Before heading to the New School this morning I spent about an hour pamphleteering the late-shift commuters of Ft. Greene and Clinton Hill with a cheat sheet of candidates opposed to the Atlantic Yards Development, conveniently put together by the nice folks at No Land Grab. A few potential voters I assaulted seemed sick of the subject already, their tired looks all but shouting: “Don’t you know it’s Fashion Week? And I haven’t even had my latte yet!”

But if Bruce Ratner has his way you’ll be drinking your latte in Greenpoint, pal — because there won’t be anywhere to park here. And if you can find an outdoor cafe (one preferably run by a chain latte provider, like that Starbucks in the hideous Atlantic Center, another architectural gem we can thank the developer for) it will be in the shade, thanks to the 60-story apartment buildings that will ring the arena.

Primaries are boring, I know — unless there are real issues on the table. By taking five minutes (and believe me, on slow days like this, that’s all it will take) to cast a vote for those who have gone on record opposing this hideous project that threatens to turn our neighborhoods into a buffer zone for something that will look like the Javits Center on steroids — Bill Batson for State Assembly in the 57th AD, Chris Owens in the 11th Congressional District, Charles Barron in the 10th, and Velmanette Mongomery in the 18th — you are casting a vote for sunshine, fresh air and all that hippy shite.

In a typically lame front-of-the-book essay in the terminally boring New York Times Magazine Sunday, James Traub asked the always provocative question, “Whither Bohemia?” His thesis, such as it was, was that bohemia was now a state of mind (hey!) since every time cool people found a cool neighborhood (the Village, Williamsburg, Dumbo) uncool people came and made it unaffordable, and monochromatic. He posited the idea that Ft. Greene is that neighborhood now, a haven for interesting folks of all colors and establishments catering to them, but that our time was nigh thanks to the inexorable…Atlantic Yards Development! Yes, folks, there is no arguing with progress and a well-connected, racially divisive bilionaire. The fact that Ratner is building the Times next great edifice has nothing to with his argument, nor their editorial endorsing this fiasco.

Hit the polls, people. Don’t let Ratner, Sulzberger, the mayor et al tell you what’s inevitable. The fate of Brooklyn hangs on your chads.