Category: Brooklyn

The South tried it, the Carolinas and Virginas achieved it, Hong Kong and Singapore manage to make it work. This New York Magazine article throws out the idea of New York City seceding on the basis of taxation equity, as well as making common sense for us downstaters.

From what it should divorce itself from is an open question. From the US entirely is out of the question. Definately from the state — upstate is really a totally different animal from downstate. A 51st state would be rather nice, but a territory like Puerto Rico would make equal sense for a city that is an international capitol.

On paper it seems like it would work. NYC has twice the Gross Domestic Product of Hong Kong and three times that of Singapore (it’s slightly less than Taiwan). It has more people than Switzerland. Our standing security forces — NYPD and FDNY — are larger and better equiped than many countries (we have tanks, water and air craft). Unlike pre-1997 Hong Kong, we get to keep our northern water reserves, because someone with foresight bought the land for the City.

The question of New York secession first came up in 1861, under circumstances that showed just this kind of ruthless pragmatism, when Mayor Fernando Wood hoped to preserve the right to trade with both the North and the South. Most other New York City secession proposals have focused on becoming a separate state. In 1788, Alexander Hamilton warned that the city’s secession was “inevitable” if the state failed to ratify the Constitution. In 1969, Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin ran on a mayoral platform arguing that the city, needing local control of its services and finances, should become the 51st state. The most inspired part of their proposal contended that the city had dibs on the name “New York.” The rest of the state, they suggested, should be renamed “Buffalo.”

That was really funny.
I’m still for a United States of America; New York City ought to be a discrete part of it.

It’s not a good feeling when you wake up in the morning, thinking, “Oh, I’ll just sleep in; it’s Sunday,” and then – thwack – uh, no, it’s Monday; you have to get to work. Ugh…

More police officers in downtown Manhattan. This is the new normal, I guess.

In a previous post, I referred to this NY Times’ Travel article profiling NYC for the tourists and recommending that people do the Staten Island Yankees since it’s extremely hard to do the Brooklyn Cyclones. It occurred to me that part of the reason why the Cyclones have been tremendously popular as they have been is because of that baseball legacy in Brooklyn, the one cursed (or blessed) upon us by the Dodgers.

But, the real question is, has the Cyclones been that great for Brooklyn, or more particularly, Coney Island? NY Times’ Lydia Polgreen explores the answers (if any) to the question. Apparently, people would come, maybe buy a hotdog at Nathan’s next door, but ultimately leave. They’re not staying to really revitalize the neighborhood. And, all plans to rebuild anything remain plans. The subway terminal is almost done, but the people driving in aren’t going to stick around. Troubling. We can be optimistic, but it’s troubling to me.

NY Times’ James Barron tries out a fascinating experiment: Send a piece of mail to Leonard Bernstein Place (aka West 65th Street) and will it get there? Barron reports that the US Postal Service “says it recognizes the city’s alternate street names, just as it recognizes streets that New Yorkers still call by their older, snappier names, like Sixth Avenue, which became Avenue of the Americas in 1945” and the findings are that the Postal Service sort of does it. Kind of:

To add the slightest trace of scientific methodology to the experiment, letters with the conventional street addresses were mailed at the same time. So two letters went to each addressee. All the letters were mailed from Midtown Manhattan at the same time, on a weekday afternoon. Of the ones that reached their destinations, most arrived two days later.

All the recipients received the letters with conventional addresses. But of the letters with the alternate street names, 4 of the 10 did not reach their destinations.

The Postal Service returned two addressed to people on Josh Rosenthal Way (72nd Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West). It marked one “Returned for Better Address.” On the other, it put a yellow sticker with R.T.S. in big letters and, for those who do not know their postal abbreviations, “return to sender” in small letters. Of three options on the sticker, one was checked: “Not deliverable as addressed – unable to forward.”

Nor did the Postal Service deliver letters to people on David Ben-Gurion Place (East 43rd Street between Vanderbilt and Madison Avenues) or Joe Horvath Street (West 52nd Street between 10th and 11th Avenues)…

But letters went through to addressees on Alvin Ailey Place (West 61st Street between West End and Amsterdam Avenues), Leonard Bernstein Place (West 65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, beside Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center), Isaac Bashevis Singer Boulevard (West 86th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue) and Edgar Allan Poe Street (West 84th Street between Broadway and Riverside Drive). Nevermind that the envelope misspelled Poe’s middle name with a tell-tale ‘E’ in place of the second ‘A.’

