Crooked Lines

The 2010 elections are fast approaching and, this being a year that ends in zero, it means that next year the victors in those elections will get to do something they love most: political redistricting. Popularly known as "gerrymandering", it gives state legislatures the power to draw assembly, state senate, and US congressional lines. What it means in reality is that incumbent politicians draw lines to protect themselves from political challenge. It's a really disgusting, insider, gangster like practice and both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of it.

NY1 is doing a week-long series called Crooked Lines, about how gerrymandering perverts our political system and gives us the dysfunctional government we have. It's a definite must-see.

Newtown Creek Gets Cleaned Up

Here's a rare bit of good news: the US EPA has finally designated Newtown Creek a Superfund site.

Newtown Creek is that sliver of water, often overlooked on the map of NYC, that separates Brooklyn and Queens. For more than a hundred years it has been a dumping ground for chemicals and pesticides and all sorts of other nasty stuff that came from the factories and refineries and other industrial businesses that used to exist near there. Superfund designation means that the government will conduct a review and direct a clean-up effort that will be partially funded by the government and private companies (including ExxonMobil that spilled some oil there back in the day).

Believe it or not, the pollution in Newtown Creek is three times worse than the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill up in Alaska. Needless to say, cleaning it up is way overdue and the economic potential for a rehabbed creek are big.

This is a really great thing, a rare instance of the government doing the right thing for the right reason. NYC will be the better for it.

Newtown Creek Alliance

Governor Paterson on Saturday Night

The World of Khubilai Khan at the Met

Membership has its privileges and, being members of the Met, the wife and I had the pleasure of catching an advance preview of the new Khubilai Kahn exhibit that officially opens tomorrow. And I strongly suggest you see it ASAP (it runs through January 2).

Called The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty, this show examines the impact that the Mongol emperor's dynasty had on the art and culture of China in the 13th century. Unlike other leaders named Khan (Ghengis, the guy in Star Trek II: The Wrath of ...), Khan was what you might call an enlightened despot: he provided religious freedom to Doaists and Buddists, created paper currency and postal services, built roads and waterways, and even established aid agencies (he would probably be viewed by today's Republican Party as a socialist). He also moved the capital of China to what is modern day Beijing and was the emperor that Marco Polo met with (introducing the young Italian to, amongst other things, the noodle).

The art of this period and in this exhibit is fascinating and it is totally unlike Chinese art that I've seen in other exhibits. There are lots of beautiful, long silk scrolls that chronicle the lives of powerful Mongols, jade and golden cups and bowls, and beautiful, gorgeously hand carved statues (including an amazing column that was excavated from Khubilai's "pleasure-dome" Xanadu). What I didn't see was a lot of porcelain pottery and watercolor paintings that you usually see in Chinese art. This art (which, remember, is more Mongolian than Chinese) is very colorful and more formal than most Chinese art. The coolest thing I saw is something that the Mongols put on their front doors called "passports": metal pendants with Mongolian words that must be uttered in order to come into people's homes. We even saw a headstone from this period that was partially in Arabic! (Go figure.)

As a ruler, Khubilai was way, way ahead of his time (by about, oh, six to seven hundred years). And the art in this exhibit demonstrates it: as old as this art is, there is something almost modern and contemporary about it. None of this stuff would feel out of place in an exhibit at a modern art. It goes to show you that art and politics do not necessary progress in a straight line, that there are periods of progress and enlightenment and innovation leavened with periods of regression and ignorance and fear (see Barack Obama vs. Sarah Palin 2010).

The great poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote about Khubilai and composed a poem, the opening lines of which have become very famous (enshrined forever in Citizen Kane):

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."

Is Walmart Coming to NYC?

New York is the city with everything -- except, that is, a Walmart store. A Walmart Superstore, to be precise. Walmart is the biggest and most notorious "big box" retail chain in the nation (and the world), the place that sells almost everything ever invented in human existence (home supplies, food, clothes, books and magazine, you name it). They even provide services like pharmacies and banking. Walmart boasts that it is the ultimate "one-stop shop", the one place where you can get everything you need. And why are they so successful? Because they sell all of this stuff really, really cheap.

Great, right? Hey, you might be saying, we could sure use a Walmart in NYC! Well, not so fast.

Walmart can only afford its cheap prices because: a) it is non-unionized and pays its employees awful wages without any benefits; b) engages in rampant labor abuses like forcing employees to work overtime "off the clock", even going so far as locking them inside the stores. Many of their employees live below the poverty line and are forced to use things like food stamps and Medicaid to live on (i.e. the government/taxpayers subsidize the company); c) forcing companies to shut down their factories in the USA and shipping those jobs overseas -- in order for the companies to produce cheaper goods under the threat that Walmart won't carry them; and d) coming into communities and putting small mom-and-pop shops out of business.

