Author Archives: admin
Pay to Pander.
Last week, the Democratic-dominated City Council demonstrated why the party has such little credibility as an ideologically consistent, or even rational, body, and instead managed to recall only tired antics of someone like Speaker Peter Vallone, who ran the show for years before discovering that such efforts yield zero name recognition in the quest for […]
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A hundred million here, a hundred million there. Pretty soon we’re talking about real money.
The Times continued their consistent whitewash of Forest City Ratner’s attempt to gain control of development rights of Vanderbilt Yards in Brooklyn. Like the tortured saga on the West Side (Hudson Yards), once again it’s hard to parse out the relative merits and costs of two competing bids — one a megalithic mixed use complex […]
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“The issue is what the public will accept.”
These are the words of police commissioner Ray Kelly, arguing for the necessity of bag searches on the New York City subway, a practice, that, by the end of the weekend will be extended to most major transit systems in the region, although no plan has been proffered to address securing the largest bus fleet […]
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Is it safe?
There’s no doubt that this question is at the forefront of in many minds over the past week, even as the answer is: no less, but no more, than it was the week before. The confluence of disaster film narratives and pervasive information and surveillance results in an ability — or the presumption — of […]
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“To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.”
Images from the Flickr pool. The Guardian news blog (they have a forum for posting updates to family, but access is spotty). The BBC was reporting serious server load, but is currently up (9:00AM EST).
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Is that the Times editorial independence in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?
Y’all remember the scene in Willy Wonka when Gene Wilder, facing yet another selfish and petulant child doing something impermissible, says in a monotone “No. Please. Stop,” clearly uninterested in preventing another faux tragedy, or simply resigning himself to its inevitability? That’s how I felt when coming upon the Times write-up of the Atlantic Rail […]
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Wednesday Lore: Does this bus stop at 82nd Street?
There was a moment when the ‘Chinatown Bus’ had it’s hipster glory. Like most elements of hipster culture, the frisson of receiving an unearned entitlement — cheap transport — intermingled with ironic slumming made for a perfect storm of on-a-whim trips to places as far flung as Boston and Baltimore. Until, of course, everyone soon […]
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Live Blogging the Olympics Announcement: Yawn.
I guess we don’t have to worry about pretending that we like visitors anymore, even if we had seven years to prepare. This was not reported from Rockefeller Center, and didn’t require any fancy remote technology. I’m not that diligent.
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When? March? Nah. No one remembers March.