Saturday, September 21, 2013

Andrew Cuomo is working overtime against

freedom to do as one wishes without the State expressing its religious preference.
Send Andrew Cuomo to Rome

Pope Warns Church Focusing Too Much on Gays, Abortion

Francis Sets Out Vision of More Welcoming Church, Less Preoccupied With Doctrine

Interview Highlights

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has taken a leading role in denouncing gay-marriage initiatives as well as the contraceptive mandate in the Obama administration's health-care program.
On Thursday, Cardinal Dolan said that the pontiff's remarks show that "he is a man who profoundly believes in the mercy of a loving God, and who wants to bring that message of mercy to the entire world, including those who feel that they have been wounded by the church."
He added that he welcomed this "reminder that the clergy are primarily to serve as shepherds."
The 12,000-word interview, which touched on personal points such as the pope's favorite composer, artist, author and film (Mozart, Caravaggio, Dostoyevsky and Fellini's "La Strada"), was conducted in August. It was published simultaneously by Civiltà Cattolica and other Jesuit magazines globally on Thursday, and was reviewed before publication by the pope, the first Jesuit to be elected pontiff.
Thomas Groome, a professor of theology and religious education at Boston College, called the comments by the pope a shift away from his predecessors.
"He doesn't want to just harp on birth control and gay marriage, he wants to bring us back to compassion, mercy, outreach to the poor and inclusion of the marginalized," he said.
But Stephen Pope, another professor of theology at Boston College, said he didn't see the pope as scolding the U.S. bishops for the focus on cultural issues. "I don't think Pope Francis would do anything that the bishops would perceive to be undermining their efforts," he said. "They'll probably interpret this as broadening their agenda rather than cutting out their agenda."
Pope Francis, who has eschewed living in the grand papal apartments at the Vatican in favor of a modest guesthouse, has become enormously popular among many Catholics for his human touch. The church is facing a sharp drop-off in membership in the face of rising secularism and increased popularity of evangelical churches.
While he has affirmed Catholic teachings, he has opened the door to members of groups who have at times struggled in their relationship with the church, such as gays and women.
In the interview, the pope expanded on comments he made in July regarding homosexuals. On a return flight from a trip to Brazil, he said, "Who am I to judge a gay person of goodwill who seeks the Lord?"
In the magazine interview, the Argentine-born pope said, "In Buenos Aires I used to receive letters from homosexual persons who are 'socially wounded' because they tell me that they feel like the church has always condemned them. But the church does not want to do this."
He also suggested a reconsideration of the role of women in the church. While he didn't address the church's teaching that women can't be priests, he said "women are asking deep questions that must be addressed."
"The woman is essential for the church," said the pontiff. "We must therefore investigate further the role of women in the church."
The interview was remarkable for its candor and length. The remarks will likely reinforce Pope Francis' image as a leader more concerned with the pastoral role of the church and impatient with the shortcomings of the institution.
The comments were in line with the pope's thinking as a top prelate in Argentina. In an interview shortly after the new pope was picked earlier this year, one of his former top aides in Argentina said the pontiff was grounded in the everyday lives of his parishioners that gave him a healthy distance from the doctrinal debate in Rome.
"Someone who is behind a desk in Rome, they aren't even having Mass with the people," the former aide said. "They are totally cut off. We have the people in front of us all the time."
The pope has signaled plans to shake up the Vatican's hidebound and fractious bureaucracy that has given rise to a series of financial and personal scandals in recent years.
"The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules," he said.
When asked how he viewed himself, he answered, "I am a sinner. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner."
Some more personal comments are likely to further endear the pope to Catholics who have already cheered his folksy manner. The pope has eschewed more regal clothing worn by his predecessors and has been photographed carrying his own luggage on trips. He has even taken to personally making calls to people who have written to him recounting their problems.
—David Luhnow contributed to this article. Write to Deborah Ball at deborah.ball@wsj.com and Jennifer Levitz at jennifer.levitz@wsj.com

HI-

Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.

Claude Solnik

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Long Island Business News

2150 Smithtown Ave.

Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348

Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays

Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012

Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.

HI-

Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.