Plus, a very interesting article on what it means to be Japanese-American, when the children of the nissei (second generation) are now sansei (third generation) yonsei (fourth) and gosei (fifth)? One becomes more identified as American, culturally at least, considering the drive for assimilation during the years after World War II; and has to recognize the need for instilling cultural education of the hapas (because, if you don’t count the hapas, the idea of “Japanese-American” gets harder to count).

So glad to have finally gotten “Entertainment Weekly” today. EW thought well of “Harold and Kumar” as it transcends stereotypes while still doing the pothead thing. EW also rated the dvd release of the 1st season of… Knight Rider. (oh, geez, there goes the flashbacks of watching mucho Knight Rider and each instance of KITT driving at faster speeds to rescue the day). But, EW was behind on the news on James Bond – so I understood it, Eric Bana is the new Bond (or really close to it). Personally, I still liked Clive Owen, but at least he can go do other projects. Eric Bana is not as chiseled looking, or as famous (“Troy,” “Hulk”), so I guess the folks behind Bond thought that made him a great pick. Plus, a very cute EW interview with Anderson Cooper (EW happily notes that he’s a Celebrity Jeopardy winner who ought to go up against perpetual Jeopardy winner Ken Jennings). Ah…

We had Ron Reagan Jr. speak at the Democratic Convention. Now Democratic Senator Zell Miller (D-Ga) will speak at the Republican Convention. What the hell is going on?

And you know that Barack Obama? His speech got it right.

Still beat after driving 600 miles to and from Rhode Island with P–. This was for a regional convention meeting at Roger Williams Law School. We actually stayed at Johnson & Wales Inn, the student run hotel just over the border somewhere near the MA and CT borders.

The drive up was miserable. It rained, and if you know anything about Interstate 95 in the Northeast, it’s a really lousy road to drive in a rainstorm. Add 4 construction sites and a really bad 5 mile stretch of grooved pavement that looked like a phonograph record and sounded like a needle scratching across it, and you have the ingredients for a bad drive. We got to the hotel at 1:30 in the morning after missing the exit and making a few bad turns.

I have to say I was disappointed at the food. The inn food (we had 2 breakfasts) were pretty good — and they pulled off an excellent Eggs Benedict. The seafood was passable — the clam boil at the school was so-so, and Friday’s fish choices were good but not anything one couldn’t get in New York.

Mansions in Newport were impressive, though. All of the monied families of the late 19th and early 20th century all had luxorious “summer cottages” (“Marble House” cost $11 million in 1928 dollars) on small plots of land (the smallest at least 3 acres).

Coming back, we hit a lot of traffic, and got back 1 hour after we were supposed to, which was bad. After returning the car, we had pretty good sushi.

By the way, the Scion xB is underrated. It looks like a milk truck, but it handles a lot better. It’s roomy on the inside, has front bucket seats that recline almost completely flat for those power naps, and the driver is about 1 foot taller than regular cars. It also gets 35 MPH. The only complaint would be that it should have a few more cup holders.

This past week’s “Doonesbury” and today’s edition (wherein B.D. continues his recovery (if there’s such a thing as “recovery”) in losing his leg) – has been great stuff. B.D.’s young daughter doesn’t quite understand what happened to her dad, the leg and helmet gone. Even B.D. wonders – geez, what did happen to the helmet? 😉

(my previous comments on the B.D. storyline)

I do think that Garry Trudeau has done a nice job showing how B.D.’s progress – or the fact that B.D. is still just trying to deal with it – like today’s instance, where the occupational therapist is running B.D. through a model kitchen to get used to living life again.

Therapist asks: “For example, what if your wife asks you to remove the trash can from under the counter? What’s your strategy?”

B.D.: “I say, ‘You do it. I lost a leg in Iraq.’”

Deadpanned Therapist: “No, I mean bio-mechanically.”

Ok, B.D. needs a little work here. But, he’ll get there.

