Carroll Gardens: The city marched out a new look for the Brooklyn House of Detention this week, hoping to draw new interest in a jailhouse retail plan that hasn’t gotten off the ground. Comments (3).

Atlantic Yards: Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner, who said he stopped making political contributions because they created an appearance of impropriety, abandoned that policy last month with a large donation to a “slush fund” controlled by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Comments (3).

Editorial: He’s played the race card, he’s lobbied and he’s out and out lied. But now Bruce Ratner is doing something he hasn’t done in years: buying off our elected representatives in Albany. Yes, it’s ugly. Comments (3).

Politics: The New York primary is settled, but the money war rages on between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Comments (2).

Brooklyn Angle: Our columnist’s cast auction goes well — with two councilmen in a bidding war! Comments (1).

Letters: Our mailbag is filled with letters about the city’s residential parking permit plan, subsidies being doled out to Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner, and plans to demolish a historic Bay Ridge church. Comment.

Cartoon: Our artist’s take on the issues of the day! Comments (1).

PS … I Love You: Our columnist figures out how to get her daughter to get rid of those nasty guinea pigs. Comments (1).

Smartmom: Last week, Park Slopers were obsessed over which kids got into local private schools. Smartmom had this thought: Who cares? Comments (1).

Parenting: All the action for you and your kids! Comment.

Williamsburg: At a meeting on Wednesday night, the Parks Department unveiled these preliminary renderings of the city’s $60-million facelift of the McCarren Park Pool. Comments (3).

Politics: Everyone’s getting in on the “state of” game these days, from Borough President Markowitz, who gave his sixth, final and raucous “State of the Borough” address on Feb. 7 at the Brooklyn Cruise Ship Terminal, to Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D–Fort Greene), who gave a more muted performance at Pratt Institute on Jan. 30. Of course, both were following in the vaunted tradition of presidents past and present, including President Bush, who gave his final State of the Union on Jan. 28 in Washington. Here’s how the three politicians’ speeches compared. Comment.

Checkin’ in with: The recent “vegetarian week” was a good chance to check in with one heckuva butcher. Comment.

Carroll Gardens: Red Hook’s Sunset Music Series, one of Brooklyn’s great venues — where Babaloo and Life in a Blender performed on a barge — has died. Comment.

Coney Island: Borough President Markowitz says it’s time for the beleaguered New York Aquarium to swim with the big fish — and that means allowing Brooklynites to control its board. Comment.

Park Slope: Some South Slope residents were still seething this week about 68 new parking meters that were abruptly installed along Seventh Avenue — but the no-arm bandits are actually part of a series of changes that the city says will improve cleanliness and actually increase parking in the area. Comments (2).

Carroll Gardens: Red Hook’s beloved Latino food vendors have some competition in the bidding to control the site they put on the map. Comments (1).

Carroll Gardens: It’s the end of a ramshackle era for Smith Street buildings once owned by a true character on the south Brooklyn real-estate scene. Comment.

Carroll Gardens: The developer of a stalled condo development in Carroll Gardens announced this week that he had sacked his controversial architect and has revised the design for his building. Comments (1).

Williamsburg: Could the stench at the Newtown Creek sewage treatment plant finally be sweetened? The city says yes. Comment.

Bay Ridge: An unsupported two-story wall collapsed at a Bay Ridge worksite on Sunday as the area was hit by gale-force winds. Comment.

Park Slope: Two weeks of slips, falls and fender-benders forced the city to finally fix a water leak that turned a Park Slope street into an ice skating rink. Comment.

Park Slope: Gowanus Canal-area residents are saying they’ve been sold down the river because the city’s plans to reduce the amount of sewage dumped into the fetid waterway will stop before reaching the ultimate prize — a swimmable channel. Comment.

Fort Greene: A Fort Greene rival to the Park Slope Food Co-op is establishing roots (and veggies). Comments (3).

Book lovers from Fort Greene and Clinton Hill to the South Slope and Ditmas Park are wooing, begging, in fact, beseeching the recent winner of a Brooklyn Public Library prize to enact her grant-winning bookshop proposal in their neighborhoods. Comment.

All the important meetings you should be going to. Comment.

In the spirit of encouraging a free exchange of ideas, The Brooklyn Paper makes this space available to our readers. Comments (3).