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Stamp Collecting: A Symbol of a Peaceful Unified World
By Michael Boyajian
When I was a kid I collected stamps from around the world. It was so remarkable seeing these small colorful works of art from around the globe. I recently started collecting them again because it is a relatively inexpensive hobby and a good substitute for actually seeing the world an endeavor these tough economic times make hard to justify.
[This piece is intended as a sidebar to this article]
THE BOOK OF PSALMS: If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not; if I set not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy
In each of the first two parts of my 44th Councilmanic Moby Dickstein, I’ve promised an anecdote which illustrates the lengths to which City Council candidate Joe Lazar will fetch, heal, rollover and play dead for Dov Hikind. As I stated in part two, the issue involved is not really important to the work of a City Councilman, but it says everything one needs to know about Joe Lazar’s independence.
Everyone knows Israel is Dov Hikind’s passion.
NEW YORK TIMES: Two months later, Mr. Salinger is back at the typewriter thanking his friend for an update he devoured “greedily.” This time, though, he reports that he has become less enamored with New York’s charms. “Meaning,” he writes, “that there aren’t any places I like or love there any more. With the exception of the Museum of Natural History.”
While that was also a spot that Holden found comforting, Mr.
I have previously written here about the overblown attention paid to by people who should know better about the various Cable News yakkers. I have pointed out here few people ever watch any of these blowhards.
Here’s a report from Brian Stelter of the New York Times about the US-Canada Olympic hockey game. Imagine how Fox News ratings could improve if they showed the World Series or the NFL instead of Beck and O’Reilly?
http://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/9495258378
An average of 8.22 million watched the game on MSNBC, per Nielsen. 8.23 million watched election night 2008 on MSNBC
Lloyd, the producer of “Watchmen” and the guy who beat me for Student Council President of my Junior High was in a Facebook uproar:
LLOYD: Enough already. From both sides of the aisle
Analysis: Untruths have consequences in politics – Yahoo! News
AARON: We should get rid of everyone and start over…
The World’s New Economic Powerhouse
By Michael Boyajian
The United States has done quite well during these Winter Olympics leading the medal count of all nations. However, if the nations of Europe competed together as one their medal count would surpass our count many times over.
It has just been reported that former Councilwoman Helen Sears has declined the GOP offer of political reassignment surgery to elect her to the NY State Senate as a Republican.
Apparently the chances of surviving an operation of that nature at such an advanced age without debilitating side effects (like complete and total loss of integrity) are almost nil.
Godspeed to you Helen.
Will someone please give this woman a no-show job (though not as a Councilwoman again)?
With Sears in the race, Democrats were left no choice but to go after the independent petitions being filed by former Senator Hiram Monserrate, lest Monserrate divide the Latino vote and ensure Sears‘ election.
In a Brooklyn special election for City Council taking place in March, a candidate named Joseph Lazar is attempting so sell himself by telling voters (or at least certain voters) that he is “running against [Kings County Democratic Leader] Vito Lopez.”
Lately this has even taken the form of planted blog pieces, including one where the usually witty Mary Alice Miller, a writer who leans towards an Afrocentric but feminist perspective, hails Lazar’s ties to the late Satmar Rebbe, who performed Lazar’s wedding [impressive, I must admit–though I got Rabbi Moshe Dovid Niederman to speak at mine] . Another dead giveaway that this piece may be one “for hire” is Miller’s mention of “the diverse cultures of the district (Italian, Irish, Asian, Russian, and Latino)” –anything missing?
Given Lazar’s almost unbroken history of support for Lopez‘s candidates, and the donations to Lopez‘s County organization by principals of the Lazar Family consulting firm, the assertions of Lazar’s independence are pretty laughable on their own terms, but it cannot be denied that Lazar is not Lopez’s preferred candidate in this race, although Lazar’s sponsors surely wish, and tried to ensure, that this was otherwise.
Food Poisoning America
By Michael Boyajian
My digestive track is shot, my feet swell after eating in restaurants and I feel like I am going to collapse at times. Then I visit Europe for a few days and my health is magically restored. Mind you I am not staying at spas just doing the normal tourist thing in London, Paris, Florence and Spain for instance.
So no one in power wants Governor Paterson to run for Governor. And no one in power wanted Tom Suozzi to run for Governor in 2006. And no one wants a primary challenge to Senator Gillibrand. Why? Because Governor and Senator are among the only contested elections in New York. Legislative and Congressional districts are gerrymandered, ballot access and other rules screen out non-insiders, incumbents get all the special interest money, and careerists wait for their turn to be appointed. And elections are not what people with excess privileges want, particularly as the cost of past deals and favors and the current crisis is shifted entirely to the vast majority of people, people who don’t matter. They are not to be given choices. Which is how many are driven to extreme choices.
I’m not sure I’d call Governor Paterson a hero for deciding the serfs of New York will have their public services gutted instead of having their nation-leading taxes raised, cutting the benefits only of future public employees, and directing most of the pain to New York City, while not demanding those with great deals — retired public employees, existing employees who do not work, and today’s seniors in general — give up anything. In fact, the state legislature would never allow anyone other than the serfs to be sacrificed anyway. But with the political class uniting around the next “one and only choice” presumably guaranteed to preserve all the deals and keep the vested interests vested, Paterson is like a cornered animal, and there is no telling what he might say.