Needless to say it’s sold out but you don’t need to be inside to hear the wonderful FEIST. I just love her. She’s wonderful!

I loved this singer/songwriter’s third solo album, The Reminder from the first moment I heard it. That album and her pop-radio hit, 1234 (used on an Apple commercial) propelled her to indie music super-stardom.

And tonight, she comes out to Brooklyn to benefit Prospect Park’s Celebrate Brooklyn series. We are thrilled!

But what if it rains? Dang.

I don’t have tickets but hope you do.

At a variety of locations, you can catch exhibitions of What’s the Hook?, a community-based photography project designed to document a single week in the life of Red Hook, Brooklyn, one of New York City’s most unique and rapidly changing neighborhoods. Last summer, What’s the Hook? asked people of all backgrounds—some professional photographers, most not—to submit images captured during the week of August 12th – 19th 2007.

Open to locals and visitors alike, What’s the Hook? encouraged submissions from photographers of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels. Photographers ranged in age from 6 to 85. Local children, including a group from Good Shepherd Services summer program at PS 27 and seniors from the Red Hook Senior Center, were given single-use cameras.

In seven ordinary days more than 120 people produced over 1000 extraordinary photos of what Red Hook means to them. All these amazing photos – taken everywhere from the pupusa vendors at the ball fields to the deck of the Crown Princess in the Red Hook Container Port – can be seen online at
http://flickr.com/groups/whatsthehook/pool.

You can also see a representative group of images at the Red Hook Public Library and at the Beard Street Warehouse.

Red Hook Public Library
7 Wolcott St.
June 6 – August 2008

Brooklyn Waterfront
Beard St. Warehouse
499 Van Brunt St.
Artist’s Coalition (BWAC) July 26th – Aug. 17th

Photo on the http://flickr.com/groups/whatsthehook/pool by Ralphie

Here’s a mid-article excerpt from the Times‘ about racoons in the city, expecially leafy nabes like Flatbush. They even mention Animal Care and Control, the guy who uses an old ambulance as a truck.

One thing seems clear. In the leafy neighborhoods surrounding Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery, residents have been flooding the Internet with raccoon stories.

Chris Kreussling, a computer programmer who lives just south of Prospect Park in Flatbush, posted pictures on his Flatbush Gardener blog recently of several raccoons in his backyard. It elicited a quick round of similar testimonies.

Another Brooklyn blog, the Gowanus Lounge, chronicled multiple raccoon sightings in recent days in Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Windsor Terrace and Red Hook.

When contacted, many bloggers recalled raccoons rooting around in gardens and compost piles, traipsing into children’s wading pools and sometimes rearing up on their hind legs when startled. Many expressed awe at seeing the nocturnal mammals so close.

“People need access to wildlife in urban areas,” Mr. Kreussling said. “I consider it a bonus.”

Raccoons that appear to be a threat to public health or safety are taken by Animal Care and Control to a shelter and, if necessary, tested for rabies. This year, eight raccoons found in the city have tested positive for rabies…

Come see the Piper Theater’s production of Midsummer Night’s Dream in JJ Byrne Park in Park Slope. Fifth Avenue and Third Street.
Turn of the century New York. A hot summer night. Lovers run away to the magical world of Coney Island and enter Dreamland.

July 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19 at 8 p.m.

Richard Grayson author of Who Shall Kiss the Pig: Sex Stories For Teens, filed this report about the Ronnie Spector show at the McCarren Park Pool. You can see pictures on his blog.

By Richard Grayson

As we walked the few blocks up Lorimer Street from Dumbo Books HQ to the McCarren Park Pool at 5:30 p.m. last night, we were thinking about a boy we knew who graduated Meyer Levin Junior High School 285 in East Flatbush on the last Monday in June 1965.

Richie had just turned 14. Since the boys in the sixteen ninth-grade classes marched in and sat down, as did the girls on the other side of the auditorium, in size place, he was first out of the 250 of so boys. Next to him was the second-shortest boy, a Negro he’d never noticed before, and he didn’t know what to talk about with him. In Richie’s experience, you were probably best off talking baseball or music with Negro kids, since they were things everyone had in common, though he knew enough not to talk about the Beatles or Herman’s Hermits.

