The Words of Scott Turner. Because, Wow.

I love Brooklyn.

I hate Brooklyn.

Is it any wonder these battling eternities go hand in hand?

Somewhere in the recent past, Brooklyn turned into "Brooklyn." To use one of Mayor Bloomberg's more jackassed constructs, Brooklyn has become a "destination." What does that mean? For starters, it's something for visitors to Brooklyn, not the people who live here. We're already here. How can it be a destination?

Normally, that kind of idea would just be a mostly-harmless tourism inducement. But with jackals like Bloomberg and Markowitz, it's far more harmful and insidious.

Bloomberg has made a mayoral career out of keeping his hands clean when they're dirty beyond all measures of political hygiene. He throws more money and legal bribery around than Boss Tweed ever dreamed, all the while the local media and citizenry letting him scamper back to the Upper East Side, unaffected and untroubled.

Hizzoner doesn't do the hard work on issues that has residents screaming -- affordable housing, job creation, education. Instead, he focuses on big-ticket projects that only enrich real-estate friends of his -- the new Mets stadium, the new Yankees stadium, Atlantic Yards, Willets Point, Columbia expansion, Greenpoint/Williamsburg rezoning, Coney Island, 4th Avenue upscaling, the West Side Stadium, the 7 train extension, the Hudson Yards, the Olympic bid.

You know what? Marty Markowitz is the most Manhattan-centric guy in the borough. He wants an NBA team...like Manhattan has. He wants tall office and condo buildings...like Manhattan has. He wants an onslaught of tourists...like Manhattan has. He wants a huge sports arena...like Manhattan has. He wants corporations in Brooklyn...just like Manhattan has. He wants asthma-exacerbating traffic jams...just like Manhattan has. He wants more wealthy people to move into "urban Brooklyn" (his phrase) with the inevitable displacement of working-class communities of color, just like Manhattan has...he wants as many big non-union chain stores as he can get...just like Manhattan has. He wants Brooklyn to have "destination status"...just like Manhattan has.

And still...and still...there's the beauty. Flatbush on a summer day with reggae and soca pouring out of the shops...the elegant latticework of the Brooklyn Bridge...the delicious food from anywhere in the world just about anywhere in the borough...stoops in warm-weather twilights...the history of the place, from the Battle of Brooklyn, Weeksville, Ocean Hill/Brownsville, Yusuf Hawkins, the Crown Heights riots, the wharves and small businesses and the Dodgers (and also Royal Giants, Americans, Tigers, Bay Parkways, Bushwicks, Bridegrooms, Robins, and yes, the Superbas!) and Walt Whitman and Shirley Chisholm and the Roeblings and Jackie Gleason and the Fox Theater and immigration stories piled high and tall-tales piled even higher.

Brooklyn is fists ready to fly and fists held high.

Precisely the reason that if Brooklyn is to survive and be more than just a spiteful diminutive man's "destination," it has to agitate. Always and forever agitating. Every heartbeat an agitation -- the energy necessary to pump blood through our veins. Agitation for life, for eccentricity, for oddity, for community and family and at least one good locally-owned pizzeria within walking distance. As contentment is the death knell for rock bands (and rappers too), so will complacency walk Brooklyn down Memory Lane after the lobotomy kicks in.