I don’t like what’s happening to the “Annie” comic strip – and this has been going on the past four years now. Annie back in her 1970’s to 1990’s incarnation under comic strip artist Leonard Starr was fascinating. Starr didn’t have the libertarian/conservative/nationalist bent that Annie’s original creator Harold Gray had, but Starr knew how to craft characters and stories. Annie would wander the country trying to look for Daddy Warbucks; Warbucks would be obviously missing his daughter, but was caught up in protecting her or dealing with his multi-billion company; their poignancy was strikingly apparent.

During the final years of Starr’s work, Annie was trying to catch up on her education and recognizing that her dad has some seriously unresolved love affairs (Angela, who had her naternal feelings for Annie but had to get over her abusive husband, and that Russian spy, who saved Warbucks’ life from hypothermia using her… um… body warmth); Punjab, Warbucks’ sidekick/bodyguard/wise man, was passing the duties to his teenager nephew, Punjee – who was dealing with the burden of those duties (which meant sacrificing a love interest and a mainstream life); and even the Asp, the other bodyguard/wise man, had to deal with the fact that his niece, Stella Han, was a serious villain (putting aside that Han was the stereotyped Asian Dragon Woman, who was hardly attractive and had issues about her uncle). Stuff like that.

The new cartoonists (or at least the writer, a Daily News writer who has new cartoonists working with him every year) aren’t quite as good. Annie hasn’t been her vibrant self in so long – it’s this fake version of her (Annie was a tough but not stupid kid; these days, she’s just… I just don’t get it). Warbucks has been reduced to being a seriously absent dad who’s only goal is to serve the War Against Terrorism. In fact, the writers of the comic strip’s current incarnation are back in the political commentary mode (I mean, please, spare me the not-very-veiled political stance about the terrorism problems; villains say their lines like “We will not be able to hurt the Americans, no thanks to Warbucks. Curses!”). And, while it’s nice that Annie now has an ethnic female role model/guardian, Amelia Santiago (a Cuban-American pilot), I do miss Punjee and other characters. If the Asp and Punjab make any appearances these days, they’re Noble Minority Characters/Warriors, Serving The War Against Terrorism. There’s no mention of recurring characters like Huff, Warbucks’ gruff lookalike bodyguard, who was a softy to Annie underneath his gruff demeanor; Ezra Eon, the genius professor who still talked like a hick; Dermot, the cute young man (who Annie may or may not have had a crush on) who was too busy with the computer programming stuff to get a love life; etc. The absolute crime for a comic strip is to have average or even bad writing. The guys behind the current Annie should actually go back and read the past 20 years of Annie and figure it out. (and one of these days, I’ll write to the Daily News and tell them to do so). “Annie” is missing the richness she used to have.

I’ll stop now. Enjoy the work week.

I mentioned “Dukes of Hazzard” in my Thurs. post; Yahoo has this AP article about the so-called Dukesfest, which celebrated 25 years of the Dukes of Hazzard. Apparently, the cast showed up, except for the actors who played Boss Hogg and Uncle Jesse (both passed away over the years); plus Tom Wopat and John Schneider (the ex- Bo and ex-Luke – the actual “Dukes of Hazzard” – who were reportedly not at this festival “because they were performing elsewhere,” according to the article).

Personally, I think that a true reunion or celebration of the show isn’t quite a celebration without the two stars themselves, and people should at least understand their feelings of not wanting to be more typecasted than they already are as the Dukes. (I read somewhere that Wopat and Schneider have resolved their feelings and actually are proud of their work as the Dukes, especially now that they’re in their middle age and appreciate that those days as the Dukes gave them an income and some fame – but it took years for them to get there – not to mention years of other good acting work; we ought to give them credit for that).

I say, celebrate your favorite shows, but not to extremes (that’s sort of how I feel about the Trekkies/Trekkers, and while I’m fannish about that the Star Trek franchise, I’d like to think that I’m even moderate about my fannishness (no, not a real word, probably, but it’ll do)).

Crazy news in NYC: “Escaped Tiger Ties Up Traffic In Queens.”

