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.

Since reading in the New York Times this morning that the CIA tortured Al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah by playing the Red Hot Chili Peppers at ear-splitting volume, I’ve been thinking about what kind of music we could use to torture Dick Cheney with. I know, the vice president is not in charge of the CIA (a situation he plans on rectifying if he can just have a little more time to expand those executive powers) but the new torture-all-the-time atmosphere that has been stinking up the joint since 9.11 emanates from Cheney like those rays from the dark eye of Sauron.

I turned for inspiration to Meet the Press where Cheney was the guest this morning. Tim Russert opened with a softball, asking the VP if the war against terror was discouraging terrorists and then followed up by pointing to a poll that indicates over 50% of American believe it is creating more terrorists. Cheney used the old line about Osama et al wanting to establish a Caliphate across the Muslim world (“Sounds like an improvement to me,” said my wife, who spent some time in the Middle East). Then Tim held up today’s Washington Post and pointed to the headline “Bin Laden Trail ‘Stone Cold.'” Bad intel, said the veep. And that terrain where he’s hiding — it’s like the dark side of the moon.

Bingo! I bet Cheney would hate Pink Floyd, even though he once told Russert that in interrogating terrorists the US may need to go to “the dark side” — though he’d probably dig that old Syd Barrett-era chestnut, “Be Careful With That Ax, Eugene.” But the later, more pompous Floyd would probably drive him over the edge. Maybe we could make him watch The Wizard of Oz at the same time and stop the film and the CD endlessly to talk about the places we think they sync up.

Playing old video clips, as Russert did, of Cheney claiming that Saddam had WMD, or that he was pals with Al-Qaeda might be torture enough. The only person who believes in those canards now seems to be Cheney and his cabal (which includes, of course, the president) and they don’t want to hear any facts to the contrary. We don’t need no education, he sings to us. (To which we can reply, with that dopey chorus of kids, “We don’t need no thought control.”)

“I’m not sure what part of what I’m saying you don’t understand,” Cheney bristled at one point when the formerly docile Russert pursued the lack of connection between Saddam and Osama. Kicking your former Toto won’t help. The man definitely needs a trip to the Wizard, since he is lacking the courage to say that he was wrong about pretty much everything; the brains to see that pursuing the same strategy is a roadmap to oblivion; or the heart to feel for the tens of thousands of lives wasted in this pointless war.

He does have a home, though. It’s in Wyoming. May he find it soon.

We can all breathe a little easier now. After months of rumors and wild speculation, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have chosen Vanity Fair as the organ that will carry the long awaited images of Suri, that fruit of their blessed union with the fruity name. The first glimpse of the cover, and the news that VF got the scoop, was broken last night on the CBS News debut of Katie Couric — hey, two Katies? What are the chances of that?

Jane Sarkin of Vanity Fair appeared on Larry King Live this evening for a full showing — every inch of the 22-page paean to most hyped baby picture since Shoah, or whatever the Brangelina brat is called — and avowed repeatedly to the ancient mariner just how incredible the whole experience was. The bath picture? “This big movie star just invited us into his bathroom,” Sarkin breathlessly informed him — just her and Annie Leibovitz, a couple of regular gals, just kicking it for five days while Tomkat made them feel right at home.

“She’s just an incredible mom,” Sarkin shilled, “she runs the house and plans all the meals.” Good thing there’s someone there to cook them!

There were no conditions of the interview, she insisted, and when King asked if she had asked Holmes if she was a Scientologist, the hard-hitting journalist admitted it never came up. Why would it? And they didn’t pay anything for the privelege of shooting them at home, either. Really. He doesn’t need the money. Just the good press. And some people as gullible as King.

Nice head of hair on that baby, though.

No, I don’t mean the fear of Mexicans that permeates the Great Southwest. That’s been going on for years though it has reached a fever pitch of late with all the anti-immigrant hysteria, and the likes of Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan rallying the yokels with their impression of “Trouble (Right Here in Riverside City)” — “With a capital T and that rhymes with B and that stands for Beaner…”

No, I’m talking about Towelheads, Camel Jockeys, Ay-rabs, dammit. Yesterday we were greeted with the story of an American of Iraqi and Palestinian descent who was barred from boarding a Jet Blue flight from JFK to Oakland because he was wearing a T-shrit that said, in English and Arabic, “We Will Not Be Silenced.” Oh, yes you will. According to one of the security people who stopped Reed Jarrar from flying, “Going to an airport with a T-shirt in Arabic script is like going to a bank in a T-shirt that says ‘I’m a robber.'”

Or going to your TSA job in a shirt that says “I’m a moron.”

And today I read of US Sen. Conrad Burns who said Americans confront a “faceless enemy” who “drive cabs in the daytime and kill at night.” As a former cab driver, I resemble those remarks (though I used to do most of my killing in the daytime and drove by night, the better to partake of prostitution and drugs) but he does have a point: There are a lot of Arabs driving cabs. In New York. Not so much Montana, though you may want to hail a cab to get the hell away from people like Burns.

This atmosphere of know-nothing racism is encouraged in no small part by our commander in chief, who just yesterday told a VFW audience in Utah that “If we give up on the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities.” Somehow those penniless unemployed Iraquis are going to fly to the US (wearing T-shirts with English-only messages touting Pepsi and Nike) and start killing us instead of each other if we don’t vote against your local Democrat (rhymes with Arafat) this fall.

Is there a hole for me to get sick in?

My son Adam came back from his Outward Bound adventure in the Sierras last week, and that alone should be cause for celebration. Honestly, I thought he might just bail halfway through the two week trek but he stuck it out and does not seem to regret it.

“Imagine if boot camp was run by Uncle Brian,” was his first attempt at a description and a rather amusing one: my brother Brian is a good soul and one of the last of the CA hippies, at least in ideals and outlook, and while Adam and I seemed to agree that a challenge was in order, a harsh one might have been counterproductive. He said his leaders were two young women in their twenties who dug the Grateful Dead and had everyone write in their journals every night. Which might have been more appealing if they hadn’t been climbing up a mountain face for 12 hours.

From the descriptions I have had from friends of OB outings in the past, I get the impression things were a little more hardcore back in the day. The ten participants in Adam’s trek were not made to eat bark or fend for themselves alone, a stable of the old OB experiences, and he got along with all of them. Since he has told me on more than one occasion that he can’t stand people, this is in and of itself sort of a breakthrough.

Now he’s back in SF, hustling around getting ready for college, finding a place to live. “All of that stuff that used to drive me insane seems a lot easier now,” he told his sister the other night. Difficulty is, after all, relative. Putting up with dorm life and lame roomates in nothing compared to a steady diet of trail mix and building a camp fire every night. It’s life and life only.