Greetings from New York. Here are a few of the weekly news items in town and for the surround areas during a week with roller coaster weather. Highlights of the week included a Dog Show, a Toy Story and it was also Fashion Week. The thing to do before February ends is get yourself to Sotheby's and see the world's most amazing model train collection.
For a fun story about the good old days and an example of "The more news media changes, the more it stays the same, check Flashback: Headlines From Different Times. Or perhaps The “watery slush” of Washington Square was more fitting for this week.
The number one fun NYC story of the week had to be Get Out Of My Way You Jerk! It wasn't easy to get New Yorkers to stop long enough to talk but The Wall Street Journal gauged the rage and also compared the waking speeds of men, women and tourist. It looked like a follow up to the joker who drew dividing lines on Times Square side walks, one lane for tourist and another for New Yorkers. Loads of fun, that is unless you take the story too seriously.
Meanwhile there was some moving thoughts in the Sunday opinion section of The Daily News “Make Way For Bikes!” Add in the Con Ed settlement story Grants helping create green footprint in western Queens following 2006 blackout and it looks like there is more than St. Paddy’s Day to look forward to when it comes to going green in NYC.
For the week in NYC and beyond, in the news and on the blogs, look below for more progressive news and government reviews.
On Sunday there was some statewide progressive news in these Times. New York Takes Step on Money in Judicial Elections was a story about New York’s top court officials barring the state’s hundreds of elected judges from hearing cases involving lawyers and others who make significant contributions to their campaigns. That should level things out a bit.
Charles Darwin does very well on the New York stage, his out of town tryouts, not so hot. In A Nationwide Day for Honoring Charles Darwin, but Handled With Caution there was just a little hope for promoting science in America.
Sunday was a day for the dogs. As the Hotel Pennsylvania gets it “Five Paw Rating” and the city was getting ready for The Westminster Kennel Club Show, the Sunday Times offered Who Are You Calling Ugly?
In The Daily News, Adam Lisberg wrote First look at hubby's name on 9/11 memorial hits hard as workers begin installing bronze panels. A bittersweet story of the progress at Ground Zero. There are photos that show workers installing the first of 152 bronze panels at the 9/11 memorial.
In Sunday’s New York Times Suspect in Four Killings is Captured in Subway actually made the National page. A harrowing story of a subway ride between Pen Station And Times Square. There was much focus on several sad funerals through the week.
Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks had a bad day in the New York Post but what self respecting Democrat reads the New York Post? And wrapping up the Sunday funnies there was 'Valenswine's Day': When pigs romance mistresses.
On Monday the lead off Valentine's Day story in Metropolitan Diarywas great.
A visitor in the city with a guitar and suitcase, I boarded the M60 bus at 125th Street. “How much to the last stop?” I asked. The driver didn’t answer. I asked again. He finally said, “Two-twenty-five.”
I reached for two dollars from my wallet and he said, “No paper, only coins.”
Anoxia. Embarrassment. “I don’t have that much change; should I get off?”
He drove away as panic set in. After what seemed an eternity, he motioned with his eyes and said, “Just go on back.”
As I exited, I wanted to thank the driver, but before I could speak, he said: “I got a deal for you. Play me $2.25 worth of guitar and we’ll call it even.”
I played a verse from a song I wrote called “I’m Not Strange, I’m Just Like You.” He smiled a big grin. I improvised a second verse about a bus driver in New York City who let me ride, this once, free. He loved it! He told me I made his day; I told him he made mine. Real New York is better than fiction.
Keith Sykes
New Yorkers were showing the love for Kirsten Gillibrand on Valentine's Day. A new Siena poll finds Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is enjoying her highest approval rating since first being elected to the U.S. Senate. 57% of New Yorkers approve of her job compared to a mere 18% who disapprove. 52% say that they are going to support her re-election efforts in 2012 while only 29% would 'prefer someone else.
Also on Valentine’s Day the president was showing the NYC love. According to WNYC Barack Obama gave Mayor Bloomberg a call on the phone for a heads up on coming drastic cuts to community programs and city education. The New York Times covered the budgetwith a handy interactive graph, Labor employment and training (mandatory) downn 51% from 2010 spending.
Morley Safer was in the news for showing no love at all. Internal emails from Century Association in Manhattan were uncovered and pegged him for some really nasty misogyny and homophobia. Just an odd Valentine's Day story about a nasty old man that probably didn't play well on West 57th Street.