Dragon boating time…

NY Times’ website has posted the first of a series of articles on the widening gap between the rural poor and urban rich of China. This first article is incredibly sad: the Times’ Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley report the story of an 18 year old, a grandson of poor Chinese farmers, who apparently committed suicide when he couldn’t afford $80 to pay for a college entrance exam – he is killed when stepping in front of an oncoming railroad train. Kahn and Yardley poignantly note:

If his gruesome death was shocking, the life of this peasant boy… is repeated a millionfold across the Chinese countryside. Peasants…were once the core constituency of the Communist Party. Now, they are being left behind in the money-centered, cutthroat society that has replaced socialist China.

China has the world’s fastest-growing economy but is one of its most unequal societies. The benefits of growth have been bestowed mainly on urban residents and government and party officials. [….]

For the Communist leaders whose main claim to legitimacy is creating prosperity, the skewed distribution of wealth has already begun to alienate the country’s 750 million peasants, historically a bellwether of stability.

The countryside simmers with unrest… The poor demand social, economic and political benefits that the Communist Party has been reluctant to deliver.

To its credit, the Chinese government invigorated the economy and lifted hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty over the past quarter century. Few would argue that Chinese lived better when officials still adhered to a rigid idea of socialist equality.

But in recent years, officials have devoted the nation’s wealth to building urban manufacturing and financial centers, often ignoring peasants. Farmers cannot own the land they work and are often left with nothing when the government seizes their fields for factories or malls. Many cannot afford basic services, like high school.

Not a new thought on my part, but: what irony – the Communists who profess on paper about equality of classes cannot maintain true equality of opportunity in trying to change the way they used to do things. Life is always complicated.

Travel section of the NY Times has this nice article on the doings of visiting NYC these days – in preparation for those visiting Republican conventioneers, I guess (do the Republican conventioneers read the NY Times? Well, I guess the article’s actually for anyone reading the section). (and, yeah, “conventioneer” likely isn’t a real word, but whatever). Times’ writer Randy Kennedy makes a nice point that NYC isn’t exactly conducive for conventions (i.e., the fact that Jacob Javits convention center is in the middle of nowhere on the West Side – at least some blocks away from hotels and subways – they really ought to have extended the crosstown subway over there or else build a decent hotel over there).

(yet another sidenote: Javits’ location makes it a suitable place for the NYS bar exam, I guess. Ah, I still recall how, not very long ago, I left it thinking that I really don’t want to be there to take another bar exam. Relief for not being there since… – must be the trauma).

Kennedy also notes the Staten Island Yankees and their stadium facing the Lower Manhattan skyline are great stuff. Sure, but being the hometown person, I prefer the Cyclones in Coney Island – although, Kennedy makes the excellent point that the Cyclones are usually sold out, so you take your minor league games where you can find them (I had no idea that the SI Yankees weren’t nearly as often sold out as the Cyclones. What does that say about them? [oh, apologies to any Staten Islanders out there – I mean no offense. No, really.]).

At least the ferry ride to SI is free and is a nice ride on a nice day. But, I do recommend going to a Cyclones game – at least, if you know someone who stood on a line at Keyspan Park all morning to get them.

So it goes. Now, don’t be surprised if you find me back later on Sunday; it’s like I can’t stop blogging (yeah, I really ought to get back to those other things that I do)…

NY Times reported on the recent passing of Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize DNA person (who would have preferred to not have been typecasted as the DNA person).

Some final thoughts on the Democratic convention? Well, I’d like to read the upcoming Time magazine issue for any other comments (haven’t gotten to be on Time’s website to see what’s there). But, I do like to refer to Slate.com’s William Saletan blogging on the convention – good stuff. Loved that Saletan thought the same way I did about Kerry and the Hamster story from Alexandra Kerry – that really says something curious about the man (Saletan says its courage; I think it’s about life affirmation or good dad being too good), putting aside what we think about the politician (whether we should accept that story as gospel truth or political spin, I don’t know).

Slate.com’s Dana Stevens, the “surfer girl” (blogging on tv) – had this interesting take on Ted Koppel’s interview of Jon Stewart on “Nightline” the other night. She thought it was about Koppel resenting the erosion of Network News Idealism and that his picking on Stewart was curiously harsh. When I had watched this interview, I didn’t sense that Koppel was that mean-spirited toward Stewart (and yet Stewart tried so hard to be respectful to Koppel). And, even if he was, I kind of got the sense that he just felt confused why people tune in to Comedy Central and its satirical news so much (well, Ted, I personally don’t have cable, so I would tune in to you – sometimes – so don’t feel so bad).

