We’re back at the Buffalo Home and Garden Show today, Saturday and Sunday.

You’ll find us at Booth 320, lower level to the left after you enter.

Stop by and chat!

Today, Friday, 10-9; Saturday 10-9; Sunday 10-6.

Home and Garden Show Website

PEEPSHOW 2011 IS TONIGHT!

Spend Saturday night helping out an amazing Buffalo organization – Squeaky Wheel.

Eat, Drink, Dance, ART, ARTISTS and great Architecture.

Saturday February 26

8PM

DNIPRO Center 562 Genesee St.

Tickets at Sweet_ness 7.

for more info squeaky.org.

Follow the link to read Kevin's answers to Artvoice's "Five Questions"

Five Questions

We see no long term success for Buffalo ReUse if our core operations need to be subsidized. Early on we received tremendous, timely help from the Oishei Foundation . . .

Several of our artist friends are exhibiting at the huge BEYOND | IN WNY 2010 art extravaganza this weekend:

Dennis Maher – lover of all things deconstructed, and we don’t mean words and sentences and paragraphs . . .

Carl Lee – our favorite filmmaker; his exhibited work will be familiar to demolition fans . . .

JM Reed – photographer, real estate broker and supporter/advisor of Buffalo housing activists such as ourselves . . .

All three are exhibiting at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College. Opening reception is this Sunday, 2pm to 4pm.

It has been announced that President Barack Obama will be visiting Buffalo next Thursday as part of his “Main Street Tour.” Of course, we at Buffalo ReUse are more than eager to host the President for a short visit. We have sent out letters to everyone and anyone we can think of, but if you have some kind of insider connection or pull, or you’re actually Obama’s third cousin twice removed, please consider helping us make this dream a reality!!

Buffalo ReUse is eager to share vision and accomplishments for green job creation, social entrepreneurship, and community regeneration with the President.  Since our inception in 2007, we have worked tirelessly to create Buffalo ReUse because of our unyielding desire to improve the City of Buffalo, our passion and hope for livable communities, and our belief in the unique capacity of young adults in forging solutions to rebuild our communities for the future. We have leveraged the unique assets of our region to address the most pressing needs of our neighborhoods, and while our region is unique, we believe that our ideas can be implemented in many communities all throughout the country.

If you have friends in high places, please help us use this unprecedented opportunity to share our entrepreneurial ideas that can play a critical role in regenerating neighborhoods and creating more green and local jobs in the years to come.

Last night I watched Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story. I have seen most of his films and I always think there are a ton of though-provoking points that somehow get glossed over or ignored by the movie reviewers and pundits. I heard almost nothing about this movie when it came out, except the usual critics dismissing Moore as a crackpot.  Moore even used a recent incident in Buffalo to drive home one of his examples of capitalism’s failures that resulted in tragedy. But Moore made me aware of something that I never learned in school. You may be saying, “Big surprise, you missed something in school–textbooks are notorious for sanitizing or omitting or altering facts in history” True, but I took all my History and Civics classes seriously and even took AP Government and AP US History and no one ever mentioned anything to me about the 2nd Bill of Rights. Most of us remember the tenets of our first Bill of Rights, namely, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” but this other suggested set were completely new to me.
Since my involvement in the nonprofit world, I have come to know about them through networking with other nonprofit groups and learning the ways in which our missions overlap, especially in the areas of social justice (CEJ & PUSH & PPG), but no one has ever specifically mentioned them in context of a Bill of Rights.

I remember very little about FDR. I remember that he was our longest running president, he died in office and he created jobs for artists and others in a time where no jobs existed, he got through the Great Depression.  In that historical context, FDR drafting another set of rights–an Economic Bill of Rights made perfect sense.  Here they are:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.

Wow.  These seem so simple, why do they sound so revolutionary?  Don’t these seem like rights we already believe we are entitled to? and this was six decades ago.  If our government did actually work toward securing these basic rights for citizens–how different would our nation be?  Roosevelt drafted these to ensure equality in our individual pursuits of happiness–because people who are desperately trying to survive–are not truly free.

Last night I visited Josh Smith in the studio to talk on his show “The Way Up”. With me was Marcus Wise, owner of the new and awesome 464 Gallery. We had a great time chatting about Buffalo ReUse and 464 Gallery, and thanks to Josh for being such a great host!

To listen to the interview, click here! The name of the show is “Art & Something”. Also, make sure to check out Josh’s show every month, as well as the other local radio shows on Think Twice Radio.

APPROBATE US. Artvoice is opening the poll  for their BEST OF BUFFALO AWARDS–you can vote!
The last couple years we have been nominated for Best Activist Group/nonprof, but we’ve never WON. The competition in Buffalo is very steep in that category, for sure. Makes me wonder if there’s something ELSE we can be nominated for so we’ll be a shoe-in. Maybe Best Landfill Diverters? Best used material store? Best Volunteer Site/hosts?  Best place to Scope Hottie-Volunteers?  I dunno.

How about BEST PLACE TO GET DIRTY?!
We want it; we want it real bad (uh ugnh).

Turns out the producers of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition were SO impressed with the City of Good Neighbors that they would like to make a return to Buffalo! This would be the FIRST TIME they have come to a city twice (can I get a “Let’s go Buffalo!” chant?). Says Casting Supervisor Morgan Fahey: “We are looking for the deserving people and inspiring families that America can really root for.”

To be eligible, a family must own their own single family home and be able to show producers how a makeover will make a huge difference in their lives. Families can apply – or you can nominate a member of your community – by sending a short description of the family story to castingwesternnewyork {at} gmail(.)com. Each nomination must include the names and ages of every member of the household along with a description of the major challenges withing the home. All nominations must also include a contact phone number.

More info can be found at the Extreme Makeover website, which you can visit by clicking here.

The deadline for nominations is February 26th, 2010 so don’t delay!!! Let’s really show America what WNY is made of.