By Kambiz Shekdar, Ph.D. One year before the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Fauci attempted to direct the research prowess of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) toward curing what is still a largely incurable and festering global disease, HIV/AIDS, but with the explosion of COVID-19 that momentum was stopped abruptly. While right now the world is racing to
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Embrace the Absurd
By Siggy Raible | The New York Times reported on January 10, 2021 that Elon Musk “is now the world’s richest person thanks to a yearlong rally in Tesla’s share price… According to the Bloomberg [a billionaire in his own right so he ought to know] Billionaires Index, Mr. Musk’s net worth was $195 billion
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My Trip to Bellevue
By Jeff Hodges In 1971, I got my jaw broken in a melee on Second Avenue. I was outside my apartment when I saw some guys beating up a hippie. I approached one of them and asked him to knock it off. His reply was to spin around and hit me solidly in the jaw.
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Joan’s Shanghai
By Joan Klyhn Joan’s Shanghai is a memoir of a childhood in Shanghai in the ‘30’s and ’40s of the 20th century. I am primarily writing it for myself, extending it to my friends, and now to the many people who have shown themselves fascinated with this period in the past. The School Lunch Food
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Faith & Politics: Church of the Village Launches Series Featuring Progressive Faith Leaders
By Rev. Alexis Lillie In the rollercoaster that was the two weeks between the Capitol riot and the inauguration, many of us experienced a wide range of emotions. Coincidentally, at Church of the Village we had just launched a virtual preaching series at the beginning of January focused on “Faith and Politics” from a progressive,
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Lisa and Harry—Such Interesting People Live on Christopher Street
By Robert Heide The lyric from the song Christopher Street from the Leonard Bernstein, Comden and Greene Broadway musical Wonderful Town goes: “Here we live Here we love. This is the place for self expression. Life is Keen. Life is great. Interesting people are living on Christopher Street.” In this article I decided to write
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Love Conquers Time
By Brittney Ryan Love weaves its way between the minutes and hours that bind us, only to emerge in the timelessness of the moment. Princess Holly was the first child born in the Kingdom of Forever, where she came of age surrounded by the great thinkers and artists who had, over the centuries, crossed from
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Cupid and Psyche: The Ancient Blueprint for our Modern Valentine’s Day
By Anastasia Kaliabakos Valentine’s Day, also known as the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated every year on February 14th all over the world. The history of this annual holiday of love and romance is disputed and mysterious, and many of the possible origins of Valentine’s Day are actually disturbingly dark. The Feast of Saint
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Born To Do It
By Anthony Paradiso Born to Do It is a book for “people who are open to incorporating spirituality into business.” Dr. Rebekah Louisa Smith is the “film festival doctor.” Of course, that term was never used before and that is the point of the book. There is no doctorate program for Film Festivals. Such a
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Notes From Away: Tempest to Calm
By Tom Lamia There is a feeling of rescue, of emerging from a hiding place and finding quiet isolation for the moment. Some of this is the effect of a Maine winter, where snow, freshly fallen, mutes all sound, but it is not this alone—it is also the effect of resolution of awful forces that
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The 2021st Amendment: Opening a Restaurant Amidst the Second Repeal of Prohibition
By Reed MacNaughton A reader told me they wanted to open a new restaurant in the Village. I said, “Don’t.” “Haven’t you heard?” I asked, knowing full well they had, “Sixty percent of new restaurants fail in the first three years. Not to mention the margins—it’s no business to be in if you want to
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A Chicken Delivered
By Laurence Edelman Eighteen months before the city wide shut downs—pre-COVID—we launched Poulet Sans Tête, French for “chicken without a head,” in the kitchen at Left Bank. I and my partner Micheline Gaulin developed the brand of crispy and juicy rotisserie chicken, to make the most of the resources we had at Left Bank, by