There were fewer people than last week at the pool, and a few more people with gray hair. We don’t have gray hair, but we might as well since everyone assumes we dye it. An older man, seeing our maroon Brooklyn College T-shirt with gold lettering, says, “I used to go there too.” We talk to this elderly person and discover that when he was an undergrad, we were serving on the alumni association board of directors.

Getting some Fuze diet white tea at the booth near the dodgeball players, we notice the skinny sky-blue JellyNYC balloon figures are up again, swaying in the wind. They weren’t here last week. Or were they and we just don’t remember?

With nine members of the band already onstage, Ronnie Spector enters holding a mike. She’s shapely in a zaftig way, in a black pantsuit. All the nine band members are wearing black too. “I dream about the boys,” she sings. Her hair is a modified 21st century beehive. The song is “I Wonder.” Crowds move forward, and we go closer too.

Ronnie Spector, after the first applause dies down, says that when she woke up she was afraid of it being rainy: “But, no, not in Brooklyn. This is where I started.
The Brooklyn Fox with Murray the K shows. I’ll never forget them.”

And she starts singing again:
Why do they say that we’re too young to go steady?
Don’t they believe it, that I love you already?
Gee the moon is shining bright
Wish I could go out tonight
Why don’t they let us fall in love?

Composer Louis Rosen wrote in to say:

Dear Neighbors, The wonderful poet (and my current collaborator), Nikki Giovanni, will join Capathia and me at Park Slope’s Community Bookstore (Seventh Avenue between Garfield and Carroll) this coming Tuesday evening, July 8, at 7 pm, to celebrate the release of our new CD, ONE OUNCE OF TRUTH: The Nikki Giovanni Songs on the PS Classics label.

Nikki will read a some poems; Capathia and I will sing some songs from the new record; the three of us will sign CDs and/or books; refreshments will be on hand and a good time should be had by all. Hope you can come Warm Regards, LR

That means you should catch his show, Life in a Marital Institution, at the SoHo Playhouse. I’m going on Wednesday night if anyone wants to join me. Here’s the review by Jason Zinoman:

A gifted writer whose anecdotes build upon one another into a nice rhythm, he spun a self-deprecating and affectionate account of a rocky marriage to a woman whose peculiarities include keeping her placenta in the freezer and breast-feeding her 6-year-old boy. There’s also a beautiful other woman who tempts him. Without looking to score cheap attention-getting points, Mr. Braly zeroes in on the bizarre details of an otherwise ordinary life. And in so doing, he seems both easy to relate to and, frankly, just a little strange. Staged by Hal Brooks, who has several hit solo shows to his name (including "No Child"), "Life in a Marital Institution," which was successful enough to earn a second New York run at the SoHo Playhouse, never loses the casual feel of a chat at a local bar. Through Aug. 31, 15 Vandam Street, South Village, (212) 691-1555; $40 to $55.

Read the New York Times review here:

Park Slope’s Blognigger has done it again. A great post about how annoying our children can be—and a list of rules for life with kids in the city. This one is for the record books. Oh, and Gawker picked it up, too.  I take exception to BN referring to the bar at Two Boots as "the
little shitty one." I love that bar, oh well. Here’s the gawkage:

The hilarious, unhinged, and angry man (and Park Slope parent!) we know only as Blognigger has gone ahead and drafted a long, detailed list of rules of how to live with your kids in an urban environment: "We the parents of Park Slope and the surrounding vicinity hereby declare our realization that we and our children can, at times, be annoying as FUCK." The Declaration of Co-dependence covers all the basics—sidewalk behavior, restaurant behavior, bookstore/movie theater/supermarket behavior, and subway behavior. It also unilaterally bans children from all bars—well, except for "the little shitty one in the front of Two Boots."

