8 March 2006 >> My apartment and another in my building were broken into on Monday. The theft was relatively minor, but the experience afterwards reminded me what fine people work for the police department in New York City. To all of you unsung heroes, thank you.

22 December 2005 @ 3:52PM >> The three-day New York City transit strike is over and the Transport Workers Union has agreed to go back to the bargaining table.

When the contract talks are through, Metropolitan Transportation Authority should immediately begin investigating upgrading the subway system to replace all train drivers with automated systems. A number of other cities have proven such systems workable, and there’s no reason why the largest subway system in the world should be vulnerable to another shutdown by an egomaniacal union boss. The taxpayers of New York should not be expected to underwrite the salaries of people whose jobs can be done more cheaply, efficiently and without complaint by machines. We are already the most heavily-taxed citizenry in the country.

If the TWU rank-and-file has any wisdom, they’d replace Roger Toussaint as their president. In his press conferences, Toussaint spent most of his time whining about not getting enough respect from the MTA, yet he showed New Yorkers about as much respect as a dog does to a fire hydrant. And in a few short days, he made himself the most hated man in New York City and managed to turn this liberal city into an anti-union town.

I’m sure there are many decent, responsible members of the TWU who disagreed with his tactics and were embarrassed by his antics. They need to make their voices heard, or the damage to their union will be irreparable. This ill will won’t dissipate soon.

20 December 2005 >> For the first time since 1980, the New York City public transit system is completely shut down due to a strike. Transport Workers Union head Roger Toussaint made the announcement shortly after 3:00AM local time. In addition, many commuter railroads shuttling passengers in from the suburbs may be shut down, as sympathetic union workers refuse to cross picket lines.

I moved to New York in late 1979, a few months before the last transit strike occurred. Because most New York City residents don’t have cars, the preferred method of transportation for strike-stranded city-dwellers was walking. Each weekday, my father picked me up from school on 77th Street and York Avenue and we walked to his office in Times Square, a distance of 3 1/2 miles. We then walked the same distance back home at night. Perhaps that laid the foundation for my love of New York City, the perfect city for walking.

The 1980 strike lasted 11 days, and although it was a major inconvenience, at least it occurred during the spring. New York is in the dead of winter now, 24 degrees Fahrenheit as I type. Walking to work in this weather will not be nearly as kind, and it won’t be possible at all for many. I’m just thankful that my commute to work doesn’t require me to leave the apartment. Most people don’t have it so easy.

This strike has the potential to do far more damage to the city, both economically and psychologically. If it lasts as long as the previous one, many families—possibly including mine—will be separated for Christmas. Businesses depending on last-minute shoppers for year-end profitability will be devastated. New Year’s Eve plans will be scuttled. People unable to get to work will lose out on income, and those who have no choice but to show up will be forced to use taxis—if they can find one—and may be hours late to work. (There are approximately 10,000 taxis in NYC, and not all of them are on duty at any given time. The NYC subway system transports 7.5 million riders a day. Do the math!) And those lucky enough to find a cab will also find themselves quite a bit poorer after spending what could be $50 a day or more just to commute.

So, we should all give a big Christmas thank you to the Transport Workers Union, who in calling the strike, have become the Grinches for many New Yorkers. We should also reassess the wisdom of allowing our governments and transportation systems to be held hostage by unions.

I do not understand why unions aren’t considered illegal cartels. If I wanted to become a subway train driver, I could not do so without first joining the union, whether I wanted to pay the union dues or not. What’s the difference between that and being forced to pay protection money to the mafia? In either case, the mob or the union “protects” me (or my job), whether I want the protection or not.

Similarly, if a group of merchants got together to decide that they’re going to sell gasoline at $10 a gallon, it would be considered illegal collusion, and the merchants would be prosecuted. So why can individuals band together to fix prices for labor? They are in effect merchants of their work, and they’re colluding, via the union, to subvert the free market and set artificially high prices for what they are selling. And they are now effectively extorting the entire City of New York in order to ensure the perpetuation of their monopoly on the transit labor market.

It’s too bad that neither Mayor Bloomberg nor Governor Pataki have the power or the backbone to do what President Reagan did when PATCO—the (former) air traffic controllers union—went on strike. If the transit workers don’t want to show up and drive the trains, then the MTA should be free to hire people who do.

