Category: News and Opinion

Slow Week, Slow Year

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This is a slow week, so it’s not the best time to post anything that takes a lot of work.  But it is a good time to post a prediction, so it can be referenced if it turns out to be true, but will be forgotten if it isn’t.  Especially a about something I know nothing about. 

The New York political blogosphere has evolved at an opportune time, with a Presidential election in 2004, a Mayoral election in 2005, and a Gubernatorial election in 2006.  In 2007, however, this fledgling medium will face a year of dead air, with no election scheduled for that November.  There is the likelihood that major public policy decisions and non-decisions will be made, especially in Albany, that will affect my life, my friend’s and neighbors lives, and my children’s lives into the far-off future.  But if people paid attention to such decisions more people would read my posts, and someone other than myself and Daniel Millstone (who is that guy? I ought to meet him for a beer and save some bandwidth) would post on Gotham Gazette.   So the political appointees, consultants, and activists who inhabit the blogosphere will probably go silent.  Until something happens to make the 2007 election significant.  That something will be…

Slow Week, Slow Year

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This is a slow week, so it’s not the best time to post anything that takes a lot of work.  But it is a good time to post a prediction, so it can be referenced if it turns out to be true, but will be forgotten if it isn’t.  Especially a about something I know nothing about. 

The New York political blogosphere has evolved at an opportune time, with a Presidential election in 2004, a Mayoral election in 2005, and a Gubernatorial election in 2006.  In 2007, however, this fledgling medium will face a year of dead air, with no election scheduled for that November.  There is the likelihood that major public policy decisions and non-decisions will be made, especially in Albany, that will affect my life, my friend’s and neighbors lives, and my children’s lives into the far-off future.  But if people paid attention to such decisions more people would read my posts, and someone other than myself and Daniel Millstone (who is that guy? I ought to meet him for a beer and save some bandwidth) would post on Gotham Gazette.   So the political appointees, consultants, and activists who inhabit the blogosphere will probably go silent.  Until something happens to make the 2007 election significant.  That something will be…

Slow Week, Slow Year

|

This is a slow week, so it’s not the best time to post anything that takes a lot of work.  But it is a good time to post a prediction, so it can be referenced if it turns out to be true, but will be forgotten if it isn’t.  Especially a about something I know nothing about. 

The New York political blogosphere has evolved at an opportune time, with a Presidential election in 2004, a Mayoral election in 2005, and a Gubernatorial election in 2006.  In 2007, however, this fledgling medium will face a year of dead air, with no election scheduled for that November.  There is the likelihood that major public policy decisions and non-decisions will be made, especially in Albany, that will affect my life, my friend’s and neighbors lives, and my children’s lives into the far-off future.  But if people paid attention to such decisions more people would read my posts, and someone other than myself and Daniel Millstone (who is that guy? I ought to meet him for a beer and save some bandwidth) would post on Gotham Gazette.   So the political appointees, consultants, and activists who inhabit the blogosphere will probably go silent.  Until something happens to make the 2007 election significant.  That something will be…

The Homophobe v The Racist: The AG’s Race (Part Two of Three)

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In trying to put together a column on the race for Attorney General, I followed my usual method of pulling up all the prior comments I’ve made on this topic from the web. Once I finished my study of the minor candidates in Part One, I deleted all those posts and was left with two piles of garbage; one talking about “Cuomo, Not the Homo” and the other about Freddy Ferrer kissing Al Sharpton’s ass; so much for the majesty of the law.

For the record, I think that both of these rattling closet skeletons amount to far less than meets the eye. However, since mention of one almost begs the question of the other, one wonders about the good sense of both campaigns for keeping these matters alive. And since a fish rots from the head, which seems to be the point in both purported scandals, the fact that these matters have sucked up so much air does not speak well of either of the competitors.