And here’s the beginning of the declaration:

WE THE PARENTS of Park Slope and the surrounding vicinity hereby declare our realization that we and our children can, at times, be annoying as FUCK. We are naturally compelled to value our children’s feelings and well-being above all else, frequently to the exclusion of our consideration for others, our capacity for courtesy, and our common sense.

Notwithstanding this concession, it is our observation that our Childless Neighbors are prone to aggressive and rude responses to our faux pas, which often far outweigh the damages caused by our initial slights of manners in the first place.

It is from this dichotomy, and for the inalienable truth that our two species must co-exist and co-depend on one another in this neighborhood, that WE THE PARENTS propose these official tenets of behavior, in order that we may ease relations through the removal of situational interpretation via the creation of the following standard operating procedures…

Rev. Timothy D. Wright, the founding pastor of the Grace Tabernacle Christian Center in Crown Heights nand an award-winning gospel singer, is in critical condition in a hospital bed in Pennsylvania after a car accident that killed his wife and co-pastor, Betty White. The couple’s 14-year-old grandson, D. J. Wright, who was also in the car, also died in the Saturday night crash. They were returning from a church conference in Detroit. Here’s an excerpt from Monday’s Times’ article:

Addressing the congregation during the midday service, Bishop James Gaylord said many church members felt as if they had been left “without sails, without oars, without direction.” But he urged them to unite and help the family through the difficult time.

“The world has been affected by what has happened,” he said in an interview before leaving the church to visit Pastor Wright, who remained in critical condition on Sunday evening at the Geisinger Medical Center’s intensive care unit in Danville, Pa. “His gift, his talent. He was a tremendous man.”

Pastor Wright, known to fans as the “godfather of gospel,” has recorded more than 10 albums of gospel music and has been nominated for several Grammy Awards. He started his own choir in 1976, and grew popular over the decades with hits like “Troubles Don’t Last Always,” “Who’s on the Lord’s Side?” and, most recently, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” which spoke of the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Over at Park Slope Parents someone posted that a group of picnickers got ticketed for drinking from an open wine bottle in Prospect Park. She says it happens to her friend. But I wonder. My advice to her friend: Transport your wine in something other than a wine bottle…

My friend got a ticket today in Prospect Park for being at a small 8-person picnic gathering
where there was one wine bottle out in the open. 4 cops came up and gave everyone a ticket
for alcohol possession. Does anyone know if this type of ticket is easy to fight? She wasn’t
drinking any wine nor does she drink in general.

Also, as a side note she is trying to purchase a co-op apartment and is soon going to be
reviewed by the co-op approval board. Should she worry about this citation?

Any insight would be appreciated.

A thread on Park Slope Parents about waterbugs offered all kinds of interesting solutions to what can be a vexing and unpleasant problem:

Thanks to everyone for the advice about what to do with Gregor the Waterbug
and his friends.There were lots of suggestions, the most common being to
plug up ALL holes in the kitchen, get a cat, and remove any water source,
pretty much in that order.

The suggestions are pasted below. Following the suggestions are
recommendations from a very interesting website I found that has non-toxic
remedies for ANY pest, including bed bugs, ants, and even furry pests. I
pasted his suggestions for non-toxic baits for roaches, plus the link to the
website, as well. The site itself has more information than you will
probably ever need (and certainly ever want), but there were great ideas.
He does sell his own brand of non-toxic pest repellent but he has lots of
ideas besides his product. And at the very end is a recipe for roach bait
you can make yourself using boric acid. It is much less toxic than
pesticides but still can harm children or pets, so do be careful with that
one.

SUGGESTIONS:

–Buy some caulk and expanding foam sealer, and seal EVERY hole in your
kitchen. Plumbing cut outs, the hole in the wall to the stove, everything.
Then be sure never to leave puddles of water or wet sponges or dishes with
water in the sink. Mop up everything every night. They want water more than
food.