28 October 2005 @ 3:49PM >> Last night, my girlfriend Jill took me on a terrific dinner cruise around Manhattan for my birthday. After a tasty butternut squash soup, a garlic-topped filet mignon, sufficient quantities of Syrah and Cabernet, and an embarrassing attempt at dancing, we stepped off the boat at Pier 81 and clutched our winter coats on what was one of the first certifiably cold evenings of the season.

We noticed almost immediately a strangely strong syrupy smell. The smell was so pervasive that it seemed like it must have been on our clothes, and the fact that we noticed it right after visiting the coat check made me think there was some sort of waffle mishap in the nearby kitchen. The smell followed us around for several blocks as we walked, and while we couldn’t locate the source, its strength made it unlikely that it was more than a few inches from our respective noses.

By the time we returned home, it had dissipated somewhat, but we were perplexed that we never figured out the source. I’m a pretty clumsy eater, and on more than one occasion, I’ve left breakfast with a dollop of syrup clinging somewhere to my clothing. I know that smell. This was far beyond that, as if I’d laundered my clothes with Aunt Jemima instead of Tide.

Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who noticed that smell. This morning, I saw a headline on Drudge Report that said, “Strong, sweet smell reported in Manhattan.” The link brought me to this AP report:

Residents from the southern tip of Manhattan to the Upper West Side nearly 10 miles north called a city hot line to report a strong odor Thursday night that most compared to maple syrup, The New York Times reported Friday.

There were so many calls that the city’s Office of Emergency Management coordinated efforts with the Police and Fire Departments, the Coast Guard and the City Department of Environmental Protection to find the source of the mysterious smell.

[...]

“It’s like maple syrup. With Eggos (waffles). Or pancakes,” Arturo Padilla told The Times as he walked in Lower Manhattan. “It’s pleasant.”

New York City’s cable news channel NY1 has also been reporting the story, but the mystery remains. So what was that sweet smell? If anybody knows, they’re not saying. But one interesting theory is that it’s a test of how fumes disperse in the city. If that’s the case, then I hope it’s our government conducting the test, and it’s not a dry run for something more sinister.

26 September 2005 >> The International Freedom Center, the controversial Ground Zero memorial, has a powerful new foe: Senator Hillary Clinton. The New York Post reported this weekend:

“I cannot support the IFC,” Clinton declared last night in a strongly worded statement in response to an inquiry from The Post.

Her tough comments are Clinton’s first significant remarks about the controversy raging at Ground Zero over the Freedom Center, which 9/11 families and other critics fear will become a center of anti-Americanism.

“While I want to ensure that development and rebuilding in lower Manhattan move forward expeditiously, I am troubled by the serious concerns family members and first responders have expressed to me,” Clinton said.

“The LMDC [Lower Manhattan Development Corp.] has authority over the site and I do not believe we can move forward until it heeds and addresses their concerns.”

In the face of obscene political correctness, Senator Clinton is demonstrating a levelheadedness that is all too rare from Democrats these days. If more Democratic politicians took regular stands like this, they’d probably enjoy much more success at the ballot box. Of course, the triangulating Clintons understand this too, which may or may not be the sole reason Hillary adopted this position. Either way, she deserves credit if her opposition helps prevent the International Freedom Center from defiling the graveyards of so many people.

Update: Governor George Pataki finally pulls the plug. The IFC is dead. Finished. It won’t be disgracing Ground Zero. Special thanks should go to Debra Burlingame, whose tireless efforts pushed this issue onto the radar screen of New York’s politicians.

22 September 2005 >> The Air America financial scandal claimed its first victim, the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club, a Bronx charity from which some $875,000 was apparently pilfered in order to finance the upstart left-wing radio network:

The national board of the Boys & Girls Clubs voted to yank Gloria Wise’s charter, barring them from using the much-heralded organization’s symbols and fund-raising clout because of a breach of ethical standards and failing to file audits.

Evan McElroy, a spokesman for the national organization, said officers at Gloria Wise had ignored repeated requests to file annual financial reports. “We gave them plenty of chances,” he said.

“Our clubs are run according to ethical business practices that were, in the view of our board, breached,” McElroy said of the Gloria Wise club based in Co-op City.