Kidney Punch: The AG’s Race (Part One of Three)

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Thank to Robert Moses, New York has one of the strongest Governorships in the country. The Moses-created state budget process is actually designed to strip the legislature of its legislative powers. The legislature’s response has been to use the lemons it’s been left with to churn out the sour juice of obstruction, which is not quite the same as demanding accountability. There are, however, other places we might look for such relief. Ideally, the offices of NYS Comptroller and Attorney General are perfect opportunities to create oppositional institutions within the state’s Executive Branch which could be used for such a purpose. With that goal in mind, I became an early supporter of the Attorney General candidacy of the State Assembly’s in-house pitbull, Richard Brodsky of Westchester, in spite of the fact that he is a pompous and overbearing blowhard. My theory was that Brodsky, an unrelenting muckraker, was guaranteed to drive whoever was elected as governor stark raving mad, which they would undoubtedly come to deserve. Brodsky also plays a mean blues piano.

Six months on Room Eight

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In a matter of days Room Eight will be six months old. All indications are that this was a very successful experiment. We all owe our thanks and praises to Ben Smith and Gur Tsabar, for their foresight and creativity. I appreciate their invitation to be a pioneer blogger here. To say the least, it has been quite interesting. I would like to take some credit for having “guru” Maurice Gumbs use here as a pit stop, on his way to his “Footnotes” wire/blog/periodical. He has sure taken a site that was already flying high to even greater heights. The resident writers here are quite learned and informative; and of course Gatemouth is unique (I will miss you “H”/lol). I have had lots of feedback from people, who sneak on here to browse, peek, spy or pry. I have also gotten feedback from those who aren’t real pleased at some of the things stated here.

A Modest Proposal on Vouchers

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I have a “modest proposal.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal.  Rather than creating a voucher system in education, as some have suggested, why not convert Medicare — which is a voucher system — into something that works like the public schools?

Under the Medicare program, the federal government pays for health care, but the elderly are allowed to choose any health care provider they please.  If the nearest public clinic isn’t good enough, they are allowed to use other non-profit, for-profit, and public health facilities elsewhere, and still have Medicare pay.  Moreover, the level of Medicare reimbursement is the about same (with an adjustment for the cost of living) whether the patients were dishwashers or doctors in their working lives, and whether they live in Scarsdale or the South Bronx. 

A Modest Proposal on Vouchers

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I have a “modest proposal.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal.  Rather than creating a voucher system in education, as some have suggested, why not convert Medicare — which is a voucher system — into something that works like the public schools?

Under the Medicare program, the federal government pays for health care, but the elderly are allowed to choose any health care provider they please.  If the nearest public clinic isn’t good enough, they are allowed to use other non-profit, for-profit, and public health facilities elsewhere, and still have Medicare pay.  Moreover, the level of Medicare reimbursement is the about same (with an adjustment for the cost of living) whether the patients were dishwashers or doctors in their working lives, and whether they live in Scarsdale or the South Bronx. 

A Modest Proposal on Vouchers

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I have a “modest proposal.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal.  Rather than creating a voucher system in education, as some have suggested, why not convert Medicare — which is a voucher system — into something that works like the public schools?

Under the Medicare program, the federal government pays for health care, but the elderly are allowed to choose any health care provider they please.  If the nearest public clinic isn’t good enough, they are allowed to use other non-profit, for-profit, and public health facilities elsewhere, and still have Medicare pay.  Moreover, the level of Medicare reimbursement is the about same (with an adjustment for the cost of living) whether the patients were dishwashers or doctors in their working lives, and whether they live in Scarsdale or the South Bronx. 

A Modest Proposal on Vouchers

|

I have a “modest proposal.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal.  Rather than creating a voucher system in education, as some have suggested, why not convert Medicare — which is a voucher system — into something that works like the public schools?

Under the Medicare program, the federal government pays for health care, but the elderly are allowed to choose any health care provider they please.  If the nearest public clinic isn’t good enough, they are allowed to use other non-profit, for-profit, and public health facilities elsewhere, and still have Medicare pay.  Moreover, the level of Medicare reimbursement is the about same (with an adjustment for the cost of living) whether the patients were dishwashers or doctors in their working lives, and whether they live in Scarsdale or the South Bronx.