–An exterminator told us to pour bleach in our sink drains. This keeps them
from swimming up through the pipes. Also, I believe Diatomaceous earth can
be sprinkled around the floor. Apparently it abraids and dries their bodies
and kills them. The problem with it is it kills good insects too (like
spiders). It’s non toxic. You can buy it on line. I think Gardens Alive
has it.

–We also have a few of these dinosaur sized “visitors” each summer. Our last
one even took flight! I usually send the cat after them (if she’s not
already in pursuit), but apparently catnip and/or Osage orange both work as
roach repellent. The catnip can be placed in sachet bundles around target
areas, as can Osage orange halves. Neither is toxic, as far as I know, and
you can even make catnip tea for yourself if this issue has caused you to
have a nervous stomach! (I used to drink it before exams).

–If there’s any paper (newspapers, open recycling bin, in the kitchen, get
rid of it. They love paper.

–The small black, pepper-looking things are roach poo. If there’s a lot,
there’s a large colony in your house. Also, set your alarm for 4 AM and take
at look at your apartment. That’s when they are most active.

–I had a large infestation of waterbugs and roaches in my kitchen. They were
everywhere, especially behind the stove. We took everything – everything,
including the stove – out of the kitchen. Got non-toxic sealant in the
“grease gun” can and went to work. We sealed every hole and joint in the
room. It took almost three days (we had a kitchen with lots of cabinets),
but that effectively eliminated the roaches without poison. You may need
joint compound (comes in a tub of various sizes and is applied with a
trowel) for the larger holes. The exterminator won’t want to do this job, so
it’s best if you do it. It’ll cost less and you’ll do a better job.

–Years ago when I lived in Wash. Hts, I had many roaches. I learned to live
with them. Then one day I saw a mouse, too! That was too much. I bought
one of those sonar things to get rid of the mouse (ask at a hardware store.)
It worked, and, even better, it seemed to get rid of the roaches, too.

–Here is the website I found, and the recommendations for baits and
repellents:

http://www.stephentvedten.com/27_Roach_Control.pdf

–Make a roach dough by combining ½ c. powdered sugar and ¼ c. shortening or
bacon drippings. Add ½ c.

onions, ½ c. flour and 8 oz. baking soda. (Don’t forget to add some roach
droppings.) Add enough water

to make a dough-like consistency. Make balls of bait and put them wherever
you see roaches.

2. Mix one clove garlic, one onion, one tablespoon of cayenne pepper and 1
quart water. Steep for

one hour, strain, add a tablespoon of liquid soap and spray it around the
house for ant and/or roach control.

3. Place bay leaves or talcum powder or baking soda around cracks in rooms
or spray with diluted Safe

Solutions, Inc. Enzyme Cleaners.

4. If you find a roach infestation in a computer, radio, t.v., etc., simply
place the entire item/appliance in a

sealed plastic bag for 1 month. The roaches will die from dehydration. Or
simply put in a black bag in the

sun on a 70o F. day for a few hours.

5. Mix 1 c. borax and ¼ c. black pepper and ¼ c. shredded bay leaves;
sprinkle to repel roaches. *Keep this*

*mix off all food and/or dishes.*

*Roach Bait Comment: *Virtually any roach bait will continue to secondarily
kill cockroaches as they cannibalize

those that have died, eating the poisoned baits. This chain can continue for
some time, so one properly

placed (boric acid) bait can kill several dozen roaches.

**Safe Solutions products may be purchased online at:*

*http://www.safesolutionsinc.com*

This list is generously put together by Rachel at Park Slope Parents and it’s a big help to all. For the specific times and other details on any event listed, please go to http://www.parkslopeparents.com and click the appropriate date on their calendar, located on the upper left side of the screen.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Puppetworks Presents Jack & the Beanstalk At 12:30pm & 2:30pm

NYC Waterfalls

International African Arts Festival

ARTY Facts At The Brooklyn Museum @ 11 Am & 2pm

Storytime At Court Street Barnes & Noble

PLG Arts Performs This Short Version Of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