Have you ever heard of the Ethics Bowl? This high school story out of Bethpage, Long Island is inspirational. The ethics contest is the only high school level competition in the New York area.
Part philosophy slam, part debate team competition, part mock town hall meeting on Our Troubled Youth, the ethics bowl encourages contestants — about five members on each of two teams in each round — to listen to the opposing team’s arguments and integrate them into their own.
The Jeopardy Show visited the IBM campus at nearby Yorktown Hts. The PBS series Nova did a promo episode that explained the importance of self learning computers. CBS offered "Jeopardy!"'s Man vs. Machine Match Not Trivial while I was wondering if anyone remembers SkyNet. No but seriously "machine topped man" and Watson took all.
On Tuesday Christine Quinn, probably the next mayor of NYC, delivered the State of the City address. “New Commitments and innovative proposals” included genuine actions and cutting red tape for affordable housing, small business and even parking tickets. New ideas too!
In an effort to pay down the city's ballooning debt, Quinn proposed that the city pay for some of its capital budget up front. She contrasted the idea with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to cut capital spending by 20%, which she said she "simply cannot support" given the jobs the city would have to shed. Her call for pension reform was more in line with the mayor's position, though she exhorted both Bloomberg and labor leaders to work together on the issue.
Yes austerity measures on city pensions was mentioned. The $700 million less for education from the federal government got no mention but the even deeper cuts from Albany did and unfortunately, like most of this nation budget challenges are about civil service workers. But it was mostly a positive message for a hopeful and bright future.
Must have been a whole lot of Yankee fans in the audience because the biggest round of applause came when Christine Quinn announced that NYC had become the number two tech leader in the nation, knocking Boston out of the box. Too bad they were not as interested on election day when the Yankees could have made the biggest score;
New York City educators spent the day after Valentine's Day up in Albany and nobody was showing the love. As the The Commercial War on Teacher Layoffs continues with Andrew's Cuomo calling for 1.5 billion dollar reduction in educationspending in the news, NYC Schools Chancellor Cathie Black went up to Albany to testify. NY1 did a short video.
For WNYC and The Huffington Post Cathie Black's testimony was about unfair budget cuts. For The Daily News it was about 'last in, first out' teacher firing laws. Who do you trust? well with the Daily News making the second biggest education story of the week teachers complaining about small portionsand promoting Michael Mulgrew as evil it sure isn't Mort Zuckerman.
Costly snow removal took the rap in Tuesday’s grim news from Middletown, N.J. but the real issue seems to be the “new 2 percent statewide cap on raising property taxes.” Quality of Life programs are being pushed aside in the New York City suburb. Children take the biggest hit as they lose after school arts education programs and group trips to Broadway shows.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman did a radio interview after NY Joins Suit over Nuclear Waste Storage.
“I am committed to forcing the feds to take the hardest look possible at the risks of long-term, on-site storage, before they allow our communities to become blighted and our families, properties, and businesses threatened by radioactive waste dumps for generations to come,” Schneiderman said.
Wednesday kicked off in The New York Times with Andrew Cuomo “Going to the mattresses against Eric Schneiderman.
Buried in the governor’s new budget are provisions that would grant the executive branch sweeping new powers to investigate Wall Street banks, hedge funds and insurance companies, alarming some industry officials and raising the prospect of a major clash with his successor as attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, and local prosecutors over high-profile securities and investment cases.
Cuomo who is also working for a real estate tax cap and is enjoying record setting approval ratings probably doesn’t like a liberal Eric Schneiderman having a say in regulating the Wall Street fat cats. No wonder he keeping “70 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of conservatives” happy. With that cap on real estate tax he keeps pushing, he sounds like he is shooting for a government he can drown in a bathtub.
I'm still angry about Cuomo blackmailing the Working Families Party but he's not all bad. Campaign promises kept, Cuomo Redistricting Bill Limits Lawmakers’ Role. Well if there is enough pressure on Republicans in the State Senate the promise might be kept.
A former New Yorker was in the news. From his cozy North Carolina diggs Bernie Madoff gave an exclusive interview to The New York Times. The title tells the story From Prison, Madoff Says Banks ‘Had to Know’ of Fraud. Later, in what had to be the television interview of the month Matt Taibbi went on MSNBC to discuss his Rolling Stone piece Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? about more that just banks in the know. The bankers knew, the regulators knew, everyone knew except retail investors and nobody gets punished so it can happen all over again. Best quote was about the regulators.
