Apparently, no one cares about schools in buffalo, lol - e.g. last post.



Anyhow, I was reading google news this morning and I saw that 6000+ chinese babies have become ill aftre consuming formula that has the same toxic compound that killed pets when consuming chinese pet food a while back

Melamine, a white crystalline powder used in making plastics and tanning leather that was found in the infant formula, was at the heart of China's troubles last year, too.

That compound is melamine. Here is the wikipedia article

I really don't understand how it ended up in the infant formula after it was known to kill pets but it did, and now the babies are dying.

The crazier part is I noticed these really pretty hard plastic bowls and kitchen wares are showing up everywhere and are actually just called melamine bowls.

You can get them just about anywhere that has kitchen supplies and goes from fancy to more common ones at target

So my question is who uses these and why. Clearly over time, either through heat or scrapping, litle peices of melamine end up in your food.

(e:matthew) came home form work all riled up about the Buffalo public school system, which I assume is due to the ladies he works for talking about it as we have no kids.

Anyhow, I didn't believe him how bad it was because the people I know who went to Buffalo public school seem okay. I figured it was just private schooling parents freakin out about how bad the schools are.

Then I tried looking up some info about the schools in buffalo and happend upon schooldigger.com's entry for Buffalo. Apparently, Buffalo is 818th out of 829 cities reviewed. Yes, that puts it at 0/5 stars.



Omg, look at Buffalo Elementary School of Technology over at 313 South Division Street - It is 2273rd/2278 public elementary schools in state ranking. Can it be worse? Yes, but only 5 places worse ;(.

Clearly it is a economics issue as that school has 97% of students on discounted/free lunch.

It seems like all the white people are leaving. Looks at the stats. Its interesting that this site offers so much information about each school. Sadly, there is not much info for the private and charter schools.



Same with Bennett which was 750th out of 776 public high schools.



Same with Buffalo Traditional School which is now close


Where did all the whities go, this is during the 90s and early 2000s that it all changed? Did they used to have forced integration that ended. Just look at the numbers that dropped since 2000.

Hutch Tech got great reviews. Is there any hope for buffalo with such a crappy education system in place? Is there even a solution?

This morning I was reading (photos there) and seriously, I cannot believe how cheap Our Lady of Lourdes went for $25,000

These pics are from fixitbuffalo's Flickr collection



Then on Buffalo Rising I saw in the comments that WGRZ said it didn't actually sell because the price was too low.

What I want to know is where is Roswell/Kaleida on this one. It is liek one block form the medical campus and has a huge ass parking lot. COnsidering that some Roswell employees park at HSBC Arena you would think that this would be an awesome preperyt purchase. The building itself could be rehabbed into an auditorium like montante. I mean for such a low price, they could invest into the building.

Wow, this is a long journal but the videos are funny. The music is art festival turned out to be pretty great despite the rain. Lots of people showed up.



Here was the electronic music stage on the side of the building. It was a great stage, speaker setup, location - except that it was on a hill and the grass was wet.



We were there during the day with (e:matthew)'s sister Mary, (e:jim) and (e:james) but it was pouring. At night we went back with (e:mike) to go see Dharma Lab . I didn't take any pictures because it was dark out and I was busy dancing, oh - ya and it was pouring but here is a pic of Chris from Dharma Lab, we went to high school together.



Everytime I see him, I always promise him I will go see them and something comes up. This time I actually was able to make it and the venue and music were both awesome. Another member of the group is is (e:soma)'s brother. I saw (e:soma) dancing in the crowd.

The set was amazing. I had not had so much fun dancing since a goa party in germany that (e:terry) and I attended oh so many years ago ;( I saw people taking pics I wonder if anything is online yet.

I danced like mad. In fact I am so curious to see what happend to the poor lawn at the Albright Knox after all the people dancing and stomping everywhere in the rain. I have a feeling they did not think it out very much considering the time of year and the amount of people. That grass is going to seriously look like shit for a good long while.

Afterwards, the evening did not end. We saw Kristina and Rocky there and then went back to the house to hang out and play risk - oh and drink milk shakes. It was nice to see Kristina who I hadn't seen in so long.







I actually didn't play risk but the rest of them did. I think rocky and (e:terry) drank a whole case of beer. Then Rocky wanted to go out dancing at Ms. Kitty's the lesbian bar turned dance club OHM. As with the rest fo the day - it started pouring so we sat on the porch and watched the storm as (e:Terry) and Rocky babbled nonsense back and forth to each other. Kristina said he usually doesn't have anyone to go on with liek that so it stops and I thought the same about (e:terry) - they started to sound like two insane asylum patients - it was pretty funny.

Kritina decided to go home - Kristina got off easy, lol. I baby sat the beer boys with (e:mike) to make sure they didn't get in too much trouble, drinking water the whole time.

OHM is not a dance club - it was fucking Country Western - everyone had cowboy hats and bolo ties. Rocky was drunk enough to ask if they could change the music, lol.

So we spent the rest of the night at Cathode, just (e:mike), (e:terry), Rocky and I having a guys night out at the gay bar. Sadly, we were the only people there and we danced the whole time to the video screen and Videos of Robyn . Apparently, rocky really likes to dance too. He and (e:Terry) play fought, then (e:mike) and (e:terry) and rocky and (e:mike), eventually a bottle of beer spilled.