Tavis Smiley on PBS had a great interview with Peter Jennings (or, at least, I thought it was great because I got to see that casual side of Jennings that doesn’t happen too much). Jennings, appeared just as bewildered as Koppel as to why the networks are so turned off by the conventions (he made a point on one of the World News that I managed to catch on Tuesday night that he liked conventions for being opportunities to observe politics at the ground level (my paraphrasing entirely; he said it in a nicer way). But, Jennings seemed hopeful that ABC still carried some weight with its experimental all-news cable and Internet venture for 2004 elections. Whether this works remains to be seen – I read some editorial (I forget where just now) that the news these days covers too much on the trivial by spending hours on trying to cover everything (including those media stories about the media – NY Daily News tv critic David Bianculli and others have referred to this as “journalistic incest” (his words in Thursday’s column, not mine).

Enjoy the weekend.

Wednesday night was John Edwards night in Boston. Thought that Elizabeth Edwards seemed authentic. She’s a bankruptcy lawyer, so it wasn’t like I’d expect her to be a hugely polished speaker, but she was fine. Edwards seemed lessy sparky than I have seen him in previous instances (I do wonder if I’m on a political news binge exhaustion), but he stayed nicely positive in his speech. His “One America” lines echoed (if not parroted) Barak Obama’s speech about “One America.”

If you want more commentary on Edwards’ speech, I do recommend Chris Suellentrop’s article on Slate.com – and I agree with Suellentrop’s assessment – Edwards had poignant moments in his speech (particularly about his family) and the whole positiveness was nice, but the speech was ultimately just okay – not spectacular, but “does the job,” as Suellentrop said.

I liked that ABC’s “Nightline” and PBS captured some coverage of the roll call. I liked how Tavis Smiley on PBS interviewed interesting people (last night, Smiley spoke with the mayor of Detroit, who just happened to be a youngish black man who is yet another ambitious youngish Democrat; the mayor highlighted the young as an electorate – who are not only interested in education and health care, but also becoming entrepenuers and looking for a brighter future). Heck, even Howard Dean seemed interesting on Smiley’s show, talking about stuff other than just about us Dems going to every state in the union and his usual refraining from screeching…

Thursday was The Real Kerry night. Ooh. (cannot comment on the other Thursday night speeches, which I missed; will have to catch up somehow). The stepsons Heinzes and the daughters Kerry were interesting. I liked how Alexandra and Vanessa Kerry told a few stories that humanized their father. Kerry saved the life of the Kerry pet hamster? Well, as Alexandra Kerry noted, her father apparently takes such life affirming things seriously.

And, Kerry himself stayed positive in his speech. If he seemed incredibly idealistic (to the point that I wondered if this was too much to swallow – I mean, I’d still like some more specifics on what he has in mind to be a good president), Kerry at least seemed confident and more enthused than I’ve seen him previously. The pundits seem to think that this is good for the Democrats. I don’t know (I’m not a pundit, not really anyway), but I liked that Kerry seems to be on a roll. He seemed genuine and, well, happy (all that smiling – good grief, did something from Edwards rubbed off on Kerry?). Whether the speech’s substance was that persuasive is another story.

It will be interesting to see the Republican Party response to all the positiveness that the Dems’ have pushed. Not looking forward to the possible congestion in NYC, but I don’t work in midtown, so it’d be regular work days. I’ll be sticking with PBS for wall-to-wall coverage, especially if the networks continue putting on these one-hour a night coverages that they’ve been doing…

(sidenote rant: if Al-Jazeera in the Middle East is showing 12 hours of the American party conventions, why are the American networks doing so much less? Well, yes, I know that they’re doing that because they’re trying to maintain the whole pursuit of ratings, but they’ve got to do better – the networks’ coverage of news events unites a nation – like they did with the Reagan state funeral – or at least gives us some cultural commonality that we can point to – or else they’re making self-fulfilling prophecies that Americans won’t watch the conventions by being the ones not showing the conventions, as Ted Koppel noted on “Nightline” last night; silly me actually expects the networks to not be businesses and be idealistic in pursuing journalism – then again, the conventions are scripted but then again – even the scripted stuff says something about us as a people…).