It's a horrible company. It's the epitome of everything that's wrong with corporate America. The people who work for the company are little more than slaves while the people who own it (the Wal family) are some of the richest people on earth. Walmart may be cutting edge as a business, but its practices are friggin' Medieval.

Fortunately, the one place where Walmart has failed to open a store is in NYC. This is still very much a union-town, and the unions and the city council have successful kept the company out of the five boroughs. Like a ravenous caged animal in heat, Walmart has been panting with it's tongue hanging out, trying to break out (or, in this case, in) to NYC -- those 8 million potential customers being their prey. Walmart has been successful just about everywhere else in the country (even Chicago finally let them in) but NYC has remained elusive, its bonanza of customers a figurative White Whale.

I remember about five years ago there was some noise about Walmart coming to NYC but it didn't happen and it seemed like it never would. After all, constructing a huge non-union big box store in NYC would create a huge backlash by the unions and politicians. But it seems like Walmart has found a new tactic -- start small. According to recent reports, Walmart is looking to open small stores in lower Manhattan and Queens, mostly concentrating on groceries. The idea is to give New Yorkers a taste of the Walmart experience (and prices) and build a demand for more and presumably bigger stores. Walmart is using the economic crises as its hook to get into NYC -- after all, they argue, Walmart stories will create badly needed jobs and low prices for those in economic woe. It's an understandable if cynical strategy -- and it might just work.

This is, thankfully, not going unnoticed. Retail alliances and unions are hitting back and want to stop these moves by Walmart dead in their tracks. Many believe that Mayor Bloomberg wants to let Walmart into NYC (suprised?) but fortunately the city council is there to block it. Hopefully they won't change their mind.

Let's hope that Walmart stays out of NYC. It would hammer the NYC economy, force more smaller business to go under, help undermine the unions, and erode the city's character. If you want to learn more about what Walmart is up to, go to Walmart Watch and stay informed.

An Open Letter to New Yorkers

Last week, former NYC Mayor Koch, former State Comptroller McCall, and former US Senator Al D'Amato released the following letter:

"The victory of Carl Paladino in the Republican Primary was a disappointing day for all New Yorkers. This state has a long history of electing highly qualified, forward-looking statewide candidates - both Democrats and Republicans. Yesterday, however, anger overcame reason and enabled a fringe element to choose the Republican nominee. The end result was the selection of Mr. Paladino, a divisive figure simply not fit to lead this great state.

At a time when we need leaders who can bring New Yorkers together, Mr. Paladino practices a destructive brand of politics that will divide our state. He first came to the attention of most New Yorkers when it was revealed that, for years, he has shared racially offensive emails with associates. Including videos popular with white supremacists, these emails are beneath the dignity of a candidate for high office.

This, however, was merely a preview of what we have seen along the campaign trail. Mr. Paladino was justifiably condemned by the AntiDefamation League and editorial boards alike for referring to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver - a prominent Jewish leader - as the closest thing New York has to an anti-Christ or a Hitler. Most recently, Mr. Paladino offended basic New York values when he suggested that low income New Yorkers should be sent to prison work camps for lessons in "personal hygiene." That type of hateful comment has no place in our discourse, dehumanizing the poor and playing off of despicable racist ideas.

Mr. Paladino is also running a disingenuous campaign. He has portrayed himself as an anti-government crusader, while embodying the very worst of Albany's pay-to-play culture. To quote his own slogan, he is the reason that New Yorkers are "Mad as Hell."

He has personally distributed close to a half a million dollars to federal and state candidates, bankrolling the campaigns of numerous allies. This has allowed him to pocket millions of dollars in tax incentives, sweetheart deals, and scores of government contracts. Paladino's real estate empire takes in over $10 million each year in government rents alone.

There's a reason why even the chairmen of the Republican and Conservative parties disavowed Mr. Paladino's candidacy, noting that he "stands in stark contrast to what the Republican party stands for," that Paladino is a "dangerous candidate," and that he "tries to appeal to the mean spiritedness" of people.

We need a governor who can take on the special interests, not one who is a special interest. We also need a governor who will bring New Yorkers together to take on our common challenges, not drive us apart. Through his own words and actions Carl Paladino has proven himself unfit to serve as Governor - he is exactly the wrong person to lead our state."

