Category: News and Opinion

I recently argued  in this space that New York State has no real political parties (with the possible exception of the Conservative). I saw nothing last night to make me re-evaluate that conclusion, but that is a talk for another time.

Unlike in New York State, there is something called the Democratic Party functioning nationally in more than just name. It is a broad based coalition, which, by its nature, is often divided. In addition, its hands are often bound by the nature of the peculiar institutions through which it operates, none perhaps more peculiar than the US Senate.

Most notably, is that, given the size of our nation, it is forced to operate locally through units of varying degrees of efficiency or even existence.

10:26 PM

76% of precincts reporting

Bloomberg 50%

Thompson 47%“There is a out there a great seething resentment, not all of it rational, but much of it quite on the mark, for the sort of clueless lack of concern over this legitimate frustration. And for many, Bloomberg is its personification. In fact, the perception that there is nothing to be done about Bloomberg only fuels the fury of those so afflicted.” — Gatemouth (10/11/09)

The time: 1965.

The place: Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Somewhere around 1949, the 40,000 strong Jewish community of the Silk City, Paterson, New Jersey (where my maternal great-grandfather ran a textile mill in partnership with noted designer Boris Kroll, and where my paternal grandfather lived between bankruptcies by hustling schmattes at farmer’s markets), which supported Jewish congregations of every denomination and a kosher hospital, while providing inspiration to Allen Ginsberg (whose father and step-mother lived in a building owned by my father), began its exodus across the Passaic River, where it relocated almost intact in the Bergen County borough of Fair Lawn. The Jews of Fair Lawn had crossed a County line, but unlike their neighbors, continued to read the Paterson News and the Morning Call, rather than the far superior and far more relevant Bergen Evening Record.

The setting: Mrs. Scheinfield’s second grade class.

In 2008, I showed up a 6 a.m. at PS 154 Windsor Terrace to cast a vote I knew wouldn’t matter, because everyone knew Obama would take New York. There was already a line around the corner.

Today, I grudgingly rolled down to the same location at 7:30 am. There was no line, and I was told there had been no line all morning.

So it has come down to this. I check out The Housing Bubble Blog to look over today links and street level comments on the real estate collapse, and who has purchased the banner ad? You guessed it, Mike Bloomberg. Aside from myself, how many NYC residents are likely to see it?  The man may have run out of places to advertise.

Holy smokes: I looked again, and Corzine’s on there too.

KURT VONNEGUT: If you wish to study a granfalloon, just remove the skin of a toy balloon.

In Part One, entitled “Cats Cradle“, I sadly put forth the proposition that all of New York’s ballot status parties, save the Conservatives, were granfalloons. The creator of that term, Kurt Vonnegut, defined it as meaning “a proud and meaningless association of human beings.”

I argued that this was totally accurate description, except for the part about “proud.” I then went on to explain why this was so about both the Working Families and Independence Parties.

KURT VONNEGUT: A granfalloon is a proud and meaningless association of human beings.

I have not for decades felt the need to cite a quotation from the master of making the whimsical seem profound; not at least since the day long ago when I made the adolescent-switch away from airplane glue to pleasures more organic. Now, having made the adult-change-of-life-switch in drug of choice from alcohol to Zetia, I find myself compelled to once again quote Kurt, in an effort to make the profound seem whimsical.

So it goes (though the line belongs to Vonnegut, I prefer to attribute it to Nick Lowe).  

Steve Malanga, senior editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal has an Op-Ed in Sunday’s New York Post complaining about how New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine is responsible for ruining because of high taxes.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/bribing_the_voters_of_new_jersey_wc8CPVLsmQe5klWsuOeqD

“The state has one of the most progressive income tax structures, so that residents earning more than $250,000 in 2007 (the last year data are available) constituted just 3.9% of all households but paid 59% of state income taxes. And these folks will pay an even bigger share of the burden this year because Corzine raised their tax rates and cut some of their deductions.”

I have previously written that I believe there are now two electorates in the US. One is a pretty small one that consists of people like the readers of this blog and others like it and faithful viewers of the cable news yappers of the left, right & center – the voters who pay a lot of attention to and know a lot about politics. The other is a much, much larger group that pays almost no attention to politics or government.

There’s new evidence of big the gap is between the 2 electorates. It’s from a recent New York Times story about cable ratings.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/cnn-drops-to-last-place-among-cable-news-networks/?hp

Bill Thompson recently spoke to a forum on poverty, hunger and homelessness in New York City.