Ok, take a breath now. Rant over.

Is it already football season? Good grief, the Giants and the Jets are at it in their respective summer camps. Umm, baseball season isn’t over, last I checked. But, cute moment on the sports segment on the local news – Chad Pennington, the Jets quarterback, discussed what favorite item he brought with him to summer camp – his dvd’s of the 1st season of… Dukes of Hazzard? Funny, Chad. Very funny. 😉 (umm, then again, I’m the one who still sees Tom Wopat and John Schneider as Luke and Bo Duke)…

Summery weather in NYC. Enjoy…

If Day 1 was about Democratic Party past, then yesterday – Day 2 – was the bridge from the past to the future. Some commentary on my part, which may not mean very much:

Ted Kennedy started the night off; yeah, he’s the Democrat of the Democratic party, but he was kind of boring (confession: I actually slept through a huge chunk of the Kennedy speech; forgive me).

Howard Dean was interesting, until he started talking about John Kerry – that got boring. And, what’s the deal about naming every state in the union? (“And we’ll go to Utah, Arizona, and Texas…” – Dean avoided screaming though) – as if people don’t know the names of states (roll call at least used to be interesing – you get all those state nicknames and weird state pride – regrettably, we won’t have that on tv anymore).

Barack Obama, the state senator from Illinois who’s the candidate for US Senator from that state – he was really good to watch. ABC News had a profile of him, which was good (so did Time magazine). He’s an Ivy Leaguer; went to Harvard Law School; 1st black editor of law review; rejected big firms for civil rights work. Obama spoke about a united America, hope, and that’s it’s ok to be a liberal (or progressive or whatever term you want to use; it’s all ok, as long as you keep your perspective on that one America idea). Obama was, in a word, good. All the pundits said it was like we were watching the Democratic party’s future. The crowd in Boston was certainly jumping. But, I still felt one flaw: Obama got a little dull talking about Kerry. Just a little. Maybe it’s my fatigue of hearing over and over how Kerry went to the Vietnam War and will do everything to give us all health care and good stuff like that. Otherwise, I loved Obama’s background story, ambition, and vision.

Frankly, I’d prefer hearing about Kerry from people who knew/know Kerry and doing it with nuance. Bill Clinton did it great (paraphrase: “Pres. Bush, Vice Pres. Cheney and I – we didn’t go to war; Kerry did…”). The Time magazine coverage of how Kerry thinks and what his friends and enemies say about him – great. Listening to campaigning speakers drone on about how good Kerry is (without getting specific on what he’ll really do) – not so great.

I felt squeamish watching Ron Reagan; he was a good speaker – but he was there only for his topic of stem cell research. It felt too obvious that he and the Democratic Party were using each other, a point Reagan himself made in an interview on NBC.

I was looking forward to hearing Teresa Heinz Kerry – she was ok. Not spectacular, but ok. She’s not a professional speaker, but she had ideas, stories, and sense. Pundits would say she should have been more personal in talking about Kerry. But, I’d say there are just some things that should remain personal; Heinz Kerry tried to be balanced. Was she successful at that? Well, that remains to be seen. But, I like her comments that it doesn’t make sense that a woman who speaks her mind (right or wrong) is considered “opinionated” (or less polite words) whereas a man who speaks his mind isn’t slighted in a similar manner. She’s no Laura Bush, she’s no Hilary Clinton either. She’s just Teresa (the liberal Republican who became a Democratic not very long ago)…

Today’s Day 3 – umm. Well, it’s supposed to be John Edwards at the 10pm time slot. We’ll see how that goes.

NY1.com has a One-on-One interview with Councilman John Liu (dated July 26, 2004). Interesting stuff.

The news in NYC is still about getting people (the everyday folks anyway) ready to avoid midtown during the Republican convention; doesn’t that contradict the idea of using the convention as an economic boost? If it’s just the convention folks and the protesters, then what about the rest of us in NYC getting a chance at seeing what this is about? Oh well.

Back to tv…