Claude Solnik

(631) 913-4244

Long Island Business News

2150 Smithtown Ave.

Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348

Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays

Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012

Monday, September 16, 2013

Dear Eda Lorello:

I am interested in your views of New York State preferring to close Nassau OTB on one Easter Sunday over another and one Palm Sunday over another. See also NY Const. Art. 1, Sec. 3.
I do not believe that NY PML Sec 109 passes the laugh test.

HI-

Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.

Claude Solnik

(631) 913-4244

Long Island Business News

2150 Smithtown Ave.

Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348

Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays

Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012

Sag Harbor grandmother: I'm LI's first female priest

Originally published: September 15, 2013 7:50 PM
Updated: September 15, 2013 9:36 PM
By BART JONES bart.jones@newsday.com

Photo credit: John Roca | Sag Harbor resdent Eda Lorello, a long-time church worker, was "ordained" as a preist during a service in Wellsley, Mass. on Aug 10th, though the offical Roman Catholic Church does not recognize it as legitimate. She is shown here in her Sag Harbor home. (Aug. 22, 2013)

A Sag Harbor grandmother says she has become the first Long Island woman to be ordained as a priest in a group that seeks equality for women in the Roman Catholic Church.
Eda Lorello, a longtime church worker, said she was ordained during a service in Wellesley, Mass., on Aug. 10 organized by Roman Catholic Womenpriests, an advocacy group that says it has ordained 120 women to what it calls the priesthood in the United States in the past decade.
The Vatican does not recognize the ordinations as legitimate, and has said that the women automatically "excommunicate" themselves when they take part in such services. Sean Dolan, a spokesman for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, called the effort to make Lorello a priest "absurd."
"It's wrong for her to portray herself as a Roman Catholic priest," he said. "She is not."

Volunteer position lost
Lorello, who said she did not want her age disclosed, said she was dismissed earlier this summer by the diocese from her volunteer position as a lector at St. Andrew's Roman Catholic parish in Sag Harbor. The parish's pastor, after consulting with the diocese, "told me you can't be a lector anymore because it will confuse the people," she said.
Dolan confirmed that she had been dismissed and said the pastor, the Rev. Peter Devaraj, was "completely within the canonical guidelines" in removing Lorello as a lector in the parish because she publicly took a position against church teachings.
Lorello and Roman Catholic Womenpriests say that the ordinations of women are valid because they stem from the ordinations of seven other women that were performed by three Roman Catholic bishops in 2002 in Europe. Lorello said she was ordained by a woman "bishop" at last month's service, during which two other women were also ordained. According to Catholic teaching, priests are ordained by bishops whose authority goes back to St. Peter.
"According to St. Augustine, when the law is unjust, there is no law," Lorello said. "According to Martin Luther King and Gandhi, when a law is unjust we are bound in conscience to break it. This is an unjust law" prohibiting women from serving as priests.

Worldwide controversy
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the Church has had a "long and constant tradition" of ordaining only men to the priesthood, dating to Jesus' selection of the 12 apostles.
"Jesus broke a lot of rules in his day, but he didn't break that one," Walsh said. She added that "there is no evidence" the Church's stance on a male-only clergy will change.
The issue of women in the priesthood has stoked controversy worldwide, with the Vatican defrocking former Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois last year because of his support for and participation in services ordaining women. A Pew Research study in March found that 59 percent of Catholics nationwide favor allowing women to be priests, 35 percent are against it and 6 percent don't know.
Many of the ordained women priests celebrate a service with small groups in homes or rented Protestant churches, and minister to AIDS patients, immigrants or the poor, said Andrea Johnson, who says she is a Womenpriest bishop.
Priests officially ordained by the Roman Catholic Church typically go through years of training in seminaries and parishes, and then are formally ordained by a bishop. Womenpriests says those it ordains have a master's degree or a doctorate in divinity, theology, religious studies or the equivalent, and work with a mentor to complete further study and reflection on the sacraments.