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An Insight into David Kessler
FDA Chief Named to Lead Vaccine Response Abstracted from A Scientist’s View of Almost Everything” by Mark M Green I’ve been a bit heavy from time to time but never had a big problem with food. But if there is Philadelphia Cream Cheese in the refrigerator, I can’t resist it. I’ll pile it on anything
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A Voice for the People
By Aleta LaFrague This is a story I know to be true. Recently, I received a distressed phone call from a neighbor: “I need help, please, let me know if there’s anything you can do. I can’t let him live like this.” Her voice was consumed with emotion. That phone call was from the parent
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Erik Bottcher Offers New Vision for Sanitation in Council District 3
By the Erik Bottcher for City Council Campaign My German Uncle Max would sit in the best chair on a Sunday afternoon, with a quart bottle of Schaefer beer, and talk and talk. On several occasions he commented on how clean German streets were compared to those in New York and made me, at a very young
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Catch and Release
By Karen Rempel Many girls dream of their wedding day. Not me! I dreamed of twirling in glamorous gowns and going to glittering galas with arm candy men. Every day after school I swooned at the thought of being Ginger, alone with Gilligan on his island. I was born just before the Summer of Love,
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Hummel
By Jeff Hodges In the early 1990s I traveled to Germany to shoot a promotional video for the Goebel Porcelain Company in Bavaria, Germany. At that time Goebel was the manufacturer of the Hummel Figurines—those ingenuous pastel porcelain renderings of children and animals that lurked on our grandmothers’ bookshelves with a cloying cuteness that inspired
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Warhol and Wallowitch —a Gay Affair
By Robert Heide I first met the photographer Edward Wallowitch on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois where I was studying theater under the tutelage of the great professor Alvina Krause. She had learned ‘The Method’ by working in Russia with the great master himself Constantin Stanislavsky, author of An Actor Prepares. This
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Using Speech Recognition to Control Your Desktop and Programs
By Asa Bacon Years ago, I acquired a physical disability, that affected my fingers as well. Typing slowly with many errors becomes a nuisance and time consuming. It would be great if my computer allowed me to dictate to it like a digital secretary. Well, as of 2007 it can. With the debut of Windows
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How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Compliments
By Ira Ellenthal When I was running, or helping to run, such publications as The Daily News, U.S. News & World Report, The Atlantic and, prior to that, a dozen trade magazines, I received many compliments, most of which made me wary. Let’s face it, when we have power, others tend to butter us up.
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Our Way Out of This: I Think Not
By Robert Kroll AUTHOR’S NOTE: This essay was written exclusively for the denizens of the West Village; that is not only because WestView News doesn’t circulate much beyond that boundary, but also because I wouldn’t entrust it much to those living west of the Hudson River, east of the Gowanus Canal, or north of 14th
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From Ancient Sparta to Modern Denmark: The Rationalization of Eugenics
By Anastasia Kaliabakos Humankind has grappled with the ethics of eugenics for millennia. The practice can be traced, famously, back to ancient Sparta, which was revered for its military prowess and position as one of the most powerful city-states in all of Greece. The philosophy of selective breeding was promoted by the philosopher Plato, who
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James E. Murphy, Consultant
By Alexis Parrin Jim Murphy was an accomplished fund-raising professional with more than 30 years of experience in leading fundraising operations, creating strategic initiatives, and securing substantial contributions and public support for educational institutions and not-for-profit organizations. In addition, he was engaged on the frontlines of major political campaigns in the United States and abroad.
