From the New York Times:

Two young women died when they were thrown from a car that crashed on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn early Sunday. The car’s driver, a 29-year-old man, was charged with vehicular manslaughter, driving while impaired by alcohol and other counts, the police said. The car, a 1996 Infiniti, hit a guardrail while traveling east, veered across several lanes of eastbound traffic and hit other cars, the police said. It then swerved back across all the eastbound lanes and struck a median. The two women, who were in the back of the Infiniti, were ejected. The crash occurred on the parkway near 80th Street at about 3:30 a.m. Emergency medical personnel pronounced the women — who were 24 and 33 years old — dead at the scene a few minutes later. Their names had not been released by Sunday evening.

Yesterday a friend of mine filled me in on the continuing urgency of Jennifer Jones Austin’s situation. Most importantly it alerted me to the fact that she desperately needs our help.

This Park Slope resident, legal advocate, wife and mother has been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). Her chances of survival are slim unless she undergoes a bone marrow transplant within the next few months.

Members of the Park Slope community are doing everything in their power to find her a match. A bone marrow drive is planned for February 6th at the Berkeley Carroll School, where Austin’s children go to school (more info to come as details are worked out).

“I’m extremely thankful to the people who came to the drive,” Austin told the Daily News recently. “Hopefully we’ll find a match for me, but more importantly we need more African-Americans to register to be marrow donors.”

A bone marrow transplant requires a 100% compatible match. Because none of her siblings were a match, her best chance of finding one is through the Be The Match Marrow Registry. That is why we are asking for YOUR help. Be The Match Registry is in need of registered donors.

A simple cheek swab is all that is needed to determine if YOU could be the one to save Jennifer or one of the other thousands of patients in need of a bone marrow transplant.

A Bone Marrow donation isn’t such a big deal either: A donation only requires a blood donation. A surgical procedure is NOT required.

To register to become a possible marrow donor, visit www.bethematch.org or call (888) 638-2870. To learn about upcoming marrow drives for Austin visit www.savejenaustin.com.

This week syndicated columnist George Will threw the residents of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, a life-line.  His scathing column about government corruption in the Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards Eminent Domain Theft Case hit all the points:  Using the the state to steal for politically connected developers; Paying consultant AKRF to find blight that only a paid consultant could find; And treating locals the way the British did in 1776.

Here’s the word from Donald O’Finn, the owner of Freddy’s Bar:

The staff and patrons of Freddy’s Bar would like to thank George Will for calling out the thieves in over 450 publications, including the Washington Post. Freddy’s Bar is in a State of Revolt against New York State’s Eminent Domain Law.  In the style of our Founding Fathers, we have guillotined the Eminent Domain Law in effigy to announce that this law was bought by Real Estate Royalty and we will not follow it.  We also installed the “Chains of Justice” on the bar itself (see Cuff Love, NY Post by Leonard Greene), for patrons to chain themselves to on the day, should the day come, when the Empire State Development Corporation (government entity conducting the theft of the bar and neighborhood for the private developer and his cronies) will try to take the bar for ACORN, Bruce Ratner, Barclays Bank, and Russia’s richest man. This week the ESDC responded to our revolt by announcing they will use the sheriff to physically remove us from the bar on the day of the siege (Daily News). If they can’t pull us out will they use tear gas?  Will they use guns?  They did not say.  They only said they would use physical force, which leave us to wonder how far these villians will go to take our neighborhood to give it to somebody else. This week’s Federal corruption case in Yonkers shows that developer Ratner (called “Developer #2” in court documents) is no stranger to government manipulations for his benefit. We will issue our response to the Empire State Development Corporation’s threat of physical force on at Sunday’s event. Because the ESDC is merely working to take the land for others,  our main retaliation for their threat will be directed at Barclays Bank.

Think about  it:

Local Community Boards play an important role in improving the quality of life for all citizens of Brooklyn , but many people don’t know about them. Now’s your chance to get involved. Applications for membership are due February 22. You can get more info here.

You can be a member. No kidding:

Community Boards are local representative bodies. There are 18 throughout Brooklyn . Each Board consists of up to 50 unsalaried members appointed by the Borough President, with half nominated by the City Council Members who represent the community district. Board members are selected by the Borough Presidents from among active, involved people of each community, with an effort made to assure that every neighborhood is represented. Board members must reside, work or have some other significant interest in the community.

It’s only one meeting a month:

Boards meet once each month. At these meetings, members address items of concern to the community. Board meetings are open to the public, and a portion of each meeting is reserved for the Board to hear from members of the public. In addition, Boards regularly conduct public hearings-on the City’s budget, on land use matters, and other major issues-to give the people of the community the opportunity to express their opinions.

Join a committee:

Board committees do most of the planning and work on the issues that are acted on at Board meetings. Each Board establishes the committee structure and procedures it feels will best meet the needs of its district. Non-Board members may apply to join or work on Board committees.

But there’s a deadline for applications:

Go here more information and applications (due February 22, 2010)!

Here’s an excerpt from Gersh Kuntzman’s critique of the new LIRR station and its concrete security blockades in the Brooklyn Paper:

Why bother having the terror trials in a courthouse when we could have them at the new Long Island Rail Road terminal? After all, the new “Atlantic Terminal” rail station that opened officially on Tuesday is one of the most heavily armored facilities in the borough — ringed by no less than 14 mammoth concrete coffins that give the beautiful new facility the look of an outpost in the Green Zone. The appalling capitulation to the so-called “realities” of the so-called “post–9-11 world” have turned architect John di Domenico’s inspirational portal into a bunker. Train stations are supposed to be about magic and adventure, not paranoia and fear. They’re supposed to inspire Americans to explore and look beyond narrow parochialism, not encourage it.