Dream had been on hold
Lorello said she has felt called to the priesthood since she was 7 or 8 and used to stage pretend Roman Catholic Masses in her house, complete with her dolls lined up as "parishioners." She said she put her dream on hold for decades as the Church maintained its ban on women priests.
"I waited through five popes, now six, to change that canon law that says only males can be ordained," she said. "I got tired of waiting."
She called herself "a faithful daughter of the Church" with 30 years' experience as a paid parish staff professional and 10 years as a volunteer.
Lorello said she has served as a pastoral associate in parishes in Manorville and Bridgehampton, ran religious education programs in several Long Island parishes, and taught in the Diocese of Rockville Centre's Pastoral Formation Institute for lay people. She said she is a certified spiritual director and holds master's degrees in theology from the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Lloyd Harbor and in pastoral counseling from Iona College in New Rochelle.
Dolan confirmed that Lorello received a degree from the seminary. Officials at Iona said Lorello received the degree at that school.

Monday, September 9, 2013

post primary day post mortem and prayers?

Meeting Of The Nassau OTB Board-Of-Directors
Date: 09/13/2013 Time: 11:00 AM		Description: A public meeting of the BOARD OF DIRECTORS of the NASSAU OFF-TRACK BETTING CORPORATION will be held on Friday, September 13th at the Nassau OTB Executive Office in Hempstead, which is a handicapped-accessible facility. Location: The Executive Office is at 220 Fulton Avenue, Hempstead, NY 11550 (at the corner of Fulton & Franklin). Contact: Judy Czak Phone: 516-572-2800 Ext: 136

New York State knocks off another non

believer who does not conform to the religious preference of his holiness Andrew Cuomo.
There shall be no betting at Nassau OTB on Roman Catholic Palm Sunday and Roman Catholic Easter Sunday. Greek Orthodox believers do not count. See eg NY Const Art. 1, Sec. 3. One less other in NY according to the State of New York.

Arts

Stephen Antonakos, 86, Sculptor of Neon, Dies at 86

Eleni Mylonas, via Lori Bookstein Fine Art

Stephen Antonakos, in an undated photograph with one of his works, created abstract sculptures distinguished by vibrant colors and sinuous lines.

By MARGALIT FOX

Published: September 6, 2013

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His medium was light; his materials included glass, an electrical charge and Element No. 10 on the periodic table. The result was a series of abstract sculptures that illuminated indoor and outdoor spaces in cities around the globe, instantly recognizable for their vibrant colors and sinuous lines.

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D. James Dee, via Lori Bookstein Fine Art

Mr. Antonakos’s “Departure” (2007).

Enlarge This Image

“Neon for La Jolla” (1984).

Stephen Antonakos, the sculptor behind those works, died on Aug. 17 at 86. Half a century ago, he became one of the first people to usher neon out of the world of HOT L and into the realm of fine art.

His work, which encompasses public-art installations and pieces in the collections of the world’s foremost museums, is leagues apart from the commercial signage that until the late 20th century was neon’s fundamental expression.

Mr. Antonakos used neon as a painter uses paint. Minimalist, with fluid lines and saturated colors that recall Matisse, his art has appeared in spaces as diverse as airports in Atlanta, Milwaukee and Bari, Italy; metro stations in Boston, Baltimore, Detroit and Athens; a power station in Tel Aviv; and a police station in Chicago.

Two of his installations have long been familiar to New Yorkers: “Neon for 42nd Street” and “Neon for the 59th Street Marine Transfer Station.”

“Neon for 42nd Street,” installed in 1981 on the outside of a building between 9th and 10th Avenues and since taken down, comprised nested arcs of red and blue. Together they formed a glowing discontinuous spiral that, like much of Mr. Antonakos’s work, exploits the haunting possibilities of incomplete geometry.

In the 59th Street piece, erected in 1990 and still standing, Mr. Antonakos outlined the facade of a shipping terminal on the Hudson River at which New York City’s trash is transferred to barges.

Elsewhere, his installations include “Four Walls for Atlanta Hartsfield Airport” (1980) and “Chapel of the Heavenly Ladder,” exhibited at the 1997 Venice Biennale. In that work, rooted in Mr. Antonakos’s Greek Orthodox faith, he built an entire meditative room of rusted iron, suffusing it gently with neon light.

