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Featured PostsA NOTE TO THE N.Y.C. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: SOMETIMES, CLOSING DOWN A SCHOOL IS NOT THE ANSWER.
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.
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
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. It was one thing to hear him in front of a southern Brooklyn political club complaining about the possibity of congestion pricing--quite another to hear him whining about the potential inconveniences which might be caused by “The Bigger Better Bottle Bill.”
Paterson's Leaning Tower of BabbleThis is unbelievable. Literally and figuratively. Evidently the governor awoke this past Thursday with a really dumb plan to bluff Shelly Silver on the alternative reality the governor's constructing around his selection of AEG to run Project Aqueduct. The governor's alternately a deeply confused or disingenuous man, so let's go through his idiocy de jour one item at a time. 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.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: …Too Many Reaching For A Piece Of Cake 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 LiarThis 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.
Edward G. Maloney
RESHMA SAUJANI: This is a new decade and we need a new direction…We need to put aside the policies of the past and start building the future because we are the future. That's going to take new ideas, new leadership and new bridges. Translation of message to Carolyn Maloney: MARLENE DIETRICH (in Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil”): …Your future is all used up. Why don’t you go home? or maybe ROGER DALTREY: Why dontcha all f-f-f-fade away...talkin bout my g-g-generation
Iced TeaFrom today's Buffalo News:
Gristly Adams (revised, with quibbles added)
As I’ve documented at various times, this is a problem which has been present from the case’s inception and persisted throughout on all sides and even among those who’ve taken no side.
Since the sole reason for the existence of this Department is to make sport of such people, I am happy to report that the problem continues unabated. The National Pastimes
The National Pastimes By Michael Boyajian Let me apologize in advance to fans of other teams, but my father was a lifelong Yankee fan and I am a lifelong Yankee fan. So I know a little something about baseball. I also know a bit about politics.
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