too often subjective or fickle will of architectural and environmental review boards, must now allow for much more creative uses of space which in no way will deface the exclusive character of neighborhood and place.

Truth be told, it's been a long time coming since builders and contractors in the region have received the type of media accolades for design excellence bestowed on creative projects elsewhere or abroad. Isn't time to exceed expectations and live up to the liberal, progressive reputation no longer warranted by current standards?

To this end, the Aquarium Steampunk Reading Room has acquired and accumulated over the many years leading to the opening of its present day physical location a substantial collection of green design and architectural books targeted at construction professionals ready, wishing and willing to expand the horizons of their client base, by educating themselves further, as to the extend of innovation now practiced outside the confines of neighboring towns which have sadly settled into a sense of heritage complacency, laziness and boredom reflecting the type of job description mirrored by the executive lifestyles of its upscale residents.

Among the many titles on the Aquarium shelves is for example, Small ECO Houses, a relatively recent title from Universe, a division of the famed and illustrious publishing house Rizzoli lauding with text and photographs the work of firms now able to erect jewels of living quarters seldom exceeding 1000 square feet, in perfect harmony with its direct environment, frequently raised on stilts so as not to interfere with the coming and going of wildlife.

This blending of human and natural cohabitation, maximizing available space and increasing the concentration of occupants, relieves the land and waterways from stress generally associated with suburban development, while providing greater intensity of use, enabling the continued growth of population density without the prospect of decreased property values.

To experience the green architectural book collection at the Aquarium located on 10 Knight street in Norwalk, please call for an appointment.
203-227-2065