City investigators yanked more than $10 million of public contracts from Gloria Wise in June after revealing a probe of the club’s finances, including the bizarre transfer of nearly $1 million to the left-wing radio station.

Meanwhile, with its supply of financing from inner-city youth cut off, Air America has taken to begging listeners for contributions. Apparently, advertisers aren’t willing to pay much for dismal ratings.

The moral of the story? Liberal radio can’t survive without the money of American taxpayers.

23 August 2005 @ 10:11AM >> The International Freedom Center, the entity that started out at a September 11th memorial at Ground Zero, has for some time looked in danger of becoming an America-bashing museum. The New York Daily News reports the latest:

“Don’t feature America first,” the IFC has been advised by the consortium of 14 “museums of conscience” that quietly has been consulting with the Freedom Center for the past two years over plans for the hallowed site. “Think internationally, where America is one of the many nations of the world.”

[...]

Located in nine countries on five continents, the coalition museums chronicle apartheid in South Africa, slavery in Senegal, torture in Argentina, racism in the South and internment of Japanese-Americans in California, along with other historical horrors.

“No one in the civilized world would ever defend what happened on 9/11,” said Sarwar Ali, the coalition’s chairman and a trustee of the Liberation War Museum in Bangladesh.

“But what happened after 9/11 - with restrictions placed on human rights and the cycle of revenge and the allegations of human rights abuses in prisons - must also be explored,” Ali said in a call from London.

Coalition members gathered for their annual conference at a Holocaust site in the Czech Republic in July 2004 - and assailed the United States for “reasserting its power in an arrogant way,” the conference report shows.

[...]

At the conference, the coalition also leveled barbs at the IFC: “The Freedom Center is a caricature of the typical American response to everything [telling every story from an American viewpoint].”

September 11th was an attack on the United States. If this story isn’t told from an American viewpoint, whose viewpoint should we choose? That of the attackers?

The International Freedom Center was an ill-conceived idea to begin with. It should be scrapped altogether and replaced with a simple September 11th Memorial that can’t be politicized.

7 August 2005 @ 12:12PM >> The New York Post is reporting that New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is now investigating why Air America ended up with $875,000 in “loans” from a from a charity for underprivileged youth that was “almost entirely funded by government contracts and grants”:

“We are looking into it in consultation with the city’s Department of Investigation,” Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp revealed.

The highly unusual loans to the left-wing radio network were made by the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club — which was visited by one of Spitzer’s investigators yesterday, officials said.

Until its downfall, Gloria Wise and an associated agency, Pathways for Youth, had grown into one of the largest social-service providers in The Bronx with an annual budget of $10 million.

[...]

All of its city contracts were yanked once the loan to Air America was uncovered.

Gloria Wise is now struggling to stay afloat with a reduced schedule of programs.

4 August 2005 @ 6:45PM >> Over a week ago, I noted that liberal radio network Air America was under investigation. It looks like Air America was on the receiving end of potentially several hundred thousand dollars taken out of a charity for underprivileged children. Just the sort of thing you’d expect, say, The New York Times to cover, right? After all, the Times gave lots of ink—also known as free publicity—to the network when it was in its infancy. The paper even plugged a possible Senate candidacy for former funnyman Al Franken, the flagship host on Air America. Considering that the scandal centers on the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club in the Bronx—right in the backyard of Times-land—it seems tailor made for coverage in the nation’s self-proclaimed “newspaper of record.”

But, of course, the establishment media these days is so predictable in how bias shows itself that we all know the Times hasn’t covered the story, and probably won’t unless and until there’s a tidbit of information that casts Air America in a good light.

Michelle Malkin, who has been covering this story extensively, is keeping score in her latest update:

Number of NY Times articles mentioning Air America since March 2004: 59

Number of NY Times articles mentioning the Air Enron scandal: 0

Meanwhile, John Hinderaker of PowerLine takes note of what the Times is covering these days:

In today’s paper, for example, the Times covers a much more boring controversy in which Westchester County’s District Attorney is being pressed to reimburse the county for the expense of after-hours security. The story is a yawner. The DA has a legitimate argument that she needs 24-hour security because of her job; there are no falsified reports or conflicting stories; no one is stealing money from poor children or Alzheimer’s victims; and no one is funding a controversial political and commercial enterprise. Yet the Times finds the story newsworthy, while ignoring Air Enron, which is also taking place in its own back yard. Why? Well, maybe because it’s because the Westchester DA is a Republican, Jeanine Pirro, who is interested in higher office. Or maybe it’s because no hard work—like actually carrying out an investigation—was necessary; all the Times had to do was quote Democratic Party spokesmen.

