Dan Halloran Should be Censured

Some of you might remember the big day-after-Christmas snowstorm last year that resulted in a botched response from the city's Sanitation Department. The speed and coordination of getting out the snowplows was piss-poor, with many neighborhoods (like mine!) going days without being plowed. Streets and cars were buried under, resulting in people not being able to get around the city, people dying because EMTs couldn't get to them on time, and lots of people (like me again) not being able to go to work. It was fecacta, a real mess, and it made the Bloomberg administration look foolish.

Enter Dan Halloran.

The porcine Republican councilman from Queens began burning up the media (too bad it couldn't have melted the snow), claiming that two supervisors from the Sanitation department had approached him, saying that fellow sanitation employees were intentionally screwing up the snow removal in order to get back at our anti-union mayor. Halloran said he had evidence! It was an outrage!

Problem: it was a lie.

The Department of Investigations has just released a report saying that Dan Halloran in fact had no evidence and, after interviewing 150 people (150!), they could find no evidence whatsoever of an organized slowdown. This was all much ado about nothing.  The real culprit was the awful job that our awful Sanitation commissioner (who still has his job) did -- not the department employees. 

Think about it: a city councilman smears a department in the media and then sets city and federal prosecutors into a wild goose-chase chase, wasting their time, money and resources into investigating a crime that never happened. 

This is the real outrage.

Please understand the subtext of this whole situation: in NYC and around the country, the Republican party and the organized right-wing are doing everything that they can to destroy unions. You saw it recently in Wisconsin where the Republican governor and legislature stripped union workers of their collective bargaining rights. You see this here, where state unions are being forced into giving big concessions while the rich aren't being forced into paying any more taxes. Republicans like Halloran have been smearing union workers for years, trying to paint them as overpaid, under-worked parasites who aren't any good at their jobs anyway and who will hurt the public when they selfishly don't get their way. Halloran used this snowstorm crises as an excuse to further smear union workers and make himself a Republican party star. 

What a twerp.  

Dan Halloran is a lair, a fraud and a disgrace to the city council. I really hope (but won't hold my breath) that his colleagues on the city council will vote to censure him. All politicians engage in political nonsense and lie. All politicians smear their opponents and the groups that support him. But Halloran crossed the line: he forced the already overworked DAs and Department of Investigations employees into spending tax payer money on investigating something that he knew was untrue -- all for cynical, selfish political reasons. This kind of conduct should not be tolerated by his fellow council members -- and they should make it clear that it won't be.

Classic Mr NYC

My recent post on beer gardens as the new salons of NYC made me think about my previous posts on the growing phenomenon of these drinking establishments. 

Actually, it's been a phenomenon for some time. You can take a gander at my September, 2009 post about beer gardens and read about how old-fashioned beer gardens are suddenly becoming cool again.

Just go to show you: what's old can become new again.

Manhattanhenge - Tonight, at sundown

Is Marriage Equality Almost Here?

Governor Cuomo has been putting his significant political weight behind the marriage equality movement. Like the canny politico he is, he has done a great job coordinating the various gay marriage groups with his office and relentlessly pushing the message that now is the time for the Empire State to legalize it. 

But it's not that easy.

Simply put, it's a matter of math. 

While gay marriage is overwhelming supported in the State Assembly, thanks to the Democratic majority there, there are 32 Republican State Senators and only 30 Democratic State Senators. Of the Democrats, about four of them are violently opposed to gay marriage. And so far no Republican is publicly supporting the it. That means right now the vote would be roughly 36-28 against. But if four Republicans were to switch, then it would get passed and New York would become the first big state in America to legalize gay marriage. Cuomo and Bloomberg and the various groups are doing everything they can to woo some of the more malleable Republicans but they're afraid that they might lose their primaries or be denied Conservative Party support and that this will do them in.

I think they're wrong. Quite the opposite: I think if these Republicans vote for gay marriage, they will be rewarded politically and also financially: Bloomberg and various wealthy donors have indicated that they will give these senators huge campaign contributions and this will help them hold their seats for years to come. So let's keep our fingers crossed -- and hopefully by next month, New York State will have seen the light.

The New NYC Salons

Thursday night was last call at Elaine's, the Upper East side saloon famous for hosting the city's elite for almost fifty years. This saloon was the city's last great salon, where the great talents of this city came together to eat, drink, and talk about their work and lives. What made Elaine's so popular was that it was so exclusive -- it was where cultural powerhouses came to feel part of a club.

Now Elaine's is gone. And, as those denizens who were there on its last night said, there will never be another one like it.

But I disagree. Exclusive salons in NYC like Elaine's or Toots Shor may be no more, but a new generation of salons is blossoming all over town. What are they? 