His other work includes drawings, a series of unusual pillows and a set of mysterious, carefully wrapped packages that passed between him and his friends in the 1970s, many of which — by design — remain unopened.

What united Mr. Antonakos’s diverse output was his abiding concern with illumination, incompletion and an almost mystical spirituality that is manifest in everything from his overtly religious pieces to the grip that an unopened box has on the imagination.

Stephen Antonakos was born on Nov. 1, 1926, in Agios Nikolaos, a mountain village in Greece, south of Sparta. His family moved to New York when he was 4.

After graduating from Fort Hamilton High School in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, he served from 1945 to 1947 with an Army artillery unit in the Philippines. He later attended the New York State Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences in Brooklyn and began his career as a commercial illustrator.

His own work included an early-1960s series of pillows that married cloth, text, metal (including plumbing pipes and nails) and other found objects. The last pillow in the series incorporated the word “DREAM” in neon, and with that, Mr. Antonakos found his calling.

To study the rich possibilities of the medium, he scoured Times Square at night. His sculptures began life on paper and afterward — in a collaboration between Mr. Antonakos and the industrial fabricators who bent the tubes to his precise specifications — took shape in lighted glass.

In later pieces, Mr. Antonakos laid neon lights behind painted canvases, or behind panels leafed in silver or gold. The technique bathed each piece in a glowing halo, like those illuminating the figures in Byzantine icon paintings, a tradition that long fascinated him.

His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan; the Brooklyn Museum; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and elsewhere.

Mr. Antonakos’s first marriage ended in divorce. His survivors include his second wife, Naomi Spector Antonakos, who confirmed her husband’s death, in Manhattan, from complications of heart surgery; a son, Stephen B. Antonakos, from his first marriage; and a daughter, Evangelia Antonakos, from his marriage to Ms. Spector.

In the early 1970s, wanting to expand his repertory, Mr. Antonakos asked scores of friends to mail him packages. Among those who responded were the artists Robert Ryman, Sol LeWitt and Christo, no slouch when it came to wrapping things.

What Mr. Antonakos did not tell them was that he planned never to open the packages — he simply exhibited them, wrappings and all. Whether anyone sent perishable material is unrecorded.

Mr. Antonakos then reciprocated by sending meticulously wrapped parcels to a few dozen friends. These parcels, which contained unspecified items of great personal significance to him, came with strict instructions as to when the recipient could open them: some were to be opened in a far-off year, like 2000; others on Mr. Antonakos’s death; still others, never.

The project became a de facto performance piece about yearning, distance, memory and — as things turned out — elusiveness.

One of those who received a parcel was the art critic Irving Sandler, author of the 1999 book “Antonakos.” Decades ago, Mr. Antonakos sent him a flat package measuring about 18 by 24 inches. It was to remain sealed until Mr. Antonakos’s death.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Sandler was asked whether he now planned to open it.

“Yes,” he replied. “When we find it. We’re going to have to look for it.”

A version of this article appears in print on September 7, 2013, on page B9 of the New York edition with the headline: Stephen Antonakos, 86, Sculptor of Neon, Is Dead.

HI-

Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.

Claude Solnik

(631) 913-4244

Long Island Business News

2150 Smithtown Ave.

Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348

Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays

Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012

Assad proudly presents

For Immediate Release: September 5, 2013

Contact: Lee.Park@gaming.ny.gov

*** PUBLIC NOTICE AND MEDIA ADVISORY ***

WHAT: Meeting of the New York State Gaming Commission

WHEN: Monday, September 9, 2013 at 1:00 p.m.

WHERE: New York State Gaming Commission

317 Lenox Avenue at 126th Street

New York, NY 10027

***OPEN PRESS***

Members of the public who wish to listen to the New York State Gaming Commission’s meeting remotely may dial-in up to 15 minutes prior to a meeting’s start time:

Dial-In: 1-866-394-2346
Code: 6430805412

NOTE: This is a “listen-only” line.

The expected agenda and materials relating to matters that are scheduled for discussion in open session will be posted on the Gaming Commission’s Web site prior to the meeting in accordance with the Public Officers Law.

NOTE:

· Space is limited in this room and will accommodate only a few members of the public on a first-come, first-serve basis. Members of the media and public are strongly encouraged to use the dial-in option.

· Members of the public or media wishing to attend the meeting in person must contact the Gaming Commission press office at 518-388-3415 by 3 p.m. on Friday, September 6.

· All attendees must have valid photo ID to be admitted into the building.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

waiting. perhaps he bets Suffolk Downs?

http://www.nioselaw.com/bio/DavidNiose.html

Yankees support religious discrimination

and preference and some Nassau OTB employees and bettors need legal representation to kill NY PML Sec 109 in court. The statute violates the rights of New York Bettors secured by NY Const. Art. 1, Sec. 3
Andrew Cuomo cannot pick and choose one Easter Sunday over the other. Ditto for Palm Sunday.

Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.

Claude Solnik

(631) 913-4244

Long Island Business News

2150 Smithtown Ave.

Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348

Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays

Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012

Pledge of Allegiance challenged in Massachusetts Supreme Court

By Sophia Rosenbaum, NBC News

A family in suburban Boston hopes to change the phrasing of the Pledge of Allegiance to remove two words they claim violate students' rights.
The family is challenging the pledge, which students recite daily in U.S. public schools, claiming the words "under God" violate the state's equal rights laws.
The plaintiffs, who have requested anonymity through their lawyers, are taking an unconventional approach to challenging the pledge. Past cases argued the words “under God” violated the Constitution’s separation of church and state.
Congress added “under God” to the pledge in 1954.

Survey

Do you think the words “under God” should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance?

6,368 votes

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This case, however, makes a different argument.

David Niose, former president of the American Humanist Association, and the plaintiffs' representative, opened his arguments Wednesday saying the pledge’s use of “under God” violates the Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution and is an issue of discrimination.
Niose said the pledge’s repetitiveness in the public school system is indoctrinating and alienating to atheists.
“It validates believers as good patriots and it invalidates atheists as non-believers at best and unpatriotic at worst,” he said.
Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, intervened on behalf of a family in the Acton-Boxborough Regional School District, the defendant in the case, who would like to have their child continue reciting the pledge as it is presently written.
“Most people do not view reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as saying a prayer,” Rassbach said. “It would be terrible to enshrine in the law this kind of allergy to God that the plaintiffs have.”
Rassbach added that it has been illegal to force someone recite the pledge since 1943. The landmark U.S. Supreme Court case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette ruled that students could not be forced to salute the American flag or say the pledge in school. It was considered a huge victory for Jehovah’s Witnesses, who cannot salute or pledge to symbols, according to their religious beliefs.
Both Noise and Rassbach said a decision will likely come within six months. Since this case is an appeal, there is no testimony and the panel of seven Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court judges will decide the case based on court briefs.
Rassbach is worried that if the state Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, the case would spur copycat lawsuits in other states with similar equal rights’ laws.
“If they succeed in their goals here,” he said, “they will attempt to replicate it elsewhere.”

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Pope Warns Church Focusing Too Much on Gays, Abortion

Francis Sets Out Vision of More Welcoming Church, Less Preoccupied With Doctrine

Interview Highlights

Stop scratching on holidays Published: June 1, 2012

Stop scratching on holidays Published: June 1, 2012

Monday, September 16, 2013

Stop scratching on holidays Published: June 1, 2012

Sag Harbor grandmother: I'm LI's first female priest

Monday, September 9, 2013

Stephen Antonakos, 86, Sculptor of Neon, Dies at 86

By MARGALIT FOX

Published: September 6, 2013

D. James Dee, via Lori Bookstein Fine Art

A version of this article appears in print on September 7, 2013, on page B9 of the New York edition with the headline: Stephen Antonakos, 86, Sculptor of Neon, Is Dead.

HI-

Stop scratching on holidays Published: June 1, 2012

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Stop scratching on holidays Published: June 1, 2012

Pledge of Allegiance challenged in Massachusetts Supreme Court

Survey

Do you think the words “under God” should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance?

Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012

Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012

Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012

Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012

Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012