In the City Council district where I live there is a rare event going on: a contested election for a legislative office in New York City. The election is being contested because the seat is open, and the seat is open because its current occupant – Councilmember Bill DeBlasio – is running for something else. Generally, aside from citywide and statewide positions such as Mayor, Governor, and Senator, we don’t really have contested elections in New York. The House of Representatives and state legislature can barely be considered elective offices in New York State at this point – incumbents can keep citizen challengers off the ballot, challengers motivated primarily by ambition don’t bother taking on the long odds of running against an incumbent, the media has over the pasts 25 years generally only covered incumbents, and retiring legislators generally leave mid-term, so a new perpetual incumbent can be appointed in a special election few people know about.

At the New York City Council, however, we have had real democratic elections, thanks to term limits. Term limits are not popular with incumbent members of the City Council, even those who say otherwise, because they would like the office to once again be a permanent sinecure that can be willed to the next generation, like the state legislature. Faced with their own possible political demise the Council, working with Mayor Bloomberg, has already voted to modify the limit to three four-year terms, rather than two four year terms, over the heads of voters who had endorsed a two-term limit by referendum, twice. The courts upheld their right, under the City Charter, to change the number of terms as they see fit, even if voters are opposed. The question is what happens next? “Extending” term limits to ten terms, a de facto repeal? Unfortunately, the only candidate I trust on this all-important issue is Rock Hackshaw, who is a candidate in a different district.

Please Disregard.

This space was previously used to solicit a copy of recording of Saturday night's Dov Hikind radio program to check out whether an email report of the show's contents was accurate. When soliciting the info, I posted my own suspicions that the assertions made within were unlikely to be true.

When someone provided the recording (a link of which is here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/cwel4v), I took the solicitation down.

A bout of insomnia has caused me to listen to the contents; as I suspected, the veracity of the allegations in the email ranged from arguable to unveriable, although this may because I was half asleep. However, everyone I've sent the recording to who listened and emailed back agreed with my conclusion.  

I read recently that federal officials are creating a new management plan for Gateway National Recreation Area, a National Park Service area located mostly at scattered locations in New York City. With a series on America’s National Parks set to air on PBS, I thought I would make a suggestion, in the spirit of past Labor Day weekend recreation-oriented posts like this one.  Although it is actually one of the five most visited national park areas in the U.S., most of the visitors are going to various scattered historical sites Gateway is responsible for, such as the Statue of Liberty. And most of the recent effort by parks officials has been directed at preserving the wetlands of Jamaica Bay, an important place for birds well known to birdwatchers. Park documents make it clear that preserving and making accessible historic sites and important natural resources are its most important goals.

But Gateway also includes large land areas taken off New York City’s hands in the 1970s, when the city was broke, in the hopes of bringing in federal money and reversing neglect. (Gateway was created as a “national recreation area” under coordinated management in 1972). These areas are really local parks, not “national” in any sense, one reason I doubt Gateway will even be mentioned in the PBS series. Included are Riis Park beach in Queens and nearby Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, huge and in some cases under-used areas with many buildings in disrepair. My suggestion is a new “national role” for those these areas: as a point of contract between rural and small town America and New York City. It is a suggestion consistent with two assumptions: unlike New York City’s local parks Gateway should have a national role; and we Americans are broke, individually and collectively.

Sitting down to write about the recent outbreaks of hate speech embroiling Brad Lander’s City Council race, I suddenly was reminded of Mark Green and included within that article a relevant digression about Mr. Green’s travails during his 2001 campaign for Mayor.

During Mr. Green’s 2006 race for State Attorney General, I concluded that those travails, and an even more ancient incident involving Andrew Cuomo, were sucking all the air out of the room concerning discussions of both men, and I wrote an article discussing the antiquated allegations, such as they were.

With the end of this week came news of two potentially game-changing events which might influence the results of the endlessly fascinating race for the 39^th Councilmanic-depressive. The first was the endorsement of the New York Times, the second was an outbreak of hate speech.

The intended beneficiary of each of these events was Brad Lander; the former event will surely inure to Lander’s benefit, while the latter, whatever its intent has become the occasion for damage control.

Yesterday the Flatbush Life Newspaper -with an aged tradition in the area's politics- endorsed me for the 40th city council seat. The newspaper had this to say: "Two and a half years ago, a whopping ten candidates ran for the open City Council seat in the 40th district. This year, that number is down to three -the incumbent, and two community activists with long records of involvement in the neighborhood. While all three candidates are worthy, the one who stands out is Rock Hackshaw.

Hackshaw -well known to many as a political blogger, who has spent upwards of three decades involved in neighborhood issues- brings to his candidacy a strong intellect and a fresh perspective on community concerns, from health care to education.

The New York Post printed a few columns this week criticizing the political career of the late Senator Ted Kennedy.

That’s fair enough. A conservative paper shouldn’t change its views about the issues because of a death.

But something that two of the columnists wrote stood out to me, as just another example of conservatives claiming to speak for the working class without evidence.

Howie Carr, a Boston Herald columnist and talk radio gas bag, a prep school graduate, who masquerades as the voice of the working class and Kyle Smith, a regular Post reviewer and columnist, both made the argument that Kennedy, in Carr’s words – “When it came to the white-ethnic working class from which his father came, Kennedy just plain didn't get it”.

He was undoubtedly a lion but, troubled by the unreserved lionization being displayed upon my Facebook page, I posted not a dissent, but a partial concurrence:“ A young man of seemingly little promise, thrust into the spotlight on the money and accomplishments of others, he grew up in public to become one his generation's legislative giants, practiced in the arts of the possible, including compromise, while still also serving as the inspirational national voice of the voiceless–a pretty neat trick, since the roles are generally mutually exclusive.

Of course, if he'd only grown up a bit sooner, we might have been spared Nixon's second term, and maybe even the Reagan revolution. I'll leave the rest unspoken, but we all know what the rest is.

A complicated legacy. Let's acknowledge the greatness, but let us not fool ourselves.”