May 20, 2010 --

The following proposals are intended to bring a badly-need spirit of cooperation to residential cooperatives in the City of New York.

It is the considered opinion of this writer that the cooperative spirit if not fostered when coop officers serve without limit on number of terms, when coop presidents are real estate brokers, when coop information is not shared equally.

All of the reforms suggested here are prompted from this writer's experience, not pie-in-the-sky dreaming.

1) Term limits for coop officers.

2) Coop officers cannot be real estate brokers

3) Cooperators in default on monthly maintenance payments are entitled to a
a hearing before the coop board. Shareholders have the right to communicate in writing to coop officers and directors.

4) All meetings of the coop board must be open to all shareholder-residents

5) Reports of all meetings of the board of directors shall be distributed to all shareholders no more than 20 days after meetings are held.

6) All tax rebates shall go to the shareholders, not to the coop.

7) New panels will be established to hear grievances brought by shareholder-
residents against coop boards and management companies. Coop hearings
will be heard by pro bono panels consisting of two lawyers and one layperson.

8) Coop board must itemize all legal fees charged to defaulting shareholder-
residents, and the coop grievance panels will also have jurisdiction to hear
shareholder-coop fee disputes.

9) The state legislature will establish a fund to assist defaulting shareholders (TADS) that will protect shareholders against threat of foreclosure, with any monies advanced to become a lien against the affected shares, to be repaid on sale, refinancing, or positive economic development.

The Angry and the Anxious

May 20, 2010 --

Immediately after Republicans gained Senate and House majorities, November 8, 1994, Democrats and their media allies concluded that angry, anxious -- and mean-spirited -- voters made the GOP gains possible. Today, similar explanations are offered for the rise of the Tea Party Movement (TPM).

What is really happening, as LPR sees it, is that the people who have become accustomed to Democratic control of Congress feel threatened and describe their their perceived opponents in pejorative terms. Walter Lippmann, in "Public Opinion," suggested that "highly charged" emotions create the stereotypes that are used to defend "the fortress of our tradition."

Republicans proved unable to withstand the Democratic defenses after November 1994. It is not clear that the TPM will be any more successful, today.

LPR recommends that the TPM recognize the emotional nature of the arguments against it and respond to the "highly-charged" cries with reason, calling for the return to our founding tradition and explaining how the "tradition" defended by today's insiders, neo-aristocratic, actually, is quite at odds with the spirit of the Founders.

Miscellany

May 20, 2010 --

There the oil companies go, again, raising prices.

Just what is it that Goldman Sachs does to make $3.3 billion on $12.78 billion in bond, commodities and currency trading?

Anyone think that exporting jobs overseas is not in our best interests? Export -- no; exhort -- yes.

The 2010 major league baseball season is underway. The Broadway Show League (softball) season starts on April 29.

Note: the construction of Yankee Stadium II has put an end to LPR photo ops of Yankee players arriving at the ballpark in casual dress.

The BSL, however, still offers LPR photo ops of Broadway actors on the basepaths and in the field.

LPR At Night

May 20, 2010 --

Singer-songwriter-designer-promoter-entrepreneur Hillary Flowers tipped LPR off to the March 20 spring fashion show at Stone Rose, in the Time Warner building -- displaying the styles of innovators Andrew Lane and Andres Gonzalez. Here are some of LPR's images of this special event.

Hillary at Stone Rose

Two models in white

Model in black

Happy Faces in a Crowd
at the Macy's Parade

May 20, 2010 --

Finally, here are some of the images LPR got at last years' Macy's 83rd Annual Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The images posted here were selected to indicate the upbeat mood of the crowd along the parade route which this year went down Central Park West to Central Park South to Seventh Avenue, to 42nd Street, to Fifth Avenue and on to Macy's in Herald Square.

LPR saw no sad faces along the parade route. From the faces shown in these images, LPR concludes: no reason the nation's spirits can't be lifted.

The new parade route passes Carnegie Hall, on Seventh Avenue and 57th Street, where people watched the bands and floats and balloons from a perch along the building's Seventh Avenue side.

Be assured that at no time were the viewers at this vantage point in danger of getting gobbled up by Shrek.

Kermit the Frog