Intro To Birdwatching At The Audubon Center

Kidtoon Films At The Pavilion

Fulton Art Fair

Lefferts House – Qult Exhibit & Workshops

Freedom Strut At Lefferts Historic House

Nature Crafts At The Audubon Center

Ezra Jack Keats Story Hour At The Imagination Playground

Early American Crafts & Game – Lefferts Historic House

Hootenanny Art House – Open Family Art Studio

Prospect Park Audubon Center – Discover Tour

Target First Saturday At The Brooklyn Museum

Sunday, July 6, 2008

NYC Waterfalls

International African Arts Festival

Brooklyn Museum – Arty Facts At 11am & 2:00pm

Prospect Park – Lefferts Historic House Quilt Exhibit & Workshops & More!

Fulton Art Fair

Kidtoon Films At The Pavilion

Puppetworks Presents Jack & the Beanstalk At 12:30pm & 2:30pm

Ezra Jack Keats Story Hour At The Imagination Playground

Summer Songs & Stories At Lefferts

Early American Crafts & Game – Lefferts Historic House

Prospect Park Audubon Center – Discover Tours, 3pm

PLG Arts Performs This Short Version Of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

According to the New York Times, there has been a pate of muggings in recent months on the border of Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuy. The Times reports that “people walking or biking alone have been attacked with punches, kicks — and in one case, a baseball bat — and then had their cellphones or purses stolen before they could recover.; Turns out that Nica Lalli, author of the book, Nothing, Something to Believe In, was a mugging victim. She was also on last year’s Park Slope 100.

On June 10, Nina Lalli was mugged as she walked from Fort Greene to her home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, she said in an interview. As she walked past a group of teenagers at the corner of Willoughby Avenue and Walworth Street, she said someone hit her on the back of the head, and she fell to the ground. After she was kicked several times, the teenagers fled with her purse. (Ms. Lalli, for all her bruises, was lucky in one respect: a good Samaritan followed the attackers in a van, and somehow, retrieved Ms. Lalli’s handbag. “He was like Superman,” she said.)

Needless to say there is much coverage of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest . You probably can’t beat the Brooklyn Paper’s bite by bite coverage. Here’s an excerpt:

“Joey Chestnut, the greatest eater in modern history and, perhaps of all time, outdid even himself on July 4 at Coney Island, tying former six-time world champ Takeru Kobayashi with 59 hot dogs and buns in the 10-minute contest — and then shoving down five more HDBs in an unprecedented one-on-one stuff-your-faceoff to beat Kobayashi by mere seconds.”

Gowanus Lounge has loads of pictures.

The photo is by Vidiot

Brooklyn Beat actually left the borough for a brief sojourn upstate. Here’s an excerpt from his report on Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn.

At the foot of the Adirondacks, Saratoga Springs, NY, is a city in Saratoga County, New York, USA. The name reflects the presence of mineral springs in the area. While the word “Saratoga” is known to be a corruption of a Native American place name, authorities[2] disagree on what the exact word was, and hence what it meant.

More interesting is the meaning of the word ‘Adirondacks.’ It is an Anglicized version of the Mohawk latilontaks (ratirontaks), meaning they eat bark, a derogatory name which the Mohawk historically applied to neighboring Algonquian-speaking tribes. When food was scarce, the Algonquians would eat the inside of the bark of the white pine. The Mohawk word is composed of several morphemes, as is usual in the language: lati, a third-person plural masculine agent prefix; lonta, an incorporated noun root for ‘bark’; k, a verbal root for ‘eat’; s, an active state aspect suffix.

Saratoga is a resort town, artistic but less bohemian than Woodstock or even New Paltz to the south. The racing season in late July and August brings a big crowd of horse enthusiasts and the Saratoga summer set.

The fourth of July was a big to-do in town. Many businesses close altogether or close early for the holiday. Lots of folks downtown along Broadway celebrating in pubs and restaurants that are open. Then, a trail of locals, tourists, kids, punk music fans, guys with Lacoste shirts and massive watches, starts to make its way downtown toward Congress Park, at the end of Broadway. There, it was a little bit of “Ain’t That America” (to someone from NYC, it seemed scripted by Rod Serling, a blast from the past), as a brass band played patriotic music, folks sat out on blankets on the grass, waiting in the twilight for the fireworks display. No irony here. Locals told us that last year the fireworks display was rained out so it was held on Labor Day instead. It is a small town fourth of July. Ain’t that America?