The vjay played some political videos which were pretty funny:
A cartoon called Campaignin'


A video of george bush fucks america, it is so funny


And then the gayest video I ever saw ended the evening



When we got home I showed Rocky to his room but he kept going down stairs and trying to walk home. I was like dude, "How do you expect me to explain to your wife that you walked home to amherst and I didn't know where you are?" He refused to sleep so (e:matthew) had the brilliant idea to put on some looney toons DVD and like in ten minutes he was snoring.

In the morning when I work up, it looked like he couldn't figure out the door and tried to escape out the window in the vestibule. Oh beer.

Music is art, clothes are 80s.

The drum and bass at the electronic music stage on the side of the
albrigt is pretty awesome. I wish I went out dancing last night
instead going to sleep at 10.

Rare religion post from paul - This article just made me so mad.

Pope Benedict XVI condemned unbridled "pagan" passion for power, possessions and money as a modern-day plague Saturday as he led more than a quarter of a million Catholics in an outdoor Mass in Paris.

This is not a modern day plague. In fact your church is a trend setter for it. You know what pope, the thing that struck me most about your vatican was how gaudy and gold crusted it was. Like the giant gold spires behind the alter at St. Peters or the rooms full of idols from other civilizations of antiquity, e.g. the Egyptian and roman area at the vatican. Get the fuck over yourself. You are not god, you are a crusty old man with way to much money and power preaching about the evils of money and power - its not ironic - its sick.

Not only that all that gold came from really sketchy, anti-christian actions like plundering the Americas, Africa and as I learned just today the Jews in collaboration with the Nazis

So before anyone should believe anything you say, you should go ahead and give it all back. Thats right, melt down all your fanciness and go back to be a christian church for the sake of christianity or live like you do and stop condemning the rest of the world for it.

On Friday, Benedict told young people they shouldn't fear spreading their faith in a society where secularism is entrenched and Islam is growing.

Hello holy war ;(

I think it is a great diea for the city of Buffalo to buy guns off the street in order to reduce the number of guns out there. Acoording to the Buffalo News (I don't know why I bother linking as it will be gon ein a flash anyways) they will be buying back guns at 7 local churches on the 27th of septemeber.

Unfortunately the prices are ridiculous:

An Uzi, AK-47 or other assault weapon can be traded in for a $100 cash card. Handguns will command $75, while rifles and shotguns have a $50 trade-in value. The Police Department will give $10 cash cards for nonworking or antique guns, including pellet guns and BB guns.

I mean I think the street value and even the scrap metal value of these guns is way higher. I love how antqiue guns will get only $10 when some of them could be worth like $10,000. Same with $100 for an uzi. What do you think the street value of an uzi is? I wonder what really happens to all the guns.



In case you are interested, here is where the weapons are being bought back at.

The same seven drop-off sites that were used in last year's buyback will be accepting weapons:

> Episcopal Church of the Good Shepard, 96 Jewett Parkway.

> Prince of Peace Christian Church, 190 Albany St.

> Primera United Methodist Church, 62 Virginia St.

> St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, 450 Abbott Road.

> True Bethel Baptist Church, 907 E. Ferry St.

> St. John Baptist Church, 184 Goodell St.

> St. Mark's Episcopal Church Parish Hall, 256 Riverside Ave.

Anyone who knows me, knows I really don't like reading non-technical manuals/science stuff at all but I got this request today and I think it might interest someone on here - so I am throwing it out there.

Dear Paul,

How does a girl from a working class family in Buffalo, NY --- a city where winters last for six months or longer and residents drape their windows in plastic to keep out the wind and the snow --- end up becoming the youngest person with a seat on the American Stock Exchange and a millionaire by the age of twenty-one? Laura Pedersen tells the story in her hilarious new memoir BUFFALO GAL (Fulcrum; October 31st; trade paperback).

The Pedersens, like many families surviving in the frigid North during the seventies, feared rising prices at the gas pump, argued about the thermostat, and fought over the dog to stay warm at night. While her parents were preoccupied with surviving separation and stagflation, Laura became the neighborhood wild child, skipping school to play poker, bet horses and trade stocks. Set during a defining era of race riots, antiwar protests and abortion rallies, BUFFALO GAL combines laugh-out-loud humor with a genuine slice of social history.

Laura Pedersen writes for The New York Times and is the author of eight books, including BEGINNER'S LUCK, which was chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Honored as one of Ten Outstanding Young Americans by President Clinton, Pedersen currently lives in New York City.

I am writing to see if you would like to receive a copy of BUFFALO GAL to review or discuss on your website.

More details can be found online at www.laurapedersenbooks.com:
-About Laura Pedersen
-About BUFFALO GAL
-BUFFALO GAL excerpt
-More praise
-For book clubs

Please contact me for a review copy, to request an interview or guest blog with Laura Pedersen, or if you have any questions/comments. I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,
Anna Jarzab
__________________________
Anna Jarzab
Marketing Assistant
The Book Report Network
250 West 57th Street, Suite 1228
New York, NY 10107
(212) 246-3100
anna AT authorsontheweb.com