ELENA'S CREATIVE UPRISING - 2025 No. 06

A Bold Blend of Creativity, Wellness, and Activism

Jun 12, 2025

In this issue:

Introduction: Save Our City

UNITY and COMMUNITY
* Elena's Creative Community
* Substack Made Easy - Tip #04 - Creating Your Publication

WELLNESS
* Life in Balance: #04 Your Health Paradigm

CREATIVE ACTIVISM
* In Protest (NYC)

QUOTE
Leonardo da Vinci

June 11, 2025

Dear Friends,

Early voting in the primary for the next New York City Mayor begins June 14. The official voting day is June 24. While this is a primary for the Democratic candidates, that is in essence a vote for Mayor, since the next Mayor is certain to be a Democrat.

I believe that most of my subscribers are in the New York City vicinity. For those who aren't, please indulge me this once for an urgent NYC-specific post.

This is likely the most important vote for mayor of New York City that we will ever cast in our lifetimes. That is because our city is in grave danger from the current Administration, which is not only randomly scooping up our people, citizens or not, off the street and disappearing them (yes, this is really happening), but is attempting to take over the City itself, I believe with the purpose of reducing it to rubble. Trump and his minions hate New York City. (And unlike Terry Moran, you cannot fire me for saying so!) The Administration has so far attempted to take over Amtrak, our subway system, the rebuilding of Penn Station, and many other important functions in our City, and is sticking its nose into our local legislation, trying to override the voters' wishes. Expect much, much worse to come. Adams is far too compromised to be of any help whatsoever at this point. Hochul does what she can, but her hands are full with the rest of the state. We need a powerful, influential New York City Mayor to get us through the next few years intact.

If you love our great city as much as I do, I imagine you want to save it from ruin. So I'm offering some advice on this election. If you disagree with me, that's fine; we're still friends. I do want to share my perspective, though, in case it's one any of you or your friends hadn't thought of yet.

I notice that some of my friends and colleagues are planning to vote with their heart, not their head. I understand. But I believe this is one election where we might have to bite the bullet and vote for someone we might not like, but who can save our city from what is coming over the next few years. That's why, although there are several candidates I'd like to see as Mayor, I won't vote for them this time around.

If you make a face and say "never" when I pronounce the name Andrew Cuomo, I understand. I do. But I'm voting for him and I hope you will, too. I believe he is our only hope of coming out of this authoritarian hellscape with our city and our lives intact.

Here are a few points to consider:

1. Remember New York City during the nightmare of COVID? Yes, I'd like to forget about it, too! But do remember it, because Andrew Cuomo stood up, faced the camera, and gave us hope at a time when we desperately needed it. He gave us a half-hour fact-filled briefing, complete with statistics and visuals, every single day for months. For anyone who's ever done a similar presentation, you know what an incredible amount of work that is, and what it takes to present it on camera. He was indefatigable. He got a lot of supplies from the federal government that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise. He has no problem assuming the role of leader when it's most needed. And it's going to be needed.

2. Cuomo has been in New York politics, both City and State, long enough to know all the important players and where the bodies are buried. He can work the system all the way up to the White House. He has decades of experience.

3. Most importantly at this time, he has known Trump personally for years, he understands how he thinks and behaves, and he knows exactly how to dance around Trump's ego and get what's needed for New York City.

4. He's loud and brazen enough to stand up to Trump when it's time to do that, and knows how to get big names on his side in his endeavors.

5. He knows how the relationship between Governor and Mayor works, and he knows Kathy Hochul well; she was his Lieutenant Governor.

6. Michael Bloomberg endorsed Cuomo for Mayor. Whatever you might think of Bloomberg, he has done the job of NYC Mayor (a job second only to that of the President of the United States in size and complexity) and knows exactly what it will take to do it while Trump is in power. And he felt it important enough at this moment in time to step up to offer his opinion before the primary.

7. If those points haven't convinced you, think about this scenario: Assume Trump does something truly horrible to our City. Imagine each of the Mayoral candidates in the role of Mayor standing up to him to protect our City. How would they fare?

Our election uses ranked-choice voting. It allows you to choose five candidates in order of your preference. (There will likely be a run-off between the top two or three.) Definitely choose FIVE candidates, even if you have only one or two favorites. That’s because you can have an inverse effect on candidates you DON’T want to win by not choosing them in your five. If there's someone you really *don't* want to win, vote for five other people. Don't waste your vote!

Thanks for listening. May the Force be with us!

Useful information:
- New York State Board of Elections
- NYC Votes
- NYC Board of Elections
- What To Know About Ranked-Choice Voting Ahead of The NYC Primary Election
- Final Democratic Mayoral Primary Debate Thursday at 7:00 pm

NOTE: If you have Comments, please make yourself heard! I'd love to hear from you. Also, you can help me be seen on Substack by Liking my Substack Newsletter, which will encourage The Algorithm so I don't die in obscurity. 😎

In case you missed it....
Here's a link to last month's Newsletter 2025 No. 05

UNITY and COMMUNITY

Strength in Unity, Support in Community

Elena's Creative Community

ELENA'S CREATIVE COMMUNITY fosters real community to help us stay strong and focused! Working alone but within the intentional group space is surprisingly supportive and highly productive!