Or maybe both.

The Times is getting criticized because this is the sort of story that they should be covering, and most certainly would if the hosts on Air America had political views that occupied the other side of the political spectrum.

Investor’s Business Daily argues:

[M]oney intended for poor minority children and Alzheimer’s victims was instead used to make sure the financially tanking and ratings-troubled Air America could keep blathering.

Public funds used to prop up a business! Just the kind of scandal that left-leaning media would die for. Yet for some reason they’re giving this one a pass.

Is it because there are no mean ol’ conservatives to blame?

When [Rush] Limbaugh’s problems with painkillers came to light, the mainstream media could hardly contain themselves. They called him a “pill popper” and hypocrite and cheered for release of his medical records. And when he returned to the air, they couldn’t talk enough about his stay in rehab.

Al Franken, Air America’s featured host, seized the moment and labeled Limbaugh a “drug addict” — after calling him a “Big Fat Idiot” in the title of his book years before.

Nothing wrong, mind you, with reporting on Limbaugh’s woes. Nothing, that is, as long as the media cover flaws of those on the left with equal enthusiasm.

On an increasingly frequent basis, the establishment media unwittingly reveals itself as a champion of a particular ideology, not the dispassionate conveyor of information that they claim to be. At the same time, TV news networks and major newspapers continue to lose audience. Part of that is due to the fact that the Internet has made their distribution channels redundant. Another reason might be that their product has become boring. These days, it is quite easy to predict what stories the Times will report and what spin their coverage will contain. If I can predict what I’ll read in tomorrow’s Times long before the printing presses finish their daily run, why bother paying for the paper?

28 July 2005 @ 12:11PM >> Political correctness requires that we pretend a Swedish girl is just as likely to set off a bomb in the subway as some guy whose name includes the word Jihad. In that spirit, New York City recently began random bag searches in subway stations. But searching bags isn’t the only way in which governments can employ randomness for the benefit of all. The People’s Cube explains.

27 July 2005 @ 4:04PM >> According to this report, the New York City Department of Investigation is looking into the claims that hundreds of thousands of dollars were diverted from a Bronx-based Boys & Girls Club and put into the coffers of the liberal radio network Air America.

8 July 2005 @ 2:42PM >> There’s a real war going on out there, and the enemy isn’t each other. If we can just stop assuming we’re the problem, we might actually stand a chance of victory. But if we waste time navel-gazing in a world that contains wealthy terrorists and starving nuclear powers, we will ultimately be killed in our own streets in a way that’ll make September 11th look like a verbal reprimand. And if you don’t think that’s a possibility, then you really don’t know the enemy. More >>

6 July 2005 @ 2:18PM >> London edges out Paris for the 2012 Olympics. This apparently came as a shock to the French:

Paris had been the front-runner throughout the campaign, but London picked up momentum in the late stages with strong support from Prime Minister Tony Blair.

One blogger, noting that two of the Olympic Committee voters were Finnish, speculates that outrage over the French President’s recent comments may have tipped the scales away from Paris towards London. Right before the Olympic Committee voting took place, Jacques Chirac offended both the British and the Finns by declaring their food terrible and that their poor culinary skills were grounds to distrust them as people.

As a New Yorker, I must say I’m relieved that the Olympics won’t be coming to my home town. To me, the Olympics seems like an endless parade of fringe sports that nobody cares about until the hype machine kicks into high gear every few years. Then all of a sudden, we’re obsessed for a few weeks with various sports so contrived that they could only have been invented by people trying—and failing—to prove that all the good sports hadn’t yet been created. But don’t listen to me, I’m just an old grouch trapped in a young person’s body who is happy that years of Olympic construction won’t be tying up traffic in a city already known as the gridlock capital of the world.

