Lately there has been some controversy swirling around the decisions of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein, relative to proposed school closings all over the city. If memory serves me right some players in this brouhaha have even gone to court to stop some (or all) of the proposed closings. I am told that the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has opposed some (if not all) of these closings -at least in principle. But then the teachers union is usually an adversary of the chancellor’s office in an almost perfunctory manner, so this isn’t surprising. Now, let me preface this column by stating this: there are surely schools which should be closed -given years upon years of delivering poor quality education to its students; so I am not one trying to look over the shoulders of Department of Education (DOE) officials on the ground. Let’s be clear about that from Jump Street.
Category: News and Opinion
UpChuck
|GATEMOUTH (1/27/10): The proof of the intellectual bankruptcy of Wall Street is their inability to learn. Rescued in the thirties from the depths of their own self-created degradation, they spent the next decade cursing the President who’d rescued them, and possibly capitalism itself, as “that man in the White House.”
What Wall Street cursed FDR for was his temerity in insisting upon setting up some rules to ensure that Wall Street’s man-made disaster would never occur again, and that the third-party victims of their depravity were allowed the basic sustenance necessary for survival. The rules Wall Street so objected to save them from disaster for more than a half century, until they were rendered obsolete by new technology and more advanced and clever forms of self-destructive avarice…
On the Ground in Haiti
|On the Ground in Haiti
By Michael Boyajian
I recently interviewed two Haitian relief workers who were on the ground witnessing the utter destruction of one of the poorest countries on the planet. They were noted New York photographer Kevin C. Downs and photojournalist James Helmer.
A Simple Twisted Cross of Fate
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As I noted last fall while sifting through the vat of offal known as the Comptroller’s race, Councilman (as he was then) David Weprin, never bunched my panties. He reminded me of Rupert Pupkin in “The King of Comedy;” and came off as a parochial outer-borough pol, utterly lacking in vision, who appeared poised to restore the model of Abe Beame.
The New Capitalism
|The New Capitalism
By Michael Boyajian
The banks in the United States have stopped lending money. This leads one to ask what then is their purpose, to operate ATM machines? What this actually signals is the end of the economic system known as private enterprise capitalism. Government must step in, not entirely but in many instances, to fill the void left behind by banks. The government must start to offer low interest short term loans to small businesses, loans for homeowners and even loans for people to start a business to name but a few products abandoned by the banks.
Her name was McGill, she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as Nancy.
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PAUL MCCARTNEY: …Too Many Reaching For A Piece Of Cake
Too Many People Pulled And Pushed Around
Too Many Waiting For That Lucky Break
That Was Your First Mistake
You Took Your Lucky Break And Broke It In Two
Now What Can Be Done For You
You Broke It In Two
Too Many People Sharing Party Lines
Too Many People Never Sleeping Late
Too Many People Paying Parking Fines
Too Many Hungry People Losing Weight…
…Too Many People Preaching Practices
Don't Let Them Tell You What You Wanna Be
Too Many People Holding Back, This Is
Crazy And Maybe It's Not Like Me
That Was Your Last Mistake
I Find My Love Awake And Waiting To Be
Now What Can Be Done For You
She's Waiting For Me”
One of the Few Things Silver Did Right
|It looks like the country of Greece is going bankrupt, possibly setting off the next leg of the ongoing debt crisis. They are somehow beating New York, New Jersey and even California to it. I wonder if borrowing for the infrastructure and facilities associated with the 2004 Olympics has anything to do with it? Given that New York is already one of the most indebted states and cities, relative to our residents' (falling) income, and are virtually broke as it is, I certainly am glad we aren't building similar facilities for 2012 right now. Even Vancouver, with the Winter Olympics a week or so away, is having regrets. The expectations and demands of the IOC, it seems, have been in a bubble as well.
An Idiot Or A Liar
|This week’s New York Magazine has an interesting article about Governor Paterson by Chris Smith.
However one part of the article stands out to me. Writing about what was going on when Paterson had to appoint someone to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate, Smith says:
“Andrew [Cuomo] has always dreamed about being governor and president; David has always dreamed about being U.S. senator,” says a New York Democrat who is a friend of both. “We had an opportunity for it to work out that way. We had a small threshold where if David had named himself senator, we could have had some time with Malcolm Smith as interim governor while putting together a process to give Andrew an opportunity in a special election to run for governor. It would have solved a lot of problems”
Spending Priorities: Super Trains vs. Manned Space Program
|Spending Priorities: Super Trains vs. Manned Space Program
By Michael Boyajian
With concern growing about our government’s deficit spending many are wondering if we have to chose between government programs. Two programs that may face each other for federal dollars are the super train network and the manned space program.