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It’s Just Politics
By Penny Mintz A retraction is in order. Contrary to what was reported here last month, the Downtown Independent Democrats had never declined to endorse Carlina Rivera in her bid for re-election to the City Council in District #2. On the contrary, at their meeting on December 7, 2020, DID enthusiastically endorsed Rivera. They also
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VID Endorses City Council Candidates
By Edward Yutkowitz Village Independent Democrats (VID) has endorsed Erik Bottcher, Chris Marte, and Carlina Rivera to represent lower Manhattan in the City Council. The endorsement votes took place after the candidates addressed VID’s membership and the public at a virtual forum at the club’s December general meeting. More than 120 members of the community
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Being Black Isn’t a Crime
By Arthur Z. Schwartz It was almost Christmas Eve when I sat down to write my last WestView News piece for 2020. I have a habit of glancing at my NY Times feed numerous times a day, as this crazy year dishes up new news by the minute. I saw a report, for the first
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HOW SWEDE IT IS
HOW SWEDE IT IS: WestView News’ Photo Editor and advertising campaign producer Darielle Smolian married Swedish journalist Johan Eriksson, in a socially distant but personally intimate ceremony near the historic Bow Bridge in Central Park on December 16, 2020. Joined by a handful of family and friends both in person and online, the couple overcame
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Oxidative Phosphorylation: Life’s Energy Source
Abstracted from “A Scientists View of Almost Everything” by Mark M Green Let’s see how the food we eat is converted to the energy we need to keep us walking, talking, thinking, sleeping and yes even eating and all else it means to be alive. Everything we eat and drink contains hydrogen atoms. All atoms,
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Participate as We Cover Local Elections
By Frank Quinn Last month, WestView News contributor Penny Mintz wrote an informative article on the upcoming 2021 city council elections, providing essential information about local races that probably won’t receive much attention in the larger citywide press. Interestingly, Ms. Mintz is an active supporter of one particular candidate, a fact she dutifully noted, yet
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Polly Trottenberg – Good Riddance
by Arthur Schwartz* Just before Westview went to press, DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg announced that she was leaving the de Blasio Administration in December. She may wind up as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Trottenberg is a City official who never met a Community Board she liked. She “endured” the public process regarding
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Oxidative Phosphorylation: Life’s Energy Source
Abstracted from “A Scientists View of Almost Everything” by Mark M Green Let’s see how the food we eat is converted to the energy we need to keep us walking, talking, thinking, sleeping and yes even eating and all else it means to be alive. Everything we eat and drink contains hydrogen atoms. All atoms,
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Palestinians Persecuted During the Pandemic
By J. Taylor Basker The Pandemic has not only caused illness and death to Palestinians but provides an opportunity for Israel to increase its persecution and policies of destruction in Palestine. International law mandates that Israel, as the occupying power, is responsible that Palestinians have full medical care. However, it has made it difficult for
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Book Review: Children’s Piano Primer 1 2 3 Do Re Mi
An insightful new way to teach young kids (ages 4-9) to read and play music. By Hannah Reimann, illustrated by Lisa Kaiser New Piano Primer is 1 2 3 Do-Re-Magical Most everyone remembers the scene in Sound of Music when Julie Andrews bursts into song in the hills of Austria, bicycling with her famous
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Urban Native Artists Show at the Revelation Gallery
By Jill McManus The charming Revelation Gallery has played a welcome part in the Village art and music scene for the last couple of years. This month the gallery is taking the rare step—even in the Village—of featuring outstanding Native American/Alaska Native artists who are living in urban settings, but whose work reflects aspects of
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New York Time Capsule
By Robert Heide It’s Christmastime 2020 and I am finding myself walking down the street singing “Have Yourself a Merry little Christmas – Keep the Yuletide bright. Next year all our troubles will be out of sight – so have yourself a Merry Little Christmas now!” As I write this I am also thinking of
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I’m From Joe’s Hometown
By Kieran Loughney On November 7th the flash came late in the morning, not from a cable network or a feed on the cellphone, but as news has travelled for centuries, directly from the street. From windows open wide on that warm morning, the sound of cheers, whoops and honking horns reached up to our
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Who’s the Dolly Parton Patron Saint of Curing AIDS?
By Kambiz Shekdar, Ph.D. There are two Dollys who have made impactful contributions in the annals of science and medicine, one is a sheep and the other is a country music star. Dolly the sheep was the first large animal that was successfully cloned. Dolly Parton the country music star made a $1 million donation
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Wenceslaus
By Jeff Hodges When my daughter is at a symposium and the leader asks the participants to “tell us something we would never guess about you,” she’ll often respond: “When I was two, I had a pet raccoon named Wenceslaus!” One snowy Christmas I saw a big raccoon walking back and forth on the road