They are all the equivalent of a college basketball players waiting for their NBA deal.
What does $659 Million in NYU Student Debt Look Like? On Wednesday students went out on the streets and gathered wearing their debt in Washington Square Park. Justin Krebs, community activist and the founder of Living Liberally wrote about the event, On the WNYC blog "It's A Free Country" you can read his How Student Debt Is Crippling Our Future.
It might not have resembled the squares of Egypt - or even the streets of Madison, Wisconsin where protestors rally against the governor's threat to call the National Guard against workers. But if organizers are successful, this will just be the first of many campus demonstrations to raise an important issue: that we're bankrupting our next generation even as we're "investing" in them.
Also on Wednesday, Propublicia was back to exposing the horrors of hyrdofracking. The PBS show "Need to Know" explored the story on Friday, Fracking may violate Safe Drinking Water Act, report says. Next up for New York City drinking water, Benzine! Or perhaps, since there is no way to know fro sure, it is already seeping into the reservoirs.
Thursday was a big day in the Big Apple. Besides being the first dat that the temperature broke 50 since December first and the one month countdown to St. Patrick's Day beginning, it was Mike Bloomberg's big day. Fresh off his Social Security is a Ponzi scheme quote hizzhonor delivered the City budget.
Nobody cared. Everybody just thought, Where did Madoff get the idea? A cynic would say Social Security, [though] I would never say that. But it's exactly the same thing, isn't it? I also think people should have asked why he could outperform like that. There's no free lunch.
Word on the street was that Bloomberg would be all about Wisconsin Cheddar for New York City school teachers and he went there;
The Mayor is really wrong to even talk about dumping 6000 teachers and 21 Fire Houses and even if McSorley's is will to forgive and forget on their 187th birthday, he
deserves to be called an idiot for his for Irish Drinking Comment.
The budget led to one of the oddest stories of the week, Penalty for New York City Principals Who Save. So why save?
But Bloomberg actually sounds like he is on the left in these times. The Republicans constantly controlling the debate must be wearing off on me because this year Bloomberg sounded like a level headed and far more humble businessman trying to make ends meet. Plus it has been his style to go overboard in cuts followed by finding answers in these hard times inflicted by the fed and the state. The Brian Lehrer Show gave good coverage of the preliminary budget from both sides.
Things are looking up in nearby Connecticut. Not only is the new Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy talking about raising taxes instead of screwing workers, he also wants the state to start toking up for a nominal fee. On top of that Greenpeace got active there recently, Shut it down, Quit Coal!
Apparently police dispatch is rocket science, City hopes NASA department can fix lousy emergency 911 system.
Friday, 61° on Friday! MSNBC did a photo spread on this year's Running of the Brides. Formerly a Boston event, this year there was a little Broadway Mamma Mia! of course in the NYC coming of spring event.
The New York Daily News did a follow up to their big education scoop UFT rep Paul Egan says Albany restaurant flap was NOT about portion size. that tabloid has gotten almost as stupid as The New York Post.
Murdoch's Rag went with Hank Cuff! for the Friday front page. For real coverage on Hank Morris, try Hevesi Adviser Is Sentenced in Pension Scandal. With the big scoop at the Post being "Fourth Grader Suspended Over 'Kick Me' Sign Prank." Good Morning America took a more appropriate look at the issue.
The Wall Street Journal had a fun little Madison Avenue story for Friday, The Funny People Behind the Famous Ads. That E*Trade baby is older than I thought.
The New York Times lightened the weekend load with Field of Reason and Skill, Lawyers Woo Luck With Ritual. A story about superstition, sort of like baseball players in suites.
In the Art Section, Shakespeare is making a comeback this spring. In these suspicious times where's Othello when we need him?
All those NYC commercials to stop gambling in the Catskills can end now.The federal government rejected David Paterson's last minute deal with a Wisconsin tribe to build an Indian casino in the Catskills on Friday .
Today Saturday, cold and windy here again. I was up early. Got the eastern view where the Sunrise in the Bronx today was at 6:45;
And the western view where the moon was setting over the Hudson;
But I missed the news. Want to fill in the blanks?
Park and discuss any New York City stories you want here. Park any story you want.