21 June 2005 @ 8:19AM >> The New York Post reports that the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero—which was at some point renamed the “International Freedom Center”—is morphing into “multimillion-dollar bash-America palace.”

The fireworks started earlier this month when Debra Burlingame, a sister of the pilot of one of the hijacked 9/11 planes, wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “Ground Zero has been stolen right from under our noses.”

Burlingame, a director of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, specifically charged that [International Freedom Center president Richard] Tofel and others are planning to host exhibits at Ground Zero devoted to such wholly off-topic issues as the alleged “genocide” of Americans Indians, the fight against slavery, the Holocaust and the Soviet Gulag.

Worthy subjects for study, each and every one — but not at Ground Zero.

Tofel, for his part, insists that the controversy is all about nothing.

But when Cavuto asked, specifically, whether the museum would feature “atrocities Americans have committed,” Tofel repeatedly refused a direct answer.

“Atrocities is such a loaded word,” he stammered, the weasel.

[...]

“The International Freedom Center will host debates and note points of view with which you — and I — will disagree,” Tofel wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

Debates?

Like, whether America is sufficiently sensitive to other cultures?

Whether Muslims — and non-Americans generally — need to protect themselves from U.S. “hegemony”?

How did this happen? The Post notes some of the more ideologically-driven people steering the project:

Tom Bernstein, an IFC founder, and Michael Posner, an advisor, also run the George Soros-funded Human Rights First, a bash-America forum of the first order. If you doubt it, visit the Web site: humanrightsfirst.org.

Board member Anthony Romero of the ACLU (aclu.org) reportedly wants exhibits on what he believes have been post-9/11 “curbs to civil liberties.”

Stephen Heintz, the board’s secretary, is with the Rockefeller Bros. Fund (rbf.org), which at present is concerned with what it terms the “pressing need to examine the content, style and tone of U.S. global engagement and to ensure that they reflect an understanding of the reality and implications of increasing global interdependence.” (Translation: Blame America First.)

Eric Foner, a Columbia University professor who, three weeks after 9/11, said he wasn’t sure which was more frightening, the attack or the White House’s response, is another adviser.

If the project proceeds, it wouldn’t be the first time such a memorial was taken over by the forces of political correctness, the Post says:

Ten years ago, the Smithsonian Institution proposed a seemingly benign plan to commemorate the 50th anniversary of end of World War II in the Pacific.

The undertaking swiftly morphed into a naked attack on American war motives, tactics and strategy that highlighted Japanese suffering and totally ignored the fact that Tokyo started the conflict.

That happens these days when academics are left to their own devices.

These developments inspired Debra Burlingame, the sister of the pilot whose hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon on September 11th, to set up a “Take Back the Memorial” petition.

23 April 2005 >> If Michael Bloomberg fails to get re-elected as New York City’s mayor, he can always apply for a job as a zoo keeper.

14 April 2005 >> Some kind, compassionate, tolerant, pacifist New York liberal(s)* have recently taken to posting George W. Bush shooting targets—complete with simulated bullet holes penetrating various parts of the body—around town. This picture was taken on the west side of Second Avenue, between 72nd and 73rd Streets.

Despite the cartoonish look, it is a bit eerie that these posters, which implicitly advocate the assassination of a sitting U.S. president, could remain unmolested in the nation’s largest city for days on end. (No, I won’t be taking it down, since it stands as a graphic monument to the mentality of today’s left.)

PowerLine and Michelle Malkin have recently noticed similar examples. One has to wonder whether we’re seeing a modern fascist movement being born before our very eyes.

* Yes, I am making some assumptions here. Since I don’t actually know who’s been posting these, perhaps it is a bit unfair to be blaming liberals. Still, given the prevailing political views of New York City residents, combined with my extensive first-hand experience witnessing liberals advocating violence, I feel fairly comfortable making this assertion.

7 April 2005 >> In exchange for an early look at Columbia University’s report absolving itself of charges of bias in the classroom, The New York Times agreed not to speak with any of the students who lodged the complaints:

With a highly sensitive report coming out about allegations of misconduct by anti-Israel professors, Columbia University officials turned to the news organization they trusted most to handle the delicate subject: the New York Times.