Beer Gardens!

Call them democratic salons or 21st century, new media salons. Instead of writers and intellectuals kibitzing in exclusive surroundings, beer gardens are where bloggers and ordinary people congregate to talk about their work and lives -- and they're open to everyone. Beer gardens are where the great minds of this century in this city are going to meet each other and exchange ideas. These are the places in NYC where people hold court, have fun, and plot the future. Beer gardens are the new salons of NYC.

"To everything there is a season ..."
 

The exclusive cultural salons of NYC had their day -- and what a long, great day it was. But, with Elaine's gone, that day is over. Yet when one door closes (literally in this case), another one opens (actually many, literally, considering how many beer gardens are opening up around town). So do not fear. The salons of NYC are alive and well. They've just changed with the new millennium -- and that's probably a good thing.

The Real Donald Trump

When The Donald announced that he would yet again deny America his services as president of the United States, his stated reason was that business was his "passion" and public service just wasn't tempting enough for him to give it up.

Fair enough. To each his own, I say.

But what is this "business" that he's so passionate about? What exactly is The Donald Empire?

At first blush, the answer is obvious: real estate. Walk around town and your eyes will fall on various buildings called Trump this or that. He also dabbles in Atlantic City casinos and Florida golf courses, and he is probably best known to the nation he can't quite get himself to govern by hosting the NBC show The Apprentice. Yet behind his seemingly impressive business portfolio is a lot of sleaze: stock swindlers, drug addicted accountants, whore mongering partners, and outright fraud. Also, a lot of the businesses he claims to be involved in, he's not really involved in. He has created a successful enough brand name for himself that he sells it to other businessmen (hence things like Trump Vodka and Trump University which really aren't his). 

Ever since he openly flirted with running for president, The Donald's business dealings have drawn a great deal of attention. And it hasn't been good news. There have been lots of articles recently about all this and you must read this Daily Beast article that is probably the most comprehensive about how sleazy and creepy most of Donald Trump's businesses and associates really are.

Naturally Trump realized that, if he actually did run for president, the scrutiny would only get worse and might actually hurt his empire. The material for attack ads is endless. And ultimately, he was smart enough to realize that his presidential aspirations were doomed before he ever had them in the first place. 

Where did you grow up?

There was a great segment on today's Brian Lehrer Show about growing up in New York City -- and if this was good thing or not. If you would like to listen to it, you can go here.

Personally, I don't think it's either better or worse -- or makes you a better or worse kind of person -- wherever you grow up. Whether it's in the heart of NYC or way out in Siberia, the environment in which you were raised gives you certain experiences and knowledge that people elsewhere don't have.  Of course, it also means that you miss certain experiences and don't develop knowledge of other places. That's why, once people grow up, it's a great thing for people to travel and meet people from other places. And learn.

Speaking as someone who grew up in NYC, I'll say that I'm very glad that I was raised here and wouldn't wanted to have grown up anywhere else. Still, sometimes I wish that I'd lived a more Mayberry kind of life, swimmin' in the swimmi' hole, fishin' in the fishin' hole, shooting my dinner, and all that fun, crazy country stuff. Yee-haw!

A Lady at the MTA

Adding a little bit of pomp and circumstance to the dreary entity that is the Metropolitan Transit Authority, comes word that one of its board members, one Nancy Shevell, is engaged to Sir Paul McCartney, he of Beatles fame. 

Once they are married, Ms. Shevell will become Lady Nancy. Presumably that means that, when she drinks tea, she will now have to keep her pinkie up.

So now when the rest of us working stiffs are schlepping around town on the dysfunctional MTA beast, we can know that parts of its incompetence is due to a Lady of the Realm, married to a Knight Commander of the British Empire (and the guy wrote "Hey Jude"). 

And who says the British lost the Revolutionary war?

We're Still Here ... Dammit

The last few days have been a study in hysterical idiocy: for several days now, the lunatic followers of some so-called "reverend" named Harold Camping have been yelling and screaming that the world was going to end around 6 PM on May 21st. 

Obviously, as I'm writing this on May 22nd, the didn't end. We're all still here -- as broke, overweight, and exhausted as ever. 

This lunacy has been all over NYC. I saw some guys in the subway waiving signs, declaring that May 21st was the date of the rapture and that Jesus was a comin'. And there have been signs everywhere too -- apparently a 60-year old MTA worker from Staten Island spent his life-savings on trying to promote this nonsense all over town. This morning he was, to put it mildly, a tad miffed. 

So we're all still here. And that means we all have to go to work tomorrow and pay our rent in at the end of the months. The more things don't change, the more depressing they stay. Dammit.

Bosom Buddies Opening