ALFONSE D'AMATO
EDWARD I. KOCH
H.CARL MCCALL

Love and the City

Interesting column from the New York Press about a woman who thought she was too cool to have an ordinary relationship. Instead, she and her inamorata thought they could have a post-modern, "post-love" relationship that seemed to be about everything but commitment (forget about marriage and kids, that's way, way too square for these cats).

What she found, in the long run, was that trying to redefine traditional relationships is impossible -- feelings can never be ignored and what people really want, in the end, is a stable commitment. (And when I say "redefine traditional relationships" I'm not implying in anyway that I'm against gay marriage -- I 100% support it.)

Only in the NYC, the author convincingly argues, do people think they're too good for a regular relationship. They think they can have their cake and eat it too. They're way too sophisticated, way too cool for that.

Hmmmmmmmm?????

What struck me about this article is that I have known so many people who have tried to have just these types pseudo or "meta" relationships -- relationships that try to have all the fun and joy (like sex, companionship, even social respectability) but that requires none of the attendant sacrifices and responsibilities (like monogamy and family and social obligations). The thing that all of these people have in common is a belief that somehow they're special, that they're too intelligent and enlightened to be bound by regular human emotions, that somehow they're above it all and only dopes and rubes let themselves get "tied down." Well, inevitably, these insane types of non-relationship/relationships end in disaster and people discover they're human after all.

Speaking for myself, I've never thought I was that special. And I'm lucky to have found my lovely wife who makes my life such a joy. I may be a New Yorker, and a damn proud one, but when it comes to love, the (truly) better half and I are as square as they come.

Flushing Queens Tornado Aftermath 09-17-2010

EF1 Tornado Tears Through New York City (September 16, 2010)

What a Week in NYC!

This past week in New York will certainly reverberate for a while and if you had to try to describe it in one word, I think only one pronoun would suffice -- stormy.

As the saying goes, things come in twos. In this case, there were two big storms in New York last week.

Storm #1: the victory of Carl Paladino in the New York State Republican primary for governor. This man, a hardcore right-wing reactionary, is a real estate developer from upstate who shocked the GOP establishment by knocking Rick Lazio out of the race and winning the chance to face Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in this fall's governor's race. Paladino fancies himself an outsider, just an ordinary (multi-millionaire) citizen who's "mad as hell" with the dysfunction in Albany and is "not going to take it anymore." He vows to cut state spending by 20% and taxes by 10% in his first year as governor, all part of his plan to take a "baseball bat" to state government.

He's insane. And a total fraud. First of all, this supposed "outsider" actually made his fortune by getting lots of contracts with the state -- so it was government "spending" that's responsible for his current candidacy. And he's a racist and bizarre pervert, a man with a well-known habit of getting and forwarding racist and obscene emails (apparently he has the kinds of friends that like sending him jokes comparing President Obama to a monkey and of broads banging horses; and the would be governor apparently has even more friends who he believes would enjoy seeing this junk; "With friends like these ..."). And he believes that welfare recipients should be put in camps and taught hygiene. And he wants to use the power of eminent domain to stop the Islamic Cultural Center in lower Manhattan. And he fathered a love child.

This guy is certifiable, totally insane, and he's unfit to be the governor. Want proof? Former Senator Al D'amato, the old boss of the New York State GOP who engineered the victory of Governor George Pataki in 1994, has said Paladino shouldn't be governor. And the Republican candidates for State Comptroller and Attorney General are refusing to endorse him. He's that bad. Andrew Cuomo should win in a walk -- but not be afraid to fight back hard against this guy.

Think how far the New York GOP has fallen. It used to produce great senators and governors like Theodore Roosevelt, Tom Dewey, Jacob Javits, Nelson Rockefeller -- even Al D'amato and Pataki were giants of the GOP. And now what do they offer this state? Carl Paladino. How sad.

Storm #2: this time it was a literal one -- specifically a TORNADO that ripped across Brooklyn and Queens. It happened on Thursday evening, around 5:30 PM, and tore up streets and felled trees that smashed into car and houses. It was quick and scary and has caused millions of dollars in damage. Fortunately the Parks Department, the police and firefighters, and the office of Emergency Management are on the case and working methodically to assess the damage and clean it up. Yes, that's right -- those same government employees that so many like to complain about are actually out there fixing the city after an unnaturally natural event hit the city so viciously. And they're working hard without complaint and without much glory (this isn't like cleaning up Ground Zero after all -- just an act of God). One person was killed which is tragic but fortunately there weren't a lot of injuries. Let's just hope this is the last tornado NYC will see in a while.

So that's the week that was, a stormy one in the literal and political environments of New York. And let's hope the damage they inflicted won't be too long lasting.