Representatives of the two institutions then struck a deal: Columbia would grant the Times exclusive early access to the report if the Times agreed that its reporter wouldn’t seek comment on the report from interested parties, or do additional reporting until the next day when the report was made public. As it happened, the newspaper, with Columbia’s permission, did seek comment from a faculty member whose conduct was criticized in the report, Joseph Massad, but it kept its promise not to solicit comment from the Jewish students who had come forward with the complaints against the professors.

This deal, first reported by The New York Sun’s Jacob Gershman late last week, allowed Columbia to present its spin in The New York Times unchallenged by the students until the following day, when the Times produced a follow-up report that included quotes from the students. Today, the Times finally acknowledged this egregious oversight in journalistic ethics:

The article did not disclose The Times’s source for the document, but Columbia officials have since confirmed publicly that they provided it, a day before its formal release, on the condition that the writer not seek reaction from other interested parties.

Aside from the Times and the school’s own Columbia Spectator, no other media outlets were given a sneak peek at the report. In fact, when a reporter from the Sun went to Columbia seeking a copy of the report (it has since been made public), she was threatened with arrest.

It’s no wonder the school favors the Times; in all the reporting of the recent controversies at Columbia, the Times has consistently provided the most favorable coverage to the university. But what does the Times get out of the deal? A one-day scoop on a report that makes no news? (”Stop the presses! Huge organization investigates self, finds self innocent!”) Or it is another example of the Times using its news pages to push its political views? (”There’s no bias in the classroom. Seriously! The people who run the classrooms told us themselves.”)

For several days earlier this week, I called Karen Arenson—the Times reporter who filed the story—requesting more information on this deal. None of my calls were ever returned. I guess now I know why.

22 April 2004 >> In Manhattan, most people take the subway to and from work. A lot of people take buses, while some take cabs. And then there is The Van. More >>

17 December 2003 >> At some point, changing babies where people are eating food and drinking coffee became acceptable. For some reason, I was not notified. More >>

20 March 2003 >> If Saddam Hussein poses no threat, then why were the streets of Manhattan so empty right after the start of the war? More >>

11 March 2002 >> “It is our duty to see as much as we can of the catastrophe that was inflicted upon us. We need to face up to the depths of the evil in the hearts of the enemy we’re fighting. If we don’t, from what source will we draw the strength to maintain our resolve when the war gets long or the news gets boring?” More >>

18 January 2002 >> “To disfigure a moment in history to satisfy ephemeral political concerns is not only an insult to the firefighters who raised the flag, it cheapens our nation’s historical record by turning it into a mere simulation.” More >>

13 December 2001 >> Shots fired! An armed robbery! Is New York City getting back to “normal”? More >>

20 September 2001 >> New York City is in mourning, as people display symbols of their emotions around town. More >>

14 September 2001 >> “The vigil—which was supposed to be a remembrance for those who were killed in the attacks—was hijacked by a loud group that tried to turn it into an anti-war protest. About half of this group looked as though they had attended every protest held since 1968 and had been following personal hygiene tips from Wavy Gravy. The other half were college-aged neo-hippies who wielded their moral outrage with an air of self-congratulation, as though their misguided complaining somehow made them superior to those who disagreed.” More >>

14 September 2001 >> Scenes from a walk around lower Manhattan starting at the Union Square Vigil and heading south to Canal Street. Impromptu memorials turn lower Manhattan into a shrine for the victims of the World Trade Center attacks. More >>

13 September 2001 @ 12:04PM >> Three firefighters raise the American flag among the wreckage of the World Trade Center. More >>

12 September 2001 >> 12 September 2001: “We traded stories we’d heard about the day before, and after each one, we sat in silence, looking down, or out the window, but not at each other. It was as if each story needed its own little period of mourning, and out of respect for this need, we didn’t disturb each other with eye contact or talk.” More >>

12 September 2001 >> “My gorgeous, magnificent, wonderful city has been abused and violated. Gorgeous, magnificent, talented young people have had their lives unnaturally altered. My heart has been abused and violated. The hearts of my most beloved friends have been abused and violated. I am sad and angry.” More >>

11 September 2001 >> Tribeca resident David Vogler captures the final minutes of the World Trade Center towers along with signs of the grief that gripped Manhattan afterwards. More >>