There are two free one-hour online multi-genre Work-Together sessions each month on the first and third Saturdays at 2:00 pm US Eastern.

We'll meet next on Mon June 16, Sat June 21, and Fri June 27.
For the month of July, we'll meet on Sat July 5 and Sat July 19.
There might be an additional Work-Together on a weekday in July.
All are at 2:00 pm US Eastern.

If you're interested in attending a work-together or have questions, drop me your name and email address at egreco@elenagreco.com. Creatives in any genre or medium are welcome!

Substack Made Easy

Substack is a wonderful place to create and enjoy community! Once you sign up, you'll soon find many like-minded souls around the country and beyond in a safe, non-commercial place for sharing.

SUBSTACK TIP #04: Creating Your Publication

So now you have a Substack account! Time to start creating, don't you think? To have your own creative home, you need to create a Substack publication for your newsletter or whatever you might want to post. (In this case, your "newsletter" doesn't have to be a newsletter in the usual sense; it can be anything you want to publish or share publicly on Substack or through your email list. They call it a newsletter because you can send it to a mailing list, and you can charge subscribers if you wish.)

Your publication (which includes your newsletter(s) and other items) serves as your home on Substack, a place to communicate with your email list and with Substackers. You can even use it as a free website! In fact, it looks very much like a website.

First, a note about Substack URLs. There's a way to tell if you're looking at a user's account or a publication by the URL protocol.

- When you have a Substack account, your URL looks like this: https://substack.com/@elenagreco. Notice that the owner's name appears after "substack.com" with an "at" sign before it (your name with the "at" before it is your Substack "handle").

- When you have a publication, your URL looks like this: https://elenagreco.substack.com. Notice that the owner's Substack name precedes "substack.com" and looks a bit like a website URL.

Now let's set up your publication! Go to your account and look at the far upper right of your screen where you'll see Dashboard (see above). To the right of the Dashboard is the icon that represents your account.

Click on that icon, and you'll see a drop-down list of options. At almost the bottom, find Settings and click on it.

Now you'll be on a page that has your Account info at the top, and a choice to create a Publication under it. Click Create Publication and give your publication a name (mine is Elena's Creative Uprising, same as my newsletter's name). Then fill out the other options and you are the proud owner of a Substack publication! Now you're ready to write a newsletter, share your art, post a political opinion, or whatever the spirit moves you to do--knowing that you own the rights to it all!

Recap: Account icon (top right) —> Settings —> Create Publication

Do notice that you'll want to choose a URL that you're happy with for the long term, and that it doesn't have to match the name of your (first) newsletter. In fact, it probably shouldn't, because you might want to have more than one newsletter and/or other tabs on the publication. You might do as I did, and choose your name (https://elenagreco.substack.com), or maybe the name of your company, especially if you think you might want to use the Substack publication like a website.

Below is my Publication (the name is the same as my newsletter), with tabs across the top for different segments.
The image beneath that one is Heather Cox Richardson's publication. Notice that hers has a Podcast tab.

WELLNESS

All things related to health, healing, and transformation

Life in Balance

A series exploring health: What it really is, how to get it and how to maintain it

I've studied nutrition, healing, and holistic medicine for 50 years. It's a passion of mine. I integrate the best of all worlds in the strategy for health I've developed in all those years, and I feel compelled to share it at this point, at a time when our country needs knowledgeable, forward-thinking people in the realm of health who are uninfluenced by Big Pharma, monetary gain or pressure. I believe you'll find this series useful!

"The third thing you might consider, regardless of which paradigm you ultimately decide is better for you, is what external forces interact with the information you receive and imbibe. The first question here is cui bono—who benefits. If a drug company is advertising their product at you, it's obvious that they want to make a profit from the drug, and of course you know that that colors the way that they present it to you, so you might not be gullible about the information they present. But it's not always obvious what the benefit might be, and to whom, with regard to the health-related information we receive from the media or from professionals. ...."

Click to read it all! Life in Balance: 04. Your Healthcare Paradigm.
Or read the series from the beginning: Life in Balance: 01. What Is Health?

CREATIVE ACTIVISM

NO KINGS Protests

The main No Kings Protest in New York City is at Bryant Park,
with others at Columbia University (ultimately converging at Bryant Park),
a New Orleans Funeral Second Line at Grace Plaza, W 43rd (near Bryant Park)
("We are ready to mourn our losses under this administration and then cut loose and DANCE!" organizers [of the Second Line] said.)
MacDonald Park in Forest Hills, Queens,
Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, and
Cadman Plaza West in Brooklyn.
All run from approximately 1:00-4:00 pm on Saturday, June 14.