September 30, 2005
How far we have sunk in four years: Yesterday's breakfast sponsored by Crain's New York Business included a table full of Wal-Mart executives. While we all agree that retail needs to return to the area, reading the comments of Mia Masten, the chain's director of corporate affairs, sent a chill down my spine: "It would be a wonderful opportunity for any retailer to have that access to all those potential customers." Wal-Mart has been busy purchasing ad space in NYC's cheesy weekly neighborhood rags to declare its wholesomeness while nationwide the fight against its meager wages and low benefits continues. While we all know there will be no Ground Zero Wal-Mart, we must not forget that Wal-Mart is so desperate to sink its gargantuan fangs into this city that its fools rush in from Bentonville through any door opened to it.
What better metaphor for our transformation into the society of the spectacle that Guy Debord so aptly characterized nearly four decades ago? We have not only failed to excise the ghosts of 9/11, we have not only failed to collect bone fragments from the roof of nearby Deutsche Bank, we have not only failed to understand the true meaning of freedom (as evidenced by this debacle over the Freedom Center), we have failed to clarify what at the most basic level we want the new World Trade Center site to be. And while we need more than Century 21 and nearby retailers on Dey and Cortlandt streets to serve the people, even the faintest glimmer of hope that the giant evil empire of retailing could enter Manhattan out of the ashes of 9/11 is beyond disgusting. It is difficult to consider the vulgarity and profanity of it without actually using profane language.
Tags:
deutsche bank, freedom, ground zero, human bones, wal mart, world trade center, wtc
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Posted on 9/30/2005
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September 27, 2005
Four years later, a chilling discovery: pieces of bone, "fewer than 10 and none measuring more than 2 inches, were turned over to the city's medical examiner's office," reports the AP. It would be very easy for a cynic to ask, "What took them so long to find them?" After all, the building has been deserted for four years. Of course, it seems perfectly obvious that said roof would be a place for all manner of fragments blown around during the destruction of the World Trade Center towers. So the question is: sheer incompetence, wanton neglect, or just overlooked? Human bones are found constantly in the city: decomposing corpses, at the bottom of the rivers, in junkyards, etc. Are we so accustomed to human suffering that this latest discovery is nothing big? Or will the families cry bloody murder, as they have recently concerning the "Freedom Center".
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deutsche bank, human bones, world trade center
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Posted on 9/27/2005
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September 19, 2005
New York magazine's annual survey (since 1972) shows that a lot of people make a lot of money in Manhattan. The survey makes great cocktail conversation; money is a close second only to real estate ("She paid what for that lousy studio on Riverside Drive??") in the mixed nuts and martini banter. Big surprise this year? Chelsea Clinton makes only $120,000 as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. Given who's her daddy, they ought to quadruple her salary. But hey, it's McKinsey; they treat everyone like crap. Anyhow, underneath this fascinating list is a fascinating banner: subscribe now and get 1 year of New York Magazine for ONLY $17.97! Kinky true confession: I just can't get myself to pay even that ridiculously low sum of money to get this magazine delivered to my mailbox.
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money, new york mag, real estate
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Posted on 9/19/2005
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September 17, 2005
One of the most haunting of the several twisted stories to unfold in Chinatown is the chilling tale of incest in which Evelyn, whose own father fathers her daughter, fails to escape from Chinatown after her attempt to kill him and flee. The father survives.
Even the most sordid, depraved, and foul stories of murdered infants in the New York area—which emerge with a sad regularity—cannot top the one just played out in Trenton. We hear frequently of unwanted babies dropped down incinerators, trash chutes, left on doorsteps, and so on, and soon forgot all about it. But this story today, "Two Infants Found in Trash, And a Darker Tale Unfolds" is enough to churn your stomach: a newborn found alive at the bottom of a trash chute in Trenton. A decaying second infant found in the same trash chute. The teenage girl tells authorities "her father was the father of both babies." Frankly, it does not get sicker than this. Again the father survives. And it's not a movie.
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baby, body parts, chinatown, incinerator
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Posted on 9/17/2005
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September 16, 2005
What is the city's evacuation plan? Since Mayor Bloomberg and OEM declined to release it, Rep. Brodsky has demanded to know why. The city replies it's all on their website. Friends, if that's all the city really has, then we are in deep trouble. Fortunately, it's an election year, and the fourth estate has taken notice of this. And four critical findings are reproduced by the Post:
* 75 percent of New Yorkers have no idea where the closest shelters are.
* City bus drivers might be responsible for transporting people to evacuation shelters, but the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has failed to detail these responsibilities to the drivers.
* Although the city urges residents to use mass transit during evacuations, it's unclear whether the city, MTA and Port Authority have the assets to handle the millions of people affected.
* The city has done a poor job educating people on what to do during a natural disaster.
In fact, all you have to say is Katrina, Katrina, Katrina and you realize the mass chaos that ensured in New Orleans absolutely could happen here. But since it's an election year, Ringelmatz expects within two weeks this will all be clarified.
Tags:
bloomberg, hurricane, katrina, mta, oem, port authority
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Posted on 9/16/2005
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September 14, 2005
Both the United Nations and the NYC primary election mirror widespread paralysis gripping society. As of midnight, with 100% of precincts reporting but absentee ballots uncounted, Ferrer had about 39.946% of the relatively few votes cast in the Democratic primary. WNYC's Bob Hennelly, as usual, provided excellent coverage last night. Perhaps it was no surprise that Ferrer acted as though he had won, whereas Anthony Weiner made it clear he's sprinting towards a runoff on September 27. Ferrer spared no superlative, declaring he saw "a new city rising" (was he thinking of New Orleans?) despite how very few votes he actually garnered. Hennelly had a nice synecdoche for the morbid state of democratic apathy, finding many voters are "on an extended vacation from the party". Ringelmatz canvassed three of his neighbors this morning, all over the age of 50: Two didn't vote (both said separately, "Who was there to vote for?") and one voted for Weiner. The big question remains: can the Board of Elections, which barely functions in the best of times, handle all these official machine counts, as well as the absentee ballots? If Ferrer at present stands about 250 votes from victory, Ringelmatz thinks that it might take the Board more than two weeks just to figure out who voted, whose vote didn't count, and how many voting disasters happened yesterday. Did I mention New York has the oldest voting machines in the country and still barely a statewide plan to phase out these machines on a timely basis? Remember Bush v. Gore? That was nearly five years ago. Meanwhile, Albany's king of gridlock, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, tried to put a good face on the election.
Paralysis on Katrina (evading a timely solution), paralysis on Judge John Roberts (evading questions), paralysis on Iraq (over 150 dead today in a frightening series of car bomb attacks in Baghdad), paralysis on reform at the United Nations (global poverty): two full-page ads in today's New York Times rightly wonder why 170 heads of state in town for the annual General Assembly session can't seem to agree on much. Perhaps the answer comes in another full-page ad: "Still doing George Bush's dirty work" declares Global Exchange about Ambassador John Bolton, whose stonewalling has erected multiple obstacles courtesy of the Bush administration. And while Bush finally accepted responsibility yesterday for Katrina, we all know disarray begins at the top; call it the trickle-down theory of chaos. Little wonder that Bush greeted Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday with a stunning and shocking: "How's John Bolton behaving?" BBC broadcast this exchange, and Annan had the good grace not to reply. Meanwhile, Iraqi president Jalal Talabani went on a barnstorming mission to Detroit, home to the largest number of Iraqi Chaldeans in exile. Talabani's visit to the USA, completely overshadowed by Katrina, underscores how the rump government of Iraq will function about as effectively as Najibullah's of Afghanistan once did. (Najibullah met an untimely death at the hands of the Taliban, dashed to pieces and displayed in a public square.) Given the morbid events at present in Iraq and the paralysis at the United Nations, one wonders how much longer this rump Iraqi government will function.
All eyes are on New York: what, if anything, will be achieved in this global session on poverty? There is an agreed-upon text to sign, perhaps the best that could be expected. What, if anything, will we learn by week's end about the need for a mayoral runoff election? Perhaps we got the best that could be expected, and at least the results (if not the candidates) will be interesting. And what about the starving and poor of Africa? Wasn't this session, before Bolton and his ilk hijacked it, supposed to be about them? America's immigration policy in recent years has been quite generous to West Africans, allowing for many Togolese, Gabonese, Liberians, Senegalese, Sierra Leonians and others to immigrate here, with many settling in New York. Ringelmatz was charmed this morning at the café when the lovely Gabonese student greeted him with: "I have a present for you from the President of Gabon!" Ringelmatz could hardly believe it, but it was a large gift bag with book, DVD, and other promotional tchotckes about this beautiful and hardly-known West African country. In the global marketplace, many compete for attention. And usually the biggest win big and the smallest get ignored. We are failing everyone by dissembling at all levels.
Tags:
albany, ferrer, gridlock, mayor, primary, silver, united nations, weiner
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Posted on 9/14/2005
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September 13, 2005
With Bush in town and United Nations General Assembly in full swing, it would be useful conjecture to declare that this annual convocation of world leaders and associated snarled traffic are keeping voters away from the polls in New York City today. Of course, that would ignore that fact that over 93% of New York City's territory is not Midtown East. So why the voter apathy? The Politicker suggests perhaps voter horror stories—you know, the broken machines, the illiterate poll workers who can't find your name in the books—might be keeping voters away. Ringelmatz suggests it is something else entirely: Everyone is pissed off that the Campaign Finance Board has been so generous allocating funds this year that candidates have sent way too much junk mail to voters. For example, Ringelmatz himself received FOUR pieces of mail today just for Leslie Crocker Snyder, who is running for Manhattan district attorney. 13 pieces of candidates' mail today, 16 yesterday, 12 last Saturday...does this fuel voter apathy? Perhaps everyone is simply bored of elections.
Tags:
bored of elections, gridlock, junk mail, united nations
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Posted on 9/13/2005
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September 07, 2005
NYC has formulated evacuation plans, and the city has been divided into zones. Mayor Bloomberg says he will force evacuations, by court order if necessary. As anyone who was remotely awake in the past week knows, getting a court order in the middle of a hurricane is perhaps as easy as getting FEMA to bring in relief supplies after a hurricane. But what's most interesting about this plan is that Bloomberg has actually thought about how to keep track of people; rather than the sad and cruel news emanating from the Deep South about how mothers have been separated from children and adult children from their elderly parents with Alzheimer's, NYC actually has a plan to register by computer evacuees entering reception centers. Yet the sad gap between rhetoric and reality remains a New York constant: if there is no power, how do you use the computers? OK, you supply generators. And as we've learned from New Orleans, if you have a complicated last name, what if the data-entry clerks type it in wrong? It's not a joke; Ringelmatz heard a BBC report in which a rather illiterate relief worker was complaining about all those "weird French names" (who have been part of the fabric of Louisiana for over 200 years). In this city of great diversity, one thinks those names will be a big challenge. And with the Red Cross, FEMA, NYC, Craiglist and dozens of other well-meaning groups keeping track of missing persons, where to turnfirst? And finally, in this city of many single people with pets, the no pets in shelters rule will cause great consternation. In fact, a constant theme in BBC interviews with some of the final 10,000 stubbornly remaining in New Orleans is of people unwilling to evacuate because they fear being separated from their pets.
Tags:
bloomberg, evacuation, hurricane, it, mayor, shelter
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Posted on 9/7/2005
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September 06, 2005
New Yorker editor David Remnick strikes a lethal blow at the Bush administration's ineptitude while Senator Clinton calls to separate FEMA from Homeland Security. Meanwhile, Bush decides to head an investigation into his own administration. Four years after 9/11, we are truly screwed. Excerpt from Remnick's article:
Suntanned and relaxed after a vacation so long that it would have shamed a French playboy, Bush reacted with fogged delinquency, as if he had been so lulled by his summer sojourn that he was not quite ready to acknowledge reality, let alone attempt to master it... The whole conceit of his Presidency, that he was an instinctive chief executive backed by “grownups” like Dick Cheney and tactical wizards like Karl Rove, now seemed as water-logged as Biloxi and New Orleans. The mismanagement of the Katrina floods echoed the White House mismanagement—the cavalier posture, the wretched decisions, the self-delusions—in postwar Iraq.
Tags:
911, clinton, fema, hillary, homeland security, new yorker
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Posted on 9/6/2005
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September 01, 2005
This Lukoil station, which ironically Russian President Putin and Senator Charles Schumer happily opened together in a ceremony, seems to have the highest prices around. AAA, the automobile club of New York, reports the average price is about $2.79 in the city today. It hits the taximen hardest, who are seeking an emergency surcharge on all fares to get relief from sudden price gouging. If you pity the poor working man, you can always email the Chairman of the TLC to express your sympathy for the cabdrivers. Or if you'd like, complain about gas price gouging to the vast black hole that is the Department of Consumer Affairs. Why, you could even dial 311 and say you are outraged and get a complaint number. Instead, Ringelmatz suggests you cool off with a nice iced coffee and take the subway this holiday weekend. Because it can only get worse next week....
Tags:
chuck, gas wars, price gouging, schumer, taxi, tlc
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Posted on 9/1/2005
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September 01, 2005
At least diesel costs only $2.89 here! The manager was very angry at me for taking pictures, saying something unprintable on a family weblog. So I thoughtfully replied using a term that I think means 'thief' in Hindi and Urdu. The taximen were also very angry, yelling at the manager in Urdu, Creole, and English. Good thing the humidity was low today or there would have been fisticuffs.
Tags:
gas, price gouging, taxi, tlc
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Posted on 9/1/2005
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