Category: News and Opinion

Because of the various investigations, the Daily News has called upon Andrew Cuomo to refuse to take the endorsement of the Working Families Party as has the NY Post, which also criticized Cuomo for accepting the Independence Party’s support.

Big Trouble in Little Fishkill:  The Ramifications of a Financial Meltdown

By Michael Boyajian

Most residents of the scenic Hudson Valley Town of Fishkill vote Republican without a second thought taking great pride in the fact that their Republican Town Supervisor Joan Pagones organized some local Teaparty events last year.

EnWhySeaWonk, where are you when we need you?

Metrotech Music: Highlights include Bernie Worrell and Fela's drummer, Tony Allen–BAM indeedR&B Festival at MetroTech www.bam.org

All very nice, but did he ever believe in anything but the next check? A Maker of Mayors Has His Moment in the Spotlight – City Room Blog – NYTimes.com cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com

The jury is still out on this horrible incident, but can we at least rule out that it involved "passive resistance"?Close-Up Footage of Mavi Marmara Passengers Attacking IDF Soldiers www.youtube.com

Got a good price on a lot of Gulf Shrimp–gonna market them under the name "Bubba Gunk"

I’m betting he ends up living happily ever after with Elizabeth Edwards, while Tipper takes up with Dee Snider (how soon we forget)

ROCK HACKSHAW: I have had many a fight with Gatey, and I will be dissappointed if we didn't have many more over the coming years. Gatemouth is unique, and he is also provocative, but all in all to me, his writings, insights, commentary and historical knowledge of New York's politics is worth the ocassional ideosyncratic outburst from him. So he pulls his lil temper tantrums sometimes: don't we all do/lol? I almost stopped contributing once or twice/lol. Remember?

Waxing Nostalgic

By Michael Boyajian

Sometimes I am old fashioned.  I yearn for instance for retro stereo equipment that when you press the power button lights flicker on and power surges through the receiver and thumps the speakers to life.  Now I know things are always better now than before.  I mean how could we live without the internet and email that works to bring the whole world together.

In journalism school they warn you not to publish stuff that isn’t verifiable; since the stuff you publish could be false and the repercussions can be devastating at times. Thus as a journalist you should get at least two good sources before you consider going with any item. Funny thing is I have given this lecture to many a student, and yet I was guilty of this cardinal journalistic-sin recently. You see, I misinterpreted what a source told me about someone’s illness and wrote that the person had passed away. It was an experience for me (to say the least). To this day, I genuinely believe it was what I was told (or heard).

If you listened to the radio over the holiday weekend, you heard commercials from the United Federation of Teachers and the Uniformed Firefighter Association decrying the consequences for city residents and schoolchildren of drastic funding cuts for their agencies. How great are those proposed spending cuts? The answer may be found in the tables on page 40 to 44 of this document, the city's May budget summary.

Total spending on the Department of Education, with all cost including retirement and debt service included, is proposed to increase by $306 million or 1.4%, in a year when inflation is zero and many people's wages are going down. To achieve this, the city's contribution is proposed to be increased by $833 million, minimum. The Fire Department budget is proposed to be reduced by $4 million, or 0.1%, with the city's contribution increasing by $133 million. What is going down is not what New Yorkers are paying, it is what they are getting in exchange.

Elvis Costello: Against the boycott before he was for it.

I'll let the man speak for himself:

"I wish you luck with a capital f" Has Elvis Costello joined the 'Hate Israel' club? | The Big Picture | Los Angeles Times latimesblogs.latimes.co May 29

a musical interlude Freddie King and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown www.youtube.com May 30

We return again to the topic of my not being the blogger who calls himself JP, a cause celebre because Rock Hackshaw has falsely called JP (in real life, a darkish skinned Latino male) out as a racist, and called me out as JP.

I’ll let JP defend himself (especially since I got into so much trouble coming to his defense).

However, JP’s a pretty good writer, and he does not deserve being diminished as a Gatemouth subsidiary. He is not.