Category: News and Opinion

The era of George W. Bush, by now a distant memory, still has historical significance as the age of mediocrity.  Nowhere is this symbolized more than in the Bush Administration whose ineptitude ranged from the War in Iraq to the response to Katrina where an American city was allowed to die.

I just read them over. They require all parked cars to be removed from a limited number of streets, and no travel on those streets without snow tires or chains. What is really needed in a blizzard this severe is for legally and safely parked cars to just stay put over much of the city, so the plows can work. And buses to be pulled from the streets. But that isn’t what the rule says.

The whole response needs to be re-thought for different scenarios, particularly since severe snowstorms are apparently becomming more common — and people need to be told to get where they are going or stay put ahead of time. The rethinking needs to take into account the fact that the number of vehicles that rely on street parking is right up to the number of potential spaces in many parts of the city. Anyone driving somewhere in these conditions will have no place to park when they get there, other than the middle of the street.

"Another problem on Monday was transportation for train operators, themselves. Many were having trouble getting to work, and Mr. Seaton said that a dearth of workers had contributed to the decision to shut down the entire B line."

Just thought I'd add what the New York Times missed. I hope I won't be hearing that some plows didn't run because the state legislature decided those from outside the city should be able to be NYC sanitation workers (but localities outside the city could continue to ban city residents from taking those jobs).

I walked from Windsor Terrace to that spot and didn’t see a plow on the street other than a Parks Department pick-up. But there must have been six to eight plows or garbage trucks with plows stalled within a block of 5th Avenue and 9th Street with their engines running. Along with a transit bus, a Boro Park-Williamsburg bus abandoned in the middle of the street, and a bunch of stalled cars. There was also a stalled bus up on 7th Avenue.

The side streets have four foot snow drifts — the plows running through last night before most of the now fell was a waste of time. The snow emergency routes had evidently been plowed during the night — you could walk in those streets — but more snow was blowing on to them.

The New Republic’s Marty Peretz, of all people, has written an angry piece making the case against clemency for Jonathan Pollard.

MARTY PERETZ?!? If as ardent and angry a Zionist as Marty Peretz opposes clemency for Pollard, it is hard for anyone to his left to disagree, especially when so much of what he says echoes my own feelings. 

And, yet… 

This list of the year’s worst anti-Semitic slurs is worth a read, but with items 9 & 10, we really get into the arguable realm.

9. Though Christina Patterson is a bit patronizing towards Hasidim I've heard Jews, many of them Orthodox, make almost everyone of these complaints.

Back when Domestic Partner was pregnant, she and her sister were standing on a train and could not get a seat. Several Hasidic men were absorbed in their religious reading, pretending not to notice.

Karl Rove apparently thinks President Obama will be re-elected or that a Republican President will keep Hillary Clinton on as Secretary of State.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/23/karl-rove-hillary-clinton-2016_n_800770.html

On 12/8/10, I wrote: "Sorry, I’m not yet convinced that “The Great Sell-Out” is the route to our salvation (although I might feel differently were I unemployed), but I could possibly swallow it if they add Zadroga, DADT, Dream Act and START"

Well, we got three out of four, and no one sane really believes we would have gotten even one without the sellout (which, I note, Kucinich voted for because his constituents need the unemployment benefits)