McBrooklyn has a list for great fireworks viewing. The show begins at dark

You couldn’t find a better Brooklyn location to watch New York City’s Fourth of July fireworks than the new pop-up park at Pier 1 — and if you’re a veteran who received an invitation from the Mayor’s Office of Veterans Affairs, you’ll be there. Veterans and their families will have front row seats for the big blast — and who deserves it more?

Literally. Today there’s a cover story in the Los Angeles Times about my neighbor and friend, Ed Velandria. Reporter Erica Hayasaki, a staff writer for the LA Times, who lives in Brooklyn, discovered Ed in a story on OTBKB. She wrote and asked how to get in touch with this man who draws on the F-train. I was thrilled to hear that she wanted to bring the story of Ed to her readers in LA. Here’s an excerpt. To see more of his pictures go to Ed Velandria’s Flickr site.

By Erika Hayasaki, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

The F train howls to a stop, and the subway sketcher boards a front car, its windows clouded with white spray paint, its benches filled with characters. Ed Velandria takes a seat, pulling a computer tablet and touch pen from his black backpack.

He skims the crowd as he listens to Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” through his iPhone earbuds. Velandria has 20 minutes to draw on this ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan, and he is searching for his next muse.

Tall, dark-haired and unassuming, Velandria is a corporate graphics guy with a family and a brownstone in Brooklyn. He drew his first illustration in third grade — a pumpkin. The moment marked his love for drawing, but for more than a decade he rarely did it for enjoyment. His career got the best of him; his creativity slipped away.

Two years ago, he bought a computerized painting tablet on Craigslist and carted it along on his ride to and from work, sketching people he found interesting. The tablet is the size of a thin phone book, and its touch pen simulates dozens of brushes and pencils, blending colors with thick and thin strokes directly onto the computer screen. He uploaded YouTube instructional illustration videos on his iPhone and studied them on breaks.

He found Flickr, a Web community for image collections, and posted his . Fans found him and sent messages or posted his drawings on their blogs. He came across subway sketchers from Toronto, Berlin, Paris. They formed an online family, commenting on each other’s work.

Just like that, Velandria, 45, found his creative self again. Subway sketching in the modern technology world became his therapy, and his obsession.

On the F train just after 10 a.m., five deaf teenage boys speak in sign language, and a chubby man in a yarmulke and Navy blazer stares. Two middle-aged Asian women sit across the aisle. One has a marble-sized mole on her chin, and the other tilts her head back at an awkward angle, her eyes closed. Velandria fixates on the sleeping woman, and his right hand dances across his tablet. The song in his ear changes to Jewel’s “Who Will Save Your Soul.”

The deaf boys notice and hover behind Velandria in fascination, signing rapidly to each other. The man in the yarmulke rises from his seat and leans over Velandria’s shoulder, watching the swirls of yellow, green and gray fuse into the contours of the woman’s face. The train stops, and a man in a striped Adidas shirt and khaki slacks gets on. “Good morning ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention please?” he announces, walking slowly down the aisle. “If anyone on this train could spare any change, please help me out with a dollar, a dime, even a penny.”

The sleeping woman wakes up and gets off a few minutes later, unaware that she has become a work of art soon to be displayed to the world online. The man in the yarmulke takes her seat, as if waiting for Velandria to draw his portrait next. Velandria settles instead on a shaggy-haired young man holding an iced coffee and reading Esquire.

The train stops at Broadway and Lafayette in Soho, and Velandria packs up his tablet with its two nearly complete portraits.

“That’s what’s enjoyable,” he says, once outside the station. “You don’t know how long they will stay. You don’t know if they will get pissed off..

.

It’s, like, a tradition on OTBKB to run this on the fourth of July:

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton